Bitcoin dips below $80,000 and ETH tests $2,100 amid Trump tariff concerns

Bitcoin price dropped 7.6% in the past day to trade at $79,390 as of 2 p.m. Friday in Hong Kong, tumbling further down than yesterday's yearly low record.

According to The Block's bitcoin price page , the cryptocurrency fell as low as around $79,250 earlier today, indicating a persisting bearish sentiment among crypto investors. Ether, the second largest crypto, has been looming around the $2,100 level at the time of writing, down 10%.

"A solid earnings [report] from Nvidia was not enough to offset the onsetting market gloom, as global equities faltered on a combination of renewed tariff concerns, slowing economy, and overstretched positioning," said Augustine Fan, Head of Insights at SignalPlus.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico would be in effect as scheduled on March 4 while proclaiming that an additional 10% tariff would be imposed on China on top of the already imposed 10%.

Meanwhile, crypto research firm Presto Research previously pointed to the unwinding of basis trade positions by major institutions, deepening bitcoin's plunge that started last week. U.S. bitcoin ETFs have been seeing record outflows as part of institutional repositioning.

Such TradFi concerns spilled over to the crypto market as bitcoin is highly correlated with the SP 500 Index, explained Fan, adding that trading sentiment struggled from the start of the year with liquidity depletion from multiple memecoin runs.

"Bullish option speculators are throwing in the towel as well, with volatility coming lower against a lower spot price as calls are being dumped in favour of puts," Fan said. According to CME Group's data , options on bitcoin futures fell 5% in the last day to $79,190. The volume of bitcoin futures options on Thursday fell by around 50% compared to the previous day.

Concerns over Michael Saylor's Strategy are an additional risk to bitcoin price, as the company has been buying tens of thousands of bitcoins with funds from selling convertible notes. This puts bearish sentiment at a "near-term extreme" on multiple technical indicators, said Fan.

The Crypto Fear Greed Index compiled by Alternative.me shows that investors are showing "extreme fear" at a score of 10, which is the weakest since 2022's collapse of Terra-Luna and Three Arrows Capital. 

Strategy (MSTR) closed down 8.82% to $240 on Thursday but recovered 1.23% during after-hours trading, according to Google Finance .

In the past day, the crypto market is down 7.65%, according to The Block's crypto price page . Major altcoins also continued their fall — XRP dropped 9.75%, and Solana dipped 9.73%. The entire crypto market cap stands at $2.63 trillion, down 6.5% in the past 24 hours.

The pessimism in the market comes despite the Trump administration's drastic efforts to push pro-crypto policies, along with a major renovation at the country's securities regulator to bring the long-awaited clarity to rules on crypto.

"This emphasizes a strong urgency for the stability of the US economy before we can expect any recovery in the markets," said Director of LVRG Research Nick Ruck.