Tariff Fizzle Sends Bitcoin Back Above $90K — Gold Wobbles, Liquidations Spike

Tariff surprise nukes the risk-off mood (and Bitcoin soaks up the rebound)

In the space of a few frantic headlines, a looming tariff was taken off the table and markets collectively exhaled. Bitcoin, which had been dragged down to the high $87k area, snapped back above $90,000 after the sudden announcement that the Feb. 1 tariffs wouldn’t be imposed. The two-day selloff driven by trade-war jitters largely evaporated as traders rotated out of safety and back into riskier stuff.

Precious metals kissed their safe-haven mojo goodbye for a minute: gold slid from roughly $4,850 to about $4,777 per ounce while silver dropped from near $93 to about $90.60. Both metals clawed back roughly 1% overnight, and Bitcoin stayed near the $90K mark once the dust settled.

The rebound was fast and furious — about a 2% jump on the day and a quick 2.1% pop in just one hour — and it blew up a bunch of short positions. Roughly $160 million in shorts were liquidated in that hour alone, contributing to total liquidations north of $1 billion across long and short bets that day. Yep, leverage made a tiny headline into a very big mess.

Why it matters: high-beta Bitcoin, fragile derivatives, and the headline treadmill

This whole episode read less like a crypto-only tantrum and more like Bitcoin behaving like a pumped-up risk asset. What started as an odd geopolitical storyline — negotiations around Greenland and Arctic policy — was framed as a tariff threat and suddenly equities, FX, yields and crypto all got nervous. When the threat vaporized, risk assets snapped back the other way.

The intraday swing tells the story: a low around $87,300 and a high near $90,380 — roughly a 3.5% range — shows how quickly sentiment can flip when macro headlines do a 180. Derivatives magnified the move: technical breaks and concentrated leverage turned small moves into forced liquidations, then into vicious whipsaws when the narrative reversed.

Takeaways? First, during geopolitical drama, macro headlines often outweigh crypto-native fundamentals. Second, a lot of traders are playing with leverage, which makes price action noisier and more violent than it would be otherwise. And third, even when a tariff threat is paused, the underlying negotiations are still a potential headline bomb waiting to be re-lit — so don’t get complacent.

In short: Bitcoin is dancing to the macro drumbeat right now — fun to watch, stomach-churning to ride. Buckle up; this market likes surprises.