Written by: Bright, Foresight News
On the evening of April 8, White House officials stated that the 104% additional tariffs on China have taken effect at Eastern Time noon, and the 104% additional tariffs will begin to be collected from April 9. Subsequently, the financial markets that had been recovering all short-sold, with the Nasdaq index showing a volatility of up to 8%.
Bleak Market and Disappointed Players
By the morning of April 9, the cryptocurrency market became increasingly panicked and plummeted again. Bitcoin dropped from $78,500 to $74,627, exceeding the decline. Ethereum fell from $1,533 to $1,385.38, breaking the lowest point of the "Black Monday". SOL performed relatively better, dropping to a low of $101.26, a decline of 5.63%. The total cryptocurrency market value dropped by over 4%, falling to $2.42 trillion. Bitcoin's market dominance rose to 62.48%, while the Altcoin season index dropped to 16.
In terms of liquidation data, according to Coinglass, over 134,500 people were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with a total liquidation amount of $390 million, of which long positions were liquidated for $296 million. The largest single liquidation on CEX occurred on Binance, valued at $3.171 million.
During the same period, global financial markets performed dismally, with tariff clouds looming. Nvidia, which had risen over 8% earlier, closed down over 1%, while Tesla, which had risen over 7%, closed down nearly 5%; Peabody coal stock rose over 20% after hours. The two-year U.S. Treasury yield dropped nearly 20 basis points intraday. The Bloomberg Commodity Index plummeted during the day, with WTI crude oil prices falling back below $60. Crude oil fell for four consecutive days, creating a four-year low, once dropping over 4%. Spot gold turned lower midday and failed to rebound; silver futures rose over 3% midday before turning lower; copper futures rose over 4% midday before turning lower by over 2%.
In such a bleak market, even big players are not doing well.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, a wallet allegedly related to World Liberty (@worldlibertyfi) sold 5,471 ETH at an average price of $1,465 half an hour ago. In fact, this address had previously spent approximately $210 million to buy 67,498 ETH at an average price of $3,259, currently showing an unrealized loss of about $125 million.
Ryuta Otsuka, a strategist at Toyo Securities, said, "No matter which industry, the entire market may encounter selling, especially as medium and long-term investors are moving away from the market". Cryptocurrencies cannot escape market sentiment. A whale who hoarded 254,900 ETH during the Ethereum ICO period has recently been frequently transferring to exchanges and has sold about 230,000 ETH, liquidating 90.2% of its position.
The 8-K form submitted by Strategy to the SEC on April 7 disclosed its regular risks. If Bitcoin prices continue to fall, Strategy may break Michael Saylor's promise to "never sell Bitcoin". Since Trump's election victory, Strategy has bought 275,965 Bitcoins at an average price of $93,229, with an unrealized loss of $4.6 billion.
Tariff Haze and Interest Rate Calibration
Looking at the additional 104% tariffs on China, Trump's tariff stick shows no sign of stopping. Previously, Bill Ackman, billionaire founder of Pershing Square, warned world leaders: "Don't wait to negotiate until war breaks out, call the president now." However, when Vietnam sought to appease the Trump administration by stating zero tariffs on the U.S., they were met with disdain from Trump's advisors. Before April 9, the market speculated that the Trump administration would use the window period before tariff implementation to negotiate with countries worldwide for benefit exchange. However, repeated White House statements made the market face a potential economic crisis more severe than the 1929 Great Depression, triggering a round of sell-offs and safe-haven moves. The S&P 500 index has lost nearly $6 trillion in value, creating the largest four-day decline in history.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen emphasized that tariffs are essentially a "maximized leverage" negotiation chip, not a long-term economic barrier. However, the market can tolerate uncertainty but cannot tolerate "policy speculation" based on strong-arm tactics.
Even as Trump repeatedly urged the Federal Reserve to cut rates, even claiming that "artificial market sell-offs are beneficial for rate cuts", the Federal Reserve, led by Powell, has not budged on the timing of rate cuts. In the past, the market always hoped the Federal Reserve would be a savior. This shows that capital is unwilling to pay for political gambling.
Deep Transformation and Rebuilding Hope
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, recently wrote that the current market is overly focused on tariff appearances while ignoring deeper systemic changes. Dalio believes we are witnessing the synchronized reconstruction of five forces, including the collapse of monetary and economic order; the disintegration of U.S. domestic political order; reorganization of international geopolitical order; destructive natural disasters; and the significant impact of technological transformation.
Based on historical experience, after the collapse of monetary, political, and geopolitical orders, there are often dramatic changes in the form of depression, civil war, and world wars, followed by the emergence of a new order.
Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise, is optimistic about Bitcoin playing a core asset role in the new order and believes Bitcoin could still reach $200,000 by the end of the year. He stated that in the short term, a weakening dollar is beneficial to Bitcoin. In the past five years, Bitcoin's correlation with the dollar index has been between -0.4 and -0.8. When the dollar falls, Bitcoin rises. This trend will continue.
In the long term, the impact is even more positive. The turmoil in the global macro system creates opportunities for new reserve assets. This makes sense: governments and enterprises choose the dollar in international trade precisely because of the dollar's stability. When this stability is questioned, organizations must seek alternative paths.
In this situation, the reason for choosing Bitcoin is simple: When international tensions are high and the global monetary system is in turmoil, where else can investors find a scarce, global, digital store of value not controlled by any government or entity? As the single reserve currency (dollar) system transforms into a more fragmented reserve system, Bitcoin will become the most sought-after hard currency. Chaos will ultimately lead to progress.
