Hello, Asia. Here’s what’s making news on the markets:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of the top news stories during U.S. business hours and insight into market movements and analysis. For a detailed overview of US markets, see Crypto Daybook Americas from CoinDesk.
Bitcoin is trading sideways, around $91,000 during Asian hours, as traders await the US Supreme Court’s ruling on President Donald Trump’s tariffs on January 10, US time.
On Polymarket, traders give just a 24% chance that the Supreme Court will explicitly uphold Trump’s use of emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.
This is important for bitcoin and crypto prices because past tariff episodes have not behaved like conventional macroeconomic shocks. CoinDesk Indices described the Q1 2025 pricing episode as a “pricing crisis,” marked by sharp but temporary declines driven by liquidation cascades, lower demand for leverage, and sales based on momentum rather than structural exit structures from the asset class. During this period, CoinDesk research shows that trend-following strategies – simply buying when prices rise and selling when prices fall – outperformed by reducing risk early on, even as long-term participation remained stable.
If the Court limits or circumvents Trump’s tariff authority, market observers like Interactive Brokers economist Jose Torres warn that fiscal uncertainty could increase.
“If the court blocks the tariffs, the administration will find workarounds,” Torres told CNBC. “President Trump is very ambitious in passing this agenda despite the potential controversies that could surround such a decision. »
This could potentially drive up long-term U.S. yields and tighten global liquidity, a combination that has historically pressured crypto, which is sensitive to rapid changes in both cases.
This risk arises less from the disappearance of tariffs than from the likelihood that a binding decision will force the administration to rely on slower, more restricted, and more contestable trade tools, thereby prolonging policy uncertainty rather than resolving it.
Yet CoinDesk Indicies research shows that once markets accept ambiguity as a base case, bitcoin tends to stabilize faster than stocks, with correlations attenuating as political confusion persists.
For now, bitcoin traders in Asia – a part of the world that stands to gain most from a clean rollback of Trump’s tariff regime – are focused less on the fate of the tariffs and more on how long uncertainty is likely to persist once the ruling is made.
Market movement
BTC: Bitcoin was little changed, near $91,000, slightly higher over the hour but still slightly lower over the past day.
ETFs: Ether traded around $3,100, falling more than 2% over 24 hours despite gains over the past week.
Gold: HSBC said gold could rise as high as $5,050 an ounce in early 2026 due to geopolitical risk and rising debt, but warned of increased volatility and a potential pullback later in the year if risks fade or the Fed becomes more hawkish.
Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose 0.54% as markets awaited Chinese inflation data for December, expected at 0.8% year-on-year.
Elsewhere in Crypto:
- Trump says he won’t save Sam Bankman-Fried with grace (CoinDesk)
- Bank of America Upgrades Coinbase to ‘Buy’ on Basic Outlook and Tokenization Tailwinds (Decryption)