By Brian Swint
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were down early Friday. They have been falling since President Donald Trump announced details on car tariffs earlier in the week that were worse than expected.
While what happens to car makers like Ford, General Motors, and Tesla doesn't directly affect digital assets, they can be effected by a downturn in market sentiment. That's because cryptocurrencies don't behave like safe havens, which would rise when shares are falling. Rather, they tend to trade like risk stocks like technology companies.
Thus, even though traders broadly expect crypto to benefit from friendlier regulation and other forms of support from Trump, they've still fallen in the first three months of the year.
"Rising uncertainty in crypto markets in the first quarter led to increased market volatility and a subsequent downturn in prices," said Adam Morgan McCarthy, a research analyst at Kaiko Indices. "The tariff announcements on Mexico and Canada (as well as China) from President Trump sparked a massive sell-off across financial markets at the beginning of February, and fears of an escalating trade war have lingered ever since."
Bitcoin, the oldest and largest cryptocurrency, was down 2.5% over the past 24 hours to $85,291. It's down almost 9% since the start of the year after trading at record highs above $100,000 in January.
XRP, the coin used on the Ripple platform, dropped 5.1% over the past 24 hours. Ethereum retreated 5.6% and Solana fell 4.6%.
Bitcoin is still up about 1.5% over the past five days. By contrast, XRP has lost 7%.
Companies that have tried to capitalize on crypto's gains through the end of last year have run into trouble as well. GameStop, the videogame retailer that became famous as a meme stock favored by retail investors during the Covid-19 pandemic, says it will start buying Bitcoin as part of its business strategy. It fell 22% yesterday as it said it will see debt for the move.
MicroStrategy, which has long focused on buying crypto and is changing its name to Strategy, didn't fall as much Thursday, declining just 1.4%.
Write to Brian Swint at brian.swint@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 28, 2025 05:11 ET (09:11 GMT)
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