Morning Minute: Supreme Court Rules Against Trump Tariffs

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are red but rebounding after a Sunday selloff; BTC at 66.4k
• Ethereum’s upcoming FOCIL upgrade will make it censorship-resistant
• Tether’s USDT supply down nearly $4B from local peak
• The Bitcoin ETFs saw nearly $300M in net outflows last week
• TokenWorks S2 to debut today

🏛️ Supreme Court Rules Against Trump Tariffs

The ruling everyone has been waiting on finally dropped Friday.

But markets largely shrugged it off.

📌 What Happened

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority that the administration’s reading of IEEPA would represent a “transformative expansion of the President’s authority over tariff policy” with no precedent in US history.

Trump called the ruling “anti-American” on Truth Social and within hours announced a new 15% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a completely different legal authority.

Bitcoin initially dipped to $66,900 on the release, then climbed to nearly $67,800, before settling back near $67,000. Equities actually grinded higher.

Then Sunday night, the selloff came. Bitcoin went as low as $64k, down nearly 5%, as ETH fell below $1,900 and SOL fell below $80.

Stock futures are opening red, with the Nasdaq down 0.7%.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“A negative ruling on tariffs could potentially hurt Treasuries and the dollar, while favoring stocks and crypto.” – Stephen Coltman, Head of Macro, 21Shares

“Reduced tariff revenues mean money printing and debasement will accelerate.” – Matthew Sigel, Head of Research, VanEck

🧠 Why It Matters

The immediate crypto reaction, a 1-2% pop that evaporated in 90 minutes, is actually the most important data point here.

Markets had been pricing in this outcome for weeks.

Polymarket put the probability of an illegal ruling at 74% on Friday morning. Nobody was surprised by the ruling.

What caught people off guard was Trump coming back same-day with a 15% replacement tariff under a completely different legal authority.

For crypto, two narratives are forming and could potentially play out:

• Short-term: tariff relief means lower inflation expectations, Fed rate cuts back on the table, risk-on (the relief rally thesis)
• Longer-term: if tariff revenue disappears and the deficit widens, the dollar weakens and money printing accelerates (the Bitcoin as monetary hedge thesis)

Both of those are bullish.

But there is also a political component here. Any voter pushback against the tariff debacle, now deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, is likely to lead to more Democrat seats—which is likely a headwind to crypto policy passing (i.e. the Clarity Act). That is still several months away (and not a certainty), but the clock is certainly ticking.

Overall, some uncertainty has been removed but much more remains. We should know if a relief rally is coming by mid-March; else the crypto winter may indeed last another 6+ months as many project…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are red but recovering after a big Sunday night selloff; BTC -2% at $66.4K; ETH -2% at $1,920; SOL -4% at $80
• PIPPIN (+16%), ETHFI (+7%) and JST (+5%) led top movers
• Over $400M in longs were liquidated as Bitcoin crashed below $65k last night
• Tether’s circulating USDT supply has fallen by $1.5B so far in February and is now down nearly $4B from its local peak
• Q4 2025 GDP badly missed expectations, coming in at 1.4% annualized vs. the 3% consensus; the 43-day government shutdown subtracted roughly 1 full percentage point, while exports reversed and consumer spending decelerated
• Meanwhile, PCE inflation ticked up to 2.9%, giving markets slow growth alongside sticky prices
• Bitwise warned of further Bitcoin price weakness, citing continued macro pressure and the need for equity market stability before any sustained crypto rally can materialize
• South Korean regulators are facing scrutiny over a structural input error at Bithumb that accidentally credited $43B in Bitcoin to user accounts
• World Liberty Financial announced plans to tokenize loan revenue interests in the Trump International Hotel & Resort in the Maldives via Securitize
• Forty-one House Democrats pressed Treasury Secretary Bessent on World Liberty Financial’s potential banking charter, warning that approving a Trump family crypto company for a national bank license could threaten the independence of the US banking system

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw another ~$300M in net outflows last week, while ETH ETFs saw $113M in outflows

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme majors were slightly green; DOGE +1%, SHIB +1%, PEPE +3%, TRUMP even, PENGU even, SPX -7%, FARTCOIN -11%
• The Lobstar AI Agent sent $250k+ of the memecoin to a reply guy by mistake, briefly tanking the token by over 80% before rebounding and going even higher to $11M
• PUNCH fell 30% to $30M while NEET jumped 50% to $27M; El Trump ran 180x to $8M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed over the weekend; Punks -2% at 29 ETH, Pudgy +3% at 4.55 ETH, BAYC even at 6.1 ETH; Hypurr’s -2% at 490 HYPE
• Moonbirds (+5%) led top movers
• Rhynotic and the Token Works team announced S2 going live today