This Week in Bitcoin: Trump Tariffs Rock Markets as MicroStrategy Rebrands—And Stops BTC Buys

Some thought the bull market surge for Bitcoin was over after the price of the biggest digital asset dipped below $93,000 on Monday. The reason? President Trump's trade tariffs spooking markets—again.

But the increasingly commander in chief's change of heart to pause tariffs against Mexico and soon after Canada led to a rebound in the orange coin's price—and other digital tokens.

The asset then jumped over the magical $100,000 mark before spending most of the week hovering between $96,000 to $98,000. Bitcoin's price now stands at $96,050, CoinGecko shows. That's a dip of nearly 6% over the past seven days.

ETF movements

Since the start of the week, investor enthusiasm for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds has been underwhelming. On Monday, speculators pulled $234 million out of the funds; since then, it's been up an down, but data from Farside Investors shows about $200 million in total inflows across the whole week.

In other news, there might be a new contender in the already crowded race: President Donald Trump's new fintech venture, Truth.fi, announced that it had applied to register trademarks two Bitcoin vehicles: the Truth.Fi Bitcoin Plus ETF and the Truth.Fi Bitcoin Plus SMA.

Trump Media and Technology Group did not respond to Decrypt's questions about the future products—including what the "Plus" in the name might entail.

MicroStrategy stops buying—and changes its name

Bitcoin treasury company MicroStrategy rebranded to just Strategy, and the internet had a field day, posting and reposting the same meme about the marketing move.

The company, which is the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin with a stash valued at over $45 billion as of this writing, said the rebrand was "a natural evolution" as it becomes more BTC-focused.

Its makeover came as the Nasdaq-listed firm released its Q4 2024 earnings, posting a net loss of $670.8 million. Strategy also didn't buy any more Bitcoin this week after 12 consecutive weeks of purchases.

Maybe a $20 billion three-month BTC shopping spree was enough? We'll find out next week...

Sovereign wealth fund

A potential strategic Bitcoin reserve was back in the limelight again after President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the creation of an American sovereign wealth fund—a first for the U.S. as a nation.

Such a fund would see the government take government revenues and reinvest them in assets like stocks, bonds, and real estate.

But despite high-profile Bitcoiners—including Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)—being quick to share hopium that this could mean a stockpile of orange coins is coming, there was no mention of the asset and the idea is still vague.

Does Kraken know who Satoshi is?

More speculation on the identity of Bitcoin's creator—or creators—entered the cryptosphere this week after Coinbase's head of product, Conor Grogan, posted on X that he had made a discovery: A number of on-chain transactions linked to a Satoshi wallet and Cavirtex, a defunct Canadian Bitcoin exchange.

The short of it is this: Satoshi Nakamoto received Bitcoin from Cavirtex back in 2014, and potentially had to hand over his personal details to do so. The exchange was enforcing know-your-customer protocol back then, after all.

Cavirtex closed and top American crypto exchange Kraken bought Cavirtex back in 2016—so it's likely it would have received any revealing details.

Still, the exchange didn't seem keen on entertaining the rumors, and wouldn't respond to Decrypt or Grogan—simply tweeting a cheeky, "We are all Satoshi."

Nobel laureate doesn't like Bitcoin

Finally, haters gonna hate: Nobel-winning economist Eugene F. Fama said in an interview with the "Capitalisn't" podcast that Bitcoin is going to zero.

Pointless FUD, or does he have a point? Fama argued that Bitcoin would ultimately be "unsustainable" because it requires too much computing power and "doesn't have a use."

Edited by Andrew Hayward