Bitcoin (BTC) Price Defies Sell-Off as Tariffs Rattle Stocks, Currencies

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless noted otherwise)

Liberation Day has come to an end, and markets now have a clear understanding of the U.S. tariff situation. Beginning April 5, all U.S. trading partners will incur a minimum import tariff of 10%, with additional, country-specific tariffs set to begin on April 9 for approximately 60 nations.

President Donald Trump enacted these tariffs due to concerns about trade imbalances and non-tariff barriers, aiming to promote the return of manufacturing jobs, create revenue to facilitate tax reductions, and ensure fair competition for American producers.

China is one of the nations hit hardest by these changes, facing an increased tariff of 34% on top of the already existing charges, raising the total to 54%. Other Asian countries have also experienced significant impacts, while the European Union is subjected to a 20% tariff.

Interest has surged regarding the methods used to determine these tariff rates, referred to as reciprocal by the administration. One user on X claims to have uncovered the formula: Take the trade deficit a country has with the U.S. and divide that by the country’s exports to the U.S.

For instance, Vietnam exported $136.6 billion to the U.S. while only importing $13.1 billion. This results in a $123.5 billion trade deficit. Dividing the deficit by exports reveals a ratio of about 90%, which matches the tariff rate the U.S. has indicated.

Global stock markets are experiencing downward pressure, with the Nikkei 225 dropping 2.8% after a decline of as high as 4.6%. The FTSE 100 has lost over 1%, and Nasdaq futures have fallen by more than 3.5%. Vietnam’s market led declines in Asia, plummeting 5.5%, marking its steepest single-day plunge in over four years.

The dollar has dipped as well, with the yen climbing to 147 against it and the pound reaching 1.31. The dollar index (DXY) has dropped to 102.5. Bitcoin (BTC) continues to hold strong above $83,000, although it remains below its crucial 200-day moving average of $86,400, a level it needs to recover.

The crucial U.S. 10-year Treasury yield is lingering just above 4%, the lowest it has been since October, which is perceived as beneficial for the administration in terms of lowering interest rates. Stay vigilant!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
• Macro
  • April 3, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor will publish unemployment insurance statistics for the week ending March 29.
    • Initial Jobless Claims Estimate: 225K vs. Previous: 224K
  • April 3, 9:00 a.m.: S&P Global will release March purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data for Brazil.
    • Composite PMI Previous: 51.2
    • Services PMI Previous: 50.6
  • April 3, 9:30 a.m.: S&P Global will announce March PMI data for Canada.
    • Composite PMI Previous: 46.8
    • Services PMI Previous: 46.6
  • April 3, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global will share (Final) March PMI data for the U.S.
    • Composite PMI Estimate: 53.5 vs. Previous: 51.6
    • Services PMI Estimate: 54.3 vs. Previous: 51
  • April 3, 10:00 a.m.: The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) will post U.S. economic activity data for March.
    • Services PMI Estimate: 53 vs. Previous: 53.5
  • April 3, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will convene in executive session to vote on the nominations of Paul Atkins as SEC chair and Jonathan Gould as comptroller of the currency. Livestream link.
  • April 3, 12:30 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair Philip N. Jefferson will deliver a speech titled “U.S. Economic Outlook and Central Bank Communications.” Livestream link.
  • April 4, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada will release employment figures for March.
    • Unemployment Rate Estimate: 6.7% vs. Previous: 6.6%
  • April 4, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will announce employment data for March.
    • Nonfarm Payrolls Estimate: 140K vs. Previous: 151K
    • Unemployment Rate Estimate: 4.1% vs. Previous: 4.1%
  • April 4, 11:25 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will give a speech titled “Economic Outlook.”
  • April 5, 12:01 a.m.: The implementation of the standard 10% tariff on imports from all countries by the Trump administration takes effect.
  • April 9, 12:01 a.m.: The higher individual tariffs on imports from nations with the largest U.S. trade deficits come into force.
• Earnings (Estimates based on data)

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Yearn DAO is considering a revised proposal to endorse and finance “Bearn,” a new sub-DAO focused on developing DeFi products such as a yield-backed stablecoin and a BGT liquid locker. The proposal requests $200,000 for audits and $1 million in locked liquidity in exchange for offering 5% of BEARN tokens to the Yearn Treasury.
  • Lido DAO is reviewing the re-endorsement of wstETH on Starknet as the official bridge endpoint following a completed token migration.
  • April 3, 9 a.m.: SafePal, Wallet Connect, and Trader will conduct a monthly community livestream discussing project updates.
  • April 3, 2 p.m.: Arbitrum is hosting an X Spaces session on real-world assets on Arbitrum.
  • April 3, 3 p.m.: Movement will lead an X Spaces session focused on non-fungible tokens.
  • April 3, 12 p.m.: Seamless Protocol, Morpho Labs, and Gauntlet will hold an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session.
  • April 3, 12 p.m.: Wormhole will host an ecosystem call focused on recent developments.
  • April 7, 9 a.m.: OriginTrail will present a Zoom talk titled “Shaping AI for Good.”
  • April 7, 4 p.m.: Livepeer will conduct a monthly community call to discuss governance, funding, and the strategic direction of its on-chain treasury.
• Unlocks
  • April 3: Wormhole (W) will unlock 47.64% of its circulating supply, valued at $118.42 million.
  • April 5: Ethena (ENA) is set to unlock 3.25% of its circulating supply, amounting to $55.30 million.
  • April 7: Kaspa (KAS) will unlock 0.59% of its circulating supply valued at $9.73 million.
  • April 9: Movement (MOVE) has 2.04% of its circulating supply unlocking, worth $19.71 million.
  • April 12: Aptos (APT) will unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply, totaling $59.49 million.
• Token Listings
  • April 3: Mantle (MNT), Vine Coin (VINE), CZ’s Dog (BROCCOLI), Moca Network (MOCA), and Nakamoto Games (NAKA) will be listed on DigiFinex.
  • April 3: Binance will list Gunz (GUN).
  • April 4: Pintu (PTU), Spartan Protocol (SPARTA), Derby Stars (DSRUN), Veloce (VEXT), BOB, and Kryptonite (SEILOR) will be delisted from Bybit.

Conferences

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Treasure DAO, a decentralized gaming ecosystem, is restructuring to extend its financial runway until February 2026. Chief contributor John Patten is taking on a leadership role again and has proposed a plan to streamline operations, reduce expenses, and focus on four pivotal products: marketplace, Bridgeworld, Smolworld, and AI agent.
• As part of the cost-cutting efforts, Patten has reported that 15 contributors have either resigned or been laid off, and support for game publishing along with the treasure chain will be discontinued.
• He also suggested withdrawing $785,000 from Flowdesk to bolster the DAO’s treasury, which currently sits at $2.4 million alongside 22.3 million MAGIC tokens, valued at $2.3 million.
• Patten cautioned that with the current annual burn rate of $8.3 million and a potential decline in the value of MAGIC, the DAO may find itself unsustainable between December 2025 and February 2026 without implementing these changes.

Derivatives Positioning

• The BTC and ETH basis on both CME and offshore exchanges remain steady at around an annualized 5% following the overnight sell-off.
• XRP, BNB, and SOL are experiencing negative funding rates, indicating a renewed perception of bearish positions among traders, according to data from Velo.
• XRM, BTC, and OM have shown positive cumulative volume deltas, suggesting net buying activity over the past 24 hours.
• The bearish sentiment surrounding Deribit’s BTC and ETH options has now extended through the end of June, in contrast to May prior to the announcement of the U.S. tariffs.

Market Movements

• BTC has decreased by 2.17% since 4 p.m. ET Wednesday, trading at $83,799.17 (24hrs: -1.62%)
• ETH has dropped by 1.93%, now at $1,844.66 (24hrs: -3.15%)
• The CoinDesk 20 Index is down by 0.56% at 2,559.88 (24hrs: -0.07%)
• The Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate has decreased by 8 bps to 3.02%
• The BTC funding rate is currently at 0.0047% (5.0983% annualized) on Binance

• The DXY index has decreased by 1.66% to 102.09
• Gold has increased by 0.32% to $3,149.9 per ounce
• Silver has fallen by 4.14% to $33.07 per ounce
• The Nikkei 225 closed -2.77% at 34,735.93
• The Hang Seng index closed -1.52% at 22,849.81
• The FTSE 100 is down 1.33% at 8,494.33
• The Euro Stoxx 50 has seen a 2.13% decline, settling at 5,191.06
• The DJIA finished on Wednesday at +0.56% at 42,225.32
• The S&P 500 closed at +0.67%, reaching 5670.97
• The Nasdaq closed up +0.87% at 17,601.05
• The S&P/TSX Composite Index concluded at +1.09% at 25,307.20
• The S&P 40 Latin America index closed at +0.3% at 2,448.23
• The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has fallen by 7 bps to 4.05%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures have dropped 3.05% to 5,538.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 3.3% at 19,105.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures have decreased by 2.53% to 41,416.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 62.86 (0.13%)
• Ethereum to Bitcoin ratio: 0.02176 (0.05%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 835 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $47.31
• Total Fees: 4.43 BTC / $377,634
• CME Futures Open Interest: 138,385 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 26.5 oz
• BTC market cap vs. gold: 7.53%

Technical Analysis

• Solana’s SOL token has fallen below $125, a level that served as a demand zone multiple times last year.
• This breach of key support indicates a continuation of the downtrend, with the next levels of support at $100, followed by $78, marking the January 2024 low.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $312.54 (+2.13%), down 4.69% to $297.89 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $182.95 (+4.83%), down 5.49% to $172.90
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$17.10 (+4.72%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.42 (+4.9%), down 6.28% to $11.64
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.02 (+6.37%), down 5.61% to $7.57
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.42 (+5.25%), down 6.18% to $7.90
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.02 (+6.08%), down 7.11% to $7.45
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.24 (+4.17%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $37.03 (+1.4%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $47.33 (+3.73%), down 0.72% to $46.99

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $218.1 million
• Cumulative net flows: $36.33 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.12 million.

Spot ETH ETFs:

• Daily net flow: -$51.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.38 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.42 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• Traders on the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket are now estimating a greater than 50% chance that the U.S. economy will fall into recession this year.
• This forecast could put pressure on risky assets in the immediate term.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether