April has been a month of extreme volatility and tumultuous times for traders.

From conflicting headlines about President Donald Trump’s tariffs against other nations to total confusion about which assets to seek shelter in, it has been one for the record books.

Amid all the confusion, when traditional «haven assets» failed to act as safe places to park money, one bright spot emerged that might have surprised some market participants: bitcoin.

«Historically, cash (the US dollar), bonds (US Treasuries), the Swiss Franc, and gold have fulfilled that role [safe haven], with bitcoin edging in on some of that territory,» said NYDIG Research in a note.

NYDIG’s data showed that while gold and Swiss Franc had been consistent safe-haven winners, since ‘Liberation Day’—when President Trump announced sweeping tariff hikes on April 2, kicking off extreme volatility in the market—bitcoin has been added to the list.

«Bitcoin has acted less like a liquid levered version of levered US equity beta and more like the non-sovereign issued store of value that it is,» NYDIG wrote.

Zooming out, it seems that as the «sell America» trade gains momentum, investors are taking notice of bitcoin and the original promise of the biggest cryptocurrency.

«Though the connection is still tentative, bitcoin appears to be fulfilling its original promise as a non-sovereign store of value, designed to thrive in times like these,» NYDIG added.

Read more: Gold and Bonds’ Safe Haven Allure May be Fading With Bitcoin Emergence

TRUMP, the memecoin tied to U.S. President Donald Trump, is up about 16% in the last 24 hours, even as Democratic lawmakers cite the president’s involvement with the token as potential grounds for impeachment and after a massive unlock earlier in the month.

At a town hall on Friday, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) pointed to the crypto project offering its top holders an invitation to a dinner event with President Trump, calling it a clear case of selling access to the presidency, NBC News reports.

“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense,” Ossify said.

U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also sent a letter on April 25 to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics asking for an investigation to determine if President Trump violated federal ethics rules by inviting top investors.

Read more: Dinner With the U.S. President? All You Need Is $420 Worth of TRUMP

The allegations stem from an announcement that a private dinner will be held on May 22, where the top 220 TRUMP memecoin holders can meet with the U.S. President.

Still, the TRUMP token has kept on rising. The memecoin surged over 70% after the event was announced and has already been up 85% over the last seven days.

The rise came even after the token saw a massive $320 million unlock earlier this month, significantly inflating its circulating supply. In less than three months, TRUMP token is set to endure an additional unlock of 25.1% of its current circulating supply, at the time of writing, worth nearly $780 million.

Despite the recent rise, the token is still down more than 77% from its all-time high above $70, which it saw shortly after launch. Its subsequent price plunge led to an estimated $2 billion of investor losses.

Read more: TRUMP Token Pops 12% After U.S. President Calls It ‘The Greatest of Them All’

Gaming tokens have seemingly been on the sidelines since the 2021 crypto boom. In fact, data from SoSoValue shows that they were the worst-performing crypto basket over the last 12-month period, enduring a 62% drop in the period, compared to a 174% rise on PayFi tokens.

However, under the Trump administration’s crypto-friendly stance, it might be changing.

Gala Games—a blockchain-based gaming platform—says it became the first crypto gaming company to partner with the White House, bringing a Web3 game Easter Egg Hunt to the 2025 Easter Egg Roll. White House official X’s account also mentioned on the social media platform about the tie-up amid a plethora of other collaborations with tech giants.

The GALA token has risen roughly 18% since the announcement, GameFi tokens went up 13%, and the broader crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, rose 8%.

User engagement

The effort aimed to introduce blockchain to families without overwhelming them.

The game, hosted at easter.gala.games, offered a «free and simple» experience where players collected virtual eggs to win unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs) stored on GalaChain, Gala’s proprietary Layer 1 blockchain, the company said in an announcement shared with CoinDesk.

Players were able to log in, explore, and collect eggs without needing a crypto wallet experience, Gala Games said. Every NFT reward was stored on GalaChain, hinting at future use across Gala’s entertainment projects, including Gala Music and Gala Film.

The Web3 gaming firm told CoinDesk that over 300,000 games have been played since the event launched, with about 100,000 new accounts created. Roughly 17% of participants went on to explore Gala’s other projects, suggesting real user engagement beyond the Easter event.

The project, founded in 2019 by Zynga co-founder Eric Schiermeyer, has been laying the groundwork for broader adoption through partnerships with DreamWorks Animation, NBCUniversal, and collaborations with artists like Snoop Dogg. Earlier this month, Gala Film announced a partnership with LG Electronics to bring Web3 entertainment to TVs, and the company hinted it is working with a government agency on transparency efforts.

Industry reaction

The Easter game marks a real-world test for the project and the broader GameFi sector.

When asked about the lead-up to the event, Schiermeyer shared that the project has been focusing on the high-level tie-up. «We have a team dedicated to government outreach,» they said. «I also spent time at Mar-a-Lago and spoke with the President. But mainly we wanted to help make the event more fun, and I think that sentiment was well received.»

Industry reactions were mixed. Some praised the visibility, while others pointed out that more work is needed for the mass adoption of the GameFi industry.

Jack O’Holleran, CEO of SKALE Labs, told CoinDesk that GameFi has never stopped expanding, but its issue has been visibility instead. The technology, on top of that, has matured. «In the past, you needed to manage your own crypto wallets and pay high gas fees just to play,» he said. «Now, gas-free blockchains and seamless onboarding remove those barriers.»

“Functional values and utility that blockchain brings to gaming cannot be suppressed for much longer,» he added.

Still, a broader adoption of the GameFi sector will require further meaningful collaboration with mainstream gaming outlets. This could potentially open the “floodgates,» O’Holleran added, as player bases for the traditional gaming sector are far beyond the crypto sector’s user count. If so, the “floodgates will be open.”

Meanwhile, Mitja Goroshevsky, co-founder of Gosh, praised the visibility of Gala Games and the GameFi sector via the White House tie-up but warned that the industry must still solve its identity crisis.

«It’s caught between being about gaming and being about trading,» he said.

«Until blockchain games introduce fundamentally new experiences, government partnerships alone won’t drive mass adoption.»