Crypto meltdown as $250BILLION is wiped off market value with Bitcoin plunging to five month low after Trump tariffs triggered global financial 'bloodbath'
Cryptocurrency holders took another staggering blow on Monday, losing almost all their gains since 'pro-Crypto' president Donald Trump took office as investors abandoned riskier assets.
$250 billion was wiped off the global cryptocurrency market cap, representing a 9.29 per cent fall between April 3 - when Trump announced his raft of tariffs - and April 7.
Bitcoin's value had fallen to a five-month low of $76,884.04 on Monday morning, down 7.2 per cent in the last day and 5.3 per cent in the last seven.
Ethereum was down 16.7 per cent in the last 24 hours, and 15.8 per cent in the last week.
Earlier Monday saw the first time Bitcoin had fallen below $75,000 since Trump's election victory in November.
Despite assurances, investors rattled by wider global market instability sold off riskier assets in anticipation of more chaos in the markets.
The price of gold, meanwhile, has risen nearly 4 per cent in the last month.
Global markets have tumbled since Trump announced his stringent import tariffs last Wednesday.
In the two sessions immediately following the announcement, global stocks wiped out $7.46trn in market value, based on the market cap of the S&P Global Broad Market Index.
Donald Trump delivers remarks on reciprocal tariffs during an event in the Rose Garden entitled "Make America Wealthy Again" at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 2, 2025
U.S. stock market losses accounted for $5.87trn of that figure in just two sessions - a staggering sum equivalent to around 21 per cent of U.S. GDP.
Goldman Sachs raised the probability of a U.S. recession from 35 per cent to 45 per cent in light of a 'sharp tightening in financial conditions'.
Days before the April 2 tariff announcement, it had raised its assessment to 35 per cent from 20 per cent, noting economic fundamentals were not as strong as in previous years.
JP Morgan meanwhile assessed a 60 per cent chance of a global recession by the end of the year, up from 40 per cent.
'Disruptive U.S. policies have been recognized as the biggest risk to the global outlook all year,' the brokerage said in a note on Thursday, adding that the country's trade policy has turned less business friendly than anticipated.
'The effect ... is likely to be magnified through (tariff) retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment and supply-chain disruptions.'
S&P Global also raised its 'subjective' probability of a U.S. recession to between 30% and 35%, from 25% in March.
Where investors would have once rushed to the safety of the dollar, the currency fell about 1.7 per cent on Thursday in its biggest daily drop since November 2022.
Investors say it's a sign that the greenback's global standing may be eroding. Experts warn this could lead to the dollar itself becoming a 'source of global instability'.
Stock image. Bitcoin tumbled alongside global indexes amid tariff-related uncertainty
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, on April 4
The downward trend continued as markets resumed trading on Monday.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index of shares fell 7.8 per cent, with investors spooked by U.S. tariffs and China's reprisals.
Shares in Hong Kong plummeted more than 13 percent in their worst day since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, as the Singapore benchmark index dropped 6.8 per cent.
South Korea's Kospi lost 4.4 per cent and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell more than six per cent.
'It's a bloodbath,' one analyst told the BBC as key indexes in Asia tumbled, compounding fears of a looming global recession.
Indian stocks fell at the open of trading on Monday, with the benchmark Nifty index down more than three percent.
Trump slapped a flat 26 percent tariff on imports from India last week, with New Delhi saying it was examining both 'implications' and 'opportunities' from the duty hikes.
The Nifty 50 - which presents the largest Indian companies on the national stock exchange - was down 3.55 percent.
The Nifty IT, the country's powerful information technology companies, and who have the United States as their single biggest market, was down 5.53 percent.
The Times of India also called the stocks slump a 'bloodbath'.
Shares in Taiwan, meanwhile, plummeted almost 10%, the biggest one-day percentage fall on record, and stock futures pointed to another brutal day for markets in Europe and the U.S.
The country faces a devastating 32 per cent duty on its products - despite the U.S. demanding increased defence spending from Taipei to ward off perceived Chinese aggression.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., July 27, 2024
South Korea's Kospi lost 4.4 per cent. Pictured: Dealers work at the Hana Bank in Seoul, Apr 7
Futures were also pointing to further losses in Europe and on Wall Street, with Trump refusing to lift the levies unless foreign governments pay 'a lot of money'.
'I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,' he said yesterday, citing a trade deficit with China as his rationale.
The president also took aim at the EU again overnight, claiming 'Europe's treated us very badly'. The bloc is set to be hit with a 20 per cent tariff on Wednesday.
The FTSE 100 slumped more than 6 per cent after opening at 8am, having seen its worst day since the pandemic on Friday.
Frankfurt had slumped as much as 10 per cent at the start of trading on Monday.
Indices were in freefall, with Paris diving more than six percent, London sliding nearly six percent, losses of more than five percent in Amsterdam and Oslo and Milan down over three percent.
Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said today he would push the EU to approve aid for industries hit by US tariffs at a meeting of EU finance ministers.
Spain on Thursday was one of the few major economies to offer up a concrete solution to help weather the impact of new U.S. tariffs, offering its companies a financial package of loans and direct aid worth 14.1 billion euros ($15.54 billion).
EU countries will seek to present a united front against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, likely approving a first set of targeted countermeasures on up to $28 billion of U.S. imports.
The 27-nation bloc faces 25% import tariffs on steel and aluminium and cars and 'reciprocal' tariffs of 20% from Wednesday for almost all other goods.
Japan 's Nikkei 225 index of shares fell 7.8 per cent today, with investors spooked by U.S. tariffs and China 's reprisals
Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One, en route to Joint Base Andrews on April 6, 2025
Trump sparked a market meltdown last week when he unveiled sweeping tariffs against US trading partners for what he said was years of being ripped off and claimed that governments were lining up to cut deals with Washington.
Almost £4trn was wiped off the value of global stock markets after Trump unveiled his 'Liberation Day' tariffs on Wednesday - including a 10 per cent levy on U.K. goods.
Keir Starmer has been careful not to escalate with Trump, while promising to 'shelter British business from the storm'.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch backed the government's policy, saying on Sky that not retaliating 'as a first response is the correct thing to do'.
'Retaliatory tariffs just escalate trade wars,' she said.
China, the world's second-largest economy, took a different view, saying it would impose retaliatory levies of 34 percent on all US goods from April 10.
Beijing also imposed export controls on seven rare earth elements, including gadolinium - commonly used in MRIs - and yttrium, utilised in consumer electronics.
On Sunday, vice commerce minister Ling Ji told representatives of US firms its tariffs 'firmly protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, including American companies'.
Trump continued to insist that tariffs were the 'cure' for trade deficits with key partners
Keir Starmer has so far avoided escalating with retaliatory measures (pictured Feb 27)
Hopes that the US president would rethink his policy in light of the turmoil were dashed Sunday when he said he would not make a deal with other countries unless trade deficits were solved.
Trump denied that he was intentionally engineering a selloff and insisted he could not foresee market reactions.
'Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,' he said of the ructions that have wiped trillions of dollars off company valuations.
Trump said he had spoken to leaders from Europe and Asia over the weekend, who hope to convince him to lower tariffs as high as 50% due to take effect this week.
'They are coming to the table. They want to talk but there's no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis,' Trump said.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet Trump later on Monday in a bid to seek a reprieve from the 17 per cent duties.
The drastic measures have proven divisive in the United States. Members of Congress and wealthy Republicans have been among those slating Trump over the tariffs.
'President Trump is wrong,' Art Pope, chief executive of a North Carolina general merchandise retail chain and longtime Republican donor, told the FT.
'You will see the conservative movement — the Republican party — fracturing, splitting between the traditional Reagan conservatives who believe in freedom and limited government and the nationalist, populist Trump supporters, who believe that government power should be used to impose their vision of what's best for society.'
Critics have drawn a parallel with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, sharply raising tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods in an effort to protect American farmers and manufacturers during the Great Depression.
Average tariff rates rose from 13.5 per cent to nearly 20 per cent.
But the move had a detrimental effect, triggering spiked retaliation from U.S. trading partners. U.S. imports fell by as much as two-thirds within just three years, and exports slumped.
Rand Paul alluded to the parallel last week, noting that 'When Smoot and Hawley put on their tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years.'
A graph of the Australian stock market figures at the close of trading, in Sydney on April 7
Elon Musk, formerly Trump's cost-cutting tsar with DOGE, is among the growing chorus of voices critical over Trump's tariffs, telling a political rally he still hoped to see a 'zero tariff situation' between the U.S. and Europe.
'I hope that the United States and Europe can establish a very close partnership,' the Tesla CEO said during the virtual rally of Italy's Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini.
'I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally in my view to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,' the SpaceX founder continued.
Musk's dissent comes just days after it was announced he would be stepping down from the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
