Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin’s Haven Claim Hit as U.S., China Face Off Over Tariffs
By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
One thing markets despise is uncertainty, and right now it’s coming from all corners of the globe, largely fueled by Trump’s tariffs.
Markets rebounded somewhat on Tuesday following Monday’s bloodbath in Asia and Europe, but it was more of a relief rally than a true recovery. At the heart of the conflict are the U.S. and China, both refusing to be the first to blink — even if it means prolonged uncertainty and pain for global markets.
As markets took a breather from the turmoil, crypto skeptics were quick to point out how bitcoin’s (BTC) safe haven narrative — bolstered by its resilience late last week — quickly unraveled on Monday when the price crashed to $75,000.
While that’s true, expecting the bitcoin price to remain unaffected was overly optimistic. During crises investors historically rush to cash, liquidating even traditional havens investments such as gold. Monday was no exception. Still, bitcoin has shown lower beta than U.S. equities since the tariff announcement.
In the bigger picture, bitcoin is holding up fairly well. The Nasdaq is down over 22% from its all-time high, while bitcoin is off by 28%. In previous episodes — like the yen carry-trade unwind in August 2024 or the COVID crash in March 2020 — bitcoin suffered far deeper relative losses.
Since the New York market closed on Wednesday, BTC has declined 8.4%, outperforming the S&P 500’s 10% drop and the Nasdaq’s 11% fall.
“What matters is that BTC’s beta to broader risk assets appears meaningfully lower in this sell-off than in previous ones. This suggests a growing recognition of bitcoin’s potential role as a non-sovereign store of value during periods of economic stress,” David Lawant, head of research at FalconX, said in an email.
Monday’s trading session also included an episode of “short-term madness” driven by false reports about a 90-day tariff delay. The markets spiked and then promptly crashed back down after the reports were refuted. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
April 8: Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF (XXRP) lists on NYSE Arca.
April 9: The Mercury network upgrade gets applied to the Neutron (NTRN) mainnet, migrating it from Cosmos Hub’s Interchain Security to a fully sovereign proof-of-stake network.
April 9, 10 a.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing on updating U.S. securities laws to take into account digital assets. Livestream link.
April 10, 10:30 a.m.: Status conference for former Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
April 11, 1 p.m.: U.S. SEC Crypto Task Force Roundtable on «Tailoring Regulation for Crypto Trading» in Washington.
Macro
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 9, 8:00 a.m.: Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) releases March consumer price inflation data.
Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.48%
Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.65%
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.28%
Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.77%
April 9, 12:01 p.m.: China’s 34% retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports take effect.
April 9, 2:00 p.m.: The Fed releases minutes of the FOMC meeting held March 18-19.
April 9. 8, 9:30 p.m.: China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) releases March’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. -0.2%
Inflation Rate YoY Est. 0% vs. Prev. -0.7%
PPI YoY Est. -2.3% vs. Prev. -2.2%
April 10, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing on the nomination of Michelle Bowman as Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision. Livestream link.
April 14: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will join U.S. 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
Uniswap DAO is discussing a proposal to support v4 expansion with the creation of ENS subdomains to track BSL license exemptions and official deployments, granting the Uniswap Foundation a blanket license to deploy v4 on target chains.
Bancor DAO is discussing the expansion of its taker fee to 0.001% on stable-to-stable trades on Sei v2 to make Carbon DeFi more competitive.
April 8, 12 p.m.: Lido to host a Lido Node Operator Community Call.
April 10, 10 a.m.: Hedera to host a community call discussing the HBR Foundation joining ERC3643, the non-profit’s standards, and the Header Asset Tokenization Studio.
April 11, 3 p.m.: Zcash to host a town hall on lockbox distribution & governance.
April 14, 10 a.m.: Stacks to host a livestream with recent announcements from the project.
Unlocks
April 8: Tensor (TNSR) to unlock 35.96% of its circulating supply worth $14.44 million.
April 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $15.84 million.
April 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply worth $51.01 million.
April 12: Axie Infinity (AXS) to unlock 5.68% of its circulating supply worth $21.18 million.
April 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 4.37% of its circulating supply worth $15.79 million.
April 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.01% of its circulating supply worth $25.22 million.
Token Listings
April 8: Avalanche (AVAX) to be listed on Coins.ph.
April 9: IOST airdrop claims portal for a roughly 1.7 billion IOST token airdrop to open.
April 10: Ren (REN), KonPay (KON), and Symbol (XYM) to be delisted from Bybit.
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 1 of 2: Digital Accord Summit 2025 (Paris)
Day 1 of 3: Paris Blockchain Week
April 8: Seine & Crypto Connect (Paris)
April 9: Blockchain & Finance — Evolution or Revolution? (Paris)
April 9: FinTech and Banking Unconference Colombia 2025 (Bogota)
April 9-10: FIBE Fintech Festival Berlin 2025
April 9-10: Mexico Finance & Fintech Summit 2025 (Mexico City)
April 9-10: Middle East Resilient Banking and Payments Symposium 2025 (Abu Dhabi)
April 10: Bitcoin Educators Unconference (Nashville)
April 10: FinXtex Malaysia 2025 (Kuala Lumpur)
April 10: Institutional Crypto Conference (New York)
April 10: SheFi Sumit 2025 (Seoul)
April 10-11: BITE-CON 2025 Conference (Miami)
April 10-11: 2025 Fintech and Financial Institutions Research Conference (Philadelphia)
April 11-12: Strategy’s OPNEXT Conference (Tysons, Va.)
April 12: Ethereum Argentina (Córdoba)
April 12-13: DeSci London 2025
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
Fartcoin (FART) jumped 30% to extend monthly gains over 130%.
The absurdly-named token extended a multiday run the broader crypto market staged a relief rally, displaying signs of steady buying demand from traders.
Speculators keep an eye on continual strength in memecoins, especially when they tend to buck market trends, because the tokens tend to jump higher after a sell-off in the market. This can create possible profit opportunities for short-term traders, with some eyeing a move higher for the token in coming weeks.
FART, among some crypto circles, is a symbol of the absurd and a light-hearted rebellion against the grim financial forecasts. It holds no intrinsic value, but enjoys a cult following — possibly driving buying demand even as the market falls.
Derivatives Positioning
Bitcoin CME futures basis is holding firm above an annualized 5% amid the macro turmoil.
CME options skew, however, is showing bias for downside protection, or puts.
Together, both metrics show cautious sentiment without signaling panic, according to Thomas Erdösi, head of product at CF Benchmarks.
On Deribit, BTC and ETH put biases have moderated, but BTC implied volatility term structure remains in backwardation, indicating persistent fears of wild price swings in the short-term.
In BTC options, the $70K put is now the most popular strike, boasting a notional open interest of $957 million. That’s a 180-degree shift from the bias for $100K-$120K strike calls early this year.
Most of the top 25 coins, excluding TRX, HBAR, LINK and DOT, have seen a drop in perpetual futures open interest in the past 24 hours.
Market Movements
BTC is unchanged from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $78,894.34 (24hrs: +2.61%)
ETH is down 0.32% at $1,514.40 (24hrs: +5.22%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 0.8% at 2,268.01 (24hrs: +4.76%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 77 bps at 3.69%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0049% (5.3118% annualized) on Binance
DXY is unchanged at 103.32
Gold is up 2.19% at $3015.9/oz
Silver is up 1.9% at $30.07/oz
Nikkei 225 closed +6.03% at 33,012.58
Hang Seng closed +1.51% at 20,127.68
FTSE is up 2.1% at 7,863.79
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.36% at 4,719.66
DJIA closed on Monday -0.91% at 37,965.60
S&P 500 closed -0.23% at 5,062.25
Nasdaq closed +0.1% at 15,603.26
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.44% at 22,859.50
S&P 40 Latin America closed -2.94% at 2,227.14
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 2 bps at 4.16%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.58% at 5,178.00
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.35% at 17,799.50
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 2% at 38,930.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 63.46 (-0.11%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01980 (0.97%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 902 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $40.50
Total Fees: 6.59BTC / $510,645
CME Futures Open Interest: 137,695 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 26.2 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 7.43%
Technical Analysis
The chart shows monthly activity in the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield since the 1980s.
While the crypto community is hoping for a return to the zero-yield era, the chart suggests otherwise, revealing a long-term bullish shift in rates.
The trend change is evident from the key 50-, 100- and 200-month simple moving averages — which are aligned bullishly one above the other for the first time since the 1980s.
Elevated rates might be the new normal.
Crypto Equities
Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $268.14 (-8.67%), up 1.47% at $272.09 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $157.28 (-2.04%), up 1.72% at $159.98
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$12.34 (-8.8%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $11.26 (-0.35%), up 2.04% at $11.49
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.11 (-0.42%), up 0.28% at $7.13
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.02 (-2.23%), up 1.85% at $7.15
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.43 (+1.5%), up 0.67% at $7.48
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.41 (+0.73%)
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.15 (0.89%), down 1.02% at $33.80
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $41.84 (-6.25%), down 5.16% at $39.68
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: -$103.9 million
Cumulative net flows: $36.07 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $0.0
Cumulative net flows: $2.38 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.37 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
The chart by CryptoQuant shows daily net flow of BTC from wallets linked with miners.
On Monday, these wallets registered a cumulative net outflow of 1,627 BTC, the most since Dec. 24.
According to Bloomberg, the Trump tariffs have disrupted the bitcoin mining industry.
While You Were Sleeping
China Offers First Hint of Devaluation With Weak Renminbi Fix (Financial Times): China set the yuan-dollar rate at its lowest level since September 2023 to counter mounting U.S. tariffs. Analysts say significant devaluation is unlikely.
First XRP ETF in the U.S. to Go Live on Tuesday With Launch of Teucrium’s Leveraged Fund (CoinDesk): The Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF lists on NYSE Arca with the ticker XXRP, giving exposure to XRP with 2x leverage. Management fee: 1.85%.
Cboe Set to Debut New Bitcoin Futures With FTSE Russell (CoinDesk): Cboe Digital plans to introduce a cash-settled bitcoin futures contract April 28.
WazirX Creditors Back Restructuring Plan to Payback $230M Hack Victims (CoinDesk): If approved by the Singapore High Court, the scheme will initiate payouts within 10 business days followed by phased resumptions of withdrawals and trading, subject to regulatory compliance.
Russia’s Medvedev Predicts More Countries Will Acquire Nuclear Weapons (Reuters): Russia’s Security Council deputy chair said nuclear disarmament is no longer feasible, even if the Ukraine war ends.
Trump Order Seeks to Tap Coal Power in Quest to Dominate AI (Bloomberg): Trump is set to sign an executive order directing two federal agencies to ease coal mining limits and label the fuel a critical mineral for national security.
In the Ether
Tokyo-listed investment firm Metaplanet has purchased another 1,004 bitcoin (BTC) for approximately $104.3 million, bringing its total holdings to 7,800 BTC.
The average purchase price for this latest tranche was $103,873 per bitcoin, according to a Monday disclosure.
The company’s total bitcoin position, acquired at an average price of $91,300 per BTC, is now valued at just over $806 million based on current market prices. The move is part of Metaplanet’s long-term goal to reach 10,000 BTC by the end of 2025.
It began acquiring bitcoin in April 2024 and has since leaned heavily into a treasury strategy modeled after firms like Strategy (MSTR).
The latest purchase comes as bitcoin continues to hover just below its all-time high, trading around $103,343 at the time of writing. The broader crypto market has rallied in recent weeks amid improving macro sentiment.
Metaplanet has financed its bitcoin acquisitions through a series of bond sales, most recently completing its 15th ordinary bond issuance, worth $15 million.
Uncategorized
The Bull Case for Galaxy Digital is AI Data Centers Not Bitcoin Mining, Research Firm Says
When Galaxy Digital (GLXY) CEO Mike Novogratz bought Argos’ Helios data center in late 2022, at the depths of the post-FTX crypto winter, the company thought they were bailing out a desperate bitcoin (BTC) miner on the brink of bankruptcy.
This, however, was before ChatGPT had become mainstream. Novogratz and co. had no idea that this data center would be a strategic asset as the growing Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry clamours for more data center space, thanks to the explosive growth of Large Language Models (LLMs).
As analysts from Rittenhouse Research outlined in a new note, Galaxy’s lucky find, which instigated the company’s move out of BTC mining altogether, might now be crypto’s most lucrative pivot, as they make the case that the infrastructure used to mine digital gold is better used to process AI algorithms, and firms that shift away from BTC mining towards AI infrastructure are set to be the next growth stocks.
Analysts from Rittenhouse argue that AI data centers represent a significantly more lucrative business model than BTC mining because they generate stable, long-term cash flows with minimal ongoing capital expenditures, contrasting sharply with the volatility and capital intensity of bitcoin mining.
BTC mining revenues inherently decline by approximately 50% every four years due to the scheduled halvinings. Effectively, the play for a miner is being a long-term bull on BTC’s price and the ability for semiconductor fabs and designers to develop chips that are perpetually more efficient, and, for an investor, that’s a lot of variables.
In contrast, AI data centers like Galaxy’s Helios facility earn consistent, high-margin revenue through long-term, triple net leases to hyperscaler tenants (a large-scale cloud computing provider), without needing continuous investment in mining equipment.
“Galaxy stumbled upon Helios by virtue of good luck,” Rittenhouse wrote in their note. While competitors such as Riot Platforms and Cipher Mining have publicly tried to «rewrite history,» retroactively suggesting their business was always broader than BTC mining, analysts say, “in reality, these miners had zero intentions to do anything besides mine BTC until ChatGPT was launched.”
A broader industry shift?
Galaxy’s transition reflects a broader trend as BTC miners attempt to pivot toward AI and cloud computing.
Yet, analysts underscore Galaxy’s significant advantage, stemming from its superior balance sheet ($1.8 billion of net cash and investments), successful execution record, and credibility established through the CoreWeave lease.
While some have raised concerns over CoreWeave’s creditworthiness, causing Galaxy’s shares to trade at a significant discount, Rittenhouse analysts say these fears are significantly overblown, highlighting CoreWeave’s exceptional revenue stability from long-term contracts accounting for 96% of its revenues and its strong institutional backing.
The analysts emphasize that CoreWeave’s debt is carefully structured through delayed draw term loans, utilized specifically to finance infrastructure directly linked to secured customer agreements, dramatically reducing default risk.
Rittenhouse also notes that Galaxy has gone fully in on AI, and now doesn’t have any exposure to mining.
«Galaxy has completely exited all bitcoin mining activities to focus solely on its AI data center ambitions, which sends a positive signal to potential hyperscaler tenants,» analysts wrote.
As Rittenhouse writes, Cipher Mining’s CEO Tyler Page recently acknowledged the uphill battle miners face when approaching major AI customers.
«It’s not lost on us that if we’re talking to a counterparty with a $1 trillion market cap… One drawback for bitcoin miners is that major counterparties say, ‘wow, that’s a big obligation for you guys to backstop for such an important investment for us,’» Page said on the company’s Q1 2025 earnings call.
Galaxy doesn’t have that problem. With this Helios deal in place and Novogratz’s company totally out of mining, Galaxy’s accidental pivot might just turn out to be crypto’s best strategic move in years – if Rittenhouse’s thesis is correct.
Binance and Kraken, two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, were recently targeted in a wave of social engineering attacks similar to the one that led to a major data breach at Coinbase.
Hackers approached customer support agents with bribery offers and detailed instructions for contacting attackers through Telegram, Bloomberg reports citing people familiar with the matter. Both exchanges managed to block the attempts without losing any customer data.
The exchanges faced tactics mirroring those used against Coinbase (COIN), which earlier this week revealed it expects to pay $180 million to $400 million in remediation costs and customer reimbursements after attackers gained access to their personal information.
That breach led to a $20 million ransom demand after the attackers managed to bribe Coinbase’s overseas employees/contractors to get customer information. The exchange has fired the staff involved and has contacted law enforcement.
At Binance, internal systems including artificial intelligence bots helped detect bribery-related messages, shutting down conversations before they escalated. Policies that limit access to customer data unless users initiate contact also helped mitigate risk.
Coinbase’s reportedly started seeing unusual activity in January, and last December, rival exchanges had begun warning the company about unusual activity targeting its largest clients.
Metaplanet Buys Another 1,004 Bitcoin, Lifts Holdings to Over $800M Worth of BTC
The Bull Case for Galaxy Digital is AI Data Centers Not Bitcoin Mining, Research Firm Says
Binance, Kraken Thwarted Social Engineering Attacks Similar to Coinbase Hack
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