Helter-skelter situation

In a dizzying about-face yesterday, U.S. President Donald Trump gave Canada and Mexico a month-long reprieve from announced tariffs, easing fears of a tit-for-tat skirmish throughout North America while staunching losses suffered by stocks and cryptocurrencies.

But Trump is moving forward with measures aimed at China which only hours ago announced it would hit back with a mix of their own retaliatory tariffs.

Several major coins that were gaining ground on Monday subsequently started to slip but the 24-hour pendulum overall is undulating green.

As of 8:35 a.m. (EST), Bitcoin, largest of all cryptos, was hovering around $99,400 on a gain of roughly 5% over the past 24 hours.

Trump and his supporters framed the entire high-stakes economic slam-dance as part of his unconventional process for striking stepped-up border security deals. Many investors are scratching their heads. Others remain on shock-and-awe footing.

Two of Monday's most-pummeled digital assets, Ethereum and Solana, each rebounded sharply. ETH, which was $3,400 on Friday, sank as low as $2,200 in some trading venues early yesterday. That marked the second-largest crypto's steepest single-day decline in four years. ETH was closing in on $2,830 when we checked this morning. It had gained 10% in 24 hours.

Min Jung, an analyst at Presto Research, told Decrypt ETH's recovery initially lagged but saw a strong bounce after President Trump's son Eric posted positively about ETH on X.

SOL, after sinking to $191, was up 5%, rising to about $210. Among the Big Ten, XRP (No. 3) enjoyed the biggest gain during the past 24 hours. It rose 12.6% to $2.64. At its intraday low ebb yesterday, XRP was $2.25.

Bitcoin has seen it all. And that's just today. Having nicely rebounded yesterday from a near-term low of $94,200 — after worst-case tariff fears abated — BTC tumbled again early this morning during Asian trading hours. The largest crypto fell from $102,000 to $98,000 after China announced retaliatory levies of up to 15% on an array of U.S. imports. China is also reportedly launching an investigation into Google, according to Bloomberg.

As of 8:47 a.m. (EST), BTC was $99,520, according to CoinGecko.

Dogecoin (DOGE), CoinGecko's No. 8 coin, with a market cap of roughly $40 billion, is emblematic of the skateboard-park-like market environment.

DOGE's intraday low on Monday was a fraction below the $0.25 mark; then it nearly hit, merely hours later, the $0.30 level, only to slide to $0.27.

Meanwhile, that other DOGE, the quasi-governmental cost-slashing entity led by the world's richest man, is creating some very serious buzz as it moves aggressively to seize control of the Treasury Department’s central payments database.

Trump's tariff threats sent risk assets plunging until they didn't. Spats with Canada and Mexico appear to be off the table for at least 30 days, throwing the focus to the third ring where there is a cage match brewing between the U.S. and China. As far as the long-term impact, crypto traders have mixed feelings, CoinDesk said.

Certainly, some buy-the-dip sentiment was in the air, if momentarily. On the same day that saw more than $2 billion worth of derivatives positions get wiped out, there were some major coins, like ETH and DOGE, sporting exhilarating intra-day spikes.

At midnight, as the tariffs on China were set to kick in, there was nary a peep pertaining to any postponement deal, as had been the case with Mexico and Canada earlier. Trump’s 10% tariff across all Chinese imports into the U.S. took effect at 12:01 a.m. (EST).

Within minutes, the battle of the gargantuans was on. China's Finance Ministry said it would, starting on Feb. 10, impose levies of 15% for U.S. coal and gas and 10% for crude oil, farm equipment and some autos.

The U.S.-China tariff conflict could dampen bullish sentiment in the crypto space, HashKey Global's Ben El-Baz told CoinDesk. "The damage from the tariffs could still be made temporary," El-Baz added, "if more crypto-friendly policies in the U.S. are set in motion."