According to market reports, US President Donald Trump announced a punitive tariff plan aimed at several European allies. The move sent a clear warning to traders and policy makers alike.

Stocks and crypto fell as investors shifted to assets they see as safer. Gold climbed, and some currencies strengthened as a reaction to the risk.

Related Reading

Markets Feel The Shift

Trading floors showed quick reactions. Bitcoin slipped by about 3% and traded in the low-$90,000 range for a time, while equity futures weakened. Safe havens were bought up. Precious metals recorded gains.

Based on reports from market outlets, liquidations hit crypto platforms hard, with roughly $750 million to $875 million of leveraged long positions closed out in the first wave of selling. That added extra downward pressure on prices and raised volatility for hours after the announcement.

Tariff Timetable And Targets

Trump said an extra 10% tariff would start on February 1st, 2026 for goods from eight countries that opposed his Greenland stance, with the level set to rise to 25% by June if talks do not move forward.

The affected nations include Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK.

Governments in Europe reacted with firm language and warned of counters. Officials in Brussels hinted at possible measures that could hurt US exporters if tensions deepen. Trade policy is now back in the spotlight and crossing multiple political lines.

We don’t always agree with the US government and in this case we certainly don’t. These tariffs will hurt us.

If Greenland is vulnerable to malign influences, then have another look at Diego Garcia. https://t.co/z0r0IUlD6I

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) January 17, 2026

How This Played Out In Crypto

Crypto traders saw the headlines and reacted quickly. Positions that had been built with margin were trimmed or forced closed. Some funds favored reducing exposure to volatile tokens, while others bought the dip on the theory that shocks like this are temporary.

Over short stretches, Bitcoin behaved more like a risk asset, moving with stocks rather than acting as an independent store of value.

Over longer stretches, some analysts argue that policy shocks which raise inflationary expectations could boost demand for scarce assets, though that view depends on many economic moves that may follow.

Related Reading

What Traders Are Doing

Reports say market makers tightened spreads and liquidity pools thinned during the worst of the volatility. Large orders were matched more slowly and price swings widened.

Some institutional desks paused trading for a few moments to reassess risk models, while retail traders watched charts and reacted to alerts.

A few hedge desks took the chance to rebalance toward commodity exposure. Others focused on scenario planning, mapping out how retaliatory tariffs or sanctions might affect specific sectors.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Ethereum price closely followed that of bitcoin throughout the week and this saw the digital asset fall below the $1,200 level once more. Presently, the entire market looks to be consolidating but Ethereum has been put under some pressure following the activation of two whale addresses. These addresses which had not transacted for about half a decade had suddenly moved tens of millions of dollars worth of ETH between them.

Five-Year-Old Whales Move $27 Million

In the early hours of Monday, Lookonchain, an on-chain data tracker, took to Twitter to post the re-awakening of long-dormant Ethereum addresses. These addresses both held at least $10 million worth of ETH on their balances and had not seen any type of activity in the last five years, until today.

Both wallets, seemingly out of nowhere, had first transferred out 1 ETH to a new wallet in what looks like test transactions. What followed was another large transaction that would empty out their balances. 

The first wallet would transfer a total of 9,877 ETH in a single transaction, worth $11.7 million at current prices, while the second wallet would transfer out a total of 13,103.99 ETH in its second transaction, worth $15.5 million at press time. This brought their cumulative total transactions to more than $27 million.

ETH stalls at $1,185 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

All of the ETH was transferred to new, unknown wallets with no prior history besides the 1 ETH test transaction. The ETH is now sitting in these new Ethereum addresses and has not been touched so far.

Bad News For Ethereum?

The movement of such a large amount of ETH has stopped the digital asset in its tracks. So far, there has not been any meaningful movement in the Ethereum price which shows a lot of wariness on the part of investors and traders alike.

However, despite the ETH from these whales being significant, it does not look to have any market impact since the coins were just moved from one storage wallet to another, as it seems. There has been no movement to centralized exchanges, and if this was a sale, it was an OTC trade which eliminates the pressure such a sale would have had on the open market.

Ethereum price on the other hand has now moved into the control of the bears. The $1,200 support was flipped and is now a resistance level that bulls must beat to attain any momentum. This also drags the digital asset well below the 100-day moving average of $1,439, showing bearishness for the medium to long term.

ETH’s price is currently trending at $1,180. It is down 5.22% in the last 7 days and saw trading volumes of approximately $4 billion in the last 24 hours.

Featured image from Bitcoinist, chart from TradingView.com