Bitcoin trades flat near $91,000 with Trump tariff call in focus: Asia Morning Briefing

Prediction markets are signaling limited expectations for a decisive U.S. Supreme Court ruling on tariffs, a scenario that has historically produced brief spikes in bitcoin volatility followed by stabilization.

Bitcoin traded in a narrow range near $91,000 during Asian hours as investors waited for the Supreme Court’s January 10 decision, U.S. time, on President Donald Trump’s tariff authority.

On Polymarket, traders place just a 24% probability on the Court explicitly endorsing Trump’s use of emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.

The outcome matters for crypto markets because previous tariff-driven episodes have not unfolded like traditional macro shocks. CoinDesk Indices described the first-quarter 2025 episode as a “Tariff Tantrum,” marked by sharp but short-lived drawdowns driven by liquidation cascades, waning leverage demand, and momentum selling, rather than wholesale exits from digital assets. CoinDesk research found that trend-following strategies benefited from cutting exposure early, even as longer-term participation remained intact.

If the Court limits or sidesteps Trump’s tariff authority, fiscal and policy uncertainty could rise. Interactive Brokers economist Jose Torres warned that a constrained ruling would likely prompt the administration to pursue alternative mechanisms.

“If the court blocks the tariffs, the administration is going to look for workarounds,” Torres told CNBC. “President Trump is highly motivated to push this agenda forward, even if controversy follows.”

Such an outcome could push long-term U.S. Treasury yields higher and tighten global liquidity — conditions that have historically pressured crypto markets, which tend to react quickly to shifts in both.

The risk lies less in tariffs being removed outright and more in the likelihood that a narrow ruling forces reliance on slower, more limited, and legally vulnerable trade tools, prolonging uncertainty rather than resolving it.

Even so, CoinDesk Indices research suggests that once markets accept ambiguity as the baseline, bitcoin has tended to regain stability more quickly than equities, with correlations softening as policy uncertainty drags on.

For now, Asian crypto traders — in a region that arguably stands to benefit most from a clean rollback of Trump’s tariff regime — appear less focused on the ruling itself and more on how long uncertainty may persist once a decision is delivered.

Market Moves

• BTC: Bitcoin was little changed near $91,000, ticking slightly higher on the hour but still modestly lower over the past 24 hours.
• ETH: Ether hovered around $3,100, down more than 2% over the past day despite gains over the previous week.
• Gold: HSBC said gold could rise to as high as $5,050 per ounce in early 2026 on geopolitical risk and rising debt, but warned of heightened volatility and the risk of a pullback later in the year if risks ease or the Fed turns more hawkish.
• Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.54% as markets looked ahead to China’s December inflation data, expected at 0.8% year on year