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Bitcoin fell below the $80,000 level as investors braced for more financial market volatility after U.S. equites suffered their worst decline since 2020 on the rollout of President Donald Trump’s restrictive global tariffs.
The price of bitcoin was around 4% lower at $76,221, according to Coin Metrics, after trading above $80,000 for most of this year — barring a couple brief blips below it amid recent volatility. It’s off its January all-time high by almost 30%.
The flagship cryptocurrency usually trades like a big tech stock and is often viewed by traders as a leading indicator of market sentiment, but last week it bucked the broader market meltdown — holding between $82,000 and $83,000 and rising to end the week as stocks tumbled and even gold fell.
Other cryptocurrencies suffered bigger losses overnight. Ether and the token tied to Solana tumbled around 8% and 6%, respectively.
Bitcoin has traded mostly above $80,000 in 2025
Bitcoin’s move lower triggered a wave of long liquidations, as traders betting on an increase in its price were forced to sell their assets to cover their losses. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin has seen more than $247 million in long liquidations, according to CoinGlass. Ether saw $217 million in long liquidations in the same period.
‘Lot of noise’
Rattled investors dumped their holdings of cryptocurrencies, which trade 24 hours, over the weekend as they anticipated further carnage, after Trump’s retaliatory tariffs raised global recession fears and caused investors to sell all risk.
The duties on all imports, in addition to custom tariffs for major trading partners, have sparked worries of a global trade war that could lead the U.S. into a recession. Growing concerns about the far-reaching impact of the tariffs sent markets reeling worldwide.
In the two sessions following the tariff announcement, global stocks wiped out $7.46 trillion in market value based on the market cap of the S&P Global Broad Market Index, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
That figure includes $5.87 trillion lost in the U.S. stock market over those two sessions and another $1.59 trillion loss in market value in other major global markets.
Bitcoin is down 15% in 2025 and, absent a crypto-specific catalyst, is expected to continue moving in tandem with equities as global recession fears overshadow any regulatory tailwinds crypto was expected to benefit from this year.
“There is a lot of noise at the moment,” Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets research, said in an emailed note Sunday.
“I think Bitcoin will become a hedge against tariff risks this time around. U.S. isolationism is akin to increased risks of holding fiat, which will ultimately benefit Bitcoin.”
– CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report
