Bitcoin slid to $91,920 late Sunday in New York, down 3.8% from roughly $95,500, as a sharp risk-off impulse hit crypto markets and quickly bled into high beta majors. Ether fell as much as 5.3% to $3,177, while XRP and Solana underperformed with drawdowns of 10.4% to $1.847 and 9% to $130, respectively, as leveraged positioning was forced out.<\/p>\n
The immediate catalyst was a geopolitics-to-trade headline that landed into a weekend liquidity window: President Donald Trump said the US would impose additional 10% tariffs on imports from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland starting Feb. 1, escalating to 25% on June 1 unless a deal is reached for the US to acquire Greenland.<\/p>\n
European officials framed the move as coercive and signaled a coordinated response. Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel called the threat \u201cblackmail,\u201d adding: \u201cIt\u2019s not necessary. It doesn\u2019t help the alliance (NATO).\u201d The targeted countries, many of them NATO allies, issued a stark pushback warning that tariff threats \u201cundermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,\u201d while EU representatives convened emergency talks over potential retaliation. France\u2019s President Macron threatened EU\u2019s \u201canti-coercion instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n
BREAKING: France\u2019s President Macron calls for the EU to activate its \u201cmost potent trade weapon\u201d against the US after President Trump\u2019s tariff threat over Greenland.<\/p>\n
Macron is now calling for the use of the EU\u2019s \u201canti-coercion instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n
If used against the US, it would\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/E47Bpe03lK<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) January 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n For Bitcoin and the entire crypto market, the significance isn\u2019t the tariff math in isolation; it\u2019s the abrupt repricing of global growth and policy risk. When macro traders de-risk into headlines like this, liquid markets tend to transmit the shock first and crypto, with its 24\/7 structure and deep derivatives footprint, often becomes the pressure valve.<\/p>\n On-chain and venue-level indicators suggested the sell pressure was not simply offshore flow. CryptoQuant analyst Mignolet pointed to an elevated \u201cCPG\u201d (Coinbase Premium<\/a> Gap), a metric tracking the price differential between Coinbase\u2019s USD market and Binance\u2019s USDT market that is often read as a proxy for US-led demand or supply.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing the strongest selling premium (CPG) in recent periods. Since the ETF market was not open at the time, this selling pressure is coming from US whales<\/a> operating outside of ETFs. It\u2019s one of the traditional selling patterns we\u2019ve seen repeatedly in the past,\u201d Mignolet wrote in a CryptoQuant note<\/a>.<\/p>\n