Crypto Market in Turmoil: Bitcoin Slides Below $79K as Futures Signal More Pain

Bitcoin’s resilience cracked late Sunday as investors digested the full weight of President Donald Trump’s global tariff escalation, a move that hedge fund titan Bill Ackman warned could usher in an “economic nuclear winter.”

After weathering last week’s chaos with relative strength, Bitcoin (BTC) slid over 5% in weekend trading, briefly falling to $78,400 as U.S. equity futures signaled deeper pain ahead. The Nasdaq 100 opened down 5%, while the S&P 500 was off 4.5%, following last week’s historic $5.4 trillion equities wipeout.

Other digital assets plunged even harder. Ethereum (ETH) dropped 11% to $1,590 and Solana (SOL) sank 10% to $107, as traders rushed to offload risk ahead of what’s shaping up to be a brutal open on Wall Street.

The panic mirrored echoes of October 1987’s “Black Monday” — a term now trending on X — when the Dow suffered a 22.6% collapse amid fears of a currency war. This time, the trigger is President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners, a move that’s already drawing retaliatory threats from China and the EU.

“If we go to economic war with the world, investment dries up, consumers shut down, and our global standing craters,” Ackman warned on X. “The President must call a timeout on Monday, or we face a self-inflicted crisis that could take decades to repair.”

Bitcoin had been hailed as a potential safe haven — even a “U.S. isolation hedge” — but that narrative is now being tested in real time. As the only major market open on weekends, crypto has become the early pressure valve for traders attempting to front-run the fallout.

The 10-year Treasury yield dropped to 3.85%, down 14 basis points, as investors piled into bonds in search of safety — a classic flight-to-quality move amid systemic stress.

Whether Monday becomes a repeat of 1987 remains to be seen, but the warning signs are flashing red across asset classes.