In recent weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs have weighed on Bitcoin’s price, but some experts remain undaunted by Thursday’s market declines and still expect the asset springing to new heights this year.
Bitwise’s $200,000 year-end price target for Bitcoin remains unchanged, the crypto asset manager’s Head of Research, Ryan Rasmussen, told Decrypt on Thursday.
“Once the market settles from this ‘Liberation Day’ chaos, we’ll finally start seeing the market pullback upwards,” he said. “We like to use the analogy that [good news] gets stored as dry powder for when that volatility and uncertainty ultimately subsides.”
Bitcoin price recently fell 5.5% on Thursday as investors digested Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, to trade around $82,000, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. On Wall Street, equities dropped on growth concerns and fears of retaliatory trade measures, with the tech-focused Nasdaq plunging more than 5%.
The performance of the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has largely correlated with the tech sector over the past few years. The trend has become even more noticeable amid gold’s record-breaking climb, but Rasmussen said it’s worth zooming out, considering that Bitcoin has outperformed the precious metal, S&P 500, and tech-heavy Nasdaq since Nov. 5.
“Over the past few months, we’ve had an avalanche of great news,” he said, pointing to the White House’s establishment of a Bitcoin reserve, regulatory shifts, and sovereign wealth funds. “This market really should already be at 150k if we didn’t have the looming fear of tariffs.”
Rasmussen thinks some tariffs will be rolled back, and that the Federal Reserve is still on track to cut interest rates this year, despite the central bank being in wait-and-see mode amid shifts in trade and immigration policy.
Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoff Kendrick reiterated his $200,000 year-end price target for Bitcoin in a research note, saying analysts at the British multinational still view the asset as a winner on Wednesday.
Cosmo Jiang, a general partner at the crypto asset manager Pantera, told Decrypt that Trump’s tariffs are effectively a negotiating tool, which could lead to a quick recovery across markets if the president becomes satisfied with other nations’ response.
“Just like [uncertainty] was artificially injected in, so too can it be taken out after the Trump administration feels it has won concessions,” he said. “Digital assets, as the tip of the spear in growth assets, were the first to pull back and may also be the first to bottom out and rebound.”
Bitcoin may be ceding ground to gold, but the leading cryptocurrency’s portrayal as a store of value puts it in a better position than most digital assets, according to Jess Houlgrave, CEO of the crypto user interface company Reown, formerly known as WalletConnect.
“[Digital] assets that have yet to establish a strong market-type fit may experience volatility or even a downturn as capital seeks safer havens,” she told Decrypt. “Established projects with real-world adoption and clear utility, such as those in DeFi, may continue to thrive.”
Among the bearish, Bitcoin needs to stay above the $76,500 until Americans pay their taxes on April 15 in order to maintain any positive momentum, Arthur Hayes, co-founder and former CEO of the crypto exchange BitMEX, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday.
A week ago, he foresaw Bitcoin hitting $110,000 first, citing the Fed’s views on tariff-linked inflation being transitory and a slowdown in the central bank’s balance sheet drawdown.
Edited by James Rubin
