Bitcoin (BTC) Drops More Than 5% Since President Trump's Tariff Announcement

Bitcoin (BTC) price has now fallen by more than 5% since Wednesday evening, continuing the recent downturn in the market.

The world’s leading cryptocurrency is currently trading at around $78,000, having hit lows of $75,000 earlier in the week.

The latest drop in bitcoin’s price comes as President Trump announced new tariffs on Wednesday evening, sending markets plunging.

The Nasdaq and S&P 500 have each tumbled to new 2023 lows, while bitcoin for the moment is holding well above its year-to-date bottom of $75,000 — what technicians like to call “higher lows.”

“This moment feels like a turning point,” said Joel Kruger, LMAX Group market strategist. “We see market participants increasingly drawn to [bitcoin’s] appeal as a store-of-value asset and a compelling diversification tool amid the uncertainty.”

However, Javier Rodriguez Alarcon, chief commercial officer at crypto exchange XBTO, believes that bitcoin is still closely correlated with risk assets.

“Despite talk that bitcoin could act as a hedge against dollar-centric volatility, in practice we’re still seeing a strong correlation between digital assets and broader risk markets in moments of uncertainty,” the ex-Goldman Sachs executive said in an email.

Earlier this week, JPMorgan economists questioned the bitcoin narrative, noting that the cryptocurrency’s volatility and correlation with equities raises questions over its ‘digital gold’ narrative.

"We see gold continuing to rise as the major beneficiary of the debasement trade," said Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and team at JPMorgan yesterday.

Even with bitcoin’s recent pullback, the price is still above the bank’s estimated average cost of production of $62,000, a metric which has acted as a lower boundary in the past, wrote Panigirtzoglou.

Gold today is lower by just 1.25% to $3,126 per ounce and within close sight of its record high of around $3,200.