Trakx Weekly Update: Courts, Tariffs, and a Market That Won’t Break

Key Crypto Market Figures

CTIs Weekly Performance

This week’s macro turbulence — a Supreme Court tariff ruling, a fresh Trump tariff order, and hawkish Fed minutes — left most digital asset indices in the red, but revealed a sharp bifurcation between risk-off winners and speculative losers. The flagship Top 10 Crypto CTI fell -3.9%, slightly underperforming Bitcoin’s own -1.65% decline, while Gold-backed and AI-driven strategies were the week’s standout survivors.

Best & Worst CTIs of the Week

The week’s biggest winners and losers tell the story of a market fleeing speculative risk and buying real assets:

???? Best performer — Trakx CTI AI Agents: +1.5% The AI Agents index bucked the broader sell-off, benefiting from resilient fundamentals in autonomous on-chain agent infrastructure even as macro conditions deteriorated.

???? Runner-up — Trakx Inflation Hedge CTI: +1.2% Gold’s surge to over $5,080 (+5% on the week) was the single biggest macro story for crypto investors sitting outside BTC. The Inflation Hedge CTI’s gold allocation provided a rare positive return and the best risk-adjusted profile across all Trakx products this week, with a Sharpe ratio of 1.3 since inception.

???? Worst performers:

• Trakx Meme CTI: -9.6% — The continued collapse of politically-linked meme tokens drove this to the week’s worst result. The TRUMP and MELANIA tokens have shed the vast majority of their value since launch.
• Trakx Gaming CTI: -8.9% — Gaming tokens remain among the highest-beta assets in the portfolio, with no near-term catalysts to offset broad risk aversion.
• Trakx NFT Metaverse CTI: -7.9% — NFT market activity remains subdued, and the sector’s -49% annualised return since inception reflects its structural headwinds.

Macro Snapshot: The Week Tariff Law Went to Court

The week’s defining moment arrived Friday February 20, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff regime in a 6-3 ruling, with Chief Justice Roberts writing that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorise broad peacetime trade tariffs. Bitcoin briefly spiked approximately 2% on the headline and U.S. equities jumped. Relief was short-lived. Within hours, Trump signed a new executive order imposing a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. By Saturday he raised that to the statutory maximum of 15%, effective February 24. Crypto shrugged — BTC settled back near its pre-ruling level around $67,000–68,000.

Adding to the macro pressure, the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting minutes reiterated a hawkish posture. Several officials explicitly flagged openness to raising rates if inflation stalls, and probability of a March cut has now fallen to its lowest level in over a month. U.S. Q4 GDP disappointed expectations, while the PCE deflator printed above consensus — a stagflationary combination that reinforces the Fed’s reluctance to ease.

Sentiment: Extreme Fear, But Stabilising

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index sits at 8 (Feb 22–23), unchanged from last week’s reading of 8 and up from the monthly low of 5 set on approximately February 6 during the sharpest leg of the sell-off. By comparison, the index stood at 24 one month ago — meaning sentiment has deteriorated sharply over the past four weeks. Bitcoin’s short-term Sharpe ratio hit a historic low of -38.38 this week, a metric that has historically appeared near major cycle lows in 2015, 2019, and 2022.

ETF Flows: Deceleration Signals Possible Inflection

The most recent available CoinShares fund flows report (Vol. 272, published February 17, covering the week ending ~February 14) showed a sharp deceleration in outflows to $187 million — a significant improvement from the $1.7bn recorded in the week ending February 2 and $173M the following week. Bitcoin saw outflows of $264M, while XRP ($63M), Solana ($8M), and Ethereum ($5M) all attracted modest inflows. Digital asset ETP assets under management fell to $129.8 billion, the lowest since March 2025, while ETP trading volumes reached a record $63.1 billion for the week. CoinShares noted the deceleration in outflows “has historically signalled potential inflection points in investor sentiment.”

Sources: Trakx, Coingecko, Alphavantage

Market Trends

• XRP Ledger launches permissioned DEX as Standard Chartered slashes year-end price target 65% to $2.80 — CryptoSlate
• Strategy reports fourth-largest Bitcoin purchase of the year, adding 2,486 BTC for $168M — Decrypt
• Bitcoin’s short-term Sharpe ratio hits historic low of -38.38 — analysts see parallels to 2015, 2019 and 2022 cycle lows — NewsBTC
• France approves MARA Holdings’ $168M acquisition of EDF subsidiary Exaion, expanding Bitcoin mining into European HPC infrastructure — CoinDesk
• ETH Denver 2026 opens with builder energy despite crypto slump — “less noise, higher signal” — Decrypt
• Bitcoin whales added 236,000 BTC since December 2025 in V-shaped accumulation despite multi-month downtrend — Cointelegraph
• BNP Paribas issues tokenized money market fund shares on public Ethereum via AssetFoundry platform — The Block
• Blue Owl Capital forced to sell $1.4B in assets and halt redemptions — Mohamed El-Erian calls it a “canary in the coal mine” — CoinDesk
• ProShares GENIUS Money Market ETF (IQMM) launches to hold GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin reserves — The Block
• ProShares stablecoin-ready ETF IQMM posts record $17B day-one trading volume, sparking speculation about Circle reserve migration — CoinDesk

Trakx CTIs Performance

Sources: Coingecko and AlphaVantage

*Return of bitcoin is calculated since 01/05/2020, while CTIs performances were calculated since their respective launch date.
**Includes simulated performance.
***The risk signal is determined according to the historical volatility level, the higher the riskier.

Trakx is a global fintech company creating new standards for digital asset investments. Through our trading platform, we offer thematic Crypto Tradable Indices (CTIs) and customised solutions, providing sophisticated investors with a high degree of compliance, custody and liquidity.

TRAKX SAS,  10 rue de Penthièvre, Paris, 75008, FRANCE – French société par actions simplifiée Paris Trade and Companies Register number 850 626 078

Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) Registered with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) under number E2021-020

Disclaimers: No Investment Advice. Index returns and statistics are for illustration only. Index returns do not reflect any transaction costs or expenses. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The information provided in this newsletter does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice and you should not treat any of the newsletter content as such. Trakx.io does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Readers shall conduct their own due diligence and consult their financial advisors before making any investment decisions.