Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: PumpSwap Brings in the Cash as Trump Tariffs Hang Over Bitcoin
By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
With trade tensions escalating, Asian and European stocks extended last week’s declines. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 4%, taking it into correction territory after dropping more than 10% from its record high and European indexes including the FTSE 100, DAX, and CAC 40 opened in the red alongside falling U.S. stock futures.
The backdrop is President Donald Trump’s new tariffs, set to be revealed to the world on April 2 in an event he has dubbed «Liberation Day.» The president plans to impose levies and tariffs on any country deemed to have an unfair trading relationship with the U.S.
«You’d start with all countries, so let’s see what happens,» Trump said, according to the Financial Times. His words suggest that while the tariffs may initially apply broadly, he is open to making concessions for some countries, the FT said.
On Friday, U.S. equities dropped after a hotter-than-expected reading in core PCE inflation, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge. Market uncertainty may persist with the U.S. jobs report due Friday. Economists forecast the unemployment rate to rise to 4.2%, while nonfarm payrolls are projected at 128,000, down from 151,000 the previous month.
Gold is rallying on the back of this uncertainty, surging past $3,100 per ounce for the first time ever — up 1.2% on the day and nearly 20% year-to-date. Meanwhile, bitcoin (BTC) continues to struggle, hovering just above $80,000. It’s down more than 3% this month and 12% for the quarter, marking its worst performance since fourth-quarter 2022.
Then consider ether (ETH). The second-largest cryptocurrency has performed significantly worse than bitcoin this quarter, losing 46% in a slide that’s the worst since 2018. As a result, the ether-to-bitcoin ratio has dropped to 0.02195, marking its lowest level since May 2020. At that time, bitcoin was trading below $10,000, while ether hovered just above $200. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
March 31: The dKargo (DKA) testnet will be going live
March 31: The Keeta (KTA) testnet will be going live.
March 31: PinLink (PIN), a RWA-tokenized DePIN platform, will launch on the Ethereum mainnet.
March 31: Terraform Labs, the firm behind the collapsed LUNA and UST tokens, will open the Crypto Loss Claims Portal. All claims must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. on April 30.
April 1: Metaplanet (3350) 10-for-1 stock split becomes effective.
April 1: ONINO (ONI) will have its mainnet launch.
April 2: XIONMarkets (XION) will have its mainnet launch.
April 5: The alleged birthday of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Macro
April 1, 4:30 a.m.: S&P Global releases (Final) U.K. March producer price index (PPI) data.
Manufacturing PPI Est. 44.6 vs. Prev. 46.9
April 1, 5:00 a.m.: Eurostat releases (Flash) eurozone March consumer price index (CPI) data.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.5% vs. Prev. 2.6%
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.4%
Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.2% vs. Prev. 2.3%
Unemployment Rate Est. 6.2% vs. Prev. 6.2%
April 1, 9:00 a.m.: S&P Global releases Brazil March purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data.
Manufacturing PMI Prev. 53
April 1, 9:30 a.m.: S&P Global releases Canada March purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data.
Manufacturing PMI Prev. 47.8
April 1, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (Final) U.S. March purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data.
Manufacturing PMI Est. 49.8 vs. Prev. 52.7
April 1, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases February JOLTs report (job openings, hires, and separations).
Job Openings Est. 7.68M vs. Prev. 7.74M
Job Quits Prev. 3.266M
April 1, 10:00 a.m.: The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases March U.S. manufacturing sector data.
ISM Manufacturing PMI Est. 50.3 vs. Prev. 50.3
April 2, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s reciprocal tariffs plan, announced Feb. 13, takes effect alongside a 25% tariff on imported automobiles and certain parts announced March 26.
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
No earnings due.
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Arbitrum DAO is voting on converting 15 million ARB into stablecoins to be managed via a “33/33/33 split among Karpatkey, Avantgarde & Myso, and Gauntlet.” It’s also voting on allocating 10 million ARB into “on-chain strategies designed to generate yield while safeguarding the principal.” Voting ends April 3.
Sky DAO is discussing increasing the Smart Burn Engine (SBE) rate after a recent executive proposal “resulted in substantial increase to net revenue.”
March 31: A vote on a burn of 50 million CRO tokens is set to end.
March 31: GMX to hold a Community Call including a Q&A session and the presentation of proposals by potential bridging & messaging partners for GMX multi chain.
Unlocks
April 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.03% of its circulating supply worth $143.15 million.
April 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 6.05% of its circulating supply worth $12.85 million.
April 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.77% of its circulating supply worth $14.07 million.
April 3: Wormhole (W) to unlock 47.64% of its circulating supply worth $112.67 million.
April 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $20.23 million.
Token Listings
March 31: Kinto (K) to be listed on BingX, Gate.iom MEXC, Kraken, Hotcoin and others.
March 31: Binance to delist USDT, FDUSD, TUSD, USDP, DAI, AEUR, UST, USTC, and PAXG.
Conferences
CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.
April 2-3: Southeast Asia Blockchain Week 2025 Main Conference (Bangkok)
April 2-5: ETH Bucharest Conference & Hackathon (Romania)
April 3-6: BitBlockBoom (Dallas)
April 6-9: Hong Kong Web3 Festival
April 8-10: Paris Blockchain Week
April 10: Bitcoin Educators Unconference (Nashville)
April 15-16: BUIDL Asia 2025 (Seoul)
Token Talk
By Francisco Rodrigues
Token launchpad Pump.fun’s trading platform PumpSwap, which allows tokens to be traded on its own platform rather than on decentralized exchange Raydium, has traded a cumulative $2.6 billion since its March 20 debut, Dune data shows.
That makes it the Solana ecosystem’s No. 1 protocol in collected fees over the last 24 hours, bringing in $3.29 million, far above the runner-up, DEX aggregator Jupiter, with $2.47 million.
PumpSwap, Dune’s data shows, has had a total of 710,000 traders on the platform and more than 32.39 million swaps since its introduction, giving it a significant share of the Solana DEX ecosystem.
Yet the protocol faces headwinds with the slowdown of the Solana ecosystem’s activity as the memecoin trading frenzy cools. Artemis data shows daily active addresses on Solana for the year dropped from an 8.1 million peak to 4.2 million on March 29.
Derivatives Positioning
The total open interest on all instruments dropped to $101.3 billion, according to data from Laevitas, continuing its downward trend from last week.
The decline suggests a more cautious stance from market participants as they brace for a volatile week that includes the end of the quarter, anticipated announcements on tariffs from President Trump and the March jobs report on Friday.
In the past 24 hours, total liquidations amounted to $229.3 million, with long positions accounting for 79% of the total. Looking at the BTC/USDT liquidation heatmap on Binance, the largest immediate liquidation cluster lies at $81,200, totaling $27.5 million.
The next key clusters are located at $83,100 and $83,600, with liquidations totaling $25.5 million and $24.7 million, respectively. Both levels align closely with the CME gap created over the weekend.
Among tokens with more than $100 million in open interest, the biggest 24-hour increases were seen in EOS (+13.4%), PEPE (+8.99%), TON (+4.85%), and HYPE (+2.55%). The assets with the largest declines in open interest over the last 24 hours include SUI, TAO and NEAR, falling 10.8%, 8.53% and 7.89%, respectively.
Market Movements:
BTC is down 2.98% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $81,535.28 (24hrs: -1.27%)
ETH is down 4.96% at $1,792.22 (24hrs: -1.3%)
CoinDesk 20 is down 4.98% at 2,447.78 (24hrs: -3.36%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 7 bps at 2.93%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0114% (4.1709% annualized) on Binance
DXY is unchanged at 104.10
Gold is up 1.3% at $3,126.50/oz
Silver is up 0.95% at $34.97/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -4.05% at 35,617.56
Hang Seng closed -1.31% at 23,119.58
FTSE is down 0.92% at 8,579.15
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.22% at 5,266.50
DJIA closed on Friday -1.69% at 41,583.90
S&P 500 closed -1.97% at 55,80.94
Nasdaq closed -2.7% at 17,322.99
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.6% at 24,759.20
S&P 40 Latin America closed -1.52% at 2,429.43
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 1 bps at 4.2%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.97% at 5,568.25
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.39% at 19,187.50
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.63% at 41,588.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 62.36 (0.24%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02196 (0.09%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 835 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $45.7
Total Fees: 6.8 BTC / $589,342
CME Futures Open Interest: 142,520 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 26.3 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 7.45%
Technical Analysis
XRP, one of the year’s better-performing major altcoins, is again nearing a critical support zone between $1.95 and $2.05.
This region has consistently acted as a strong demand area, with buyers stepping in multiple times over the past four months.
Adding to its significance, the zone aligns with the 2021 all-time high and is now further supported by the daily 200 exponential moving average, which is also gradually converging toward this level.
Acceptance below this key level is likely to result in a larger expansion to the downside, given the loss of a key level that has reliably held as support for several months.
Crypto Equities
Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $289.41 (-10.84%), down 3.49% at $279.38 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $173.93 (-7.77%), down 3.2% at $168.37
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$16.45 (-5.68%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.47 (-8.58%), down 3.69% at $12.01
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.41 (-4.63%), down 2.97% at $7.19
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.48 (+3.28%), down 3.74% at $7.20
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.19 (-8.29%), down 3.62% at $6.93
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $13.13 (-6.48%), down 2.51% at $12.80
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $36.86 (-0.16%), down 5.83% at $34.71
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $47.84 (-8.49%), unchanged in pre-market
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$93.2 million
Cumulative net flows: $36.33 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1,121 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $4.7 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.42 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.409 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
Both bitcoin and ether are on track to post their steepest quarterly slides since second-quarter 2022.
While You Were Sleeping
Japan Mulls Reclassifying Crypto as a ‘Financial Product’ to Curb Insider Trading: Report (CoinDesk): Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) is reportedly planning to submit amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act to the parliament as early as 2026.
‘No DOGE in D.O.G.E.’, Says Dogecoin Proponent Elon Musk (CoinDesk): Speaking at an America PAC town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday, Musk said there were no plans to use memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) for government operations.
Bitcoin Nears $81K; XRP, ADA Slide as Traders Brace for Tariff War Escalation (CoinDesk): Bitcoin hovered above $81,500 as major cryptocurrencies lost steam; XRP and ADA fell 5%, while SOL, DOGE and ETH dropped 2%-3%.
China’s Big State Banks to Get $71.6 Billion Capital Injection (The Wall Street Journal): The Finance Ministry will directly buy nearly 500 billion yuan ($71.6 billion) in new shares to boost lending amid falling margins and bad loans.
Germany’s Spending Push Drives Up Borrowing Costs Across Eurozone (Financial Times): Higher government bond yields across the euro area are raising debt concerns for countries like France and Italy, despite steady spreads and a firmer euro reflecting lingering investor optimism.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Says the U.S. Will Not ‘Get’ the Island (The New York Times): In a Facebook post on Sunday, Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen rejected President Trump’s Saturday claim in an NBC interview that the U.S. will “get” Greenland.
In the Ether
Uncategorized
Kraken Secures Restricted Dealer Status in Canada Amid ‘Turning Point’ for Crypto in the Country
Crypto exchange Kraken has registered as a restricted dealer in Canada, allowing the exchange to continue offering crypto trading services to Canadian users under the country’s evolving regulatory framework.
The registration, announced on Tuesday, comes after a multi-year process that required exchanges to meet higher standards for investor protection and governance. Kraken said it worked closely with Canadian regulators during this pre-registration phase, upgrading its compliance systems and internal controls to meet expectations set by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).
To lead its Canadian expansion, Kraken named Cynthia Del Pozo as general manager for North America. Del Pozo, a fintech and operations veteran, will oversee strategy, regulatory engagement and business development across the region.
“Canada is at a turning point for crypto adoption,” said Del Pozo in a statement, pointing to growing interest from both retail and institutional investors. A recent survey cited by Kraken found that 30% of Canadian investors currently hold crypto assets.
Kraken also announced it will offer free Interac e-Transfer deposits for Canadian users, a move aimed at reducing friction for newcomers to the platform. The exchange claims it doubled its team and user base in Canada over the last two years and now manages over $2 billion CAD in client assets.
Mayur Gupta, Kraken’s chief marketing officer and general manager of growth, will be speaking at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025 in Toronto on May 14-15.
Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.
Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller.
In this issue:
Vana launches token standard
Hashgraph to debut private blockchain
ASICs will look more like servers
An interview with Gensyn’s Ben Fielding
This article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.
Network News
VANA’S DATA-BACKED TOKEN STANDARD: 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. 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 on X. 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 on-chain as transferable digital tokens. DLPs are where data is contributed, tokenized and made ready for use in applications such as AI model training. — Omkar Godbole Read more.
HASHGRAPH LINES UP Q3 PRIVATE CHAIN: Hashgraph, the blockchain development firm focusing on the Hedera (HBAR) network, is building a private, permissioned blockchain for enterprises in highly regulated industries with plans to debut in the third quarter of 2025. HashSphere, built with Hedera’s technology, aims to bridge private and public distributed ledgers, ensuring compliance with regulations while maintaining interoperability, the company said Monday. Hashgraph is looking to provide services to asset managers, banks and payment providers seeking secure, low-cost cross-border transactions with stablecoins.While public blockchains offer security and transparency, enterprises in industries like finance and payments often face compliance challenges, particularly with know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements. HashSphere addresses this by restricting access to verified participants, enabling firms to develop tokenized assets, AI-powered services and other blockchain-based products while meeting regulatory standards. The network also integrates Hedera’s existing tools, including the Token Service for managing digital assets and the Consensus Service for recording transactions with trusted timestamps. The platform is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to deploy decentralized applications using Solidity and other EVM languages. — Kris Sandor Read more.
ASICS TO BE MORE LIKE SERVERS: In the beginning, there were only CPUs, then GPUs, for bitcoin mining. Then came the mighty ASIC in 2013, and with it, the “shoebox” form factor that has become emblematic of the bitcoin mining industry. What comes next? ASIC manufacturers are increasingly betting on a hydro-cooled server rack design to become a substantial portion of bitcoin mining fleets, leaning into the “direct-to-chip” cooling for further efficiency gains. Last September, Bitmain announced its model U3S21EXPH developed in a partnership with Hut 8. Its U3 design means that one unit takes up three spaces in a traditional server rack. MicroBT soon followed with its M63 Hydro series, as did Bitdeer’s Sealminer A2 Hydro unit. Following suit, Auradine released its server rack model, the AH3880, this March. Its U2 design, which occupies two server slots, is a bit smaller, but it packs more hashrate per unit of space at 600 TH/s (or 300 TH/s per slot) versus Bitmain’s 860 TH/s (286.66 TH/s per slot). The benefit of a server rack ASIC lies in standardization. Bitcoin miners are increasingly marching in step with the traditional datacenter industry, and that industry could see 40% adoption of direct liquid-to-chip cooling by 2026, according to data center developer Cyrus One. If miners adopt this design, then theoretically, they can optimize their supply chains by converging on server designs that are becoming best practice in the big-boy data center sector. — Colin Harper, Blockspace Read more.
GENSYN CEO BEN FIELDING: Ten years ago, when he was still a young AI researcher beginning his PhD track, Ben Fielding explored how “swarms” of AI — clusters of many different models — could talk to each other and learn from each other, which might improve the collective whole. There was just one problem: He was handcuffed by the realities of that noisy machine beneath his desk. And he knew he was outgunned by Google and other Big Tech. Compute constraints would always be an issue, he realized. The solution? Decentralized AI. Fielding co-founded Gensyn (along with Harry Grieve) in 2020, or years before Decentralized AI became fashionable. The project was initially known for building decentralized compute, but the vision is actually something wider: “The network for machine intelligence.” They’re building solutions up and down the tech stack. And now, a decade after Fielding’s noisy desk annoyed his lab-mates, the early tools of Gensyn are out in the wild. Gensyn recently released its “RL Swarms” protocol (a descendant of Fielding’s PhD work) and just launched its Testnet — which brings blockchain into the fold. Fielding talked with Jeff Wilser about AI Swarms, how blockchain snaps into the puzzle, and shares why all innovators — not just tech giants — “should have the right to build machine learning technologies.” — Jeff Wilser Read more.
In Other News
Web3 lacks a dedicated memory layer, making its current architecture inefficient and difficult to scale. Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) offers a solution by enhancing data propagation and storage efficiency in decentralized systems. Implementing RLNC can address Web3’s scalability challenges by optimizing memory and data access without compromising decentralization, says Muriel Médard, co-founder of Optimum. Read her op-ed here.
Ripple, an enterprise-focused blockchain service closely tied to the XRP Ledger (XRP), said on Wednesday it has integrated its stablecoin to the company’s cross-border payments system to boost adoption for Ripple USD (RLUSD). Select Ripple Payments customers including cross-border payment providers BKK Forex and iSend are already using the stablecoin to improve their treasury operations, the company said. Ripple plans to further expand the token’s availability of its token to payments customers. RLUSD reached a $244 million market capitalization, growing 87% over the past month. — Kris Sandor reports.
Regulatory and Policy
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped or paused over a dozen ongoing cases (and lost one) since U.S. President Donald Trump retook office just over two months ago and appointed Commissioner Mark Uyeda as acting chair. Here is a rundown of what’s left on the SEC’s enforcement docket. — Nik De reports.
Calendar
April 8-10: Paris Blockchain Week
April 30-May 1: Token 2049, Dubai
May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto
May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London
May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas
June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes
Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore
In a Rose Garden ceremony on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he intends to immediately sign an order for «reciprocal tariffs» to be levied against U.S. trading partners.
«Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years but it’s not going to happen anymore,» said Trump, adding that the tariffs will begin at midnight.
The first specific tariff announced at the ceremony was a 25% levy on all foreign-made autos.
Among country-specific tariffs: China will see a rate of 34%, Vietnam 46%, Taiwan 32% South Korea 25%, Switzerland 31%.
The price of bitcoin (BTC) initially rose in the ceremony’s early stages, but began to give ground as the tariffs were detailed. The price has retreated to $86,000, down about 1% from prior to the announcements.
Kraken Secures Restricted Dealer Status in Canada Amid ‘Turning Point’ for Crypto in the Country
The Protocol: Vana Introduces Token Standard for Data-Backed Assets
President Trump to Order ‘Reciprocal Tariffs’ to Begin at Midnight
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