What to Know:
- U.S. equities lost $5.4 trillion in value in just two days after President Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs.
- Bitcoin and the crypto market experienced a minor decline, with BTC down by about 6%, in contrast to the Nasdaq’s 11% drop.
- Standard Chartered views Bitcoin as a potential safeguard against instability in traditional finance.
The recent announcement of reciprocal tariffs by President Donald Trump led to a massive $5.4 trillion loss in the U.S. equities market over just two days, causing significant declines in major indexes, including the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100.
In the midst of this upheaval, the cryptocurrency market has remained surprisingly resilient. Bitcoin (BTC) has only dropped approximately 6% since the tariffs were introduced, while the Nasdaq saw an 11% decline. The overall crypto market, tracked by the CoinDesk 20 index, saw a 4.9% decrease during the same time frame.
As a point of reference, the total market cap for cryptocurrencies is around $2.65 trillion. Notably, Bitcoin’s price decreased by 0.3% to $82,619.77 in the past 24 hours, while the broader CD20 saw a slight increase of 0.2%. By the market closure on Friday, many crypto-related stocks dipped as well; however, some, like MARA Holdings (MARA) and Core Scientific (CORZ), experienced slight gains.
Furthermore, Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 528,185 BTC on its balance sheet, saw a 4% rise, outperforming the Nasdaq, which plummeted by 5.8% during the same period.
Experts suggest that cryptocurrency prices could maintain their stability, given their accessibility through regular investment instruments such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs). According to Geoffrey Kendrick, an analyst at Standard Chartered, cryptocurrencies can indeed serve as a helpful hedge against traditional financial fluctuations.
“In the past 36 hours, we could also consider Bitcoin’s new role as a hedge against U.S. isolation,” Kendrick mentioned, referring to recent market conditions.
Interestingly, the crypto community has recently celebrated the rumored birthday of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, which correlates with an important historical date that required Americans to return gold to the Federal Reserve long ago.
Read more: Bitcoin Begins to Decouple From Nasdaq as U.S. Stocks Crumble
