The U.S. stock-market slide prompted by President Donald Trump’s global tariff announcement on Wednesday sent the Nasdaq Composite Index into one of its biggest funks since the start of the century.

The tech-heavy index lost 5.5% on Thursday, just outside the top 20 worst single-day drawdowns since 2000, according to Investing.com. Most of the largest drawdowns occurred during the dot-com crash of 2000-2001 and the 2008 global financial crisis. Other equity measures also suffered, with the S&P 500 index falling almost 5%.

In contrast, the bitcoin (BTC) price, which is typically correlated with U.S. equities over short timeframes, bucked the trend. The largest cryptocurrency, which tumbled immediately after the announcement while stock markets were closed, rose 0.7% the following day, with momentum carrying into Friday, according to Glassnode data.

Bitcoin is now trading above $84,000 compared with about $87,000 before Trump started speaking. Nasdaq futures, meanwhile, are lower ahead of the U.S. jobs report due later in the day.

Bitcoin made its 2025 low in mid-March at around $76,000, whereas the Nasdaq hit a low on Thursday. Year-to-date, bitcoin is outperforming the Nasdaq, losing 10% against the index’s 11%.

Analyst Caleb Franzen highlighted bitcoin’s relative strength compared with the S&P 500 in this risk-off environment, noting its resilience around the 200-day moving average.

«It’s pretty remarkable to see that bitcoin is up +3.4% today relative to the S&P 500, particularly in a risk-off environment. As I’ve recently pointed out, BTC/SPY continues to hold above its 200-day moving average cloud,» Franzen said in a post on X.

As the pivotal U.S. nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report for March approaches, bitcoin (BTC) bulls find themselves in a situation reminiscent of the character Two-Face (Harvey Dent) from the movie «The Dark Knight,» who flips coins to make decisions, confident of controlling the fate irrespective of the outcome.

It’s a classic case of «heads I win, tails you lose,» which means that bitcoin bulls will likely come out on top after the impending jobs report, regardless of whether the data reveals labor market strength or weakness.

This situation arises from President Donald Trump’s Wednesday announcement of sweeping tariffs affecting 180 nations, prompting forward-looking markets to price in recession risks and expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts.

Consequently, stronger-than-expected jobs data, which typically strengthens the dollar and pressures risk assets like BTC, may be dismissed as outdated, overlooking the recent developments resulting from Trump’s policies. Therefore, any dip in BTC following a potentially hot NFP report could be swiftly reversed, leading to gains.

On the other hand, weak data would only add to recession fears and bolster Fed rate cut bets, supporting increased risk-taking in financial markets.

At press time, bitcoin changed hands at $84,190, having hit lows below $82,000 Thursday, per CoinDesk data. The fact that prices have stayed well above the $77,000 March low despite peak tariff uncertainty indicates seller fatigue and potential for a price rise.

Volmex’s bitcoin one-day implied volatility index stood at an annualized 65%, indicating an expected price swing of 3.4% in the next 24 hours.

The jobs data is due at 12:30 UTC. According to FactSet, the median estimate for total nonfarm payroll employment in March is 130,000, down from February’s 151,000 tally. The jobless rate is forecast to have risen to 4.2% from 4.1%.

Ahead of the data release, rates traders are pricing 100 basis points of Fed rate cuts this year, with the first move expected to happen in June, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool.

Solana’s SOL token is poised for a potential price swing of almost 6% after some large investors, or whales, dumped their holdings ahead of the U.S. non-farm payroll (NFP) report due later Friday.

This estimate comes from Volmex’s one-day implied volatility index (IV) for SOL. At press time, the index showed a one-day reading annualized at 109.70%, indicating an expected 24-hour price volatility of 5.74%. (The daily figure is derived by dividing the annualized volatility by the square root of 365, the number of trading days in a year.)

A movement that size represents moderate volatility, especially considering that the cryptocurrency has experienced several days of 6% or higher volatility since early March, according to data from CoinDesk.

In other words, the market is likely to be volatile, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Whale selling

Data tracked by blockchain sleuth Lookonchain shows several whales unstaked and dumped SOL worth $46.3 million into the market.

Large offloading of coins by whales often leads to bearish price action. However, the amount sold early today equates to 0.97% of the cryptocurrency’s 24-hour trading volume of $4.7 billion.

So, it’s no surprise that SOL is trading little changed at around $116, having printed a low of $112 on Thursday. Broadly speaking, the cryptocurrency has been in a downtrend since reaching a high of $295 on Jan. 19.

Focus on payrolls

The U.S. jobs data, scheduled for release at 12:30 GMT, is forecast to reveal that the economy added 130,000 jobs in March, slowdown from February’s 151,000 and well below the 12-month average of 162,300, according to FactSet.

The median estimate for the jobless rate for March is is 4.2%, the highest since November and up from February’s 4.1% reading. Average hourly earnings are forecast to have risen 0.3% month-on-month, matching February’s pace.

A weaker-than-expected figure will likely validate renewed pricing for four 25-basis-point interest-rate cuts this year, potentially sending risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, higher.