Bitcoin (BTC) outshined the otherwise volatile alternative cryptocurrencies early Monday as the dollar index crashed to a three-year low on reports that President Donald Trump is exploring ways to remove the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

BTC rose over 2% to $87,200, hitting the highest since April 2, according to data source CoinDesk. The move marked a bullish resolution to the recent consolidation between $83,000 and $87,000. Major alternative cryptocurrencies such as payments-focused XRP, Ethereum’s ether and Cardano’s ADA rose over 1% each, lagging BTC.

In FX markets, hedge funds sold the U.S. dollar against major currencies, including euro, yen and the Aussie dollar, driving the dollar index to 98.5, the lowest since April 2022, according to data from charting platform TradingView. The DXY has declined by 10% in three months. Weakness in the dollar typically eases financial conditions, greasing risk-taking in financial markets.

Meanwhile, gold’s rally continued, with the per ounce price reaching a record high of $3,382, taking the year-to-date gain to 28%. Futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq traded 0.5% lower.

Observers suggest that National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett’s comment on Friday regarding Trump’s intention to remove Powell likely triggered the selling of the dollar, along with upticks in BTC and gold.

«The move in bitcoin to $87,000 appears to be driven by a sharp drop in the U.S. dollar and a +2% rally in gold, both triggered by Trump’s push to replace Fed chair Powell. While a trade deal with Japan may be announced soon, the key catalyst today is the perceived thread to Fed independence,» Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, told CoinDesk.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday that «Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough,» while reiterating calls for lower interest rates on the following day. Early last week, Powell said that the Fed would wait for more data on the economy before changing the borrowing cost while warning of stagflation.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee warned that a move by Trump to terminate Jerome Powell would undermine the credibility of the Fed.

Hashprice, a key metric used to gauge miner revenue, is currently hovering near a five-year low, according to HashRate Index—a stark reminder of how difficult the mining business has become.

In simple terms, the metric is the income miners can expect per unit of computing power, denoted by per petahash (PH/s). It can be denominated in U.S. dollars or BTC, although it’s most commonly quoted in USD for practical comparison.

At present, hashprice sits at $44.00 PH/s, only slightly above its August 2024 low, when bitcoin reached $49,000 amid the yen carry trade unwind. Currently, bitcoin is trading around $84,000.

Despite the higher BTC price, miner revenue is dwindling, which paints a dire picture of the mining industry as a whole after the recent halving event cut the rewards by half. Rising competition, higher mining difficulty, lower transaction revenue, and spiking energy costs have added more pressure to the revenue.

However, it’s not all bad. At around $44.00 PH/s levels, depending on what type of mining machines miners are using, miners can still be near or at breakeven, although far from 2021’s mining bull run.

Looking ahead, deteriorating market conditions, stagnant bitcoin prices, and geopolitical uncertainty, such as potential tariffs affecting mining operations, could create further headwinds for the industry.

This is reflected in the performance of the Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI), which is down 50% year-to-date while BTC fell about 10%, underscoring the challenging environment facing the mining sector.

It makes sense that miners are increasingly pivoting into other revenue streams, such as reallocating computing power for artificial intelligence.

Read more: Bitcoin Mining Stocks Plunge as Revenue Craters Amid Market Carnage

The price action for XRP and bitcoin (BTC) resembles a tightly compressed spring on the verge of uncoiling with a sudden release of energy.

That’s the message from a key volatility indicator called Bollinger Bandwidth. Bollinger Bands are volatility bands set at plus two and minus two standard deviations above and below the 20-period moving average (SMA) of an asset’s market price. The bandwidth measures the space between these bands as a percentage of the 20-day moving average.

In the case of XRP, the Bollinger bandwidth has narrowed to its lowest level since October 2024 on the 4-hour chart, where each candle represents price action for a four-hour period. The 4-hour chart interval is quite popular in the 24/7 crypto market, allowing traders to analyze and predict short-term price movements. Bitcoin’s 4-hour chart mirrors the Bollinger bandwidth pattern in XRP.

The long-held belief is that tighter Bollinger bandwidth, reflecting a quiet period in the market, is akin to a compressed spring ready for significant movement.

During these calm phases, the market accumulates energy that is eventually released once a clear direction is established, often leading to dramatic rallies or sharp price declines/ Both XRP and bitcoin surged in November-December following an extended range-bound period that left their bandwidth at levels comparable to those observed today.

That said, tighter bands do not always indicate a bullish volatility explosion; they can also foreshadow a sell-off. For example, the bands tightened in October 2022, signaling a significant move ahead, which materialized on the downside after FTX went bust.

It remains to be seen whether this latest spring compression will trigger bullish volatility or lead both tokens into a tailspin. The recent hawkish comments from Federal Reserve’s Chairman Jerome Powell and selling by some whales favor the latter.

Stay alert!