Analysts argue post-tariffs bitcoin market presents buying opportunity

President Trump’s tariff announcement on April 2 hammered global equities and crypto markets alike — but the event may have dispelled looming uncertainty tied to bitcoin and digital assets to some degree — analysts told The Block on Thursday.

S&P 500 futures slid over 2%, erasing over $2 trillion in market capitalization shortly after Trump unveiled some of the steepest tariffs in U.S. history, according to The Kobeissi Letter. Bitcoin rallied to about $88,000 before the news, fueled by rumors of a delay. BTC swiftly retraced these gains after the tariff news and dropped to $82,000. The top cryptocurrency costs around $83,000 per coin as the total digital asset market cap dipped over 4% in the last 24 hours, per The Block’s price page. Previous reporting noted that major altcoins like Ethereum and Solana fell by over 6% on Wednesday. These tokens remain at multi-month lows.

While Trump’s large-scale tariffs rattled just nearly every financial market, much-anticipated clarity on U.S. commerce policy “creates buying opportunity as uncertainty fades,” wrote Valentin Fournier, Lead Analyst at BRN, in a Thursday email. “Despite near-term volatility, uncertainty is decreasing, and institutional buying pressure is returning. With key catalysts aligning, we expect Bitcoin to rebuild momentum and make another attempt at $90,000 in the near future," Fournier wrote.

Fournier does not stand alone in this outlook. David Hernandez, Crypto Investment Specialist at 21Shares, told The Block that bitcoin’s resilience to tariffs relative to equities could reignite institutional demand and renew buying activity. “Although the tariff rates were slightly higher than expectations, the announcement provided much-needed clarity on the scope and scale of the policy. Markets thrive on certainty, and with speculation now largely removed, institutional investors may see an opportunity over the coming days to take advantage of compressed valuations.”

U.S. spot BTC exchange-traded funds already notched an upbeat in netflows. The group, led by BlackRock, saw $218 million in inflows on Wednesday. The Block's data showed net outflows of $157 million the day before. “However, Ethereum continues to see outflows, reflecting investor skepticism. ETH remains 55% below its cycle high, with no clear signs of reversal,” Fournier said, pointing to lackluster demand for crypto’s second-largest asset by market cap.

Embrace volatility

As observers weighed how institutional adoption would impact crypto volatility and price changes, Thomas Perfumo, Global Economist at Kraken, challenged the idea that Wall Street’s entrance has large dulled digital asset price swings. Perfumo argued that the “crypto market’s pattern of boom-and-bust cycles is dead” narrative has “overlooked the asset class’ nascency in terms of adoption.”

“Yes, Bitcoin's long-term trend of price volatility is in decline, but I believe the market cycle is here to stay for a while longer,” Perfumo said in a note shared with The Block.

“People often prejudice high volatility as a negative signal. But volatility is just a number — it is neither "good" or "bad." In the case of crypto, price volatility is the manifestation of mainstream adoption of a digitally scarce asset class… An enormous amount of untapped demand chasing assets like Bitcoin with fixed supply will drive volatility until adoption matures and decelerates. That demand will not matriculate in a straight, orderly fashion. It will ebb and flow, showcasing what happens when enormous demand meets unmovable supply. I believe this pattern will persist until we've reached a critical mass in adoption, penetrating more deeply into the early majority of the technology adoption lifecycle,” Perfumo added.