Bitcoin nears $91K as traders add a policy risk premium one year into Trump

Bitcoin is edging toward $91,000 and sits roughly 10% lower over the past year, a move that reads less like panic and more like a clean repricing of policy risk. With tariff headlines and broader macro nerves back in focus one year into the Trump presidency, markets are adjusting the premium they demand to hold volatile, dollar-sensitive assets—and crypto is squarely in that crossfire.

The core dynamic to watch is the policy risk premium. When tariff uncertainty rises, investors reassess the path of growth, inflation, and the dollar. That reassessment shifts Bitcoin’s correlation regime: in one environment it behaves like a macro hedge; in another, it trades as high-beta liquidity risk. Tweaks to that premium—higher discount rates, wider earnings or cash-flow uncertainty across risk assets—tend to compress multiples and reduce appetite for leverage. Bitcoin’s 10% giveback fits that pattern.

Transmission happens fast in crypto-native market structure. Perpetual swaps, basis, and funding rates can pivot within hours as desks cut gross and tighten risk. Thin order books around big round numbers often magnify the move as liquidation thresholds cluster. On-chain, participants rotate toward stablecoins and delay deployments, which mechanically lowers spot liquidity and raises slippage. None of this requires a collapse in conviction—just a modest elevation in the price of risk.

There’s also a narrative adjustment underway. Some traders had leaned into the idea that a Trump White House would be unequivocally friendly to digital assets. The real world is messier: overtly pro-growth rhetoric can coincide with tariff brinkmanship and macro crosscurrents, leaving crypto to absorb a wider distribution of outcomes. In that setting, systematic players de-risk into strength, discretionary funds sell rips, and retail tends to wait for clarity—behavior that elongates drawdowns without breaking structure.

Business operators in the ecosystem feel this repricing too. Exchanges see mix shift toward derivatives as hedging demand rises and spot buyers step back. Market makers widen spreads as realized and implied vol climb, which feeds back into price discovery. Miners often increase hedges on future output to stabilize cash flows, limiting the natural bid. Altcoins, with higher beta and thinner books, usually underperform in these periods, reinforcing flows back to Bitcoin and stablecoins.

The ethical wrinkle: tariffs are a domestic policy lever with global spillovers, while crypto is natively borderless. When policy uncertainty lifts the risk premium, the burden lands on a global user base that never voted on those levers. It doesn’t make tariffs “wrong,” but it does remind us that policy shocks tax open financial networks in ways that aren’t evenly shared.

What matters from here isn’t a headline price level like $91,000 so much as the behavior around it. If realized vol stays contained and spot liquidity rebuilds, the market is telling you this is a repricing, not a regime break. If liquidity keeps thinning and sellers force the tape lower on light flows, the policy premium likely needs to rise further. I’m watching the dollar’s tone, the cadence of tariff updates, and the willingness of crypto-native funds to re-risk via basis rather than outright spot—small tells that often precede the next leg.

A year in, Bitcoin’s response looks measured: a 10% markdown to reflect costlier policy uncertainty. In a market that prices forward risk faster than almost any other, that restraint is the signal.