Bitcoin Rises as Inflation Expectations Intensify Among Consumers

The price of Bitcoin hovered around $85,000 on Monday as investors weighed whether the White House’s message on tariffs was tailored enough to avoid a recession.

The leading cryptocurrency was recently changing hands around $84,950, showing a 1.5% increase over the past day, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. Ethereum edged up 3.4% to $1,650, meanwhile, while Solana climbed 2.4% to $131.

A survey released on Monday underscored consumers’ inflation worries, as economists fear the U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs could ignite price pressures. Consumers foresee inflation clocking in at 3.6% a year from now, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations.

Representing the highest levels of economic angst since April 2020, 44% of survey respondents also believe the unemployment rate will be higher a year from now. Among households with annual incomes below $50,000, there was a notable increase in the perceived probability of losing one’s job.

Still, Bitcoin’s price rose this weekend after the White House indicated computer chips and smartphones would be exempt from “reciprocal” levies. It softened on Sunday after Trump clarified that “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’” and other levies still being applied to electronics.

Strategy shares rose 4.3% to $312, while Coinbase shares advanced 1.4% to 178$, according to Yahoo Finance. Major equity indexes closed in positive territory with the tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500 both up the better part of a percentage point. 

Market participants will be listening attentively to Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday, according to Carlos Guzman, a research analyst at crypto market maker GSR. They are eager to know where the central bank now stands on a potential recession, he told Decrypt.

“When the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs were unveiled, a major fear was that it would cause a big economic contraction,” he said. “People were pricing in as many as four rate cuts this year.”

After Trump unveiled his 90-day pause on most tariffs last week, the odds of an incoming recession decreased, alongside expectations of rate cuts. Still, market participants are pricing in more  cuts now than before Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement, Guzman noted.

“If the economic situation globally looks bad, we’d likely see more stimulative policy from central banks,” he said. “That might be more positive for crypto medium-term, maybe not short-term, with all this [recent] volatility.”

Edited by James Rubin