Singapore (TDI): Cryptocurrency prices slid on Monday, with bitcoin at a three-week low and ether at its lowest since early September, as the spectre of an international trade war put investors on edge and pushed them out of risky assets.
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest and best-known crypto, dropped to $94,476.18 on Monday morning in Asia, touching a three-week low of about $91,441.89, according to Reuters.
Smaller cryptocurrency ether was down around 24 percent and back to levels last seen in early September. It last fetched $2,494.33.
Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on Mexican and most Canadian imports, and 10 percent on goods from China, starting on Tuesday.
Canada and Mexico, the top two U.S. trading partners, immediately announced retaliatory measures, and China said it would challenge Trump’s levies at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Cryptocurrencies trade around the clock, including on weekends, and have recently been highly responsive to broader market sentiment. Investors are concerned that tariffs can hurt growth and company earnings as well as be inflationary.
Also Read: Trump Warns of Trade War ‘Pain’ for Americans
Bitcoin reached a record high of $107,071.86 on January 20, when Trump was sworn in as the 47th U.S. President and is up 40 percent since the election in early November in the hopes of crypto-friendly regulations from the Trump administration.
Also Read: Bitcoin Hits $100,000 As Trump Backs Crypto
Trump – who once labelled crypto a scam – embraced digital assets during his election campaign, vowing to make the US “crypto capital of the planet.”
In January, Trump ordered the creation of a cryptocurrency working group tasked with proposing new digital asset regulations and exploring the creation of a national cryptocurrency stockpile.
