Bitcoin falls to $92k, US stock market crashes as Trump vows to escalate tariffs

Bitcoin tanked. It hit $92,681 less than an hour ago before bouncing slightly to $93,831. That’s a 7% drop. Ether wasn’t spared either, crashing 20% to its lowest point since November. The market meltdown began after President Donald Trump threw his trade-war punch Saturday night.

He slapped Canada and Mexico with a 25% tariff and hit China with a 10% duty. The tariffs are set to officially kick in on Tuesday, and the ‘crypto president’ has declared that the tariffs “could get a lot worse” than they are right now.

The CoinDesk 20 index, which tracks the biggest 20 crypto by market value, has tumbled by 19% in the past 8 hours. Stocks didn’t sit this one out either. Dow futures fell 463 points. S&P 500 futures lost 1.6%, while Nasdaq-100 futures dropped 2.1%.

Investors got hit everywhere, and crypto traders are now eyeing key support at $90,000 for Bitcoin, with fears of another pullback to $80,000 if it crashes below that level.

Trump’s tariffs cause fear across markets

Per data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US does $1.6 trillion in annual trade with Canada, Mexico, and China, so these tariffs hit a nerve. Stock traders are sweating. Over 120 major companies in the S&P 500, including Alphabet, Amazon, Walt Disney, and Palantir, are set to report their earnings this week.

Nobody wants disappointing numbers, but the tariffs have raised that risk. AI stocks, already under scrutiny, are taking this the hardest. Nvidia’s NVDA has lost over 7% of its value. 1. Super Micro’s SMCI plunged by 8.8%, AMD tumbled by 5.1%, and Arm’s ARM lost 6.2%.

The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq ended last week in the red. But surprisingly, they still closed January with gains—2.7% for the S&P 500 and 4.7% for the Dow.

Bitcoin is down 16% from its January high of $109,350. That’s a $16,000 haircut in a matter of days. Experienced crypto traders aren’t surprised though. Bitcoin has a history of corrections, often around 30%, even during bull runs.

Arthur Hayes, founder of BitMEX who has been trading Bitcoin since 2011, thinks Bitcoin will benefit in the long term, because a trade war would weaken the US dollar. But the dollar isn’t having a tough time right now though, as it surges by over 1% today, continuing its climb to five-year highs.

Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report will add more drama. Economists expect 175,000 new jobs for January, with unemployment sticking at 4.1%. If the numbers come in worse than expected, it could fuel more uncertainty. And guess what? Uncertainty is poison for Bitcoin right now.

But according to Trump? “Anybody that’s against Tariffs, including the Fake News Wall Street Journal, and Hedge Funds, is only against them because these people or entities are controlled by China, or other foreign or domestic companies. Anybody that loves and believes in the United States of America is in favor of Tariffs. They should have never ended, in favor of the Income Tax System, in 1913. The response to Tariffs has been FANTASTIC!”

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