Crypto Daybook Americas: Donald Trump's Looming Tariff Escalation Fails to Rattle Bitcoin (BTC)

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Despite the increasing rhetoric surrounding President Donald Trump's tariffs, bitcoin (BTC) is holding steady alongside positive cues from foreign exchange risk barometers like AUD/JPY. Later today, Trump is due to impose 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on top of additional metal duties.

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This market stance ahead of an impending tariff escalation contrasts starkly with the risk aversion observed a week ago, when Trump fired the first tariff shot. Perhaps market participants think he's using aggressive tactics to negotiate trade deals rather than committing to sustained tariffs. This notion has gained traction following lat Monday's decision to suspend tariffs on Mexico and Canada for 30 days, hinting at a more strategic approach to trade negotiations.

According to QCP Capital, the current market stability could embolden Trump to take a tougher stance. "A feedback loop is emerging — President Trump, highly sensitive to market reactions, is facing a market increasingly calling his bluff. This could embolden him further, adding another layer of volatility," QCP said in a Telegram broadcast.

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

There's a social media post doing the rounds that shows record open short positions in the CME-listed cash-settled ether futures. Those shorts are not necessarily outright bearish bets and are likely components of carry trades, where investors hold long positions in ETFs while shorting CME futures. Note that the ETH ETF inflows surged last week. It's possible some of the shorts are investors hedging against long altcoin bets amid concerns over the number of coins and impending large unlocks.

Over the weekend, Base member Kabir.Base.eth refuted claims that the sequencer Coinbase had been selling ETH earned as fees, adding a layer of transparency to its operations.

In another notable development, Archange Touadéra, president of the Central African Republic, reportedly issued a new memecoin that saw a trader turn $5,000 into an astonishing $12 million in less than three hours, achieving a remarkable return of 2,450x, according to LookOnChain data.

Meanwhile, litecoin (LTC) continues to shine as the top-performing cryptocurrency of the past 24 hours, up 9%.

On the macroeconomic front, the surge in the U.S. consumer inflation expectations raises concerns about the likelihood of a prolonged pause in Federal Reserve's rate cuts. Plus, the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) is due for release on Wednesday. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Token Events

Governance votes & calls Aave DAO is discussing recognizing HyperLend as a friendly fork of Aave deployed on the Hyperliquid EVM chain, as well as the deployment of Aave v3 on Ink, Kraken’s layer-2 rollup network. Sky DAO is discussing, among other things, onboarding Arbitrum One to the Spark Liquidity layer, increasing the PSM2 rate limits on Base, and minting 100 million USDS worth of sUSDS into Base to accommodate for growth on the network. Feb. 10, 10:30 a.m.: OKX to hold a listings AMA with Chief Marketing Officer Haider Rafique and Head of Product Marketing Matthew Osofisan. Feb. 12, 2 p.m. : Render (RENDER) to host an AI Scout Discord AMA session.

Unlocks Feb. 10: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.97% of circulating supply worth $71.14 million. Feb. 10: Berachain (BERA) to unlock 12.08% of circulating supply worth $66.07 million. Feb. 12: Aethir (ATH) to unlock 10.21% of circulating supply worth $23.80 million. Feb. 14: The Sandbox (SAND) to unlock 8.4% of circulating supply worth $80.2 million.

Token Launches Feb. 10: Analog (ANLOG) to be listed on Bitget, Gate.io, MEXC and KuCoin. Feb. 12: Avalon (AVL) and Game 7 (G7) to be listed on Bybit. Feb. 13: EthereumPoW (ETHW) and Polygon (MATIC) to no longer be supported at Deribit.



Conferences:

CoinDesk's Consensus to take place in Hong Kong on Feb. 18-20 and in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Various memecoins raffled around the world from Asia to America, bringing back signs of a frenzy that tends to grip the crypto market every few months.

BNB Chain's TST token, originally created in a tutorial, skyrocketed to a $300 million market cap following mentions by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. The token gained popularity in Chinese communities, posts show.

David Portnoy of U.S.-based Barstool Sports promoted JAILSTOOL as market watchers accused him of using his social influence to pump the lowcap token, which peaked at over $200 million before settling at a $78 million market cap.

The Central African Republic issued its own memecoin, CAR, aiming to support national development and increase the country's global visibility.

Derivatives Positioning

Basis in BTC and ETH CME futures dipped below 10%, which may translate into slower inflows into the ETFs.

Perpetual funding rates on offshore exchanges for most major coins remain marginally bullish between an annualized 5% to 10%. XLM stands out as having the most negative funding rate — in excess of -20% — reflecting a bias for shorts.

Front-end ETH puts trade a vol premium of two to five points relative to calls, exhibiting downside fears. BTC front-end options also show a put bias, according to data source Amberdata.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 1.80% from 4 p.m. ET Friday to $97,805.98 (24hrs: -1.01%)

ETH is down 0.79% at $2,647.53 (24hrs: -0.63%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 2.92% to 3,209.42 (24hrs: +0.19%)

CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 3 bps to 2.97%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0087% (9.48% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.12% at 108.16

Gold is up 1.44% at $2,902.17/oz

Silver is up 1.29% to $32.22/oz

Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 38,801.17

Hang Seng closed up 1.84% at 21,521.98

FTSE is up 0.53% at 8,746.63

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.34% at 5,343.63

DJIA closed -0.99% to 44,303.40

S&P 500 closed -0.95% at 6,025.99

Nasdaq closed -1.36% at 19,523.40

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.36% at 25,442.91

S&P 40 Latin America closed -1.10% at 2,410.24

U.S. 10-year Treasury went up 4 bps to 4.48%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.46% at 6,077

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.70% at 21,742

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.35% at 44,576

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 61.70% (0.05%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02717 (-0.22%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 808 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $54.1

Total Fees: 5.04 BTC / $337,318

CME Futures Open Interest: 164,510

BTC priced in gold: 33.5 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.52%

Technical Analysis

MSTR's daily chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

Shares of Strategy (MSTR) have dived out of a mini rising channel, hinting at an end of the bounce from the Dec. 31 low and potential resumption of a broader pullback from late 2024 highs.

Prices have found acceptance below the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of the fourfold rally seen from September to November.

A golden rule of technical analysis is that for a market to maintain its current trend, it must hold above the 38.2% level. If it fails to do so, the bull trend is said to have ended.

Crypto Equities

MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $327.56 (+0.56%), up 2.27% at $334.98 in pre-market.

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $274.49 (+1.52%), up 1.83% at $279.52 in pre-market.

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.89 (-0.66%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $16.77 (-0.18%), up 1.97% at $17.10 in pre-market.

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.64 (+0.26%), up 1.89% at $11.86 in pre-market.

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $12.56 (+0.24%), up 0.88% at $12.67 in pre-market.

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.33 (+9.15%), up 1.5% at 11.50 in pre-market.

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $23.15 (+1.71%), up 0.52% at $23.27 in pre-market.

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $49.20 (-1.44%), up 2.20% at $50.28 in pre-market.

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $48.37 (+0.75%), +0.52% at 48.62 in pre-market.

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: $171.3 million

Cumulative net flows: $40.70 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.176 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: No flows reported.

Cumulative net flows: $3.18 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.793 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Yield on the 10-year U.S. inflation-indexed security. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

The yield on 10-year U.S. inflation-indexed securities, the so-called real yield, has dropped by 34 basis points in just over three weeks.

A continued decline could trigger a search for higher returns, galvanizing demand for risk assets, including BTC.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether