Global markets stunned

President Trump's newly announced, extraordinarily sweeping, harsher-than-expected tariffs sent a shockwave across global markets on Wednesday evening. Stock futures and cryptos tumbled precariously throughout the early morning.

Bitcoin had climbed close to $88,000 prior to the White House's "declaration of economic independence," as Trump dubbed his tariff plan — which includes a 10% baseline rate on all countries across the board, a new reciprocal rate of 54% on China and some form of levies on more than 180 countries, including some, like Australia, that had no tariffs on American imports — but after the announcement BTC made a beeline for $82K. 

As of 8:44 a.m. (EST) on Thursday, BTC sat at $82,400, or roughly 2% lower than it was one month ago.

Checking on gold, the price of spot bullion rose 1.1% to hit an all-time high of about $3,168 per ounce. But that was last night. As of this morning, even safe-haven gold joined in the global rout.

Only a handful of Top 100 cryptos were in the green (barely) over the past 24 hours, including Litecoin (+0.3%) and Mantra (+0.6%).

Of course, we can always round up a bunch of smallish, totally random jumpers if we go looking for them. So which tokens picked today of all days to take off? Well, there is an AI infrastructure project, Aura, which saw its native AURA surge nearly 60%. SuperRare (RARE), an on-chain art gallery, spiked about 40%. And BigTime (BIGTIME), a fantasy combat game, rose about 30%. These three coins together have a market cap of less than $200M, or about the size of the cap of Baby Doge Coin (BABYDOGE).

Fear that U.S. tariffs — a wholesale re-jiggering of world trade — will ignite a trade war sent Dow futures plummeting by as much as 1,200 points in pre-market trading. Speculative chatter about rising coffee prices gave us a shudder as we groggily perused the headlines at 4:30 a.m. (EST).

Tech shares tumbled as did giant multinational companies and retailers of imported goods. European stocks fell 2.2%. The mood is "risk off."

“If Trump would have come in with just the 10%, I think the markets would probably be up quite a bit right now,” said Larry Tentarelli, chief technical strategist at the Blue Chip Trend Report, speaking to CNBC.  “But because the tariffs came in bigger than many expected, it creates more downside volatility.”

Total crypto assets, as of 8:46 a.m. (EST), stood at $2.73 trillion, down 4.9% in 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Among Big Ten coins, Solana took the hardest hit overnight. SOL fell 9%, per CoinGecko.

Baseline 10% tariffs take effect at midnight tomorrow; the higher reciprocal rates kick in next week.

China's response to the Trump tariffs? Displeased to say the least. America is its largest trading partner. And thus Beijing will have plenty to say as far as how much worldwide disruption is coming down the pike.

“Typical unilateral bullying practice,” an official at China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

The Chinese official urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” its measures and vowed to take “resolute counter-measures” to safeguard its own interests (CNBC).

Under the new global tariffs imposed by Trump, convinced the measures will bolster U.S. manufacturing, the average levy rate on all imports jumped to 22%, or an overall rate not seen since the William Howard Taft administration.

Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch, called the tariffs a "game changer, not only for the U.S. economy but for the global economy — many countries will likely end up in a recession."

Six Southeast Asian nations slapped with tariffs of between 32%-40% are scrambling to seek a remedy. Vietnam is setting up a task force. Thailand said it will pursue talks. None have said they plan to retaliate, according to Reuters. Cambodia confronts tariffs of 49% that will rock its garment and footwear industries. It is a "very, very serious situation for the economy," a Cambodia-based investment consultant told Reuters.

"Everybody is going to build their factories in the U.S. and our growth rates will triple," predicted U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

In flouting decades of anti-protectionism policies, Trump is betting against a majority of economic experts. Targeted tariffs are one thing, analysts echo, but an aggressive, all-at-once spree is seen as a colossal gambit.

On Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction platform, the chances of the U.S. sliding into a recession rose to above 50% for the first time this year. That is manifest in a contract, US Recession in 2025, shooting from 39 cents to more than 50 cents (CoinDesk).

Traders hiked their bets the Fed will slash interest rates, starting in a couple of months.

Short-term-rate-tied futures, prior to yesterday's White House tariff unveiling ceremony, reflected a roughly 60% chance of a Fed cut in June. By last night, the odds of a cut shot up to about 70%.