GM. Bitcoin fell below $90,000 as Trump’s 10% tariff threat on Europe over Greenland sparked trade war fears, triggering massive liquidations across the digital asset market.

Meanwhile, Portugal blocked Polymarket over political betting, Brian Armstrong headed to Davos to rescue the crypto bill, and MegaETH is set to stress-test its 35,000 TPS mainnet.

Here are the details on trade war fallout, betting bans, and scaling. 👇

Bitcoin Sinks Below $90K As Greenland Trade War Fears Intensify

President Donald Trump triggered a violent digital asset retreat by threatening 10% tariffs on 8 European nations over their refusal to sell Greenland. This geopolitical friction caused Bitcoin to breach the psychological $90,000 support level today.

The market carnage unfolded on Tuesday morning across global exchanges as institutional participants returned from the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Equity markets on Wall Street mirrored the crypto decline, sliding 1.3% as trade uncertainty mounted.

Crypto treasury giants Strategy and SharpLink Gaming suffered heavy losses because their stocks plummeted over 6% following the opening bell. Investors fled risky equities for gold and silver, which both surged to record highs amid the turmoil.

Trump vowed to follow through with aggressive levies starting 1 February 2026 unless Denmark and its allies acquiesce to US demands. Consequently, total crypto trading volume spiked 14% to $68.6 billion as panicking traders liquidated leveraged positions.

Portugal Orders Immediate Block On Polymarket

Portugal’s gambling regulator ordered the crypto-based prediction market Polymarket to halt all domestic operations. The SRIJ determined the platform is currently unauthorized to offer betting services and violates national laws against political wagering. This decision comes after users wagered over 4 million euros on Portugal’s presidential race before official results were public.

Regulators expressed concerns that Polymarket traders potentially used non-public information or leaked exit polls to execute large transactions. Authorities gave the platform 48 hours to cease its activity before moving toward a formal network-level block. Portugal now joins a growing list of countries, including France and Ukraine, that have restricted the $8 billion prediction market.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Lobbies Global Bank Leaders

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos this Tuesday to revive the stalled crypto bill. He plans to meet with several bank CEOs to negotiate a win-win deal on stablecoin yield and market structure rules. This outreach follows Coinbase’s decision to pull support for the CLARITY Act after fresh disputes over bank-favoring regulations.

Armstrong argued that stablecoins represent a major opportunity for both traditional banks and digital asset firms if rules remain fair. He is also promoting tokenization as a way to democratize global access to capital markets for billions of adults. The Senate Banking Committee recently postponed its markup hearing while the industry works to resolve these critical legislative gaps.

MegaETH To Open Mainnet For Global Stress Test

MegaETH is set to launch its high-performance mainnet for a seven-day global stress test this coming Thursday. The team intends to process 11 billion transactions while maintaining a throughput of 15,000 to 35,000 transactions per second. Users will interact with latency-sensitive gaming applications like Stomp while the backend executes massive ETH transfers and v3 automated swaps.

This ambitious test aims to observe system stability and fee behavior under sustained, uncomfortable loads before the public rollout. The network utilizes a native stablecoin called USDm to stabilize execution costs and subsidize expensive sequencer fees. MegaETH has already demonstrated peak internal speeds of 47,000 transactions per second during preliminary testing phases earlier this month.

Data of the day

Tokenized gold trading volume surged to $178 billion in 2025, according to a recent market report from CEX.io. This total surpassed the annual volume of almost every traditional gold ETF except for the massive SPDR Gold Shares. The market capitalization for the sector also jumped 177% last year as investors sought defensive assets amid global trade tensions.

Demand for gold-backed cryptocurrencies like Tether Gold and PAXG increased as institutional players shifted their liquidity to more efficient on-chain rails. Retail investors in emerging markets are also driving this trend due to fractional ownership and the absence of minimum investment requirements. Market experts predict that gold could soon target the $5,000 level if current macroeconomic conditions persist.

More breaking news

• Trump Media will issue digital tokens to shareholders on Feb. 2, providing nontransferable rewards through Crypto.com without representing equity or ownership.

• Messari analysts warn that enforcing insider trading bans on decentralized prediction markets is almost impossible without mandatory identity verification for all participants.

• Pump Fun launched a $3 million fund to replace venture capital with a market-driven hackathon where users fund projects via tokens.

• Pendle launched sPENDLE liquid staking to replace long-term lockups, significantly reducing withdrawal times while redirecting protocol revenue toward native token buybacks.

• Solayer unveiled a $35 million fund for its infiniSVM network to back real-time onchain applications that prioritize transaction speed and sustainability.

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirmed the US commitment to a strategic bitcoin reserve, focusing on retaining forfeited assets rather than selling.

• BitMine expanded its Ethereum treasury to 4.2 million ETH, though shares plunged as markets reacted to new tariff threats from President Trump.

• Strategy purchased 22,305 Bitcoin for $2.1 billion, increasing total holdings to over 700,000 BTC and securing more than 3% of supply.

For the latest updates on digital asset markets, follow us on X @Datawalletcom.

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