Bitcoin nears $88,000 amid market sell-off and Trump’s latest Fed broadside

U.S. markets opened Monday following a three-day holiday weekend, and traders appear to be experiencing a sense of déjà vu. The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 were all down around 3.5%, and the U.S. dollar fell to a three-year low as global trade talks still appear stalled and U.S. President Donald Trump once again blasted Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

“‘Preemptive Cuts'” in Interest Rates are being called for by many,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “With Energy Costs way down, food prices (including Biden’s egg disaster!) substantially lower, and most other ‘things’ trending down, there is virtually No Inflation. With these costs trending so nicely downward, just what I predicted they would do, there can almost be no inflation, but there can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW.”

Trump noted that the European Central Bank has cut interest rates seven times over the past year, while “Powell has always been ‘To Late,’ except when it came to the Election period when he lowered in order to help Sleepy Joe Biden, later Kamala, get elected. How did that work out?”

During the Monday morning session, Bitcoin outperformed traditional financial markets as the price of the world’s largest cryptocurrency approached $88,5000, its highest level in about six weeks. Bitcoin’s price has subsided a bit over the past three hours, sitting at around $86,800 according to The Block’s price data.

“Bitcoin’s breakout above $87,000 is being fueled by a tick up in global liquidity, driven by the expanding M2 money supply and renewed institutional interest highlighted by [Strategy’s] signals to further grow its holdings, tightening available supply,” said Kronos Research’s Dominick John. Strategy bought another 6,556 bitcoin last week and now owns 538,200 BTC. At current prices, Strategy’s bitcoin is worth around $47 billion.

The threat to the Fed’s leadership is “just about the worst thing for the stability of the US dollar,” said crypto analyst Nic Puckrin, and it’s causing fear in the wider market. A prolonged USD downtrend will only support the use case for Bitcoin as a store of value, he said.

“Bitcoin is once again flirting with the ‘decoupling’ narrative,” said Puckrin, founder of The Coin Bureau. “It has broken out of its downtrend and is now trading above its 30-day exponential moving average, which signals a healthy reversal from the recent sell-off.”

Traders focused on short-term moves should note that Bitcoin is nearing key resistance levels, first at $88,000 and then in the $92,000 to $93,000 range.

“As such, while my long-term expectation of BTC reaching around $150,000 this cycle remains intact, we may be in for a wild ride in the coming days,” said Puckrin.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded just $7.14 billion in volume last week, averaging $1.785 billion in daily volume. This marks the lowest daily average for any week with at least four trading days so far in 2025.

“However, when extrapolating last week’s 4-day trading volume into a full 5-day week, by calculating the 4-day average and applying it to a fifth day, a clearer trend emerges,” The Block Research wrote in its weekly report. “The projected 5-day total, including the estimated fifth day, came out to be $8.9 billion, ~58% lower than the previous week’s full 5-day volume.”

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