Bitcoin’s
very modest weekend rally modestly reversed on Monday as President Trump’s tariff policies took center stage again.
The largest cryptocurrency slipped below $108,000 during the U.S. afternoon, down 0.8% over the past 24 hours. Changing hands at around $107,700, BTC has round-tripped all of the move to $109,700 on Sunday.
Ethereum’s ether {{ETH}} was 0.6% lower, while smaller cryptos including Solana’s SOL {{SOL}}, dogecoin {{DOGE}}, Sui’s SUI {{SUI}} declined 1%-2%. XRP {{XRP}} outperformed with more than a 2% gain.
Dampening investor sentiment was the President Trump ramping up tariffs even while delaying his self-imposed July 9 trade deal deadline to August 1.
In letters from the White House to counterparts in Japan and South Korea, Trump set 25% tariffs on products from those two countries starting on August 1. Trump shared more letters on Truth Social, revealing a 25% levies against Kazakhstan and Malaysia, 30% against South Africa, and 40% for Myanmar and Laos.
In a Monday social post, Trump also threatened additional tariffs on countries aligning with policies by the BRICS, a loose intergovernmental group of countries including Brazil, India, China and Russia.
In a press conference, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the government will send out letters to more countries about tariff rates or announce trade deals in the coming days.
The Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes were lower by about 1% on Monday, while yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds also headed higher, nearing 4.4%.
UPDATE (July 7, 18:43 UTC): Adds tariffs against Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Laos, Myanmar and South Africa.
