Bitcoin BTC$92,121.34 climbed 1% Monday afternoon Hong Kong time as President Donald Trump’s escalating feud with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell rattled investors, sending both U.S. stock futures and the dollar index lower.
Bitcoin rose to $92,000 but stayed inside last week’s price range of $89,000 to $95,000, per CoinDesk data. Nasdaq futures dropped 0.8%, S&P 500 futures fell 0.5%, and the dollar index slipped to 99.00 from Friday’s 99.26 peak.
BTC usually moves with the Nasdaq, but not this time, hinting at safe haven demand for the cryptocurrency – people wanting it as a “hideout” amid the escalating Trump-Powell feud. BTC proponents have long hailed the cryptocurrency as an anti-establishment asset and a hedge against fiscal and monetary imprudence. Gold, a traditional safe haven, rose to a record high of $4,600 per ounce.
Tensions between the Fed and the White House escalated over the weekend after Powell said the Trump administration had threatened him with a criminal indictment related to the renovation of the central bank’s headquarters.
Powell called the indictment politically motivated, intended to pressure the Fed to cut interest rates.
Trump has long criticized Federal Reserve policies, particularly its reluctance to slash interest rates aggressively to boost economic growth. Since his 2025 inauguration, he has repeatedly urged Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut rates more boldly, calling him a “numbskull” and threatening to make changes to assert greater White House influence over monetary decisions.
Trump has repeatedly called for interest rates to drop to 1% or lower. While the Fed cut rates by 25 basis points last month to 3.5%, it’s still expected to be on hold at least until March and is unlikely to return to ultra-low rates any time soon.
Despite the Trump team ramping up attacks against Powell, prediction markets do not see an early exit for the Chairman, whose term is set to expire in May this year.
Nevertheless, repeated attacks on central banks, especially during persistent inflation, can erode investor confidence and destabilize the domestic currency.
The crash in Turkey’s lira in recent years, triggered by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s interference with central bank independence, serves as a stark cautionary tale. Yet the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency makes a drastic collapse for the U.S. unlikely.