Bitcoin trades sideways as Trump cites Trade Act for 15% tariffs after Supreme Court limits IEEPA authority, and the market starts watching the 150-day clock
It is one of those rare weekend sessions where the chart barely moves… yet it still feels like something is about to snap.
Bitcoin is hovering around $68,000, chopping inside a tight band, while Washington hands markets a story that is both legal and macro at once.
The U.S. Supreme Court just narrowed the emergency-powers tariff pathway Trump relied on, and the White House is now pointing to a different statute to keep a 15% duty alive, at least for a limited window.
Sideways trading can be a form of suspense. The headline sets the stage, and the second-order effects keep arguing with each other.
| Asset | Last | Change vs. prior close | Intraday high | Intraday low |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $68,009 | -$198 | $68,637 | $67,821 |
Traders trade what the ruling does to growth, inflation, interest rates, and liquidity, the variables that have repeatedly mattered most for crypto pricing in the post-2020 cycle.
The legal fight matters because it shapes how durable the policy shock looks, and durability forces businesses and investors to reprice the future.
On Feb. 20, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 does not authorize the president to impose broad tariffs. In plain terms, the Court tightened the lane, and tariffs of this scale now point back toward clearer permission from Congress.
Then came the pivot. Within a day, Trump cited Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a narrower authority that can allow a tariff of up to 15% for up to 150 days under certain balance-of-payments conditions.
The tariff tax impact on Bitcoin
The dispute sits inside statutes and process, and it opens a fresh round of questions about whether Section 122’s conditions are met and how far the authority can be stretched beyond its historical use.
Tariffs are a tax at the border. They can lift import prices quickly, pressure margins, and rearrange supply chains.
Those forces can push inflation in one direction and growth in another, and when those signals conflict, markets often hesitate before they commit.
That hesitation is visible in Bitcoin right now. If tariffs add inflation pressure and keep real yields elevated, financial conditions tighten and high-volatility assets can trade heavy.
If tariffs translate into a growth scare and the market starts pricing easier policy later, liquidity expectations can turn supportive and Bitcoin can find oxygen. With both paths plausible at the same time, the tape often turns into chop, a market arguing with itself in real time.
There is also a confidence layer. Policy that looks reversible can trade like noise, and policy that looks durable can force a full re-forecast.
This episode carries both features at once, tariffs that exist today, and a legal structure that keeps the next step in question.
From courtroom ruling to balance-sheet reality
The Supreme Court decision also leaves a practical question sitting on the table, what happens to tariff funds already collected under the now-limited framework?
The ruling did not address what will happen to the more than $133 billion already collected, funds that importers are seeking to recover and businesses are demanding clarity on.
This is where policy becomes operational. Someone imported inventory, paid the tariff, set prices, and built a plan around that cost.
Refunds that arrive late, arrive in pieces, or arrive through litigation keep uncertainty alive outside the courtroom, and that uncertainty can show up in payrolls, purchasing decisions, and capital spending.
Capital spending is one of the transmission channels markets care about when they are trying to predict what the Fed does next.
The macro path runs through the usual wiring, inflation and growth feed into Fed expectations, Fed expectations feed into yields and the dollar, and yields and the dollar feed into global liquidity conditions.
Why Bitcoin looks calm, and why that calm feels tense
Bitcoin’s range-bound action fits a market trying to map which macro path dominates.
A 15% levy can hit price levels quickly. Any slowdown in demand can take longer to show up in hard data, and that lag can keep rate expectations stuck between stories. Rate expectations have been one of the most reliable short-term drivers of crypto sentiment when macro uncertainty rises.
The sequence also matters.
- First comes the price shock and the headlines.
- Then come inflation prints, surveys, and corporate guidance.
- Then comes the market’s updated view of the Fed reaction function.
- Then comes positioning, often abruptly, once the argument resolves.
Until the argument resolves, Bitcoin can trade like a standoff between narratives, inflation risk versus growth risk, tighter liquidity versus eventual easing, risk-off correlations now versus liquidity-led rallies later.
Section 122 matters for its built-in timer, up to 150 days. A timer changes behavior.
Permanent policy encourages broad repricing, and temporary policy encourages positioning.
A 150-day window can invite pull-forward effects, rush imports before rules change, lobbying surges, and a steady drumbeat of implementation and litigation headlines.
It compresses uncertainty into months rather than years, and compressed uncertainty is often where markets react most violently.
This is also where the trade-policy toolbox matters. If the administration leans on longer-lived authorities beyond Section 122, including other trade statutes that extend uncertainty further into the year, the market’s “temporary shock” framing can give way to a different kind of positioning.
What crypto traders will watch next
The watch list stays simple, because Bitcoin’s macro wiring has stayed consistent in episodes like this:
- U.S. Treasury yields, especially the 10-year and real yields
- The dollar, trade-weighted measures, and DXY-style strength
- Equities and credit spreads, risk appetit,e and stress gauges
Yields rising alongside a stronger dollar often tightens financial conditions, and Bitcoin often struggles in that setup.
Yields falling on recession fear can shift the market toward easier money expectations, and Bitcoin often finds air. Equities and credit can set the first-wave tone, and crypto can drop with everything else during stress before any divergence shows up later.
International reactions add another layer. The Guardian reported blowback and warnings from European leaders about economic harm and instability. The FT described strain for partners like the UK as expectations shifted around tariff levels.
Those reactions feed into global growth expectations, and global growth expectations feed into every risk chart on the screen.
Bitcoin is trading as if the legal story matters, and the macro fallout remains the decision point.
The Supreme Court’s IEEPA ruling and the Section 122 pivot have set a countdown for the next round of tariff policy. The chart will move when the macro variables stop arguing with each other.
Until then, sideways trading is the market’s way of saying it is listening.
The post Bitcoin enters a 150-day danger zone as Trump pivots to a 1974 trade law the Supreme Court hasn’t touched yet appeared first on CryptoSlate.
