Ether Prices Plunge 20% To $3,500 As Tariff Fears Roil Markets

Ether prices fell sharply on Friday, October 10 as tariff concerns fueled losses in risk assets.

The world’s second-largest digital currency by total market value plunged to almost $3,500, according to Coinbase data from TradingView.

After rising to nearly $4,400 earlier in the day, this represented a roughly 20% decline, additional Coinbase figures from TradingView reveal.

Interestingly enough, ether bounced back after reaching its intraday low, approaching $4,000 and trading close to $3,800 at the time of this writing.

Equities also suffered declines, with the S&P 500 falling 2.7% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 1.9% for the day, according to Google Finance data.

Futures contracts for gold, which has frequently been described as a safe-haven asset, rose more than 1% to trade at roughly $4,035 per ounce at the time of this writing, Google Finance figures reveal.

Ether’s Sharp Drop

When explaining the sharp drop in the price of ether, analysts cited several factors, although they repeatedly emphasized the impact of renewed concerns regarding tariffs.

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. would start imposing a new tariff of 100% on China starting on November 1. This could kick in even earlier, depending on what actions China takes going forward, he stated.

Trump also announced that he will not meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at APEC South Korea 2025 later this month.

Greg Magadini, director of derivatives for digital asset data provider Amberdata, commented on the current situation, emphasizing how it impacted investor sentiment and therefore the markets.

“Flight to quality is sending the USD and Treasuries higher as traders are turning defensive. After a major rally in crypto, precious metals and equities, the market today is focused on global tariff fears again,” he stated via email.

“Trump speculated about massive tariff increases on China in response to Chinese protectionism,” said Magadini.

“If China begins to become a trade hawk alongside Trump, then the top world economies could drag down global growth between them,” he noted.

“This is causing the markets to move in a ‘risk-off’ fashion today, dragging BTC and other crypto-currencies down.”

Tim Enneking, managing partner of Psalion, also commented on Trump’s actions and how they affected markets, along with emphasizing how digital assets moved in tandem with other risk assets.

“Although the correlation between US equities and crypto varies considerably, today’s initial rise and then drop was 100% correlated (and perfectly timed) with the US S&P’s initial rise and then very rapid 2% drop after Trump announced that it wasn’t worth to meet, or even speak with, Xi,” he stated via email around 3 p.m. EST.

“And, as of this writing, as US equities markets trend down after the initial drop due to Trump’s announcement, ETH and most of the rest of the crypto ecosystem are following it,” Enneking added.

Joe DiPasquale, CEO of cryptocurrency hedge fund manager BitBull Capital, offered a different take, pointing to several variables, including tariff fears, as causing ether’s latest downward movement.

“Ether’s drop looks to be a mix of technical and macro forces,” he stated via email. “The token ran into resistance near $4,400, and when momentum stalled, long liquidations accelerated the move lower.”

“At the same time, renewed tariff concerns weighed on broader risk assets, the dollar strengthened, and sentiment was pressured further by a high-profile short call on a crypto-treasury firm,” said DiPasquale.

Jonathan Morgan, lead crypto analyst at Stocktwits, also pointed to several variables, but chose to focus on the impact of leveraged positions being liquidated.

“This dip is almost entirely the result of an insanely fast wipeout in leveraged ETH longs,” he wrote via email.

“Additionally, I don’t read the ETF flow data as something that screams conviction for ETH lately. There was a big surge on Oct 7 with somewhere around $420M net ETH flows, then just $70 on the 8th and yesterday (9th), it turned net negative,” added Morgan.