Bitcoin remained steady above $87,000 in Asian afternoon hours Wednesday as traders continued to monitor U.S. data releases and how the levy of U.S. tariffs will play out starting April 2, with most in wait-and-watch mode.

Majors were little-changed in the past 24 hours as Solana’s SOL, xrp (XRP), BNB Chain’s BNB, and ether (ETH) rose under 3%, while memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) outperformed with a 5.5% jump.

That was the second-straight day for gains for DOGE, alongside continued bumps in pepe (PEPE) and mog (MOG), as a tendency among these tokens to act as a “beta bet” on ether’s strength showed no signs of reverting.

Elsewhere, shiba inu (SHIB) zoomed 11%, buoyed by a rotation to riskier memes and a 228% jump in its native ShibaSwap exchange in the last 30 days. Open interest on SHIB-tracked futures has risen upward of 20% since Sunday, data shows, indicative of expectations of further volatility.

Concerns about a U.S. economic slowdown remain, however, while a rapid unwinding of momentum trades in equities has led to money managers retreating to full defensive mode, some day.

“We expect markets to continue their soft rebound from last week into month-end, with the next major catalyst being the ‘liberation day’ reciprocal tariff announcement from Trump scheduled for April 2nd,” Augustine Fan, Head of Insights at SignalPlus, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. “Rumors of a softer tariff response will go a long way to recover some of the recent technical damage in US stocks, helping to spark a global rally along with the recent jump in EU/China stocks.”

“Crypto will remain a close proxy of equities in the foreseeable future as we don’t see a unique catalyst in the meantime, though the recent M&A announcements with Coinbase/Kraken give us faith that the long-term bull market remains alive and well,” Fan added.

Meanwhile, traders at QCP Capital said in a Tuesday broadcast that the upcoming quarter and April in particular, have historically been one of the best periods for risk assets, second only to the festive December rally.

“The S&P 500 has delivered an average annualized return of 19.6% in Q2, while Bitcoin has also recorded its second-best median performance during this stretch — again, trailing only Q4, QCP said, pointing out caution among options traders.

“Options markets remain cautious. Call skew hasn’t meaningfully shifted toward calls, with call skew only emerging from June onwards, suggesting traders are waiting to see how the tariff situation develops,” they said, adding that attention is turning to the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) data, which could become the “next key catalyst.”

The PCE index captures inflation (or deflation) across a wide range of consumer expenses and reflects changes in consumer behavior.

Released monthly, the PCE is said to influence Fed interest rate decisions. High PCE readings signal rising inflation, potentially prompting rate hikes to cool the economy, which can reduce risk appetite and pressure bitcoin prices downward as investors favor safer assets. Conversely, low PCE data suggests tame inflation, possibly leading to rate cuts or steady policy, boosting liquidity and supporting Bitcoin’s price as a speculative asset or inflation hedge.

The next release is on March 28 and could sway market sentiment, with bitcoin’s reaction tied to how the data shapes Fed expectations — volatility often follows as traders adjust positions.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery looks to have run out of steam with an emergence of a double top bearish reversal pattern on the short duration price charts.

BTC peaked near $87,400 last week, with prices pulling back to around $84,000 on Friday and staging a recovery to above $87,000 before stalling again. This sequence of two prominent peaks at roughly the same level, separated by a trough, hints at a classic double top formation. This bearish pattern often signals the end of an uptrend.

The double top pattern typically requires confirmation through a decisive drop below the «neckline,» the support level between the two peaks, which lies at around $86,000.

Should this occur, BTC could decline toward $75,000 or lower in the short term. However, long-term charts continue to indicate the asset remains in an ascending range.

Traders reacted positively to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s dovish stance on inflation and a cooldown in concerns around the upcoming U.S. tariffs, which have supported gains in the past week.

However, the lack of altcoin correlation with BTC’s recent moves hints that the current price action might lack broad market support, raising the possibility of a “fakeout” rally.

A potential drop in BTC will likely spread over to major tokens, denting recent gains and hopes of a lasting rally. Dogecoin (DOGE), heavily influenced by market sentiment and speculative trading, could see amplified losses if bitcoin’s bearish pattern plays out, while XRP might see reduced momentum, especially given its sensitivity to market sentiment and regulatory developments.

Solana could be particularly sensitive due to its recent volatility and technical indicators — with it coming close to forming a “death cross” (a bearish signal where the 50-day moving average crosses below the 200-day) in mid-April, a pattern that historically leads to deeper losses.

For now, bitcoin hovers in a critical zone. A weekly close below $84,000 could confirm the bearish double top scenario, while a push above $87,500 might invalidate it, potentially reigniting bullish momentum.

Crypto start-up Plasma unveiled technical features of its stablecoin-specific blockchain, promising fast and efficient global stablecoin transfers by employing a «HotStuff-inspired» consensus mechanism.

The HotStuff consensus is an example of Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) for blockchains that allows consensus even when some nodes are faulty or malicious. Imagine a group of friends planning a picnic who must agree on a date, location and duration. If the majority agrees, they can successfully move forward while bypassing potential disruptions from a few unreliable friends.

The HotStuff blockchain consensus mechanism takes this further by allowing seamless leader replacement if the decision-maker or the leader node behaves erratically, thereby reducing delays and improving efficiency.

Besides, in traditional BFT systems, every node sends multiple back-and-forth confirmations, which causes delays. The HotStuff mechanism streamlines the process where a leader node proposes a decision and validator nodes confirm in a single step.

«At its core, Plasma leverages PlasmaBFT, a Fast HotStuff–inspired consensus protocol optimized for rapid finality and low latency, supporting high‑frequency global stablecoin transfers,» Plasma announced on X.

Finality in blockchain means the speed at which transactions are confirmed and added to blocks, following which they become irreversible. Meanwhile, low latency refers to the quickness in processing transactions.

Plasma’s blockchain is purpose-built for tether, the world’s largest dollar-pegged stablecoin with a market capitalization of $144 billion. Tether accounts for over 60% of the total stablecoin market, according to data source Coingecko, and its issuer made $13.7 billion in profits last year. The early backers of the project include prominent industry names like venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino and Split Capital’s Zaheer Ebtikar.

Plasma is designed to be a Bitcoin sidechain with full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVM). Most stablecoin activity happens on smart contract blockchains such as Ethereum, Tron and Solana.

Plasma’s execution layer is built on Rust Ethereum, also known as Reth, a modular engine compatible with the EVM, allowing Plasma to run any Ethereum smart contract.

The stablecoin project also has a built-in bitcoin bridge that uses the same group of decentralized validators as the BFT mechanism and periodically links to updates on the Bitcoin blockchain. This allows Ethereum applications to work easily with Bitcoin, using the latter as the settlement layer.

«By periodically anchoring state diffs on Bitcoin, Plasma achieves seamless interoperability and uses Bitcoin as a settlement layer—delivering permissionless finality, stronger censorship resistance, and a universally verifiable source of truth,» Plasma said.

Steven Lubka, head of Swan Bitcoin said the new stablecoin infrastructure seems to be «betting on the thesis that other blockchains are only good for stablecoins and they need Bitcoin security properties to be inherited.»

Other key features of Plasma include custom gas tokens, allowing fee payments in USDT or BTC, zero-charge USDT transfers and confidential transactions while ensuring compliance.