Bitcoin, ether lose over 10% as Trump's tariffs take effect

Bitcoin and Ethereum traded lower today, reversing gains from a rally fueled by U.S. President Trump's crypto reserve announcement over the weekend, as investors weighed macroeconomic data and ongoing tariff uncertainties.

Ether fell 14.7% over the past 24 hours to $2,082, its lowest level since November 2023, according to The Block's price page. Bitcoin lost 10% to trade at $83,704 at the time of writing. The Block's GMCI 30 index, which measures the performance of the top 30 cryptocurrencies, dropped 14%.

"Crypto bulls didn’t last long as weak macro data and Trump’s tariff rhetoric dragged risk assets down," Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Research, told The Block. "February’s ISM PMI disappointed, with employment and new orders plunging below 50 while prices surged. Adding to the gloom, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast pegged Q1 real GDP growth at -2.8%, stoking recession fears," said Chung.

Meanwhile, Trump said he's moving forward with 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, which are taking effect on Tuesday. An additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports will also go into effect, doubling the rate to 20%. "Trump’s ongoing tough talk and actions on tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China further fueled risk-off sentiment," said Chung. 

Kevin Guo, director of HashKey Research, also suggested that Trump's latest tariff announcements primarily caused the crypto sell-off, "completely reversing the previous day's crypto strategic reserve gains."

"Although more announcements are expected to come from Trump's crypto summit this week, the negative outlook of the U.S. economy will continue to push crypto prices lower as the affected countries may likely issue retaliatory tariffs on the U.S.," said Guo.

"Trump's tariffs have continued to put pressure on global markets, leading to broader risk-off sentiment across both traditional and digital assets," said Rachael Lucas, crypto analyst of BTC Markets. "We are also seeing typical signs of market exhaustion. After a 600% rally since late 2022, high funding rates, extreme greed in sentiment indicators, and slowing ETF inflows suggest a natural cooling-off period," Lucas added.

U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded net outflows of $74.19 million on Monday after posting net inflows of $94.34 million last Friday, according to SoSoValue data. Spot Ethereum ETFs in the U.S. saw $12.1 million exit the funds on Monday, extending their streak of outflows to eight days.