Bitcoin heads into the new week with a clean catalyst: the White House’s tariff brinkmanship with China and a market structure that just absorbed the largest crypto liquidation on record.
Markets have marched through the tariff cycle almost beat-for-beat, and as of Monday we are squarely at Step 8 of The Kobeissi Letter’s template: the post-open reassurance from Treasury. The sequence since late week ties cleanly to the blueprint Kobeissi published after “10 months analyzing EVERY single tariff development,” which it summarized as an “EXACT playbook for investors.”
The trigger, size, and timing map precisely to Step 2’s “announce large tariff rate… and markets crash to shake out weak positions,” followed by Step 3’s failed bounce and fresh lows as forced selling cascaded through perps and basis.
The weekend then advanced the script. Between late Friday and Saturday, the White House and Beijing traded barbs — the “double down” and counter-response embedded in Steps 4 and 5. Coverage detailed the 100%-tariff threat and China’s vow of “corresponding measures,” underscoring that the policy shock was real rather than rhetorical.
On Sunday, Trump abruptly eased his tone, writing on Truth Social: “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!
Futures duly bounced Sunday evening, consistent with Step 6’s “working on a solution” message and Step 7’s gap-higher open. “Bitcoin extends gains to +5% on the day and reclaims $115,000. Ethereum is now up +11% on the day and is 4% away from pre-liquidation levels seen on October 10th,” the analyst added via X on late Sunday.
Notably, this is not unprecedented: Bessent has repeatedly used live TV to pour oil on troubled waters during tariff flare-ups, a pattern documented across months of interviews and official transcripts, and consistent with Kobeissi’s “after the Monday open… [Bessent] appears on live TV and reassures investors.” The point for traders is not the theatrics; it is the systematic sequence of message-induced flows that tends to follow.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $113,9979
