Bitcoin Price Sinks Amid ‘Tariff-Driven Pullback’

Cryptocurrency prices sank early Monday (April 7) in Asia, collateral damage in America’s trade war.

According to a Bloomberg News report, Bitcoin lost around 7% of its value Sunday (April 6) night into Monday morning in Singapore, hitting a low of $77,077. The second-most-popular crypto token, Ether, fell to $1,538, an intra-day low unseen since October of 2023.

These losses are happening as President Donald Trump refuses to budge on the widespread tariffs that have already erased trillions in value from U.S. equities. U.S. equity-index futures, the report added, fell while the yen surged, signaling increasing upheaval in the financial markets.

The report cites data from CoinGlass showing that around $745 million in “bullish crypto wagers” had been liquidated in the previous 24 hours, the highest level in almost six weeks.

Monday’s drop continued a trend that began last week following the reveal of new tariffs on countries throughout the world.

“For now — markets hate uncertainty, so we can expect to see even more choppy trading in the coming weeks/months and a delay to the next spike up (either way it is only a delay) — that is unless President Trump has yet another strong statement about the crypto industry up his ever-expanding sleeve,” said Stephen Wundke, director of strategy and revenue at quantitative digital asset investment firm Algoz.

“The one thing we know for certain is that nothing, currently emanating from the White House, is certain.”

Digital asset prices had been soaring since the pro-crypto Trump’s election victory last fall, with the price of bitcoin hitting record levels on the day of his inauguration.

As Bloomberg notes, digital assets had managed to withstand some of the shakiness that hit the market when Trump first announced his tariff program. This latest selloff could mark a change.

“Macro is driving the action right now,” Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital, told Bloomberg. “The tariff-driven pullback is idiosyncratic and not because of deeper issues in our economy. Just like it was artificially injected in, so too can it be taken out after the Trump administration feels it has won concessions from other countries.”

As covered here Monday, every single category tracked in PYMNTS’ CE 100 Index was down last week, with even the “best” performing group up just 4%.

“Banking names lost nearly 16% for the week, as credit risks seem to be deepening; payments-focused names lost 11% as consumer spending is now at risk of being impacted by sticker shock on everything from cars to avocados,” the report said.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote last week about the most recent jobs report, which showed trends that indicate a gradual cooling. However, that was before the tariff announcements shook up the stock market, which could in turn lead businesses to become more hesitant on hiring. Thus, the cooling could turn into a “chilling,” the report added.