The cryptocurrency market plunged over the weekend

The cryptocurrency market plunged over the weekend as geopolitical woes rocked financial markets and U.S. President Donald Trump shocked the world Sunday

The cryptocurrency market experienced a downturn over the weekend, with prices continuing to decline amid geopolitical woes and the potential for new tariffs to hit the global trade market this week.

The news: According to CoinGecko on Monday morning, the cryptocurrency market trades lower in the last 24 hours. Among the top 10 crypto assets, XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger, and ADA, the native coin of the Cardano blockchain, were the hardest-hit crypto assets in the last 24 hours. XRP bled nearly 4% overnight, while ADA was down 3.5%, followed by meme coin Dogecoin (DOGE), which decreased 2.6%. Bitcoin (BTC) shed 1.6%, while both Ethereum (ETH) and BNB were down 1.3% in the day, as per CoinGecko data.In the meme coin segment of the CoinGecko Top 20, the red wave is much darker. Shiba Inu (SHIB) is down 4.5%, PEPE decreased 4.7%, and Official Trump (TRUMP) has shed nearly 1%. BONK is down 3.9%, and nearly all other meme tokens on CoinGecko’s Top 20 largest meme coins by market value are in the red.

What happened: Crypto prices plummeted over the weekend amid rising inflation fears and a broader downturn in global financial markets, but it appears Sunday’s news about new tariffs to hit the global trade market this week flipped any hopes for a reprieve.

According to the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to announce new tariffs that will vary from country to country as early as Wednesday. The tariffs will be imposed in response to what Trump has described as unfair trade practices by other nations.

“For years, every country has been ripping off the United States of America. No more!” Trump said in a statement on Sunday. “We are going to start making great trade deals again. I will announce the amounts of the tariffs later this week. The tariffs will be imposed on all products entering the United States from each of the countries that we trade with.”

The president has long maintained that the U.S. has been "ripped off by every country in the world" for years, adding that his reciprocal tariffs will restore the necessary fair trade with the U.S. Some of the U.S.’s top trade partners have already responded in kind, with China and Canada levying tariffs on American goods. The European Union’s tariffs on U.S. products are due to take effect in mid-April.

Top tier crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have shown resilience throughout the sector’s history and the ability to recover, suggesting that crypto prices may surge in the days ahead, especially amid growing positive news around regulations and potential crypto legislation this year.