Tariff travails resurface, bitcoin holders prepare for declines

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Tariff uncertainty is back to haunt markets, and it's no surprise bitcoin $BTC$66,172.17 traders are chasing downside protection.

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs from April last year. Within a few hours, Trump had announced fresh tariffs, invoking a law that allows an import levy of up to 15% for 150 days to address "international payment problems."

That's confirmation the president still sees "tariffs" as the most beautiful word in the English dictionary. It also means trade-related uncertainty is here to stay, posing a headwind to risk assets, including bitcoin.

Bitcoin traders reacted accordingly. Since Friday, put options at strike prices of $58,000, $60,000 and $62,000 have seen the largest increases in open interest, or the number of active contracts, on Deribit. This is a clear sign traders are positioning for declines. A put option protects against price losses.

Bitcoin fell to a low of $64,481 early Monday after whipsawing around $66,000 over the weekend. The drop came amid reports of a whale, or large $BTC holder, moving sizable amounts of bitcoin to an exchange, possibly for sale. Since then, the price has recovered to over $66,000.

Ether (ETh) also recovered from Asian-session lows near $1,856 even as blockchain data pointed to faster sales by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Trade tensions could dominate sentiment this week, with Nvidia's earnings potentially adding to market volatility. Analysts pinned hopes on the potential stabilisation of spot bitcoin ETF flows to support the market.

"A flattening of outflows would suggest institutional selling is maturing. Continued contraction would reinforce the defensive regime," Timothy Misir, the head of research at BRN, said in an email.

"For now, liquidity defines the environment. Supply persists. Conviction is thin. The market is waiting for either macro relief or structural demand to re-emerge," he said.

In traditional markets, Goldman Sachs raised its fourth-quarter Brent crude oil forecast to $60 and WTI to $56 per barrel, citing lower-than-expected OECD stockpiles. Crude prices have been buoyant lately due to fears of full-blown military conflict between the U.S. and Iran. A sharp rise in oil prices could add to inflation worldwide and weigh on risk assets. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today's activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Crypto
  • Feb. 23: Alchemy Chain’s testnet is scheduled to go live.
• Macro
  • Feb. 23, 8:00 a.m.: Fed Governor Christopher Waller gives a speech on the economic outlook at the National Association for Business Economics.
  • Feb. 23, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index for February (Prev. -1.2)
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • Nothing scheduled.

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Governance votes & calls
  • Feb. 23: DYdX Foundation to host its February analyst call.
  • Feb. 23: Pudgy Penguins to host an Inner Igloo meeting on Discord.
  • Uniswap DAO is voting to enable protocol fees across all V3 pools and eight layer-2 networks. Voting ends Feb. 23.
  • ZKsync DAO is voting to allocate $4.1 million in ZK tokens for the 2026 Audit Reimbursement Program (ZARP v2) to fund forward-looking protocol security audits and retroactively reimburse eligible 2025 costs. Voting ends Feb. 23.
• Unlocks
  • Nothing scheduled.
• Token Launches
  • Nothing scheduled.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Day 1 of 4: Strategy World 2026 (Las Vegas)
• Day 1 of 2: NEARCON (San Francisco)

Market Movements

• $BTC is down 1.99% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $66,466.38 (24hrs: -2.67%)
• $ETH is down 2.75% at $1,920.06 (24hrs: -3.13%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 2.7% at 1,913.13 (24hrs: -2.93%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps at 2.76%
• $BTC funding rate is at -0.0047% (-5.1531% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is down 0.14% at 97.66
• Gold futures are up 2.03% at $5,184.10
• Silver futures are up 5.41% at $86.79
• Nikkei 225 closed down 1.12% at 56,825.70
• Hang Seng closed up 2.53% at 27,081.91
• FTSE is little changed at 10,682.09
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.07% at 6,127.32
• DJIA closed on Friday up 0.47% at 49,625.97
• S&P 500 closed up 0.69% at 6,909.51
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.90% at 22,886.07
• S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.66% at 33,817.51
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.63% at 3,799.71
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 0.8 bps at 4.077%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.25% at 6,905.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.41% at 24,965.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.25% at 49,551.00

Bitcoin Stats

• $BTC Dominance:58.75% (-0.44%)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.02888 (-0.21%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,016 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $29.02
• Total fees: 1.88 $BTC / $127,386
• CME Futures Open Interest: 119,015 $BTC
• $BTC priced in gold: 12.9 oz.
• $BTC vs gold market cap: 4.44%

Technical Analysis

$BTC's weekly chart. (TradingView)

• The chart shows bitcoin's weekly price swings in candlestick format.
• Long lower wicks on recent candles hint at seller fatigue: Sellers tried to hammer prices downward, but failed.
• This type of pattern after a notable selloff usually sets the stage for price bounces.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Friday at $171.35 (+3.26%), -1.60% at $168.60 in pre-market
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $63.02 (+1.78%), -1.05% at $62.36
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $21.20 (-1.99%), -1.84% at $20.81
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $31.77 (-1.85%), -0.66% at $31.56
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $7.97 (+0.13%), -1.63% at $7.84
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $15.68 (-3.33%), -1.66% at $15.42
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $17.30 (-3.78%)
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.65 (-1.73%), -1.45% at $9.51
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $38.85 (-4.53%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $9.86 (-5.37%)

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $131.05 (+1.24%), -1.55% at $129.02
• Strive (ASST): closed at $8.15 (+0.37%), -2.09% at $7.98
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $6.72 (-1.18%), -2.53% at $6.55
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $0.62 (-7.35%), +4.53% at $0.65
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.11 (+0.91%)

ETF Flows

Spot $BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: $88.1 million
• Cumulative net flows: $53.99 billion
• Total $BTC holdings ~1.26 million

Spot $ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: $0 million
• Cumulative net flows: $11.55 billion
• Total $ETH holdings ~5.66 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

• EU set to freeze U.S. trade deal approval over Trump tariff risk (Bloomberg): The EU is poised to freeze the ratification process of its trade deal with the U.S. and is seeking more details from President Trump’s administration on its new tariff program.
• Bitcoin ETFs bleed $3.8 billion in historic five-week outflow streak (CoinDesk): Investors pulled nearly $3.8 billion from U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs over five straight weeks, the longest outflow streak since February 2025. Last week alone saw $316 million vanish.
• U.S. tariff turmoil leaves Treasury markets dazed (Reuters): Far from being a source of relief, the Supreme Court's takedown of Trump's tariffs has infused new risks and uncertainties into trade policy, U.S. debt and the dollar.