Bitcoin Crashes Below $79K. Why It's Getting Uglier Before It Gets Better

Despite all the noise being made by President Trump’s historic White House Crypto Summit — Bitcoin and the rest of crypto continue to sell off thanks to macro weakness sparked by Trump’s other fascination: Tariffs.

Bitcoin dropped below $79,000 Monday as Ethereum broke below $2,000 for the first time since November 2023. Which begs the question — how bad can things get before they get better?

Unfortunately, the answer might be way worse. Let’s dig in (which we always do in our Monday Live Show above.)

Bitcoin Vs. Everything Else

As Fundstrat brutally highlighted in a new note today — America is not off to a hot start under Trump 2.0. In fact, as they put it:

At least for now, the short-term winner has been anything but America.

The 8-piece chart, I guess, is both as hopeful as it is brutal. Germany’s stock market is ripping while America’s stock market (and Bitcoin) get spanked. But as Fundstrat’s Sean Farrell told us last week — they still have a $175,000 year-end price target. How can that be, if in the short-term they see Bitcoin falling further to $62,000 during the rest of March?

The answer is both technical and fundamental — but in general most people are still optimistic that when the market digests what Trump is attempting to do with tariffs, the 10-year will be meaningfully lower — and crypto, as a result, will take the fastest elevator to the top as stocks recover.

That may be — but at least for now there aren’t much backstops left, so it is hard to refute more weakness ahead, even despite the fact that Trump’s constant attention on crypto might push other global leaders to step up and beat America to the punch on establishing a Bitcoin reserve (something more and more states might also beat the Federal government to.)

Trump’s White House Crypto Summit

On Friday, not too much came from Trump’s AI & Crypto Czar David Sachs compiling a who’s who of crypto leaders. Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong was there, as well as Strategy’s Michael Saylor, and the Winklevoss Twins (the only woman in attendance was Small Business Administration Head Kelly Loeffler, which made for some very funny pictures.)

And while sources tell us that the overall meeting was productive, it seems that the market is getting bored with the White House’s constant flirting with a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The government putting Bitcoin it already seized into a vault and promising not the sell it was already priced in since Trump won the presidency so largely nothing came out of this meeting.

There is outside hope that the government might be able to pull some accounting tricks on its gold holdings to open up some lee-way to buy additional Bitcoin, which would could actually boost Bitcoin’s price — but until then, it almost seems like these meetings do more harm than good since headlines have so far been uneventful.

Saylor Readies More $$$

At least one of those crypto executives in attendance has seen enough to know it’s time to ready the buy cannon. Strategy’s Michael Saylor had already committed to raising $21 billion in debt and $21 billion in equity to buy Bitcoin via his tech company — but apparently, that wasn’t enough.

On Monday, he announced that Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) will be raising another $21 billion via a preferred stock offering to — you guessed it — buy more Bitcoin. Strategy spent $23.2 billion on bitcoin purchases from Oct. 30 to Feb. 23, funded by $16.8 billion worth of stock offerings and $6.4 billion in debt proceeds.

This time around, considering his average purchase price for the Bitcoin he holds is around $66,357, he might actually have a shot to find an entry point below his net-entry. Maybe, ironically enough, the person cheering the loudest for Fundstrat’s call of $62,000 to play out is none other than the Chairman of the company holding the most Bitcoin.

Looking to El Salvador

Outside of Strategy, there is one other big holder of Bitcoin that is also continuing to buy the dip — El Salvador.

In case you don’t recall, it’s been nearly four years since El Salvador made history by becoming the first country to adopt a law that forced Bitcoin to be accepted as legal tender.

Since then, El Salvador has quietly walked that back by making it optional for businesses to accept as payment — but nonetheless, as our new Coinage mini-documentary shows, many vendors and El Salvadorians actually prefer to pay via Bitcoin and digital wallets. In fact, Coinage Host Zack Guzman made the pilgrimage down to Bitcoin Beach to see for himself just how easy it is.

Watch our full coverage for the full look inside El Salvador’s Bitcoin Experiment.

The crypto landscape is shifting quickly, and we’re here to cover it all. If you haven’t yet, mint a Coinage NFT to co-own the first-ever Web3 media DAO, and join us in shaping the future of decentralized journalism.