Bitcoin is down Wednesday, but some major altcoins have fallen further on a lackluster day for risk-on assets, as investors weighed the beginning of heightened U.S. steel tariffs and sagging economic indicators.
XRP and the token of smart contracts network Solana were off 2.2% and 1.2%, respectively, while popular meme coin Dogecoin declined by nearly 3%. Bitcoin was down a few fractions of a percentage point, seesawing with the $105,000 threshold as it has for parts of this week.
“The global macro backdrop has not helped,” including the recent escalation of hostilities in the Ukraine war and steel tariffs “among other headwinds,” Mark Connors, chief investment strategist for Bitcoin investment advisory Risk Dimensions, told Decrypt.
But Connors added that “any move inside a 3-5% band for BTC is hard to assign a single factor to.”
Crypto markets have performed sluggishly over the past two weeks after rallying in early May, as the Trump administration failed to deliver on promises that it would ratchet back its trade war—and instead re-escalated its rhetoric while other macroeconomic uncertainties re-emerged. The administration increased tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Meanwhile, the latest ADP jobs report showed showed employers adding just 37,000 jobs in May, well below the 115,000 forecast, while the the non-manufacturing Services PMI—a widely watched measure—contracted to 49.9%, only the fourth time since the recession of 2020 that it has dropped below the 50-percent breakeven point.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Russia would retaliate against Ukraine for a devastating drone attack earlier this week, increasing tensions in that global hotspot.
Equity markers were mixed with the tech-focused Nasdaq rising slightly but the S&P 500, which has a hefty technology component, remaining roughly flat. Traditional safe-haven asset gold ticked down slightly.
Ethereum continued to outpace other altcoins, rising about 0.7%. ETH is up 4% over the past two weeks even as Bitcoin and others have been in negative territory over that period, climbing 44% over the past month. ETFs tracking the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization garnered almost $190 million in investments, outperforming Bitcoin ETFs for a rare instance in the funds’ histories.
In a Wednesday note, crypto market maker Wintermute noted that “with July 9th in sight, bulls are hoping for concrete agreements to be secured by then—otherwise, the risk of renewed headline-driven volatility remains elevated.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
