Bitcoin's BTC very modest weekend rally modestly reversed on Monday as President Trump's tariff policies took center stage again. The largest cryptocurrency slipped below $108,000 during the U.S. afternoon, down 0.8% over the past 24 hours. Ethereum's ether ETH was 0.6% lower, while smaller cryptos including Solana's SOL SOL, dogecoin DOGE, Sui's SUI SUI declined 1%-2%. XRP XRP outperformed with more than a 2% gain. Dampening investor sentiment was the President Trump ramping up tariffs even while delaying his self-imposed July 9 trade deal deadline to August 1. In letters from the White House to counterparts in Japan and South Korea, President Trump set 25% tariffs on products from those two countries starting on August 1. In a Monday social post, Trump threatened additional levies on countries aligning with policies by the BRICS, a loose intergovernmental group of countries including Brazil, India, China and Russia. In a press conference, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the government will send out letters to more countries about tariff rates or announce trade deals in the coming days. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes were lower by about 1% on Monday, while yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds also headed higher, nearing 4.4%.
