Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies ended 2025 lower despite early gains following US President Donald Trump’s re-election in late 2024 and his return to office in January 2025, as global uncertainty and shifting monetary expectations weighed on markets.
Trump completed his first year back in the White House after campaigning on an “America First” platform that focused on reviving the US economy, boosting employment and lowering living costs through tariffs and tax reforms.
Cryptocurrencies were widely expected to benefit during Trump’s second term. He pledged to make the US a global Bitcoin hub and signed an executive order on March 6, 2025, creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a US Digital Asset Stockpile.
Supported by these measures and US Federal Reserve rate cuts, Bitcoin surged to a record high of $126,199, while Ethereum climbed to $4,956. However, concerns over the Trump administration’s trade and economic policies, combined with uncertainty surrounding the Fed’s future rate path, triggered selling pressure across crypto markets.
Bitcoin fell into a downward trend in February 2025, despite crossing the $100,000 mark in January. The cryptocurrency dropped below $80,000 in March before rebounding above $100,000 after a 90-day US-China tariff pause announced in May. Renewed caution over Fed rate cuts and worries about elevated technology stock valuations later pushed Bitcoin below $85,000 by November.
Bitcoin closed at $103,644 on Jan. 20, 2025, the day Trump took office, but traded around $90,000 for much of his first year in office, remaining below its peak.
THE ROLE OF PRECIOUS METALS
Uraz Cay, global markets strategist at Turkish investment broker AK Yatirim, told Anadolu that Bitcoin remains below its January 2025 level, despite trading about 35 percent higher than in November 2024.
Cay said Bitcoin is approximately 27 percent below its October 2025 record.
“Despite Fed rate cuts in 2024 and 2025, the Trump administration’s positive steps for the crypto market, and the emergence of more crypto-based instruments within the financial system, we reached a point below the return levels that investors are used to seeing in past crypto bull markets,” he said.
“Bitcoin’s prevalence in institutional investor portfolios has yet to increase as much as expected, while digital gold’s performance surpassed real gold, and the stablecoin world became a new source of debt for the US, leading to geopolitical risks to spill over into the crypto market,” he added.
Cay said Bitcoin’s declining correlation with other asset classes highlights its diversification potential, though precious metals continue to dominate portfolios.
“Since the most crowded trades in portfolios are in precious metals, digital gold has yet to come into play as real gold rose and continues to rise,” he said.
He noted that assets under management in Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds declined by October 2025 but remained at around $125 billion.
“Bitcoin has strong potential this year, but precious metals steal the spotlight,” he said.
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