Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Felix analyzes ongoing macro trends that may influence tomorrow’s jobs report.

• It’s White House Crypto Summit Eve. Here’s what we know. 

• A crypto fund issuer is “looking for the rising stars” to put into the ETF wrapper. 

Economic crosscurrents straining the growth outlook

Often, macro is quite boring for a long time — and then it gets really exciting all at once. 

The past couple weeks felt like one of those exciting moments as we’re clearly moving through a regime shift.

Let’s unpack everything that’s going on.

The fear of tariffs has led to a substantial frontrunning of imports, leading to a cratering trade deficit — the exact opposite of what Trump is trying to achieve.

We’ve been able to track this tariff frontrunning through the ISM Manufacturing New Orders index. 

As seen in the chart, there was a ratcheting up in order volume right up until the tariffs began to be implemented. With this week’s print, we’ve seen that order volume fall off a cliff: 

As discussed previously, this upswing in manufacturing was either the beginning of a new business cycle or simply a headfake due to tariff frontrunning. It’s now clearly evident it was tariff related. 

As we move into the impacts of tariffs and the uncertainty associated with their implementation, we’re seeing the Atlanta Fed GDPNow Nowcast project a contraction in the economy. 

Although primarily driven by the huge amounts of imports (net exports is a function of imports-exports, so when imports surge, GDP declines), we also see the impact of the uncertainty and import glut trickle into the broader economy:

The tariff dynamic is being complemented by DOGE’s federal government employee layoffs. We received the Challenger survey job cuts print today and it was huge: 

The dominating factor was, of course, the DOGE layoffs. However, the uncertainty associated with Trump policies is also affecting the private sector:

With the jobs report out tomorrow, everyone will want to understand how vast this deterioration in the labor market will be. Unfortunately, since the survey window for this jobs report was Feb. 9-15, it will not provide as clean a picture as one would hope as the job cuts have only just begun to trickle into the data. 

Regardless, it's clear the trend is toward deterioration — it’s just a matter of how much. 

Putting that all together, here’s where we stand:

• The fiscal retrenchment is real and the primary tailwind to the economy the last couple of years — fiscal dominance — is now reversing.

• Monetary policy remains in a state of pause and the Fed will not be proactive with any change in stance as it was in September. The Fed is in a reactionary tilt as it awaits clarity on the fiscal situation.

• DOGE is having a meaningful impact despite the debate on cutting costs. The layoffs are meaningful and those new job seekers are entering a labor market with an abysmal hiring rate. 

The combination of these factors leads to an extremely fragile economic outlook with no signs of change. With all that said, it’s no wonder that risk assets have been having a hard time lately.

— Felix Jauvin

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The estimated number of bitcoin the US government has sold over the past decade, crypto/AI czar David Sacks pointed out in an X post.

These assets were sold for about $366 million, he added, citing Grok as the source. They would be worth more than $17 billion at BTC’s current value.

Sacks concluded: “That’s how much it has cost American taxpayers not to have a long-term strategy.”

As US equities markets try to keep up with President Trump’s ever-changing tariff plans, crypto investors are hoping a historic White House gathering tomorrow will move markets. 

The first-ever crypto summit is expected to kick off in Washington tomorrow afternoon. Representing the White House will be Trump, AI and crypto czar David Sacks and Bo Hines, who leads the president’s digital assets working group. 

If you’re relying on Crypto Twitter for a comprehensive guest list, you may want to think twice, Sacks advises. 

In a post on X this morning he said that “most” of the lists floating around are “fake” but there’s one roster that “looks correct.” Names on this list include Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse, Gemini’s Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong. 

None of those names should come as a surprise, considering each of these companies donated big to Trump’s campaign. 

The summit will be a “roundtable,” designed for industry leaders and government representatives to talk about policy. Don’t hold your breath for any specific policies, but the gathering is nonetheless a big step for an industry that’s long wanted a seat at the table. 

Big topics we’re expecting to see discussed are plans for the crypto reserve, stablecoin legislation and agency enforcement plans (or lack thereof). An agenda has not been released to the public. 

Trump will speak at the summit, the White House confirmed. There are rumors circulating that some parts of the summit may be livestreamed, but I was not able to verify this. 

Keep an eye on your inbox, and give me and Blockworks a follow for the latest updates from the summit.

— Casey Wagner

No Theories. Just Market Movers.

The biggest players in finance and crypto aren’t waiting for the next cycle to play out — they’re engineering it. Who’s taking the mic at DAS NYC?

• Miguel Morel (Arkham) – Onchain intelligence is rewriting the playbook. Here’s how.

• David Mercer (LMAX Group) – The real institutional flow into crypto (not the headlines).

• Keerthi Moudgal (Kinexys by JPMorgan) – The infrastructure that’s actually making TradFi-to-DeFi real.

• Leah Wald (Sol Strategies) – Navigating market swings like it’s second nature.

Less than 3 weeks to go to DAS NYC. The smartest money is already in. Are you?

ETF issuers have, in recent months, plotted US products that would hold solana (SOL), XRP, litecoin (LTC) — even dogecoin (DOGE).

As the SEC mulls them, the pile keeps growing bigger.

We saw two new assets make it into such proposals Wednesday. Bitwise filed for an ETF that would hold Aptos (APT), while Canary Capital has plotted one focused on Axelar (AXL).

Developed by Meta’s Diem blockchain engineers, Aptos is a layer-1 blockchain that uses a smart contract programming language called Move.

Canary describes Axelar as a blockchain network that connects blockchains and financial infrastructure by offering interoperability and digital asset tokenization.

The market caps of APT and AXL hover around $3.6 billion and $400 million, respectively — a far cry from the others mentioned. 

But size isn’t everything. 

When investing in layer-1s, you’re searching for high-quality, differentiated technology, backed by a strong team, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan told me in an email.

“That's Aptos to a T,” he added. “You have sub-second transaction finality, heightened security against certain smart contract vulnerabilities and parallel processing that supports giant throughput — all backed by a team that traces its origins to Diem.”

And why does Axelar stand out to Canary?

"I speak to developers a lot, and the dev team at Axelar is one of the most impressive I have met,” Canary CEO Steven McClurg shared with me. “Most projects build a community and market their coin before launching, but Axelar built real products and shipped [them] first.”

Bitwise also has filings for crypto ETFs holding SOL, XRP and DOGE. Canary has planned SOL and XRP products too — as well as ones focused on LTC and HBAR.

Some investors won’t want to hold a bunch of single-asset crypto ETFs, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said last week. They could instead opt for crypto index funds (some early forms of those are live). 

Remember the odds the Bloomberg Intelligence guys gave for product approvals in this space? McClurg said he expects only two or three new crypto ETFs to launch in the first half of the year, not specifying which. 

He added: “We are looking for the rising stars to put on the slate for the end of the year and into 2026."

— Ben Strack

• President Trump on Thursday said he will issue a one-month exemption on tariffs for most imports from Mexico. The 25% levy will be postponed until April 2. 

• The SEC may be changing its approach to crypto regulation, but it is “not walking away,” Antonia Apps, acting deputy enforcement director at the securities agency, said yesterday. 

• Sen. Tim Scott today introduced a new bill aimed at ending debanking in the crypto industry. Regulators will no longer be able to cite reputational risks in supervisory frameworks, per the proposed legislation.