Bitcoin (BTC) dipped to nearly $75,000 early Wednesday, before slightly recovering, as Trump’s sweeping global tariffs went into effect.
Ether (ETH) dived 10%, leading losses among major tokens, with xrp (XRP), dogecoin (DOGE), BNB Chain’s BNB, Solana’s SOL and Cardano’s ADA down more than 5%. Overall market capitalization decreased 6%, extending a 7-day slide to nearly 15%.
Smaller tokens showed even deeper losses, with trendy upstart Berachain’s BERA down 20% and memecoins bonk (BONK), pepe (PEPE) and floki (FLOKI) down more than 9%.
Traders’ retreat from crypto majors continued, reversing all gains from Tuesday’s relief rally as Trump pushes forward efforts to drastically reorder global trade. Tariffs on any Chinese goods were hiked to 104%, along with import taxes on over 60 trading partners.
U.S. treasuries extended their selloff, with 30-year yields soaring more than 20 basis points to 4.98%. That’s a U-turn from the usual safe haven status that bond investors enjoy and a deeply worrying sign for traders.
Some market watchers speculated the sell-off may have been caused by a forced liquidation of a large player.
“Since Friday’s close to now the 30-year yield is up 56 bps, in three trading days,” Jim Bianco, the well-followed founder of Bianco Research, said in an X post. “The last time this yield rose this much in 3 days (close to close) was January 7, 1982, when the yield was 14%.”
“This kind of historic move is caused by a forced liquidation, not human managers make decisions about the outlook for rates at midnight ET,” he added.
Rising yields mean bond prices are falling and increase the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government, which could exacerbate the federal deficit, already strained by heavy debt levels.
Investors worry that a prolonged trade war could weaken global trade, disrupt supply chains, and slow U.S. economic growth. This could further pressure U.S equity markets and bitcoin, which tends to mirror the ebbs and flows of U.S. markets.
The current selloff suggests the market is pricing in inflation now, but prolonged uncertainty could flip this dynamic.
Meanwhile, some traders are eyeing a bitcoin drop to as low as $70,000 in the near term amid the tariff escalations, a move that could further pressure crypto majors.
“For investors, the short-term outlook calls for caution, while a further drop to $70,000–$75,000 for Bitcoin is possible if trade tensions escalate, yet this dip presents a buying opportunity for the long haul,” Ryan Lee, Chief Analyst at Bitget Research, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.
