Crypto wobbles into August as Trump’s new tariffs trigger risk-off sentiment

Crypto wobbles into August as Trump’s new tariffs trigger risk-off sentiment


A screen showing the price of various cryptocurrencies against the US dollar displayed at a Crypto Panda cryptocurrency store in Hong Kong, China, on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. 

Lam Yik | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The crypto market slid Friday after President Donald Trump unveiled his modified “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries.

The price of bitcoin fell 3% to $113,285.75, while ether and the Solana token fell 5% each.

The descent triggered a wave of long liquidations, which forces traders to sell their assets at market price to settle their debts, pushing prices lower. Bitcoin saw $228 million in liquidations across centralized exchanges in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass, and ether saw $262 million.

Crypto-linked stocks suffered deeper losses. Coinbase led the way, down 16% following its disappointing second-quarter earnings report. Circle fell 7.5%, Galaxy Digital lost 5%, and ether treasury company Bitmine Immersion was down 8%. Bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy was down by 7%.

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Bitcoin falls below $115,000

The stock moves came amid a new wave of risk off sentiment after President Trump issued new tariffs ranging between 10% and 41%, triggering worries about increasing inflation and the Federal Reserve’s ability to cut interest rates. In periods of broad based derisking, crypto tends to get hit as investors pull out of the most speculative and volatile assets. Technical resilience and institutional demand for bitcoin and ether are helping support their prices.

“After running red hot in July, this is a healthy strategic cooldown. Markets aren’t reacting to a crisis, they’re responding to the lack of one,” said Ben Kurland, CEO at crypto research platform DYOR. “With no new macro catalyst on the horizon, capital is rotating out of speculative assets and into safer ground … it’s a calculated pause.”

Crypto is coming off a winning month but could soon hit the brakes amid the new macro uncertainty, and in a month usually characterized by lower trading volumes and increased volatility. Bitcoin gained 8% in July, according to Coin Metrics, while ether surged more than 49%.

Ether ETFs saw more than $5 billion in inflows in July alone (with just a single day of outflows of $1.8 million on July 2), bringing it’s total cumulative inflows to $9.64 to date. Bitcoin ETFs saw $114 million in outflows in the final trading session of July, bringing its monthly inflows to about $6 billion out of a cumulative $55 billion.

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