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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 lower on Monday by 4% at $76,221, according to Coin Metrics. That was down from a high of nearly $85,000 Friday. It’s off its January all-time high by almost 30%.
Other cryptocurrencies suffered bigger losses overnight. Ether and the token tied to Solana tumbled around 8% and 6%, respectively.
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.
“While I generally think we are closer to the end than the beginning of this correction for bitcoin, the window of uncertainty has only widened for markets over the last few weeks, and bitcoin is not immune when people need to sell what they can for posting margin or internal risk models,” Will Clemente, an independent investor and previous cofounder of Reflexivity Research.
Bitcoin has traded mostly above $80,000 in 2025
Bitcoin has traded above $80,000 for most of this year, barring a couple brief blips below it amid recent volatility. Last week, it remained relatively stable last week, bucking the broader market meltdown and rising to end the week as stocks tumbled and even gold fell.
The down 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 $411 million in long liquidations, according to CoinGlass. Ether saw $349 million in long liquidations in the same period.
“Time and time again, it’s been proven that investors still view bitcoin as a risk-on beta asset, and the window of relative strength towards the back half of last week appeared to just be bitcoin lagging equities,” Clemente said. “Should equities get relief, bitcoin will likely follow as well.”
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.
Over a longer term, however, deglobalization and rising geopolitical tensions should benefit a “decentralized, open source, neutral, scarce reserve asset like bitcoin,” Clemente said. Similarly, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets, Geoff Kendrick, said in a note Sunday that bitcoin “will become a hedge against tariff risks this time around” and that “U.S. isolationism is akin to increased risks of holding fiat, which will ultimately benefit bitcoin.”
—CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report
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