Author: Deep Tide TechFlow
Returning from the Spring Festival holiday, on the first day back to work, global markets are experiencing a double blow.
The first hammer: Trump's 15% global tariff.
Last Friday (February 21), the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6:3 decision, overturned the Trump administration's previous "reciprocal tariff" policy implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). This was originally a signal of loosening global trade order, but Trump immediately responded on Truth Social over the weekend: since the Supreme Court won't let me implement "reciprocal tariffs," I will use another legal framework. He announced an immediate increase of the previous 10% global tariff to 15%, citing that "these countries have been plundering the United States for decades."
The European Commission responded immediately, demanding that the U.S. "clarify the next steps" and warning that this move could jeopardize the trade agreement and transatlantic investment between the U.S. and Europe. The European Parliament subsequently suspended the approval of the previously reached trade agreement with the United States.
This is a typical case of "policy uncertainty" severely damaging market confidence—sudden, random, and unpredictable in its aftermath.
The second hammer: Anthropic Claude Code, a blow to IBM's heart.
During the Spring Festival (early morning Beijing time, February 23), Anthropic released a new feature update for Claude Code, announcing that its AI can automate the modernization of COBOL code, a programming language born in the 1960s that still runs trillions of lines of code in global financial, aviation, and government systems. Anthropic wrote in its blog: "COBOL modernization once required 'an army of consultants' spending years... Claude Code can now automate these tasks."
The phrase "army of consultants" directly targets IBM. IBM's consulting business has long relied on the maintenance and upgrading of COBOL legacy systems, one of its most profitable businesses. As a result, yesterday (February 23), IBM's stock price plummeted 13.4% in a single day, making it the worst-performing component of the Dow Jones, with a cumulative decline of nearly 22% since the beginning of the year.
The "replacement threat" of AI to traditional industries has once again become a reality, and this time, the victim is the blue giant.
U.S. Stocks: Dow Drops 883 Points, Defensive Sectors Become the Only Safe Haven
Yesterday (February 23, U.S. Eastern Time Monday), the three major U.S. stock indices collectively plummeted:
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 883 points, a decline of 1.78%, closing at 48,742 points
- The S&P 500 fell 0.9%, closing near approximately 6,740 points
- The Nasdaq fell 1.2%, closing near approximately 24,500 points
In addition to IBM's 13.4% single-day plunge, payment and financial services were also affected by AI panic, with American Express falling 7.32% and Salesforce falling 5.11%. Software stocks were once again the hardest hit, continuing the "AI replacement panic" narrative of the past two weeks.
The only sector that bucked the trend was defensive consumer staples: Walmart rose 2.3% in a single day, becoming the preferred choice for capital seeking refuge.
In pre-market trading today (February 24), futures rebounded slightly, with Dow futures up about 48 points (+0.1%), S&P 500 futures up 0.14%, and Nasdaq futures up 0.22%. However, the VIX fear index remains at a high of 21, jumping 10% in a single day, indicating that the market is not truly calm.
It is worth noting that Apple's performance over the past month has begun to stand out. Bloomberg reported today that Apple is accelerating the development of three new wearable devices equipped with AI functions: smart glasses, a pendant device, and a new generation of AirPods, all built around the Siri assistant. Apple's strategy in the "AI arms race" is to avoid excessive capital expenditure and focus on high-margin hardware products—completely opposite to the paths of Microsoft, Google, and Meta. Over the past month, Apple's stock price has outperformed the broader market.
Gold: The King of Safe Havens, Surges to $5,240, a Three-Week High
While the stock market was in turmoil, gold became the biggest winner.
Yesterday, the spot price of gold surged to approximately $5,230 to $5,242 per ounce, hitting a three-week high, with a single-day increase of about 1.7%. It continued to stabilize above $5,240 after opening today.
The logic driving gold's rise is very clear:
- Trump's 15% global tariff has triggered extreme uncertainty in geopolitical and trade policies, driving safe-haven funds into gold;
- After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the "reciprocal tariff," the EU suspended approval of the U.S.-EU trade agreement, pushing transatlantic economic relations into uncharted territory;
- The Middle East situation remains tense, with the scale of U.S. military forces assembled in the Middle East nearing that of the 2003 Iraq War. Iran recently announced the temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz for several hours due to military exercises, reigniting geopolitical risk premiums;
- The expectation of Fed rate cuts has not completely disappeared, and the decline in real interest rates provides long-term support for gold.
Silver performed slightly worse than gold but also fluctuated around approximately $88 per ounce, rebounding from last week's lows.
Goldman Sachs raised its oil price forecast over the weekend, adjusting its Q4 Brent crude target price from a previous lower prediction to $60 per barrel, citing that nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have not yet concluded, Venezuela's oil industry has been taken over by the U.S., and Russian exports are under pressure—the tension in the global crude supply chain exceeds previous expectations. The rise in oil prices also indirectly supports inflation expectations, thereby supporting gold.
Crypto Market: Bitcoin Falls Below $64,000, "Extreme Fear" Persists
Currently, Bitcoin is fluctuating in the range of approximately $64,000 to $65,400, with a 24-hour decline of about 5%. Ethereum is under pressure across the board at around $1,950.
Yesterday, IBM's 13% plunge due to Anthropic directly dragged down the crypto market. Over the past few months, Bitcoin's movement has been highly correlated with that of software stocks.
The deeper issue is market sentiment. The Fear and Greed Index currently stands at 5 (extreme fear zone), and the RSI indicator is around 37.87 (neutral to weak). Technical indicators show that out of 30 signals, 24 are bearish and only 6 are bullish.
But two "confidence killer" events have made the already fragile market worse:
First, Jihan Wu's Bitdeer liquidated all its Bitcoin.
On February 20 (last Thursday), Bitdeer, a mining company chaired by Jihan Wu, released a shocking industry weekly report on its official social media: as of February 20, the company's self-held Bitcoin holdings (excluding customer deposits) had dropped to 0.
During the reporting period, Bitdeer produced 189.8 BTC and sold all of them; simultaneously, it net reduced 943.1 BTC, completely emptying its Bitcoin reserves in its treasury.
This "liquidation-style" sell-off occurred at a highly dramatic time: Bitdeer's self-mining hash rate had just reached 63.2 EH/s, officially surpassing the old giant Marathon Digital's 60.4 EH/s to become the world's largest listed self-mining company by hash rate.
Possessing the world's highest hash rate, yet choosing not to hold a single Bitcoin.
Bitdeer's explanation is: the company is fully transitioning to AI infrastructure and high-performance computing business, preparing liquidity for land acquisition. Jihan Wu responded that liquidating Bitcoin does not mean they will not hold it in the future.
But for the market, this signal is fatal: If the world's number one mining company by hash rate is not bullish on Bitcoin, why should retail investors continue to believe?
Second, Vitalik Buterin continues to sell ETH.
According to data from on-chain analysis platform Lookonchain, Vitalik sold approximately 1,869 ETH in the past two days (February 21-22), worth about $3.67 million. So far in February, Vitalik has cumulatively sold over 8,800 ETH, with a total value of approximately $18.45 million.
Vitalik currently still holds approximately 224,000 ETH, worth about $439 million (calculated at $1,900/ETH). His ETH holdings have decreased from the peak of 662,810 in 2015 to only 0.20% of the total supply.
The founder's continuous selling,叠加 declining staking demand for Ethereum, and Binance's ETH inflows hitting a new high since November 2025, under multiple pressures, ETH is currently around $1,850, with a 24-hour decline of over 5% and a monthly drop of 30%.
Hedge funds have been continuously withdrawing from Bitcoin spot ETFs over the past few months, with net outflows exceeding $1 billion year-to-date. Retail interest is extremely low, with 24-hour trading volume around $48.5 billion, at a relatively low level.
The core problem Bitcoin currently faces is not technical but narrative—the "digital gold" story is being questioned in this round of gold surge and Bitcoin plunge; the positioning of an "inflation hedge" has also lost its appeal in an environment where rate cut expectations are delayed. And when industry pioneers like Jihan Wu choose to liquidate Bitcoin and turn to AI, when Vitalik continuously sells ETH, the foundation of faith begins to shake.
From a technical perspective, $60,000 is a key psychological barrier. Once broken, the next support range is near $55,000 to $58,000. The resistance above $70,000 is difficult to break through in the short term.
Returning from the Spring Festival, global markets are simultaneously digesting two things: one is Trump using "legal nesting dolls" to redefine tariff policy, plunging global trade order into new uncertainty; the other is Anthropic using a blog post to put a century-old tech giant like IBM on the "AI replacement list."
Gold is standing firm at the high of $5,240, Bitcoin is struggling below $64,000, and two key figures in the crypto industry, Jihan Wu and Vitalik, one whose company emptied all its Bitcoin to turn to AI, the other who sold over $18 million worth of ETH in February.
On the first day back to work, the market's welcome gift is not very friendly.
