(Jan 26): Bitcoin suffered a sharp fall Sunday (Jan 25) to start the week on shaky ground, even as it staged a minor rebound in early Asia, as global geopolitical tensions prompted a move away from risk assets and into safe havens such as gold.
The largest cryptocurrency dropped as much as 3.5% on Sunday to a 2026 low of just above US$86,000 before climbing to US$87,733 on Monday morning in Singapore. The second-largest token Ether slumped as much as 5.7% before rallying 2% to trade at US$2,872, still close to its lowest level since mid-December.
Monday’s reprieve “is more of a pause than a big bounce,” said Sean McNulty, APAC derivatives trading lead at FalconX. “We are not seeing a tonne of flows so far this morning.”
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds saw five consecutive days of outflows totalling US$1.7 billion last week in the US, almost wiping out the previous four days of inflows, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Geopolitical concerns such as US President Donald Trump’s threat of 100% tariffs on imports from Canada, reports of a large fleet of US warships heading toward Iran and rising odds of another US government shutdown are weighing on overall market sentiment, Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG Australia, said in a note.
See also: Crypto payments network Mesh Connect hits US$1 bil valuation
Traders also began the week on heightened alert for Japan intervening in the market following the yen’s recent slide and with news of China’s biggest military purge in roughly half a century.
Gold advanced beyond US$5,000 an ounce for the first time as haven trades picked up.
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