A thawing in the trade stance from both the U.S. and China has sent risk assets higher in the hours since the U.S. stock market closed on Wednesday.

«The current tariffs and trade barriers are unsustainable, but we don’t want to decouple,» said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, disclosing plans to travel to Switzerland to meet with Chinese counterparts for trade talks this coming weekend.

«Senior U.S. officials have made a series of remarks hinting at adjustments to tariffs and have expressed, through various channels, a desire to engage with the Chinese side on tariff-related issues,» said a China Ministry of Commerce spokesperson. «China has carefully evaluated these messages from the U.S. side and, after fully considering global expectations, China’s own interests, and the appeals of American industries and consumers, has decided to agree to engage with the U.S.»

The news has quickly sent bitcoin (BTC) higher by about 3% to $97,200. Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 futures have jumped about 1%.

The leading Senate Democrat on a panel tasked with investigating corruption and mismanagement is scrutinizing U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent crypto activities and whether they’re part of a «pay-to-play scheme to provide access to the Presidency to the highest bidder.»

Richard Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — a panel housed within the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs — wrote letters to Bill Zanker of Fight Fight Fight LLC and Zach Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial on Tuesday, asking them a series of questions about the ownership and investment structure for Trump-affiliated entities, including Fight Fight Fight LLC (the company behind the TRUMP memecoin), CIC Digital LLC (which issued Trump’s NFTs and co-owns Fight Fight Fight), Celebration Cards LLC (another entity affiliated with Trump’s NFTs) and DTTM Operations LLC (which manages Trump’s IP rights), as well as World Liberty Financial and its affiliated entities.

«The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is conducting a preliminary inquiry into potential conflicts of interest and violations of the law from President Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures … and associated businesses’ financial dealings with foreign nationals, foreign governments and other cryptocurrency firms,» the letters both said, with one pointing to World Liberty Financial and the other to the $TRUMP memecoin.

The letters went on to say that the businesses «may be enabling the violation of government ethics requirements,» before posing a number of questions for the companies’ respective executives.

These questions include asking how the companies identify or block investments from foreign governments, how much revenue they’ve generated and whether individuals facing prosecution or investigations can participate.

The letters also ask the executives to produce records tied to the Trump-affiliated crypto businesses.

Because Democrats are currently the minority party in the Senate, Blumenthal does not have subpoena power unless his Republican counterpart, Sen. Ron Johnson, also signs on. A spokesperson for Johnson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Democrats have sounded the alarm over Trump’s crypto businesses in recent days. Earlier Tuesday, Rep. Maxine Waters, who leads her party on the House Financial Services Committee, objected to a joint hearing with the House Agriculture Committee to address market structure legislation and instead hosted her own hearing focused on these crypto tie-ups.

A weekend statement from Sen. Ruben Gallego and a handful of other Democrats saying the lawmakers would not vote for the Senate’s stablecoin bill also seems to stem from Trump’s crypto ties — in particular the announcement by Eric Trump that Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX would use the Trump-affiliated USD1 stablecoin to close a $2 billion investment into Binance.

Sen. Chris Murphy also introduced a bill Tuesday which would ban the U.S. president and other senior government officials from issuing memecoins or other financial assets.

Bitcoin (BTC) tightened its grip on the crypto market on Tuesday, with dominance surging to fresh four-year high as crypto traders rotated into the market’s anchor asset ahead of tomorrow’s key Federal Reserve policy meeting.

BTC held steady around the $94,000-$95,000 area, up a modest 0.4% over the past 24 hours and extending a tight-range trading pattern that has persisted since the weekend.

Meanwhile, the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index slipped 0.7% lower, with Ethereum’s ether (ETH), and native tokens of Sui (SUI), Aptos (APT) and Polygon (POL) dragging the benchmark lower.

A check on traditional markets showed stocks booking back-to-back losses, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq closing 0.7%-0.8% down, once again underperforming BTC.

Despite the lack of major price action, focus has increasingly turned to bitcoin’s growing share of the overall crypto market: The so-called Bitcoin Dominance metric surpassed 65%, its highest reading since 2021 January, according to TradingView data, signaling capital consolidating into the asset perceived as the most resilient in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty.

Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, described the current landscape as one of pause and anticipation. «The cryptocurrency market has remained largely stagnant since the weekly open, with prices settling into a holding pattern as investors await a pivotal catalyst,» he noted. «This impetus may arise from traditional markets, driven by updates on tariff-related economic impacts or the Federal Reserve’s anticipated FOMC decision on May 7.»

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, but traders are on edge for any shift in Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s tone that could impact risk appetite.

Bitcoin volatility burst on the horizon

With bitcoin’s recent price action being extremely flat, the upcoming FOMC meeting «is rigged to cause significant volatility,» said Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33. He noted in a Tuesday report that BTC’s short term volatility is «abnormally compressed,» with the 7-day average dropping to the lowest level last week in 563 days.

«Such low volatility regimes in BTC tend to be short-lived,» Lunde said. «Violent volatility outbursts typically follow this form of stability once prices start to move, as leveraged trades are unwound and traders are reactivated into the market.»

He said that a significant cascade lower is unlikely, as funding rates for perpetual swaps are consistently negative. Similar periods historically offered good buying opportunities for medium and long-term investors, Lunde added, favoring «aggressive spot exposure» ahead.