Bitcoin Price Falls Below $90,000. Why Cryptos and XRP Are in a Slump. — Barrons.com
By Callum KeownInvestors continued a flight from riskier assets, sending Bitcoin to a three-month low and sparking a slide in the popular altcoin XRP and other cryptocurrency assets.The price of Bitcoin fell below $90,000 for the first time since November, dropping 5.5% to $88,857 early Tuesday. The world's largest digital asset is now around 5% down so far in 2025 and 15% down over the past month.The selloff spread across the crypto market as XRP slumped 5% to $2.24. The token is still 8% up this year, though it has fallen 28% over the past month. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, declined 8.5% to $2,416.The moves came after U.S. technology stocks fell again Monday — the Nasdaq Composite closed 1.2% lower, its third consecutive day of losses. The malaise in tech continued early Tuesday, with a loss of 0.5% for the Nasdaq in early trading.The downbeat mood seems to have filtered through to cryptocurrencies, undoing some postelection gains in digital assets that were fueled by expectations that President Donald Trump's new administration would be more crypto-friendly. Traders have become increasingly focused on global macroeconomic and geopolitical developments — and more aligned with the movements of the U.S. stock market.A lot of the optimism around a friendlier administration has already been priced in, LMAX Group strategist Joel Kruger said, "leaving the market exposed to a sell-the-fact type reaction."Correlations between Bitcoin and traditional risk assets can be misleading, he said, adding that the tokens are "easily capable of generating sizable demand as an attractive portfolio diversification assets given properties that align more with that of a store of value."A high-profile hack, in which $1.5 billion worth of digital assets was stolen from Dubai-based platform Bybit last week, is also weighing on the industry.Write to Callum Keown at [email protected] content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.