Francisco Rodrigues (always ET unless otherwise indicated)
President Donald Trump’s announcement of “mutual tariffs” led the uncertainty index of economic and trade policy to record highs earlier this month, moving investors away from risky assets, including Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell incited the flame late Wednesday, saying central banks see the economy likely to slow down and likely increase as “some of these tariffs will become paid to the public.”
His comments put even more emphasis on risk assets, dropping the Nasdaq by 1.17%, while the S&P 500 fell 2.24% before the closing bell. Still, while Bitcoin has grown by more than 1% in the last 24 hours, the Coindesk 20 (CD20) index captures a wider market, while Crypto is considered a more risk gauge than a safe haven, but added 1.8%.
Demand for “assets that provide shelter from political contradictions and trade uncertainties” is likely to continue growing, Telegraph reported to Pepperstone analyst Michael Brown.
Bitcoin surpasses the stock market, which has risen 1% over the past month, compared to the Nasdaq’s nearly 8% decline, but institutional investors are piled up in gold, a combat-tested safe haven.
Precious metals rose 11% last month and 27% this year to a troy ounce of around $3,340. A survey by Bank of America’s Global Fund Managers found that 49% of fund managers consider “Long Gold” to be the busiest trade on Wall Street, while 42% of fund managers predict that it is the best performing assets of the year.
“The case for adding gold allocations is more persuasive than ever in an environment of escalating tariff uncertainty, weaker growth, increased inflation, geopolitical risks, diversification from US assets and US$,” a UBS analyst wrote.
Gold fund flows have reached $80 billion so far this year, but SOSOValue data shows Sosovalue’s data that saw net inflows and net outflows since the start of $5.25 billion in January. Over $900 million remaining in funds each year since February and March. Keep alerts!
Cryptography:
April 17: Eigenlayer (Eigen) activates Ethereum Mainnet thrashing and enforces penalties for operator misconduct.
April 18: Layer-1 Pepecoin (PEP), Proof of Work blockchain, is halved for the second time, reducing block rewards to 15,625 PEP per block.
April 20th 11pm: BNB Chain (BNB) – Opbnb Mainnet Hardfork.
April 21: Coinbase Derivatives lists XRP futures that are pending approval by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
April 25th, 1pm: Cryptocurrency Task Force Roundtable on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “Critical Considerations for Cryptocurrency Rights.”
Macros
April 17th at 8:30am: The US Census Bureau will release new home construction data in March.
The housing begins EST. 1.42m vs. front. 1.501m
The house starts with the previous mom. 11.2%
April 17th at 8:30am: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended April 12th.
The first unemployment claim was est. 225K vs. front. 223K
April 17th at 7:30pm: Japan’s Ministry of Home Affairs and Communications will release March Consumer Price Index (CPI) data.
Core inflation rate Yoi EST. 3.2% vs. 3%
Before moms inflation. -0.1%
Around the inflation rate. 3.7%
Revenue (estimation based on fact set data)
April 22nd: Tesla (TSLA), Post Market
April 30: Robin Hood Market (Food), Post Market
Governance votes and phone calls
GMX DAO is discussing the establishment of a GMX reserve in Solana. This includes bridging $500,000 with GMX to the Solana network and transferring funds to the GMX-Solana Treasury.
Treasure Dao is discussing the authorities with a team of core contributors to close ZKSYNC’s gem chain infrastructure and manage liquidity pools owned by major Magic-ETH protocols.
April 17th 11am: Starnet hosts a governance call to discuss Cairo and ways to improve the “overall development experience.”
Unlock
April 18: Official Trump (Trump) to unlock 20.25% of distribution supply worth $314.3 million.
April 18: FastToken (FTN) unlocks 4.65% of its distribution supply worth $84.4 million.
April 18: Official of Melania Meme (Melania) to unlock 6.73% of distribution supply worth $1072 million.
April 18: UXLINK (UXLINK) unlocks 11.09% of its distribution supply worth $16.52 million.
April 18: Unlock the Unchanging (IMX) $1003 million to unlock 1.37% of the circulating supply.
April 22: Metars Genesis (MRS) unlocks 11.87% of its distribution supply worth $126.7 million.
Token launch
April 17th: Vethor (VTHO) listed on Bybit.
April 17: Babylon (Baby), AI Rig Complex (ARC), and Alchemist AI (alchi) are listed in Kraken.
April 22nd: Airdrop Hyper Tokens from Hyper Lane.
The Coindesk consensus will take place in Toronto from May 14th to 16th. Save 15% on your pass with Code Day Book.
Day 3: Tokyo for the next week
April 22nd-24: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)
April 23rd: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)
April 23rd – 24th: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)
April 24th: Bitwise’s Bitcoin Standard Corporation (New York) Investor Day
April 26th: Crypto Vision Conference 2025 (Manilla)
April 26-27: Harvard Blockchain in Action Conference (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
April 27th: N Crypto Conference 2025 (Kyiv)
April 27th-30th: Web Summit Rio 2025
April 28-29: Blockchain will be confused in 2025 (Dubai)
April 28th-29th: Staking Summit Dubai
April 29: El Salvador Digital Assets Summit 2025 (Salvador, El Salvador)
April 29: IFGS 2025 (London)
By Shaurya Malwa
LaunchLab, Raydium’s platform for introducing Tokens, was released late Wednesday.
It recently pivoted away from Raydium and competed directly with Pumpswap, which started its own exchange, prompting Raydium to introduce a competing platform.
Solana Ecosystem has surged with the LaunchLab debut, creating over 1,750 tokens shortly after its launch. Raydium’s Ray token price rose 10% in the next few hours.
LaunchLab’s dynamic joint curve system offers three different pricing mechanisms (transition from the fixed slope pricing model used in the MemeCoin Launch platform) that affect how token values change based on user transactions.
Integration with major Solana trading apps such as Axiom, Bullx and Jupiterexchange could increase the visibility of LaintingLab and encourage wider adoption across the ecosystem.
CME’s open interest in Bitcoin futures reached the highest level of the month at 138,235 BTC as traders reentered the base trading. CME’s annual base rose to 8%.
With the April option being just over a week before it becomes effective on Delibit, the $100,000 strike remains the most dominant, with the assumption of over $315 million.
Futures’ persistent funding rate was once again negative on Wednesday during Powell’s speech. Throughout the week, funding rates have been oscillated between positive and negative, highlighting the continued short-term uncertainty regarding the direction of Bitcoin.
BTC has remained unchanged at $84,312 (24 hours: +0.4%) from 4pm on Wednesday
ETH is up 1.26% at $1,593.44 (24 hours: +0.91%)
Coindesk20 has not changed at 2,459.45 (24 hours: +1.36%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 1bp bps at 3%
BTC’s funding rate is 0.012% (annual rate of 4.3866%) for Binance.
DXY is up 0.11% at 99.49
Gold increased by 0.35% to $3,338.30 per ounce
Silver is down 1.49% at $32.44/ounce
Nikkei 225 closed +1.35% at 34,377.60
Hang Seng closed +1.61% at 21,395.14
FTSE is down 0.82% at 8,207.47
The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.56% at 4,938.69
DJIA closed -1.73% on Wednesday at 39,669.39
S&P 500 closed -2.24% at 5,275.70
Nasdaq closed -3.07% at 16,307.16
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.16% at 24,106.80
S&P 40 Latin America closed 0.32% at 2,345.32
The US 10-year financial ratio rose 3 bps to 4.31%
E-Mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.9% at 5,353.25
E-Mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.02% at 18,573.25
E-MINI DOW JONES INDUSTRIAN ARIVARY INDEX futures are up 0.81% at 40,175.00
BTC dominance: 63.89 (-0.07%)
Ethereum to Bitcoin ratio: 0.01889 (0.64%)
Hash rate (7-day moving average): 905 EH/s
Hashpris (spot): $43.9
Total Fee: 5.78 BTC/$482,907
CME Futures Open Interest: 138,235 BTC
Gold Price BTC: 25.4 oz
BTC vs. Gold Market Cap: 7.15%
Bitcoin bounces cleanly out of the Golden Pocket Zone, with Fibonacci levels of 0.618 and 0.65 held in support as holdings of $74,995 and $73,213.
This area marks the first actual retracement from $109,396 in height, indicating strong buyers’ interest.
The bounce also coincided with breakouts from the daily downtrends that have been in place since February. This is a significant change in structure that is worth noting.
The BTC is currently sitting just below the exponential moving averages of 50 and 200 every day and is beginning to converge.
These levels often serve as decision points and with prices facing them, the next move should provide a more clearer direction. The clean breaks and holds mentioned above allow the Bulls to have more control, but the refusal was able to see the price return to the golden pocket.
He also plays out weekly 50 EMAs (currently $78,071) and will be added to the confluence just below. As long as BTC keeps it above the broken trend line and continues to defend this cluster of support, the short-term momentum will remain constructive.
Strategy (MSTR): Closed on Wednesday at $311.66 (+0.3%), up 0.98% at $314.70 before the market
Coinbase Global (Coin): Closed at $172.21 (-1.91%), increasing 0.87% to $173.70
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): Closed at C$15.58 (+0.84%)
Mara Holdings (Mara): Closed at $12.32 (-2.07%), increasing 0.81% to $12.42
Riot Platforms (Riot): Closed at $6.36 (-2.9%), increasing 0.31% to $6.38
Core Scientific (CORZ): Closed at $6.59 (-3.8%), up 1.67%
CleanSpark (CLSK): Closed at $7.28 (+0.0%), 0.27% increase at $7.30
Coinshares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): Closed at $11.91 (-0.58%)
Semler Scientific (SMLR): Closed at $31 (-9.88%)
Exodus Movement (Exod): Closed at $37.19 (-2.16%), up 2.18% at $38
Spot BTCETFS:
Daily Net Flow: -$171.1 million
Cumulative net flow: $353.6 billion
Total BTC holdings: 1 million
Spot ETH ETF
Daily Net Flow: -$12.1 million
Cumulative net flow: $2.26 billion
Total ETH holdings are approximately 30 million
Source: Farside Investors
Yesterday, the SOL/ETH ratio surged to a record high, closing at 0.0833, highlighting the continued strength of SOL compared to ether.
The etheric weakness was also shown in the ETH/BTC ratio, which slipped into 0.0187, the lowest level since January 6, 2020.
Sol Jumps 6%, Bitcoin sticks to $84,000 for hopes of reducing damping rates (Coindesk): Bitcoin could stay between $80,000 and $90,000 as traders clearly await a tariff talk and delayed Fed rate reductions.
Trump’s whispering Meloni in Europe tries to put a hand on tariffs (Wall Street Journal): Italian Prime Minister is expected to push Trump today on the EU’s “zero-zero-zero” proposal.
Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang flies to Beijing for consultation (Financial Times): The visit urges the company to warn of a $5.5 billion revenue hit following the US decision to request a license to export Nvidia’s H20 chips to China.
Chinese stocks face the risk of a US outflow of $800 billion, Goldman says (Bloomberg) that in a complete financial segregation, US investors could dump $800 billion in Chinese stocks, while Chinese investors could load $370 billion in US stocks and $1.3 trillion in bonds.
The Bitcoin that Haven Crypto Bulls wanted is a more risk barometer: Godbole (Coindesk): Bitcoin examined participants in the FX market who solidified as a proxy for risk and tracked it as a measure of speculative sentiment, rather than behaving as digital gold.
Quantum Computing Group provides one BTC to those who break Bitcoin’s encryption key (Coindesk). The competition offers one bitcoin to competitors and one bitcoin to break elliptic curve encryption (ECC) using Shor’s algorithm on quantum computers.
