Bitcoin (BTC) bears looked to penetrate key support on Sunday, extending a three-day losing streak as macroeconomic concerns overshadowed President Donald Trump’s recent crypto-related announcements.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value slipped over 3% to $83,200, testing the 200-day simple moving average (SMA), according to CoinDesk and TradingView data. Prices have dropped over 10% since reaching highs above $92,800 on Thursday.
This latest decline comes as trade tensions between the U.S. and China are set to escalate on Monday. Beijing will impose tariffs on certain U.S. agricultural goods in retaliation for President Trump’s recent hike on Chinese imports. The ongoing tariff war has injected significant uncertainty in the market and for policymakers.
On Friday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reaffirmed that the central bank will maintain its cautious stance on interest rates while assessing the economic impact of President Trump’s policy shifts. This statement followed a disappointing U.S. nonfarm payrolls report and expectations for at least three Fed rate cuts this year.
According to observers, these developments, coupled with recessionary signals from the bond market, are overshadowing Trump’s announcement of a strategic BTC stockpile.
“Despite the very positive news, Bitcoin fell 4% from $90,000 to under $87,000 within hours. It appears that focus on Trump’s crypto-related actions is increasingly secondary as tariff war fears accelerate,” analytics firm IntoTheBlock noted in their weekly newsletter to subscribers.
The firm added that macro concerns, particularly those related to tariffs, have been pushing markets downward, highlighting the strengthening positive correlation between Bitcoin, Ether, and U.S. stocks.
“Further actions like Trump stating he’s not even looking at the stock market, along with his administration targeting lower long-term interest rates, suggest that investor expectations of a Trump bull market may have been overly optimistic,” the firm remarked.
Noelle Acheson, author of *Crypto Is Macro Now*, highlighted in Saturday’s edition that BTC’s lackluster price action following the strategic stockpile announcement “underscores how macro concerns still weigh heavily on crypto assets.”
The accompanying chart indicates that buyers stepped in below the 200-day SMA on February 28 and March 2, leading to a price bounce. Market participants are likely to closely monitor this level to see if traders respond similarly again.
