TariffGate: The Weekend That Shook Markets
If you were hoping for a quiet weekend, the macro world had other plans. The week kicked off with a jolt that had been building since Friday night, when President Trump announced a new 15% global tariff, this time issued under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a different legal vehicle than the tariffs the Supreme Court ruled partially illegal last week. That legal distinction matters a lot: by switching the legal basis, the administration is essentially trying to sidestep the court’s ruling and keep the tariff policy alive. The 15% figure is also notable because it is the ceiling, the maximum allowed under Section 122. So Trump went straight to the top of what the law permits.
This is becoming a pattern. The court says no, and within days, a new tariff comes through a different door. Millionero is officially coining the term TariffGate for this whole saga, not to imply a scandal in the Watergate sense, but because the word fits. The controversy, the legal battles, the economic ripple effects, it’s a gate-level situation. We said it first.
And like so many of Trump’s market-moving decisions, this one dropped on a weekend, when stock markets are closed and crypto, the market that never sleeps, absorbs the full brunt of the shock alone. By early Monday morning, Bitcoin had fallen below $65,000, shedding $2,500 in just 60 minutes and liquidating $240 million worth of leveraged long positions in the process. Nasdaq 100 futures extended losses to nearly -1%. US stock market futures opened lower across the board. The crypto market, which has already been under pressure from weeks of uncertainty and deleveraging, once again found itself as the first casualty of a macro event it had no say in.
The Legal War Brewing Around Tariffs
While the new tariffs dominated headlines, something else significant is happening in the background: thousands of companies, including giants like Costco, have filed lawsuits demanding over $150 billion in refunds for tariffs already paid under Trump’s previous trade policies. This wave of litigation was likely made more viable by the Supreme Court’s ruling last week, which essentially opened a door by signaling that at least some of these tariffs overstepped legal boundaries. Once a court creates that opening, private companies will walk right through it.
The implications here are genuinely large. These lawsuits could:
- Force a reexamination of past trade policies and, if successful, create serious pressure on the federal budget
- Disrupt supply chains that had already adapted to the tariff environment
- Add another layer of tension to global trade relationships
It’s a slow-moving story, but one worth watching closely, because the legal outcomes could reshape how aggressively any administration, this one or future ones, uses tariffs as a policy tool.
Iran, Military Pressure, and the Other Geopolitical Wildcard
Separate from the tariff noise, Iran tensions are adding their own layer of uncertainty to markets. The next round of US-Iran nuclear talks is scheduled for Thursday, February 26, in Geneva, mediated by Oman. Iran is signaling it may be willing to make nuclear concessions, including sending some of its highly enriched uranium abroad, diluting the rest, and accepting expanded IAEA monitoring, in exchange for sanctions relief and recognition of its right to enrich. The US is continuing to engage diplomatically, but is simultaneously maintaining significant military pressure, and the core sticking point remains enrichment limits, since Iran is refusing any “zero enrichment” outcome.
On the military side, the USS Gerald R. Ford has moved into the Mediterranean after passing Gibraltar, and the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is operating in or around the Arabian Sea under US Central Command. Some observers are pointing out that the United States hasn’t moved this level of firepower, carriers, fighter jets, tankers, ships, into the region since the war on Iraq. Polymarket currently puts the odds of Israel striking Iran before February 28 at around 14%, which is not high, but not negligible either. This is a situation where a sudden escalation could move markets very fast, and it’s running in the background of an already tense macro week.
Vitalik Is Selling ETH Again
On the crypto-specific front, Vitalik Buterin has been selling ETH again, and the market is paying attention. Over the past two days, he sold 1,869 ETH worth approximately $3.67 million. During that same window, ETH fell from $1,988 to $1,875, a drop of about 5.7%. For context, the last time he sold, 6,958 ETH worth around $14.78 million, ETH dropped from $2,360 all the way to $1,825, a 22.7% decline.
Now, correlation is not causation, and a market under macro pressure will fall regardless. But Vitalik’s wallet movements are closely tracked by the community, and the timing tends to add to the negative sentiment in an already fragile environment. It’s one more headwind for ETH at a moment when it doesn’t need more.
What’s Coming This Week, and Why It Matters
This is genuinely one of the most packed macro weeks in recent memory, and each day has something that could move markets in a meaningful way.
Monday starts with markets fully digesting Trump’s new 15% global tariff, alongside a speech from Fed member Christopher Waller. Tuesday brings Trump’s State of the Union address alongside the Consumer Confidence reading. Wednesday is the big one: Nvidia ($NVDA) earnings, which have become a proxy for the entire AI trade, alongside Salesforce ($CRM) results. Thursday brings Initial Jobless Claims. Friday closes with the PPI inflation report. And running through the entire week, there are 11 Fed speakers scheduled.
The Fed piece is particularly important to understand in context. Right now, the Federal Reserve is stuck in a difficult position: inflation hasn’t fully come down to their 2% target, so they can’t cut rates freely, but economic uncertainty from tariffs and geopolitical tension is creating pressure on growth. Every Fed speaker this week will be read closely for signals about whether rate cuts are coming sooner or later. Consumer Confidence and PPI both feed directly into that calculation, weak confidence and cooling producer prices would increase the case for cuts, while sticky inflation keeps the Fed on hold longer. Think of it this way: the more these numbers disappoint, the more pressure builds on the Fed to act, and that shift in expectation is often what moves crypto and risk assets the most, sometimes even more than the rate decision itself.
The Nvidia earnings aren’t a Fed story, but they matter for risk appetite broadly. A strong result from Nvidia signals that AI spending is alive and well, which tends to lift the entire risk spectrum, crypto included. A miss, on the other hand, could accelerate the selling pressure already in play.
Token Unlocks: February 23 – March 1, 2026
Token unlocks are one of the more mechanical sources of sell pressure in crypto. When locked tokens become available to sell, early investors or team members who received them at lower prices often do exactly that. Here is everything unlocking this week.
Jupiter (JUP)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 38.12M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 7.62%
Number of Tokens: 253.47M JUP
Kamino (KMNO)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 6.13M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 3.49%
Number of Tokens: 229.17M KMNO
Slash Vision Labs (SVL)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 5.71M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 4.09%
Number of Tokens: 337.47M SVL
Rain (RAIN)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 90.58M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 1.98%
Number of Tokens: 9.46B RAIN
Canton (CC)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 30.82M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 0.51%
Number of Tokens: 191.71M CC
Trump (TRUMP)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 21.45M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 2.72%
Number of Tokens: 6.33M TRUMP
Worldcoin (WLD)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 14.32M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 1.30%
Number of Tokens: 37.23M WLD
River (RIVER)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 9.98M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 6.38%
Number of Tokens: 1.25M RIVER
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 9.24M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 0.06%
Number of Tokens: 96.63M DOGE
Aster (ASTER)
Date: Feb 23–Mar 2, 2026
Unlock Value: 7.15M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 0.42%
Number of Tokens: 10.28M ASTER
SoSoValue (SOSO)
Date: February 24, 2026
Unlock Value: 5.66M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 1.53%
Number of Tokens: 15.34M SOSO
Humanity Protocol (H)
Date: February 25, 2026
Unlock Value: 21.8M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 1.34%
Number of Tokens: 133.5M H
Plasma (XPL)
Date: February 25, 2026
Unlock Value: 8.14M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 0.89%
Number of Tokens: 88.88M XPL
Grass (GRASS)
Date: February 28, 2026
Unlock Value: 16.3M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 9%
Number of Tokens: 90.1M GRASS
Undeads Games (UDS)
Date: February 28, 2026
Unlock Value: 5.13M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 1.27%
Number of Tokens: 3.18M UDS
Optimism (OP)
Date: February 28, 2026
Unlock Value: 3.93M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 0.75%
Number of Tokens: 32.2M OP
Zora (ZORA)
Date: February 28, 2026
Unlock Value: 3.36M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 1.67%
Number of Tokens: 166.6M ZORA
GUNZ (GUN)
Date: February 28, 2026
Unlock Value: 2.31M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 0.81%
Number of Tokens: 89.5M GUN
Sui (SUI)
Date: March 1, 2026
Unlock Value: 49.9M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 0.54%
Number of Tokens: 53.82M SUI
EigenCloud (EIGEN)
Date: March 1, 2026
Unlock Value: 6.73M USDT
% of Circulating supply: 2%
Number of Tokens: 36.8M EIGEN
A few names stand out from the unlock list. JUP’s unlock represents 7.62% of circulating supply, that’s significant. GRASS has two separate unlock events this week totaling nearly 23% of supply combined across both dates, which is worth watching closely. EIGEN also has two events. And RAIN’s absolute dollar figure of $90.58M is the largest single unlock this week by a wide margin, even though it’s only 1.98% of supply due to its large total supply. In an already pressured market, this much supply coming online adds to the headwinds.
This article is not financial advice. Please do your own research, you can also DYOR on blog.millionero.com. And when you’re ready, trade spot and perpetuals on Millionero.