Trump's Tariff Shock... A Direct Hit to the Virtual Asset Industry

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a comprehensive plan to impose import tariffs earlier this month, dealing a direct blow to the virtual asset (cryptocurrency) industry with plummeting stock prices and delayed initial public offerings (IPOs).

On the 2nd (local time), President Trump announced that he would impose at least a 10% tariff on virtually all imports and apply additional tariffs based on 'reciprocity' to 57 countries. As a result, major U.S. stock indices, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, fell by nearly 10%.

Virtual asset-related stocks also plummeted. According to Cointelegraph on the 4th, the stock price of global virtual asset exchange Coinbase fell by about 12% during the same period, and Strategy's stock price also dropped by about 6%. The 'CoinShares Crypto Miners ETF (WGMI)', an ETF product investing in the overall Bitcoin mining industry, plummeted by about 13% during the same period.

The market turmoil also affected the IPO schedule. It is reported that Circle, a stablecoin issuer, has postponed its IPO preparations, which were aimed for next year. Fintech companies Klarna and ticket platform StubHub are also known to be readjusting their listing plans.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin continues to show a relatively steady trend despite such market volatility. Among experts, there is an evaluation that "Bitcoin is decoupling from the existing stock market trend." In fact, the price of Bitcoin showed a stable trend above $82,000 even as the U.S. stock market wavered. On this day, Bitcoin is trading at around $83,800, up about 0.8% from the previous day in the Binance Tether (USDT) market.

Meanwhile, Reuters, citing a report from JPMorgan, pointed out that "the Trump administration's abrupt policy changes are acting as the biggest risk to the global economy this year," and "negative effects will be amplified through retaliatory tariffs, corporate sentiment contraction, and supply chain shocks." JPMorgan raised the probability of a global recession from 40% to 60%.