In brief
- Bitcoin fell nearly 3% after a U.S. appeals court temporarily reinstated Trump’s tariffs, reversing a trade court decision that declared them unconstitutional.
- U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs snapped a 10-day streak of inflows, with $347 million in net outflows Thursday, the worst since March 11.
- Analysts say the sell-off reflects institutional repricing, not panic, as investors adjust to policy risk and broader macroeconomic uncertainty.
Bitcoin slipped almost 3% Thursday as the U.S. appeals court temporarily revived President Donald Trump’s controversial tariffs on Thursday, just hours after a trade court struck them down as unconstitutional.
“The judgments and the permanent injunctions entered by the Court of International Trade in these cases are temporarily stayed until further notice while this court considers the motions papers,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit wrote in its May 29 ruling.
The stay, which consolidated two ongoing appeals, gives the government room to fight the U.S. Court of International Trade’s earlier decision that struck down tariffs enacted under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
“If allowed to stand, this would completely destroy Presidential Power — The Presidency would never be the same,” Trump posted on Truth Social following the trade court’s decision.
The legal back-and-forth over Trump’s tariff imposition is injecting uncertainty into markets already grappling with inflation, interest rate swings, and geopolitical instability.
Bitcoin sank 2.7% to a daily low under $106,000, though remains up 11.5% over the past month, per CoinGecko. On Myriad, the decentralized prediction market platform launched by Decrypt‘s parent company DASTAN, sentiment was broadly neutral, with 51% predicting Bitcoin would remain over $106,000 by June 1.
Ethereum (ETH) slid 3.8% to $2,621, while Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), and Binance Coin (BNB) all posted similar declines in the last 24 hours.
“This recent court ruling is just another brick in the wall of economic uncertainty,” Tracy Jin, COO of crypto exchange MEXC, told Decrypt.
“Crypto’s softness right now is less about a drop in demand and more about it all just being uncertainty-adjusted—policy risk, geopolitical tension, and over-the-top positioning,” she noted, pointing to the downturn across Bitcoin and major altcoins.
Bitcoin ETF flows turn negative
Alongside the appeals court intervention, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs ended a 10-day streak of net inflows that had brought in $4.26 billion.
On Thursday, the 11 funds saw almost $347 million in net outflows, the worst single-day exit since March 11, per Coinglass data.
Fidelity’s FBTC recorded the largest net outflow at $166.3 million, followed by GBTC (with $107.5 million outflows) and ARKB ($89.2 million).
Jin argued that the major spot Bitcoin ETF outflows “should not be perceived as a panic event, but rather an institutional repricing happening in the real-time.”
Only BlackRock’s IBIT posted an inflow on Thursday, adding $125 million to extend its streak to 34 consecutive trading days. IBIT has now pulled in nearly $4 billion over the past two weeks, per data from Farside Investors.
“The important thing to see this dip is in the context of the broader economy,” Ganesh Mahidhar, investment professional at Further Ventures, told Decrypt, adding that, “ETF flows are primarily funded by retail, and this is a reflection of the retail sentiment.”
Mahidhar said policy uncertainty was dampening capital flows into risk assets but added that the outlook could shift quickly if clarity returns.
The analyst expects the sentiment to recover once trade tensions stabilize, noting that, “there is expectation among firms for this debate to settle soon around an equilibrium of either low tariffs or no tariffs, looking at a reasonable uptick in asset prices in the medium term.”
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