Prediction markets are signaling low odds of a decisive U.S. Supreme Court ruling on tariffs, a scenario that has previously caused short-term bitcoin volatility before stabilizing.

Bitcoin traded sideways near $91,000 during Asian hours as investors awaited the Court’s January 10 (U.S. time) decision on President Donald Trump’s tariff authority.

On Polymarket, traders assign just a 24% probability that the Court will explicitly uphold Trump’s use of emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs.

The ruling is significant for crypto because past tariff episodes have behaved differently than typical macro shocks. CoinDesk Indices dubbed the first-quarter 2025 episode a “Tariff Tantrum,” characterized by sharp, temporary drawdowns driven by liquidation cascades, falling leverage demand, and momentum-based selling — rather than large-scale exits from the asset class. CoinDesk research found that trend-following strategies performed best by cutting risk early, while long-term participation remained steady.

If the Court curtails or sidesteps Trump’s tariff authority, fiscal and policy uncertainty could rise. Interactive Brokers economist Jose Torres noted that a narrow ruling would likely prompt the administration to pursue alternative measures.

“If the court blocks the tariffs, the administration is going to look for workarounds,” Torres told CNBC. “President Trump is highly motivated to push this agenda forward, even amid potential controversy.”

Such a scenario could lift long-term U.S. Treasury yields and tighten global liquidity — factors that have historically pressured crypto, which is sensitive to sudden market shifts. The risk lies less in tariffs disappearing entirely than in the likelihood that a limited ruling forces reliance on slower, narrower, and more litigable trade tools, prolonging uncertainty rather than resolving it.

Still, CoinDesk Indices research shows that once markets price ambiguity as the baseline, bitcoin tends to stabilize faster than equities, with correlations weakening as policy uncertainty persists.

For now, Asian crypto traders — a region that could benefit most from a clean rollback of Trump’s tariffs — appear focused on how long uncertainty will linger rather than the immediate outcome of the ruling.

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Market Moves

• BTC: Bitcoin remained near $91,000, edging slightly higher on the hour but modestly lower over the past day.
• ETH: Ether traded around $3,100, down more than 2% over 24 hours despite weekly gains.
• Gold: HSBC said gold could climb to $5,050 per ounce in early 2026 amid geopolitical risk and rising debt, while cautioning about volatility and possible pullbacks if risks ease or the Fed tightens.
• Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.54%, with investors eyeing China’s December inflation data, expected at 0.8% year-on-year.