XRP, Bitcoin Price Steadies as Gold Soars. What Trump Has to Do With It. — Barrons.com
By Elsa OhlenBitcoin, XRP and other cryptocurrencies were trading sideways early Friday as President Donald Trump's fresh tariff threats had markets on edge — pushing gold prices to a record high.The price of the world's largest crypto, Bitcoin, is down 1.1% over the past 24 hours to last trade at $104,288, according to CoinDesk data.It dropped below $100,000 earlier this week as investors panicked about a low-cost and competitive artificial intelligence model out of China. The news about DeepSeek's AI led to a tech selloff Monday as investors worried that spending on the technology may decline, and cryptos moved in tandem with the broader market as the Nasdaq 100 fell more than 3%.The popular and fast-growing altcoin XRP was trading 0.5% lower at $3.1 early Friday.On Thursday Trump confirmed plans to impose 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico starting Feb. 1., which had investors rushing to safe-haven assets such as gold. Futures tied to the precious metal were trading at $2,845 a troy ounce early Friday, having reached a record of $2,860 a troy ounce earlier in the session.The absence of a big drop in the price of Bitcoin, traditionally seen as a riskier asset, could be a sign that crypto is becoming more mainstream in the eyes of investors.Among other digital coins, Ether was trading 1.2% higher, Solana is down 2.3% and meme coin Dogecoin fell 0.8%, according to CoinDesk data.Write to Elsa Ohlen 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.