The crypto market continues to bleed as traders reassess the impact of trade tensions on global economic activity and President Donald Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve order.

Bitcoin has dipped 4.8% to $81,729 while Ethereum is down 8%, hovering just above November 2023 prices near $2,000. Dogecoin leads losses among the top 10 cryptos, down about 13% to $0.16.

That’s despite Trump signing an Executive Order on Thursday, officially establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and authorizing the creation of a digital asset stockpile.

“The knee-jerk reaction lower likely stems from the realization that no actual budget has been allocated for Bitcoin purchases in the near term,” Singapore-based digital asset trading firm QCP Capital wrote in a recent note.

Bitcoin. Image: Created by Decrypt using AI
Bitcoin Price Slides as Crypto Market Reacts to Trump’s Strategic Reserve Order
Bitcoin extended losses Thursday, falling 5.7% in less than an hour as investors reacted to President Donald Trump’s executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The decline came after Bitcoin surged above $92,000 earlier in the week on speculation surrounding the initiative. But the rally has faded as traders take profits and reassess the market impact of the government’s new digital asset policy. Bitcoin has since rebounded slightly to $87,200, CoinGecko data shows. Ethereum lost…

News
Markets
2 min read
Sebastian Sinclair
Mar 6, 2025
Indeed, the order directs the Secretaries of Treasury and Commerce to develop “budget-neutral” strategies for acquiring additional Bitcoin but stops short of utilizing taxpayer funds to conduct spot purchases.

That appears to have rubbed investors the wrong way, according to David Lawant, head of research at FalconX.

“Bitcoin tumbled about 5% immediately following the announcement before partially recouping most of the losses, reflecting short-term expectations that the U.S. government will not be immediately committing to acquiring crypto assets in the open market,” he wrote Friday.

Still, some industry analysts see the move as a significant milestone for Bitcoin’s institutional acceptance.

The executive order establishes a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, separate from the Digital Asset Stockpile comprising a basket of altcoins, including Ethereum.

Hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully converted at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist to unrecoverable funds.

The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago.

Since then, it’s been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash.

Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day – potentially funnelling the money into the regime’s military development.

“Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they’re doing,” says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic.

Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says.

“I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash.”

Elliptic’s analysis tallies with ByBit, which says that 20% of the funds have now “gone dark”, meaning it is unlikely to ever be recovered.

The US and allies accuse the North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to fund the regime’s military and nuclear development.

On 21 February the criminals hacked one of ByBit’s suppliers to secretly alter the digital wallet address that 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were being sent to.

ByBit thought it was transferring the funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent it all to the hackers.

Getty Images Ben Zhou, ByBit CEOGetty Images
ByBit CEO Ben Zhou is hoping to reclaim some of the stolen funds through a bounty project
Ben Zhou, the CEO of ByBit, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.

The firm has since replenished the stolen coins with loans from investors, but is, in Zhou’s words, “waging war on Lazarus”.

ByBit’s Lazarus Bounty programme is encouraging members of the public to trace the stolen funds and get them frozen where possible.

All crypto transactions are displayed on a public blockchain, so it’s possible to track the money as it’s moved around by the Lazarus Group.

If the hackers try to use a mainstream crypto service to attempt to turn the coins into normal money like dollars, the crypto coins can be frozen by the company if they think they are linked to crime.

So far 20 people have shared more than $4m in rewards for successfully identifying $40m of the stolen money and alerting crypto firms to block transfers.

But experts are downbeat about the chances of the rest of the funds being recoverable, given the North Korean expertise in hacking and laundering the money.

“North Korea is a very closed system and closed economy so they created a successful industry for hacking and laundering and they don’t care about the negative impression of cyber crime,” Dr Dorit Dor from cyber security company Check Point said.

Another problem is that not all crypto companies are as willing to help as others.

Crypto exchange eXch is being accused by ByBit and others of not stopping the criminals cashing out.

More than $90m has been successfully funnelled through this exchange.

But over email the elusive owner of eXch – Johann Roberts – disputed that.

He admits they didn’t initially stop the funds, as his company is in a long-running dispute with ByBit, and he says his team wasn’t sure the coins were definitely from the hack.

He says he is now co-operating, but argues that mainstream companies that identify crypto customers are betraying the private and anonymous benefits of crypto currency.

FBI Park Jin HyokFBI
Park Jin Hyok is one of the alleged Lazarus Group hackers
North Korea has never admitted being behind the Lazarus Group, but is thought to be the only country in the world using its hacking powers for financial gain.

Previously the Lazarus Group hackers targeted banks, but have in the last five years specialised in attacking cryptocurrency companies.

The industry is less well protected with fewer mechanisms in place to stop them laundering the funds.

Recent hacks linked to North Korea include:

The 2019 hack on UpBit for $41m
The $275m theft of crypto from exchange KuCoin (most of the funds were recovered)
The 2022 Ronin Bridge attack which saw hackers make off with $600m in crypto
Approximately $100m in crypto was stolen in an attack on Atomic Wallet in 2023
In 2020, the US added North Koreans accused of being part of the Lazarus Group to its Cyber Most Wanted list. But the chances of the individuals ever being arrested are extremely slim unless they leave their country.