BTC, ETH Prices Rise After Court Nixes Trump’s Tariffs

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin

rose and stock index futures surged early Thursday after a U.S. court declared President Donald Trump’s broad-based tariffs regime invalid. The positive sentiment was buoyed by AI giant Nvidia's upbeat earnings.

On-chain data showed large wallets, those holding over 10,000 BTC, have shifted to selling from buying as the largest cryptocurrency holds close to its record high, with an increase in exchange deposits also pointing to selling pressure. Meanwhile, options market data signaled potential for volatility ahead of Friday's monthly settlement.

Ether

, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, jumped to $2,780, the highest since Feb. 24, consistent with the bullish signals from the derivatives market. The token has been bid this week, supposedly on SharpLink's $425 million Treasury plan. Notably, U.S.-listed spot ether ETFs saw a net inflow of $84.89 million on Wednesday, extending their streak to eight consecutive days.

Canada-listed investment firm Sol Strategies said it filed a preliminary prospectus with local securities regulators to raise up to $1 billion to boost its investment in the Solana ecosystem. Still, SOL was flattish at around $170.

In the broader market, TON, PEPE and FLOKI led other coins higher while FARTCOIN, PI and JUP nursed most losses. Open interest in TON perpetual futures surged 33% to $190 million, clocking the highest since Feb. 18.

Stablecoin issuer Circle froze wallets connected to the Libra token containing millions of dollars worth of USDC. Metaplanet issued $21M in bonds to finance more bitcoin purchases.

In traditional markets, some investment banks said Trump has other tools to sidestep the court ruling on tariffs. Yields on the longer duration Treasury notes ticked higher, suggesting dollar strength. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto
Macro
- May 29, 8 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases April unemployment rate data.
  - Unemployment Rate Est. 6.9% vs. Prev. 7%
- May 29, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases Q1 GDP data.
  - GDP Growth Rate QoQ (2nd estimate) Est. -0.3% vs. Prev. 2.4%
  - GDP Price Index QoQ (2nd estimate) Est. 3.7% vs. Prev. 2.3%
  - GDP Sales QoQ (2nd estimate) Est. -2.5% vs. Prev. 3.3%
- May 29, 2 p.m.: Fed Governor Adriana D. Kugler will deliver a speech at the 5th Annual Federal Reserve Board Macro-Finance Workshop (virtual). Livestream link.
- May 30, 8 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases Q1 GDP data.
  - GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 1.4% vs. Prev. 0.2%
  - GDP Growth Rate YoY Est. 3.2% vs. Prev. 3.6%
- May 30, 8 a.m.: Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases April unemployment rate data.
  - Unemployment Rate Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.2%
- May 30, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases Q1 GDP data.
  - GDP Growth Rate Annualized Est. 1.7% vs. Prev. 2.6%
  - GDP Growth Rate QoQ Prev. 0.6%
- May 30, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases April consumer income and expenditure data.
  - Core PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0%
  - Core PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.6%
  - PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0%
  - PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.2% vs. Prev. 2.3%
  - Personal Income MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.5%
  - Personal Spending MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.7%
- May 30, 10 a.m.: The University of Michigan releases (final) May U.S. consumer sentiment data.
  - Michigan Consumer Sentiment Est. 51 vs. Prev. 52.2
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

Governance votes & calls
Unlocks
- May 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $24.43 million.
- June 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 1.32% of its circulating supply worth $160.58 million.
- June 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.34% of its circulating supply worth $11.18 million.
- June 12: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.7% of its circulating supply worth $15.83 million.
- June 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.79% of its circulating supply worth $60.96 million.
Token Launches
- June 1: Staking rewards for staking ERC-20 OM on MANTRA Finance end.
- June 16: Advised deadline to unstake stMATIC as part of Lido on Polygon’s sunsetting process ends.
- June 26: Coinbase to delist Helium Mobile (MOBILE), Render (RNDR), Ribbon Finance (RBN), & Synapse (SYN)

Conferences

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

Markets on the Ethereum-based Cork Protocol remain paused after Wednesday's $12 million smart-contract exploit.
The attacker manipulated the smart contact's exchange-rate function by issuing fake tokens, stealing 3,761.8 wrapped staked ether (wstETH) in the process.
The exploit marked another attack on the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry just days after Sui-based Cetus Protocol lost $223 million to an exploit.
TRM Labs estimates that $2.2 billion was stolen in crypto exploits and hacks in 2024.
Ether remains unperturbed by the exploit, leading the market today on the back of renewed institutional interest and spot ETF flows. It is up 3.8% in the past 24 hours while bitcoin is down by 0.17%.

Derivatives Positioning

TRX, XMR, ETH, LTC and BNB led major cryptocurrencies' growth in perpetual futures open interest.
Funding rates for majors, except TON, signal bullish sentiment, but nothing extraordinary.
On the CME, ETH annualized one-month futures basis topped 10%, while BTC lagged at 8.7%.
Signs of caution emerged on Deribit, with front-end BTC skew flipping to puts and ETH's call skew softening. Block flows on Paradigm featured demand for short-dated BTC puts.

Market Movements

BTC is up 1.15% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $108,594.41 (24hrs: -0.29%)
ETH is up 3.9% at $2,738.04 (24hrs: +3.63%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 2.21% at 3,278.84 (24hrs: +0.66%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 3.1%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0057% (6.3006% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.12% at 99.99
Gold is up 0.32% at $3,304.20/oz
Silver is up 1.24% at $33.41/oz
Nikkei 225 closed +1.88% at 38,432.98
Hang Seng closed +1.35% at 23,573.38
FTSE is unchanged at 8,724.05
Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,378.39
DJIA closed on Wednesday -0.58% at 42,098.70
S&P 500 closed -0.56% at 5,888.55
Nasdaq closed -0.51% at 19,100.94
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed unchanged at 26,283.50
S&P 40 Latin America closed -0.76 at 2,599.53
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 6 bps at 4.54%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 1.53% at 5,993.25
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 2.03% at 21,814.25
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.96% at 42,576.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 63.71 (-0.06%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02517 (1.12%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 910 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $57.0
Total Fees: 8.03 BTC / $868,310
CME Futures Open Interest: 152,995 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 32.8 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 9.30%

Technical Analysis

VIRTUAL token's price chart. (TradingView)

The VIRTUAL token has topped the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of the January-April crash.
The break out above the widely tracked resistance could entice more buyers, yielding a bigger rally.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $364.25 (-2.14%), +2.43% at $373.09 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $254.29 (-4.55%), +3.01% at $261.95
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$28 (-6.57%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.86 (-9.61%), +4.04% at $15.46
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.38 (-8.32%), +2.86% at $8.62
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $10.78 (-4.43%), +2.97% at $11.10
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.11 (-7.61%), +3.62% at $9.44
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $17.27 (-5.32%)
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $41.32 (-4.77%), +2.95% at $42.54
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $25.94 (-25.35%), +11.6% at $28.95

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

Daily net flow: $432.7 million
Cumulative net flows: $45.31 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.21 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: $84.9 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.9 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.57 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Top 20 digital assets’ prices and volumes

Chart of the Day

The MOVE index, which measures the volatility in U.S. Treasury notes, has dropped to the lowest level since March.
If it drops further, a continued decline is likely to ease financial conditions, greasing the bitcoin bull run.