Crypto market wobbles as US-China trade war reignites

The crypto market floundered on Friday as worries over the U.S.-China trade war resurfacing dampened trader sentiment and pushed Bitcoin (BTC) below the $105,000 level.

Bitcoin, which hit a new all-time high of $111,814 last week, slid 1.8% on the day to trade hands at $104,654 at press time after momentarily dipping to a session low of $104,053, according to CoinMarketCap data.

The sharp drop came amid an eruption of U.S. trade tensions after President Donald Trump, in a post on his Truth Social media platform, accused China of “completely violating” the tariff agreement between the two nations, though he didn’t share specifics.

“The new administration has completely let down the U.S. We made the best trade deal with China, they began to buy record amounts of agricultural products, and they started to open their country to U.S. goods,” Trump said in the post on Friday.

“But they broke the agreement, and they began to default on the massive amounts of tariffs paid to the U.S. They have not done this. I will be handling the matter.”

The president’s comments come after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that talks had “stalled” with the Chinese officials, further compounding the uncertainty. China, in response, advised the U.S. to “immediately correct its erroneous actions, cease discriminatory restrictions,” according to a BBC report.

“The U.S. should take the initiative to meet China halfway and create favorable conditions for the healthy and stable development of economic relations between the two countries,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday.

In the near term, Bitcoin’s ability to hold the psychologically important $100,000 level remains a key landmark amid the macroeconomic maelstrom.

Other popular alternative crypto assets, such as Ripple’s XRP, Solana (SOL), and Dogecoin (DOGE), have fallen even further, dropping 4.1%, 3.4%, and 8.8%, respectively, in the last 24 hours due to trade frictions.

The de-escalation of the U.S.-Sino trade war buoyed risk assets in May, providing rocket fuel for BTC to set a new lifetime peak above $111,800—the renewed concerns over U.S. trade policy now risk erasing those gains.

Despite the uncertainty, the demand for Bitcoin remains clear. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which is the world’s largest spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) by assets under management, has continued to bag billions in investor money, driven by Bitcoin’s growing appeal as a haven asset amid market volatility.

Meanwhile, the combined U.S. spot BTC ETFs have registered nearly $5.4 billion in total net flows this month, up from $2.97 billion in April, data from SoSoVale shows.