The Bitcoin-Japanese yen (BTC/JPY) pair faced a setback at key trendline resistance Wednesday, as Goldman Sachs (GS) cited the anti-risk yen as the leading hedge against rising U.S. tariff and recession risks.

The BTC/JPY trading on the Japan-based bitFlyer fell 1% after failing to take out the trendline drawn off the record high reached on Jan. 20, data from charting platform TradingView show.

BTC’s USD-denominated price faced similar losses. Meanwhile, Asian equity indices and the U.S. equity futures treaded water ahead of President Donald Trump’s sweeping new “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday that could trigger a global trade war.

The tariff uncertainty has spurred several investment banks, including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, pencil in a higher chance of U.S. recession or consecutive quarterly contractions in the growth rate.

Some crypto observers expect investors to treat bitcoin (BTC) as a haven asset should a tariff-led economic swoon materialize. Goldman, however, sees the Japanese yen, a long-preferred safe haven, as the top hedge against U.S. risks.

«The yen offers investors the best currency hedge should the chances of a US recession increase,» Kamakshya Trivedi, head of global foreign exchange, interest rates and emerging market strategy at Goldman Sachs, said late Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.

Trivedi added that the yen is also a «very good hedge» against U.S. labor market weakness and tends to do best when U.S. real rates [inflation-adjusted yields] and U.S. equities fall together.

While BTC is widely seen as a digital gold or haven asset by crypto market participants, the cryptocurrency has historically moved in tandem with technology stocks. In other words, tariffs-led risk-off on Wall Street could spill over into the crypto market.

Additionally, the yen’s strength could prompt the unwinding of risk-on bullish trades financed by inexpensive yen-denominated loans, contributing to overall risk aversion in financial markets. The crypto market experienced this in early August last year when the yen carry trade unravelled, leading to declines in both stocks and BTC. During that period, bitcoin plummeted from approximately $65K to $50K within a week.

Goldman expects the Japanese yen to rise to the low 140s against the U.S. dollar this year. The USD/JPY pair traded at 149.77 at press time. The exchange rate is known to closely track the differential between yields on the 10-year U.S. and Japanese bonds.

The latter recently dropped to its lowest since August 2022, offering yen-bullish cues.

Crypto enthusiasts might have heard of the ERC-20 token standard, which provides guidelines to ensure that tokens created on the Ethereum smart contract blockchain are compatible and can interact with other tokens and applications within the network.

A similar standard for data-backed tokens, called VRC-20, has now emerged.

Vana, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain that helps users monetize personal data by bundling it into DataDAOs for AI model training, introduced the new standard early this week to boost trust and transparency in the market for data-backed digital assets.

«For data markets to work, tokens must be reliable, secure, and useful. As a universal standard for data-backed tokens, VRC-20 delivers this by ensuring fair and transparent data token trading,» Vana announced on X.

The VRC-20 standard design includes specific criteria such as fixed supply, governance, and liquidity rules while ensuring real data access by tying tokens to actual data utility. Additionally, it promotes continuous liquidity through rewards that ensure market stability.

«This isn’t speculation. This is real financialization of data,» Vana noted.

Vana launched its mainnet in December, with VANA as its native cryptocurrency. Since then, the network has onboarded over 12 million data points through multiple DataDAOs, reflecting strong demand for user-owned data.

DataDAOs or data liquidity pools are decentralized marketplaces that bring data onchain as transferable digital tokens. DLPs are where data is contributed, tokenized and made ready for use in applications such as AI model training.

Monday’s announcement replaced VANA emissions as DataDAO inventive with a new feature that calls for DAOs to issue VRC-20-compliant tokens to receive liquidity support.

Additionally, the protocol introduced data validator staking, where VANA holders can lock their coins in data validators instead of individual DataDAOs.

«Rewards are based on network security and usage. Stakers earn proportionally to their contribution to network uptime and data availability. No more idle staking. Earnings are tied to real network utility and reliability,» Vana said.

The VANA token changed hands at $5.58 at press time, the lowest in over two weeks, extending the decline from the recent price high of $8.78 on Binance, according to data source TradingView.

So far, crypto markets haven’t behaved as expected under the Trump Administration. Investors hoped that regulatory reform and policies like a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve would drive prices appreciably higher. But it’s been the opposite. Bitcoin has fallen from highs well above $100,000 at the beginning of the year to a trough in the mid-80,000s for most of March.

Crypto prices have suffered from being increasingly correlated with traditional assets like stocks and bonds, which have been hit by macroeconomic uncertainty. Tariffs — surcharges the U.S. places on imports from other countries — have Wall Street worried about a global recession. Crypto investors have been steering clear of crypto assets, which are seen as relatively risky.

“This is all about markets’ ‘risk appetite’ which continues to deteriorate, and for the time being drives a wedge between crypto assets and gold, which continues to be the ‘safe haven’ of choice,” said Marc Ostwald, Chief Economist & Global Strategist at ADM Investor Services International.

“[That’s] in no small part driven by central bank FX reserve managers, who are seeking to reduce USD exposure, which has long been a source of concern to them.”

As the global financial and trade system becomes more fragmented, investors are seeking alternatives to riskier assets, including dollars. For now, that means turning to gold, which is up 18% year-to-date.

But that could change, said Omid Malekan, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and author of «The Story of the Blockchain: A Beginner’s Guide to the Technology That Nobody Understands.» Bitcoin could be the new gold soon enough.

“I think the entire [future] is uncertain and in some ways unknowable, because there are many crosscurrents and both crypto and tariffs are new. Some people argue that crypto is just a risk-on tech asset and would sell off due to tariffs. But bitcoin has found footing in some circles as ‘digital gold’ and the physical variety is soaring on the tariff news. So which will it be?”

In other words, economic uncertainty could lead investors to seek out bitcoin just as they have sought out gold in recent months.

Another note of positivity: the impact of tariffs on crypto could be “priced in” and the worst might be over already, said Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, a leading crypto asset management firm.

President Trump is due to announce U.S. tariffs on Wednesday, April 2, at 4 p.m. ET—what’s known as “Liberation Day.” According to reports, he’ll lay out “reciprocal tariffs” against 15 countries that have levied tariffs against the U.S., including China, Canada and Mexico.

Pandl estimates tariffs have so far taken 2% off economic growth this year. But Liberation Day might actually stop the worst of the pain felt in financial markets. “If we see an announcement [on Wednesday] that is tough but phased, and focused on the 15 countries they seem to be targeting, my expectation is that markets will rally on that news,” Pandl told CoinDesk.

“Potentially once we get through this announcement, crypto markets can focus back on the fundamentals which are very positive.”Pandl said announcements like Circle’s IPO wouldn’t be happening if institutions didn’t have a high degree of confidence in the digital assets sector and the policies around it.

Moreover, Pandl, a former macro-economist at Goldman Sachs, believes that tariffs will increase the appetite for currencies that aren’t dollars.

“I think tariffs will weaken the dominant role of the dollar and create space for competitors including bitcoin. Prices have gone down in the short run. But the first few months of the Trump Administration have raised my conviction in the longer term for bitcoin as a global monetary asset.”

Pendl still believes that bitcoin will hit new all-time highs this year, despite current pessimism around prices. “I wouldn’t have quit my Wall Street job if I didn’t think bitcoin will be the winner in the long term,” he said.