Virtually everyone in the cryptocurrency world celebrated the second election of President Trump, an enthusiastic booster of the industry who promised to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.”
But now the man nicknamed “the first Bitcoin president” is presiding over a Bitcoin crash.
Since Mr. Trump announced his global tariffs last week, the price of Bitcoin has plunged 10 percent, dropping below $78,000 on Sunday night. In January, Bitcoin reached a record price of nearly $110,000 on the day that Mr. Trump was inaugurated.
The rapid drop shows that Bitcoin, often pitched as a stable long-term source of value, is still subject to the gyrations of the broader market that has cratered since Mr. Trump announced broad import taxes last week. Many investors treat Bitcoin just like any other tech stock, a risky investment that it makes sense to sell in difficult times.
Ever since he won a second term, Mr. Trump has largely made good on his promises to help the crypto industry. He has appointed regulators who support crypto and signed an executive order directing the creation of a government stockpile of Bitcoin.
At the same time, Mr. Trump has also broadened his personal investments in the crypto world, marketing a so-called memecoin to his supporters.
But the impact of his tariffs on the crypto market has led to some disgruntlement.
“Crypto is weird, but it’s mostly correlated to optimism & risk appetite,” Haseeb Quresehi, a venture investor who specializes in crypto, wrote on social media on Sunday. “That optimism is crumbling under Trump’s silence.”
