NATO defense officials have confirmed that European allies, led by the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries, currently carry the primary responsibility for Arctic military operations, as the United States lacks sufficient forces and experience for sustained activity in the High North, according to The Times. The assessment follows recent allied exercises and internal NATO evaluations […]Markets showed signs of life after a sudden political retreat in Davos. Prices that had tumbled earlier this week found buyers again, though the mood stayed cautious and quick to keep an eye on the next headline.
According to Reuters, US President Donald Trump announced he would not go ahead with planned tariffs tied to Greenland after talks with NATO officials, calling the outcome an outline for future cooperation.
Reports say the initial shock knocked big chunks off crypto positions. More than $600 million in leveraged bets were wiped out within a day as Bitcoin and major altcoins slid during the selloff.
Market sentinels counted over $620 million in liquidations, while other market trackers put the toll as high as about $870 million as traders rushed to close risky positions.
After the tariff threat was pulled, stock indexes rallied. The pan-European STOXX 600 gained back ground, rising about 1.2% as traders stepped back into risk assets and some panic cooled. London shares also moved up in a broad rally that reflected relief across sectors.
Short, sharp moves hit markets. One minute confidence; the next minute forced selling. That pattern left bitcoin and ether lower from recent highs, and it reminded many investors that headlines still drive big swings.
Some long holders were squeezed out. Some traders were burned by over-extended bets. Reports note rare split liquidations where both long and short positions were affected.
Recovery Was Cautious Not Complete
According to market stories, crypto prices rebounded after the immediate scare, but volume stayed thin and sentiment stayed tilted toward fear.
Traders who saw the drop as a buying chance kept their distance, while short-term players moved back in to chase quick gains. The bounce was real, but fragile.
This episode shows that geopolitical noise can still push crypto the same way it pushes stocks. Even when the issue is not directly about digital assets, risk appetite matters.
When big, headline-driven moves happen, leveraged markets get whipsawed and people who bet too much either lose a lot or get forced out of their positions.
According to reports, the tariff retreat eased immediate worry and allowed markets to recover some lost ground, but the relief felt measured and watchful.
News can move markets fast. The mental framing of the selloff will probably keep traders cautious for a while, and any new twist in policy or diplomacy could bring fresh volatility.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
The Shiba Inu price crashed to as low as $0.000007683 yesterday, sparking bearish sentiment towards the meme coin. This crash came on the back of a transfer of billions of SHIB tokens, which raised concerns of a potential sell-off by the whale in question.
The Shiba Inu price crashed amid significant selling pressure, with a SHIB whale sending billions of tokens to Robinhood, likely to offload these tokens. Arkham data shows that the whale (0x2d0…9f7bB) first sent 210.365 billion SHIB tokens, worth $1.63 million, to the crypto exchange. These tokens represented about 97% of the whale’s SHIB holdings.
Further data from Arkham shows that the SHIB whale sent an additional 1.52 billion tokens to Robinhood and 7 billion tokens to liquidity provider B2C2 Group, which could be an OTC sale. The Shiba Inu price has notably crashed by over 7% in the last week, and it suffered its worst drop during this period yesterday amid the whale’s transfers. The whale now holds only 5.86 billion SHIB, worth $46,790.
The Shiba Inu price also crashed due to the sell-off in the broader crypto market, led by Bitcoin. BC dropped to as low as $87,000 yesterday amid concerns over trade tensions between the U.S. and Europe stemming from the Greenland-linked Trump tariffs. However, the market recovered towards the end of the day as Trump announced that he had canceled the proposed tariffs, having reached a Greenland deal with NATO.
Despite the recent Shiba Inu price crash, the meme coin is still up over 15% year-to-date (YTD) and ranks among the best-performing crypto assets this year. However, SHIb is still far off from its current all-time high (ATH) of $0.00008845.
SHIB’s exchange netflows have remained mixed, indicating there is no clear accumulation pattern for the meme coin at the moment. CryptoQuant data shows that today’s net flows are negative, totaling just over 7 billion Shiba Inu tokens, suggesting that more coins are flowing into exchanges than out.
However, the total exchanges’ netflows yesterday were positive, at 1.6 billion tokens, indicating more tokens leaving exchanges, which is bullish for the Shiba Inu price as it hints at accumulation from whales. On January 16, SHIB’s netflows were also positive, totaling around 115 billion tokens. However, the positive netflows on that day were overshadowed by the negative flows of 214 billion SHIB recorded on January 20.
Related Reading: Here’s Why The Shiba Inu Price Jumped Over 13%
Crypto traders still remain bullish on the Shiba Inu price as CoinGlass data shows the long/short ratio is currently above 1. Derivatives trading volume has also jumped by over 20% while the open interest is up almost 3%.
At the time of writing, the Shiba Inu price is trading at around $0.000007978, up in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command confirmed on January 19 that multiple aircraft are en route to Pituffik Space Base in Greenland to support planned operational activities, an announcement made as political tensions rise over the Arctic island’s status. In a statement, NORAD said the deployment “will support various long-planned NORAD activities” and emphasized several […]According to market reports, US President Donald Trump announced a punitive tariff plan aimed at several European allies. The move sent a clear warning to traders and policy makers alike.
Stocks and crypto fell as investors shifted to assets they see as safer. Gold climbed, and some currencies strengthened as a reaction to the risk.
Trading floors showed quick reactions. Bitcoin slipped by about 3% and traded in the low-$90,000 range for a time, while equity futures weakened. Safe havens were bought up. Precious metals recorded gains.
Based on reports from market outlets, liquidations hit crypto platforms hard, with roughly $750 million to $875 million of leveraged long positions closed out in the first wave of selling. That added extra downward pressure on prices and raised volatility for hours after the announcement.
Trump said an extra 10% tariff would start on February 1st, 2026 for goods from eight countries that opposed his Greenland stance, with the level set to rise to 25% by June if talks do not move forward.
The affected nations include Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK.
Governments in Europe reacted with firm language and warned of counters. Officials in Brussels hinted at possible measures that could hurt US exporters if tensions deepen. Trade policy is now back in the spotlight and crossing multiple political lines.
How This Played Out In CryptoWe don’t always agree with the US government and in this case we certainly don’t. These tariffs will hurt us.
If Greenland is vulnerable to malign influences, then have another look at Diego Garcia. https://t.co/z0r0IUlD6I
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) January 17, 2026
Crypto traders saw the headlines and reacted quickly. Positions that had been built with margin were trimmed or forced closed. Some funds favored reducing exposure to volatile tokens, while others bought the dip on the theory that shocks like this are temporary.
Over short stretches, Bitcoin behaved more like a risk asset, moving with stocks rather than acting as an independent store of value.
Over longer stretches, some analysts argue that policy shocks which raise inflationary expectations could boost demand for scarce assets, though that view depends on many economic moves that may follow.
What Traders Are DoingReports say market makers tightened spreads and liquidity pools thinned during the worst of the volatility. Large orders were matched more slowly and price swings widened.
Some institutional desks paused trading for a few moments to reassess risk models, while retail traders watched charts and reacted to alerts.
A few hedge desks took the chance to rebalance toward commodity exposure. Others focused on scenario planning, mapping out how retaliatory tariffs or sanctions might affect specific sectors.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
OPINION — “After long and difficult negotiations with Senators, Congressmen, Secretaries, and other Political Representatives, I have determined that, for the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars. This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe.”
That was part of a Truth Social message from President Trump posted last Wednesday afternoon and illustrates the emphasis on increasing U.S. military power by him and top administration officials since the successful U.S. January 3, raid in Venezuela that captured its former-President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
As it should, public attention has been focused on Trump’s apparent desire to project force as he publicly savors the plaudits arising from not only the Venezuela operation, but also the June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Most focus this past week has been paid to remarks Trump made to New York Times reporters during their more than two hour interview last Thursday.
At that time, when asked if there are any limits on his global powers, Trump said, "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Trump added, “I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.” Asked about whether his administration needed to abide by international law, Trump said, “I do,” but added, “it depends what your definition of international law is.”
Attention is also correctly being paid to remarks Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller made last Tuesday during an interview with CNN.
“We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else,” Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “But we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”
It is against that Trump open-stress-on-power background that I will discuss below a few other incidents last week that could indicate future events. But first I want to explore Trump’s obsession with taking over Greenland, which was also illustrated during the Times interview.
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In 1945, at the end of World War II fighting in Europe, the United States had 17 bases and military installations in Greenland with thousands of soldiers. Today, there is only one American base – U.S. Pituffik Space Base in northwest Greenland, formerly known as Thule Air Base.
From this base today some 200 U.S. Air Force and Space Force personnel, plus many more contractors, carry out ballistic missile early warnings, missile defense, and space surveillance missions supported by what the Space Force described as an “Upgraded Early Warning Radar weapon system.” That system includes “a phased-array radar that detects and reports attack assessments of sea-launched and intercontinental ballistic missile threats in support of [a worldwide U.S.] strategic missile warning and missile defense [system],” according to a Space Force press release.
The same radar also supports what Space Force said is “Space Domain Awareness by tracking and characterizing objects in orbit around the earth.”
Under the 1951 U.S.-Denmark defense agreement, the U.S., with Denmark’s assent, can create new “defense areas” in Greenland “necessary for the development of the defense of Greenland and the rest of the North Atlantic Treaty area, and which the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark is unable to establish and operate singlehanded.”
The agreement says further: “the Government of the United States of America, without compensation to the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark, shall be entitled within such defense area and the air spaces and waters adjacent thereto to improve and generally to fit the area for military use.”
That apparently is not enough freedom for President Trump, still a real estate man. As he explained last week to the Times reporters, “Ownership is very important, because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
This long-held Trump view that he must have Greenland was explored back in 2021. After his first term as President, Trump was interviewed by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker for the book they were writing, and they asked Trump at that time why he wanted Greenland.
Four years ago, Trump explained, “You take a look at a map. So I’m in real estate. I look at a [street] corner, I say, ‘I gotta get that store for the building that I’m building,’ et cetera. You know, it’s not that different. I love maps. And I always said, ‘Look at the size of this [Greenland], it’s massive, and that should be part of the United States.’ It’s not different from a real-estate deal. It’s just a little bit larger, to put it mildly.”
For all Trump’s repeated threats to seize Greenland militarily, it’s doubtful that will happen. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet with Danish and Greenland counterparts this week, and afterwards the situation should become clearer.
Context is another test for analyzing Trump statements, and that seems to be the case when looking at his call for a $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 defense budget.
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Last Wednesday, hours before Trump made his Truth Social FY 2027 budget statement, the White House released an Executive Order (EO) entitled, Prioritizing The Warfighter In Defense Contracting. The EO called for holding defense contractors accountable and targeted those who engaged in stock buybacks or issued dividends while “underperforming” on government contracts. According to one Washington firm, the Trump EO represented “one of the most aggressive federal interventions into corporate financial decisions in recent memory.”
The EO caused shares of defense stocks to fall. Lockheed Martin fell 4.8%, Northrop Grumman 5.5%, and General Dynamics 3.6% during that afternoon’s stock exchange trading in New York. After the stock market closed, Trump released his Truth Social message calling for the $1.5 trillion FY 2027 defense budget and the next day, January 8, defense stocks experienced a sharp rebound. Lockheed Martin rebounded with gains of around 7%; Northrop Grumman rose over 8%; and General Dynamics gained around 4%.
Trump has not spoken publicly about the $1.5 trillion for FY 2027, but in his first message, he said the added funds would come from tariffs. He wrote, “Because of tariffs and the tremendous income that they bring, amounts being generated, that would have been unthinkable in the past, we are able to easily hit the $1.5 trillion dollar number.”
If that were not enough, Trump added that the new funding would produce “an unparalleled military force, and having the ability to, at the same time, pay down debt, and likewise, pay a substantial dividend to moderate income patriots within our country!”
What can be believed?
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) said the $500 billion annual increase in defense spending would be nearly twice as much as the expected yearly tariff revenue, and the spending increase would push the national debt $5.8 trillion higher over the next decade. CRFB added, “Given the $175 billion appropriated to the defense budget under the [2025] One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), there is little case for a near-term increase in military spending.”
I should point out that the FY 2026 $901 billion defense appropriations bill has yet to pass the Congress.
One more event from last week needing attention involves Venezuela.
Last Tuesday January 6, 2026, as Delcy Rodriguez, former Vice President, was sworn in as Venezuela's interim president, General Javier Marcano Tabata. the military officer closest to Maduro as his head of the presidential honor guard and director of the DGCIM, the Venezuelan military counterintelligence agency, was arrested and jailed, according to El Pais Caracas.
Marcano Tabata was labeled a traitor and accused of facilitating the kidnapping of Maduro by providing the U.S. with exactly where Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were sleeping, and identifying blind spots in the Cuban-Venezuelan security ring protecting them, according to El Pais Caracas.
What’s the U.S. responsibility toward Marcano Tabata if the El Pais Caracas facts are correct ?
I want to end this column with another Trump statement last week that stuck in my mind because of its implications.
It came up last Friday after Trump, in the White House East Room, started welcoming more than 20 oil and gas executives invited to discuss the situation in Venezuela.
“We have many others that were not able to get in…If we had a ballroom, we'd have over a thousand people. Everybody wanted. I never knew your industry was that big. I never knew you had that many people in your industry. But, here we are.”
Trump then paused, got up and turned to look through the glass door behind him that showed the excavation for the new ballroom saying, “I got to look at this myself. Wow. What a view…Take a look, you can see a very big foundation that's moving. We're ahead of schedule in the ballroom and under budget. It's going to be I don't think there'll be anything like it in the world, actually. I think it will be the best.”
He then said the remark I want to highlight, “The ballroom will seat many and it'll also take care of the inauguration with bulletproof glass-drone proof ceilings and everything else unfortunately that today you need.”
Who, other than Trump, would think that the next President of the United States would need to hold his inauguration indoors, inside the White House ballroom, with bullet-proof windows and a roof that protects from a drone attack?
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