Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Reverses Gains as China Ramps Up Tariff Retaliation
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Major coins reversed early gains after Beijing stepped up trade tensions by announcing retaliatory tariffs following President Donald Trump’s Wednesday decision to impose additional levies on China and other nations.
Bitcoin dropped to $83,000 from $84,600, though the downside appeared limited, probably because the market’s worst fears have finally come true. Markets dislike uncertainty, and the anticipation of a looming threat often creates more anxiety and fear than the actual realization of that threat.
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, markets have been wrestling with the threat of tariffs and a global trade war. That damped investor risk appetite, causing the BTC price to tumble from a record high over $109,000 to below $80,000 last month.
This week, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on 180 nations, with higher levies on China, the European Union and Southeast Asia. The effective U.S. tariff rate is now above the level of around 20% set by the 1930’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
This so-called tariffagedon moment marks the end of lingering uncertainty and could be liberating for markets, mainly because bond yields have dropped across the advanced world in the aftermath, pricing in disinflation. That’s contrary to the popular narrative that tariffs would lead to stagflation — high inflation plus low growth — forcing the Fed to keep interest rates elevated.
The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year bond yield has dropped below 4% for the first time since October and yields have fallen sharply in the U.K., Germany and Japan. Plus, oil has declined sharply this week on prospects of higher supply from OPEC countries.
All this bodes well for Fed rate cut bets and risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. The same can be said for Friday’s March jobs report, which, if it beats estimates, will likely be seen as backward-looking, failing to account for this week’s Trump tariffs, while a weak print will only add to Fed rate cuts.
With the major macro uncertainty behind us, the crypto market could return to focusing on positive developments, such as USDC issuer Circle’s IPO filing and technological advancements.
On Thursday, Coinbase Derivatives submitted documentation to the CFTC to self-certify futures for XRP. In addition, Ethereum developers chose May 7 as the date for the Pectra upgrade to go live on the mainnet.
Elsewhere, the SEC acknowledged Fidelity’s filing for a spot exchange-traded fund tied to SOL, which takes it closer to approval. A lot is happening within the industry, so stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
April 5: The purported birthday of Satoshi Nakamoto.
April 7, 7:30 p.m.: Syscoin (SYS) activates the Nexus upgrade on its mainnet at block 2,010,345.
April 9, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing about how U.S. securities laws could be updated to take into account digital assets. Livestream link.
April 17: EigenLayer (EIGEN) activates slashing on Ethereum mainnet, enforcing penalties for operator misconduct.
April 21: Coinbase Derivatives will list XRP futures pending approval by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Macro
April 4, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases March employment data.
Nonfarm Payrolls Est. 135K vs. Prev. 151K
Unemployment Rate Est. 4.1% vs. Prev. 4.1%
April 4, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases March employment data.
Unemployment Rate Est. 6.7% vs. Prev. 6.6%
April 4, 11:25 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will give a speech titled “Economic Outlook.” Livestream link.
April 5, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s 10% baseline tariff on imports from all countries takes effect.
April 9, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s higher individualized tariffs on imports from top U.S. trade-deficit countries take effect.
April 14: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will join President Donald Trump at the White House for an official working visit.
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
No earnings scheduled.
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Sky DAO is voting on an executive proposal that includes initializing ALLOCATOR-BLOOM-A, updating the Smart Burn Engine’s hop parameter, approving the Spark Tokenization Grand Prix DAO resolution and executing a Spark Proxy Spell to expand SparkLend’s liquidity operations. Voting ends May 3.
AaveDAO is discussing an upgrade to GHO Savings to introduce a technical design change to sGHO, a yield-bearing version of GHO designed for multichain integration. It also introduces the Aave Savings Rate (ASR) that will determine sGHO’s yield.
April 4, 9 a.m.: Core DAO to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session.
April 4, 2 p.m.: Sei’s research initiative to hold a livestream on real-world asset tokenization.
April 7, 9 a.m.: OriginTrail to host a “Shaping AI for Good” Zoom talk.
April 7, 4 p.m.: Livepeer to host a monthly community call focused on governance, funding, and the strategic direction of its on-chain treasury.
Unlocks
April 5: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 3.25% of its circulating supply worth $54.22 million.
April 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.59% of its circulating supply worth $10.17 million.
April 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $19.17 million.
April 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply worth $57 million.
April 12: Axie Infinity (AXS) to unlock 5.68% of its circulating supply worth $24.91 million.
Token Listings
April 4: Pintu (PTU), Spartan Protocol (SPARTA), Derby Stars (DSRUN), Veloce (VEXT), BOB and KryptoniteSEILOR) to be deslisted from Bybit.
April 9: IOST airdrop claims portal for a roughly 1.7 billion IOST token airdrop to open.
April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.
Conferences
CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.
Day 3 of 4: ETH Bucharest Conference & Hackathon (Romania)
Day 2 of 4: 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)
April 22-24: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)
April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)
April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)
April 24: Bitwise’s Investor Day for Bitcoin Standard Corporations (New York)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
Infected, a crypto game, moves to Solana from Base network after saying the latter couldn’t handle its launch.
Infected claimed it faced technical issues during the start-up and Base was unable to handle high transaction volumes, leading to gas price spikes and a poor user experience.
It reported that a gas spike caused transaction failures during the critical first 30 minutes of the game’s debut, disrupting momentum.
Although front-end issues were suspected initially, the team concluded that Base’s scalability limitations were the root cause, a problem they say persists across Ethereum-based chains.
Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, rejected the claims, asserting that Base operated smoothly and did not crash. He emphasized that Base, with a $3.05 billion total value locked and 1.2 million active addresses, had offered support to resolve front-end issues, suggesting the problem was not inherent to the chain.
Base developer ‘Saedeh’ called out Infected’s inexperience, pointing to its introduction of multiple tokens and exaggerated market cap claims as missteps.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC, ETH puts are trading at a premium relative to calls out to June expiry, representing near-term downside concerns.
The positive dealer gamma at the $83K and $84K strikes means these market participants could trade against the market to hedge their books, potentially arresting price volatility.
Perpetual funding rates for most major tokens, excluding XRP and AVAX, remain marginally positive, implying cautiously bullish sentiment.
Market Movements
BTC is up 1.25% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $83,032.61 (24hrs: -0.28%)
ETH is up 0.61% at $1,795.41 (24hrs: +0.15%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 1.54% at 2,479.75 (24hrs: +0.62%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 6 bps at 3.08%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0023% (2.4988% annualized) on Binance
DXY is up 0.47% at 102.56
Gold is up 0.48% at $3,111.90/oz
Silver is down 1.38% at $31.40/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -2.75% at 33,780.58
Hang Seng closed -1.52% at 22,849.81
FTSE is down 3.4% at 8,186.43
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 4.26% at 4,895.26
DJIA closed on Thursday -3.98% at 40,545.93
S&P 500 closed -4.84% at 5,396.52
Nasdaq closed -5.97% at 16,550.61
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -3.84% at 24,335.8
S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.21% at 2,453.38
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 13 bps at 3.9%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 2.17% at 5,315.00
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 2.34%% at 18,238.75
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 2.26% at 39,854
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 63 (0.31%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02162 (-1.05%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 839 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $46.31
Total Fees: 5.78 BTC / $478,070
CME Futures Open Interest: 135,025 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 27.1 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 7.69%
Technical Analysis
The ratio between the dollar prices of bitcoin and gold is looking to trend lower.
Gold, however, may see a «sell the fact» pullback in the wake of Wednesday’s Trump tariffs, potentially leading to a breakout in the BTC-gold ratio.
Such a move could be taken a sign of a renewed bull run in BTC, as the cryptocurrency tends to rally after gold.
Crypto Equities
Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $282.28 (-9.68%), down 1.11% at $279.14 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $170.76 (-6.66%), down 3.29% at $165.14
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.08 (-11.81%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $11.23 (-9.58%), down 3.29% at $10.86
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.30 (-8.98%), down 3.15% at $7.07
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.15 (-15.08%), down 1.96% at $7.01
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.41 (-7.61%), down 3.51% at $7.15
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.75 (-10.46%), down 0.16% at $12.73
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.06 (-8.02%), down 6.05% at $32
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $42.63 (-9.93%), down 0.09% at $42.59
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$99.8 million
Cumulative net flows: $36.23 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: -$3.6 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.37 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.39 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The global search interest for the term «tariffs» reached a peak value of 100 on Thursday, indicating heightened curiosity and concern about trade taxes among the general public over the past 90 days.
Peak interest among the general populace usually marks the end of a trend, meaning markets could soon be looking past tariffs.
While You Were Sleeping
Bitcoin Falls Back to $83K as China Announces 34% Tariffs on All U.S. Goods (CoinDesk): China announced retaliatory tariffs on all goods from the U.S.
March Jobs Report a ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Moment for Bitcoin Bulls (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s price stability above March lows suggests seller fatigue, with implied volatility indicating a potential 3.4% price swing in the next 24 hours.
South Korea’s President Yoon Ousted as Court Upholds Impeachment (Reuters): The Constitutional Court said Yoon overstepped his powers by declaring martial law. An election must be held within 60 days, with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo serving as interim president.
Inflation Fears Add to Pressure on Federal Reserve (Financial Times): Markets now see short-term U.S. inflation rising at its fastest pace since 2022.
Solana’s SOL Could See Nearly 6% Price Swing as Whales Dump Coins Before U.S. Jobs Data (CoinDesk): Volmex’s one-day implied volatility index indicates SOL may see a 6% price swing as large investors offload holdings ahead of the U.S. non-farm payroll report.
China’s Response to New U.S. Tariffs Will Likely Focus More on Stimulus, Building Trade Ties (CNBC): China is likely to respond by boosting stimulus, deepening Asian and African trade ties, and keeping the yuan strong to shift inflationary pressure onto the U.S., analysts said.
In the Ether
With a signature from President Donald Trump, the decentralized financial (DeFi) corner of the crypto sector is now freed from U.S. Internal Revenue Service demands that such platforms be treated as brokers and required to track and report user activity.
That narrowly focused IRS rule, approved in the final days of former President Joe Biden’s administration, has been formally struck down, according to Representative Mike Carey, an Ohio Republican who backed the effort. And the agency is prevented from pursuing anything like it, according to the Congressional Review Act power used by lawmakers to get rid of the tax regulation.
Though the issue was relatively limited, its completion marks the first time a pro-crypto effort has cleared the U.S. Congress.
Both the Senate and House of Representatives agreed to reverse the IRS action with strong bipartisan showings, further underlining the crypto sector’s strength in this Congress. That could bode well for the industry’s chances with other more wide-ranging matters, including legislation to regulate stablecoin issuers and to set market rules for crypto transactions.
Trump’s signature on the DeFi tax resolution puts that concern for DeFi in the rearview. The next crypto priority in Congress has been stablecoin legislation. Similar bills have passed relevant committees in both the House and Senate and are awaiting floor votes in each chamber. Approvals would start a process to meld the two efforts into one compromise version.
The president has called for a bill to arrive on his desk by August, and the lawmakers behind the legislation have said such a timeline is still possible.
Uncategorized
Helium Issuer Nova Labs Agrees to Pay SEC $200K to Settle Allegations It Lied to Investors About Brand Partnerships
Nova Labs, the parent company behind the Helium blockchain, has agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) $200,000 to settle civil securities fraud charges the regulator filed against the firm in January, a court filing said Thursday.
Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, Nova Labs agreed to pay the fine to settle accusations that it misled institutional investors during a funding round from late 2021 to early 2022, during which it raised $200 million in fresh capital at a $1 billion valuation. In its complaint, the SEC accused Nova Labs of lying to prospective investors about a number of big-name enterprise customers — including Nestle, Salesforce and Lime — it claimed were using the Helium technology.
The SEC accused Nova Labs of repeatedly exaggerating the nature of its relationships with these three corporations in order to secure investments, touting them as customers and “users” of its tech. According to the complaint, Nova Labs’ actual contact with Lime, Salesforce and Nestle was limited and primarily occurred before the launch of the Helium network in mid-2019.
For example, according to the SEC, the extent of Nestle’s relationship with Nova Labs was a small-scale test of some of the company’s component hardware in its water-delivery business in 2018, before Nova Labs was even in the crypto business. Its relationship with scooter company Lime was limited to two in-person demonstrations of Nova Labs’ component hardware to an audience of just two Lime employees — at least one of whom left the company shortly afterwards —in early 2019, the SEC said.
Both Nestle and Lime eventually sent Nova Labs cease-and-desist orders, according to the SEC, threatening the company with legal action if it continued to use their trademarks and otherwise claiming to have an ongoing relationship with them, the complaint alleged.
As part of Nova Labs’ settlement agreement with the SEC, the regulator agreed to drop two other claims that the company violated federal securities laws, including through the sale of three of its tokens — the Helium Network Token (HNT), the Helium Mobile Network Token (MOBILE) and the Helium IoT Network Token (IOT) — which the SEC alleged in January to be securities, according the settlement agreement. Those claims were dropped with prejudice, meaning the SEC is barred from bringing a future case under the same allegations.
Nova Labs celebrated the settlement in a Thursday blog post, calling it a “major win for Helium and the People’s Network.”
“With this dismissal, we can now definitively say that all compatible Helium Hotspots and the distribution of HNT, IOT and MOBILE tokens through the Helium Network are not securities,” the blog post said. “The outcome establishes that selling hardware and distributing tokens for network growth does not automatically make them securities in the eyes of the SEC.”
The blog post made no mention of the $200,000 settlement or the claim that Nova Labs misled investors.
When reached for comment, Nova Labs Chief Legal Officer Sarah Aberg told CoinDesk that while the settlement agreement prohibits the company from either admitting or denying the claims, “we can point out that, both at the time of those statements and today, data usage on the Helium Network has always been publicly available.”
The settlement agreement, filed in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) on Thursday, is subject to approval by a federal judge.
Crypto companies issuing or dealing with tokens that may be securities should provide detailed disclosures, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Thursday.
The SEC published its latest staff statement on disclosures ahead of its second roundtable — which will focus on trading — «as part of an effort to provide greater clarity on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto assets.»
The nonbinding guidance recommends companies filing disclosures be precise about what their businesses do and what role their tokens may play in those ventures. Much of it is based on observations about what companies have previously disclosed, the statement said. The statement did not delve deeply into which cryptocurrencies are being defined as securities or what definitive guidance on that issue may look like.
«These offerings and registrations may involve equity or debt securities of issuers whose operations relate to networks, applications, and/or crypto assets. These offerings and registrations also may relate to crypto assets offered as part of or subject to an investment contract (such a crypto asset, a ‘subject crypto asset’),» the statement said.
Many of the details include disclosures made by existing companies that the SEC said it observed, including whether the businesses are developing crypto or blockchain networks, their development milestones, what the network would be for and whether it was based on open source or other technology stacks.
Previous disclosures also include details like what rights token holders have and technical specifications, the statement said.
The statement said the Division of Corporation Finance was just providing its views ahead of the SEC’s new crypto task force’s work to more clearly define where its jurisdiction lies in the digital asset sector. A footnote, like previous staff statements, noted that the statement is not formal guidance or rulemaking and «has no legal force or effect.»
Previous staff statements issued under Acting Chair Mark Uyeda addressed stablecoins and memecoins.
Read more: SEC Staff to Reassess Biden-Era Crypto Guidance Amid Regulatory Shakeup
President Trump Signs Resolution Erasing IRS Crypto Rule Targeting DeFi
Helium Issuer Nova Labs Agrees to Pay SEC $200K to Settle Allegations It Lied to Investors About Brand Partnerships
New SEC Staff Statement Urges Detailed Crypto Token Disclosures
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