Cryptocurrencies were broadly lower on Thursday, with the selloff picking up steam in the early U.S. evening hours.
Bitcoin BTC slipped more than 2.5% over the past 24 hours to $105,900, but the declines were far steeper in altcoins, with ether ETH, solana SOL, XRP XRP and dogecoin DOGE among those tokens sporting 5%-7% drops.
Risk assets in general got off to a poor start Thursday as President Trump threatened renewed tariff measures as the early July deadline for trade deals begins to get near.
In addition, with nuclear negotiations with Iran not going well, there were boosted fears of Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.
“Look, there’s a chance of massive conflict,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “We have a lot of American people in this area, and I said, we’ve got to tell them to get out, because something could happen soon, and I don’t want to be the one that didn’t give any warning and missiles are flying.”
“I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen,” Trump said about Israel potentially striking Iran. He stated that he had advised against an attack while negotiations were ongoing.
While U.S. stocks were able to shake off the headlines and close with modest gains, cryptos weren’t so lucky.
Green shoots?
The rally in risk assets — crypto included — over the past several weeks has taken place amid a U.S. Federal Reserve seemingly determined not to ease monetary policy for the foreseeable future.
And yet, there continue to be signs that weak economic data may soon force the Fed’s hand — a far slowed pace of employment gains and weaker inflation numbers among them. Two more data points arrived Thursday in May’s Producer Price Index, which came in softer than forecast on both the headline and core levels, and initial jobless claims, which unexpectedly matched last week’s multi-month high of 248,000.
Continuing jobless claims rose to 1.956 million, the third consecutive gain and the highest level since November 2021.
President Trump continued his crusade to goad Fed Chair Jerome Powell into a more dovish posture, calling him a “numbskull” for not cutting rates. “I may have to force something,” threatened Trump. Powell’s term as Fed boss doesn’t end until 2026 and the president had previously said firing him prior to that was not an option.