By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
Tax uncertainty is back to haunt the markets, and it’s no surprise bitcoin traders are chasing downside protection.
On Friday, the United States Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs from last April. Within hours, Trump had announced new tariffs and invoked a law authorizing an import tax of up to 15% for 150 days to address “international payment problems.”
It’s confirmation that the president still sees “tariffs” as the most beautiful word in the English dictionary. It also means that trade-related uncertainty is here to stay, creating a headwind for risk assets, including bitcoin.
Bitcoin traders responded accordingly. Since Friday, put options at strike prices of $58,000, $60,000 and $62,000 have seen the biggest increases in open interest or the number of active contracts on Deribit. This is a clear sign that traders are positioning themselves for declines. A put option protects against price loss.
Bitcoin fell to a low of $64,481 early Monday after flogging around $66,000 over the weekend. The drop came amid reports of a whale or large BTC holder moving significant amounts of bitcoin to an exchange, possibly for sale. Since then, the price has risen to over $66,000.
Ether (ETh) also recovered from Asian-session lows near $1,856, even as blockchain data pointed to faster selling by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Trade tensions could dominate sentiment this week, with Nvidia’s earnings potentially contributing to market volatility. Analysts held out hope for the potential stabilization of spot bitcoin ETF flows to support the market.
“A flattening of outflows suggests institutional selling is maturing. Continued decline would reinforce the defensive regime,” Timothy Misir, head of research at BRN, said in an email.
“At the moment, liquidity defines the environment. Supply continues. Conviction is thin. The market is waiting for either macro easing or structural demand to re-emerge,” he said.
In traditional markets, Goldman Sachs raised its fourth-quarter Brent crude forecast to $60 and WTI to $56 a barrel. barrel, citing lower-than-expected OECD stocks. Crude oil prices have been high recently due to fears of a full-scale military conflict between the US and Iran. A sharp rise in oil prices could increase inflation worldwide and weigh on risk assets. Pay attention!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today
What to see
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- February 23: Alchemy Chain’s testnet is scheduled to go live.
- Macro
- February 23, 8:00 AM: Fed Governor Christopher Waller delivers a speech on the economic outlook at the National Association for Business Economics.
- 23 February at 10:00: US Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index for February (previously -1.2)
- Earnings (Estimated based on FactSet data)
Token Events
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- February 23: The DYdX Foundation hosts its February analyst call.
- February 23: Pudgy Penguins host an internal Igloo meeting about Discord.
- Uniswap DAO votes to enable protocol fees across all V3 pools and eight layer-2 networks. Voting ends February 23.
- The ZKsync DAO votes to allocate $4.1 million in ZK tokens to the 2026 Audit Reimbursement Program (ZARP v2) to fund forward-looking protocol security audits and retroactively reimburse eligible 2025 costs. Voting ends February 23.
- Unlocks
- The token is launched
Conferences
For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Market movements
- BTC is down 1.99% as of 16 ET Friday at $66,466.38 (24 hours: -2.67%)
- ETH is down 2.75% to $1,920.06 (24h: -3.13%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 2.7% to 1,913.13 (24h: -2.93%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps to 2.76%
- BTC funding rate is at -0.0047% (-5.1531% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is down 0.14% to 97.66
- Gold futures are up 2.03% at $5,184.10
- Silver futures are up 5.41% at $86.79
- The Nikkei 225 closed up 1.12% at 56,825.70
- The Hang Seng closed up 2.53% to 27,081.91
- The FTSE is little changed at 10,682.09
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.07% to 6,127.32
- The DJIA closed Friday up 0.47% at 49,625.97
- The S&P 500 closed up 0.69% at 6,909.51
- The Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.90% at 22,886.07
- The S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.66% at 33,817.51
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.63% at 3,799.71
- The US 10-year Treasury yield 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 statistics
- BTC dominance: 58.75% (-0.44%)
- Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.02888 (-0.21%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,016 EH/s
- Hash price (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
- The chart shows bitcoin’s weekly price swings in candlestick format.
- Long lower wicks on recent candles suggest seller fatigue: Sellers tried to hammer prices down, but failed.
- This type of pattern after a notable selloff usually sets the stage for price jumps.
Crypto stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed Friday at $171.35 (+3.26%), -1.60% at $168.60 in premarket
- 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: $88.1M
- Cumulative net flows: $53.99 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.26M
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily Net Flows: $0M
- Cumulative net flows: $11.55 billion
- Total ETH holding ~5.66 million
Source: Farside Investors
