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What happened today?

What happened indeed. Around market close today, everyone’s news bots pinged with the same headline: blanket reciprocal tariffs against every trade partner of the US. This of course caused whipsaw price action in crypto, with BTC surging at first before immediately reversing its gains and more, settling out around $83k at time of writing. The volatility was stronger in altcoins as always with ETH falling 9% from its peak earlier today and Solana about the same. Virtually nobody was safe and as the announcement was right at the end of trading hours, we should expect to see the full reaction tomorrow… meaning the worst is probably not over. So far we saw 2 trillion dollars in market cap erased in 15 minutes from the S&P500, and we’ll see where it all shakes out soon.

In fact even now people are still unpacking the full extent of the tariff list, which apparently includes the Heard and McDonald Islands, a small group of volcanic islands in the Antarctic which has a recorded human population of 0 but a large population of penguins (yes I’m 100% serious). We are unsure what the penguins did, but it sure sounds like they deserve it.

On a more serious note, prolonged periods of tariffs are objectively terrible for the markets and if we continue on this train, the bottom is certainly not in. As traders and investors we hope this is not the case, but so far Trump has done everything he’s said he would do and it would be foolish to think otherwise. For now I’ll leave the analysis of the second order effects of the tariffs to people smarter than me, but I do have to say despite being a perma-bull this has me pretty worried. As always, we’ll keep our readers updated with everything new as the situation progresses.

Tweet of the Day

Biggest Headlines

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• Crypto markets fall after Trump lays out sweeping reciprocal tariffs; Ethereum, Solana drop 6%

Alt Coins and Stocks

• US equities, cryptocurrencies fall on Trump’s sweeping global tariffs

• Avalanche will skyrocket and outperform Bitcoin by end of 2029: Standard Chartered

Regulatory

• US Treasury sanctions Tron wallets that used Tether to support Houthis

Random

•  This DAO paid a British person $400,000 to make branded food and now they’re asking where their baked beans went

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The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. While Beluga strives to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information, there may be discrepancies when comparing our data to that of financial institutions, service providers, or specific product websites. Always consult with a professional before making any financial decisions.

Will McKinnon is the Head of Content for Beluga and has spent every day for many years trading coins. For that reason there are too many to name, however his largest holdings by a significant margin are Ethereum and Bitcoin. NFA DYOR