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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
Crypto infrastructure provider StraitsX debuted its Singapore dollar-pegged stablecoin, XSGD, on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) to cater to growing demand for regulated multi-chain stablecoins supporting real-time cross-border payments.
Digital asset developers, fintechs firms and financial institutions can use XSGD to conduct cross-border transactions, settle transactions on-chain and create programmable financial flows. XGSD is being powered by XRPL, a decentralized public blockchain from Ripple.
StraitsX, a major payment institution licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, began issuing XSGD in 2020. The stablecoin pegged to the Singapore dollar is fully backed 1:1 by reserves held with DBS Bank and Standard Chartered.
As of writing, XSGD had a total supply of 14.12 million, with an onchain transaction count exceeding 8 billion. The stablecoin is available on Arbitrum, Avalanche, Ethereum, Polygon, Hedera and Zilliqa.
«At StraitsX, we’ve always approached stablecoins not just as digital representations of fiat, but as critical infrastructure for the future of financial markets. Launching XSGD on the XRP Ledger is a meaningful step toward that vision – an expansion of interoperability, programmability, and access across networks that were purpose-built for real-world value exchange,» Co-Founder and deputy of StaitsX, Liu Tianwei, told CoinDesk.
Regulated stablecoins like XSGD are better positioned to see increased adoption in the expected boom in cross-border economic activity in the coming years. For instance, per some estimates, cross-border e-commerce in Asia is expected to surpass $4 trillion by 2030. Meanwhile, global cross-border payments are projected to hit $250 trillion by 2027, according to a report published by Infosys Finacle last year.
The report mentioned Ripple while discussing various methods fintechs employ for money transfer. The report said that Ripple’s real-time settlement of funds «eliminates the need for pre-funding destination accounts and supports low-cost payments within seconds.»
Opening move
The debut of XSGD on the XRP Ledger marks the beginning of a series of upcoming rollouts outlined under the strategic partnership, the press release said.
In June, StraitsX plans to introduce a second phase focused on institutional applications, including programmable payouts, merchant settlements, and seamless compliance integrations for various financial workflows.
«StraitsX’s launch of XSGD on the XRP Ledger underscores that digital assets, including stablecoins, could play a pivotal role in payments» said Fiona Murray, managing director of APAC at Ripple.
«We are seeing a growing appetite for stablecoins like XSGD to support enterprise-grade use cases across payments, liquidity, and compliance-first infrastructure. Our collaboration with StraitsX to bring XSGD to the XRP Ledger supports our commitment to delivering regulated assets that can reshape cross-border payments and unlock value for financial institutions,» Murray added.
A key crypto bill has opened a rift among Senate Democrats as another big test approaches for the viability of legislation to regulate stablecoin issuers. Most expect the bill to clear a significant procedural vote on Monday night, but Democrats are split.
The Senate’s most prominent crypto critic, Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren, is leading a faction trying to dig in their heels on the bill, raising objections that include national security threats, consumer hazards and the corruption of a White House that’s conflicted because of President Donald Trump’s own digital assets business interests.
The other group, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the bill’s primary backers, has argued that presidential conflicts are already illegal under the U.S. Constitution, and the bill doesn’t need to have specific constraints added to clarify that point. That side also praises a number of changes to the legislation to improve consumer protections and to partially address worries that large corporations will issue stablecoins — the steady, typically dollar-based tokens that underpin so much of the crypto markets’ transaction activity.
The bill is set for what’s known as a cloture vote on Monday night, which will decide whether it advances into a formal and time-limited period of debate before final consideration. Cloture tends to be the most difficult test for Senate legislation, because it requires 60 votes — much more than a simple majority. A previous version of the bill failed such a vote once before, when Democrats demanded more time to make changes.
The stablecoin bill is one of two highly significant U.S. legislative efforts that will finally establish a set of rules and system of oversight for crypto in the U.S., and many in the industry believe it’ll usher in a flood of interest from investors who’ve waited on the sidelines until the sector is completely regulated. The supporters of the stablecoin legislation have set it up for this vote, suggesting they were able to wrangle enough backers to triumph.
The current Senate bill — known as the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act — is worse than doing nothing, according to the arguments from the camp led by Warren, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. «A strong bill would ensure that consumers enjoy the same consumer protections when using stablecoins as they do when using other payment systems, close loopholes that enable the illicit use of stablecoins by cartels, terrorists, and criminals, and reduce the risk that stablecoins take down our financial system,» according to a sheet issued on Monday by the committee’s Democratic staff. «The GENIUS Act does not meet those minimum standards.»
Gillibrand, however, said the bill has been written in a «truly bipartisan effort.»
«Stablecoins are already playing an important role in the global economy, and it is essential that the U.S. enact legislation that protects consumers, while also enabling responsible innovations,” the New York Democrat said in a statement last week.
Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, also explained his view in choosing to support the bill. “It sets high standards for issuers, limits big tech overreach and creates a safer, more transparent framework for digital assets,» he said in a statement. «It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than the status quo.”
Read More: U.S. Stablecoin Bill Could Clear Senate Next Week, Proponents Say
In the hours before the planned Monday vote, a coalition of 46 consumer, labor and advocacy groups continued objecting to the legislation, which has been overhauled repeatedly.
«A vote for this legislation would enable and condone cryptobusiness activities by the Trump administration, organization, and family that raise unprecedented concerns about presidential conflicts of interest, corruption, and the abuse of public office for private gain,» they wrote in a letter to the Senate leadership.
The crypto industry itself has come together to support the legislation, with various lobbyist groups publishing statements arguing lawmakers should advance the legislation. Stand With Crypto, a Coinbase-backed group focused on getting voters to support crypto issues, warned lawmakers in a statement Monday that their votes would go into its sometimes arbitrary assignment of grades for politicians’ crypto sentiment.
While the stablecoin bill has drawn some political heat, it’s widely expected to be the easier of the two crypto efforts on Capitol Hill. The legislation to establish U.S. market rules for crypto is much more complex. For both bills, the House of Representatives is also working on parallel efforts.
If the bill clears cloture, it could speed toward Senate passage in a matter of days. Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst with TD Cowen, expects it to clear the Senate this week
“That means it could become law by summer as we see the House moving quickly on the bill,” he wrote in a note to clients.
Warren wrote her own letter on Monday to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice, pressing for answers about what’s being done about North Korean hackers who stole more than a billion dollars in assets from exchange Bybit earlier this year.
«These stolen assets have helped keep the regime afloat and supported continued investments in its nuclear and conventional weapons programs,» Warren and Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, wrote to the Treasury secretary and attorney general. «Reports suggest there are potentially thousands of North Korean-affiliated crypto hackers around the globe.”
Cryptocurrencies regained footing on Monday after a rocky start to the trading session, mirroring a broader recovery in risk assets as traders digested Moody’s downgrade of U.S. government bonds.
Bitcoin BTC notched a strong rebound after slipping to as low as $102,000 early in the U.S. session, following its record weekly close at $106,600 overnight. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap climbed back to $105,000 in afternoon trading, up 0.4% over 24 hours. Ether ETH rose 1.2%, reclaiming the $2,500 level.
DeFi lending platform Aave AAVE outperformed most large-cap altcoins, while the majority of the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index members still remained in the red despite advancing from their daily lows. Solana SOL, Avalanche AVAX and Polkadot DOT were down 2%-3%.
The bounce extended to U.S. stocks, too, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq erasing their morning decline.
The early pullback in crypto and stocks came after Moody’s late Friday downgraded the U.S. credit rating from its AAA status. The move rattled bond markets, pushing 30-year Treasury yields above 5% and the 10-year note to over 4.5%.
Still, some analysts downplayed the downgrade’s long-term impact on asset prices.
«What does [the downgrade] mean for markets? Longer-term – really nothing,» said Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of wealth management firm Lumida Wealth. He added that in the short term there might be some selling pressure centered on U.S. Treasuries due to large institutional investors rebalancing, as some of them are mandated to hold assets only in AAA-rated securities.
«Moody’s is the last of the three major rating agencies to downgrade U.S. debt. This was the opposite of a surprise – it was a long time coming,» Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, said in an X post. «That’s why stock investors don’t seem to care.»
Bitcoin targets $138K this year
While BTC hovers just below its January record prices, digital asset ETF issuer 21Shares sees more upside for this year.
«Bitcoin is on the verge of a breakout,» research strategist Matt Mena wrote in a Monday report. He argued that BTC’s current rally is driven not by retail mania, but by a confluence of structural forces, including institutional inflows, a historic supply crunch and improving macro conditions that suggests a more durable and mature path to fresh all-time highs.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have consistently absorbed more BTC than is mined daily, tightening supply while major institutions, corporations such as Strategy and newcomer Twenty One Capital accumulate and even states explore creating strategic reserves.
These factors combined could lift BTC to $138,500 this year, Mena forecasted, translating to a roughly 35% rally for the largest crypto.
StraitsX Launches Its Singapore-Dollar Pegged Stablecoin, XSGD, on XRP Ledger
Senate Dems Gear Up Resistance as Stablecoin Bill Meets Test Most Think Will Succeed
Bitcoin Climbs to $105K; Crypto ETF Issuer Sees 35% Upside
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