Bitcoin drops below $80,000 as cryptocurrencies join global market rout

Bitcoin fell below the $80,000 level as investors braced for more financial market volatility after U.S. equites suffered their worst decline since 2020 on the rollout of President Donald Trump’s restrictive global tariffs.

The price of bitcoin was last lower by more than 2% on the day at $77,744.51, according to Coin Metrics. That was off its earlier low of $74,420.69, but down from a Friday high of nearly $85,000. It’s sitting about 30% from its January peak.

Ether and the token tied to Solana extended their two-day losses to 12% and 11%, respectively.

Rattled investors began dumping their crypto holdings over the weekend as they braced for further carnage after Trump’s retaliatory tariffs raised global recession fears and caused investors to sell all risk.

The down move lower also triggered a wave of long liquidations, as traders betting on an increase in bitcoin’s price were forced to sell their assets to cover their losses. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin has seen more than $438 million in long liquidations, according to CoinGlass. Ether saw $349 million in long liquidations in the same period.

“While I generally think we are closer to the end than the beginning of this correction for bitcoin, the window of uncertainty has only widened for markets over the last few weeks, and bitcoin is not immune when people need to sell what they can for posting margin or internal risk models,” said Will Clemente, an independent investor and previous cofounder of Reflexivity Research.

Bitcoin has traded above $80,000 for most of this year, barring a couple brief blips below it amid recent volatility. Last week, it remained relatively stable, bucking the broader market meltdown and rising to end the week as stocks tumbled and even gold fell.

“Time and time again, it’s been proven that investors still view bitcoin as a risk-on beta asset, and the window of relative strength towards the back half of last week appeared to just be bitcoin lagging equities,” Clemente said. “Should equities get relief, bitcoin will likely follow as well.”

With the ongoing market turmoil bitcoin now is now testing the critical $74,000 level for bitcoin, which marks its 2024 peak, as a potential low, Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX, told CNBC. Tracy Jin, chief operating officer of the crypto exchange MEXC, said bitcoin could still fall as low as $68,000.

Bitcoin is down 15% in 2025 and, absent a crypto-specific catalyst, is expected to continue moving in tandem with equities as global recession fears overshadow any regulatory tailwinds crypto was expected to benefit from this year.

Some investors have been bracing for a bitcoin correction since the beginning of the year, around the time the cryptocurrency hit its record of $109,350.72. At the time, stocks were climbing to their own record peaks and the potential for a pullback was “evident,” according to Kruger. Clemente said it was clear in February that Trump’s policies “were going to create a drag on the economy and likely initiate a correction with valuations near record highs.”

Over a longer term, however, deglobalization and rising geopolitical tensions should benefit a “decentralized, open source, neutral, scarce reserve asset like bitcoin,” Clemente said. Similarly, Standard Chartered’s head of digital assets, Geoff Kendrick, said in a note Sunday that bitcoin “will become a hedge against tariff risks this time around” and that “U.S. isolationism is akin to increased risks of holding fiat, which will ultimately benefit bitcoin.”

—CNBC’s Ryan Browne contributed to this report

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