Bitcoin Slips to $93,000 as U.S. GDP Decline Stokes Recession Fears

Crypto markets fell for a second day after the Commerce Department revealed that the economy contracted in Q1, raising concerns that President Trump’s tariff policies may be driving the U.S. toward a recession.

U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 0.3% in the first quarter, well below economists’ expectations for a 0.3% gain, and marking the lowest reading since Q2 2022.

“Multiple indicators are now showing a recession to be the base case expectation in 2025. Trump says the short-term pain is worth the long-term gain from tariffs. Will the short-term pain be worth it?” wrote The Kobeissi Letter.

Bitcoin is down 1.2% at $94,000 after trading as low as $93,000, while Ether dropped 3% to $1760. XRP plunged 6%, while SOL slipped 3% to $144 over the past 24 hours.

The overall crypto market capitalization is down 3.5% to $3.04 trillion, according to Coingecko.

Among the Top 100 digital assets, memecoin FLOKI is today’s best performer, gaining 8%, followed by FARTCOIN and Worldcoin (WLD), which gained 4%.

VIRTUAL, TRUMP, and Algorand (ALGO) are the biggest losers with declines of between 6% and 10%.

Around 162,000 leveraged traders were liquidated for a total of $377 million in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin accounted for $76 million, while ETH made up $73 million.

The Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index has ticked up to ‘Greed’ for the first time since February, driven by last week’s rally.

Meanwhile, U.S. stock markets sold off, with the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq down by 0.6% and 0.8% as of 2 pm ET.