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Escalating trade tensions and renewed uncertainty in global markets are driving investors toward alternative assets, including Bitcoin and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), as concerns mount over the long-term stability of the financial system.

Global trade tensions continue pressuring investor sentiment despite US President Donald Trump announcing a 90-day pause on higher reciprocal tariffs on April 9, reverting the tariffs to the 10% baseline for most countries.

At the same time, Trump escalated his tariffs on Chinese goods from 104% to 125%, the Financial Times reported on April 9.

“President Trump’s tariff escalation marks a significant inflection point for global markets,” a move that signals “more than a trade disagreement,” said Teddy Pornprinya, co-founder of Plume, a layer-1 blockchain focused on tokenized real-world assets. He added:

“It exposes deeper fractures in the global monetary system.”

With both the US and China facing what he described as unsustainable debt levels, Pornprinya warned of increased reliance on inflationary tools, including the potential depreciation of the Chinese yuan.

The largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies produced nearly $800 million worth of Bitcoin in the first quarter of 2025, reflecting continued growth across the sector as Bitcoin prices held near record highs.

According to publicly available data compiled by Cointelegraph, the top Bitcoin mining companies produced over 9,700 Bitcoin (BTC) in the first quarter. With Bitcoin trading at around $81,600 at the time of writing, the total production was valued at around $800 million. 

Marathon Digital, the biggest Bitcoin mining company by market capitalization, led the pack with 2,285 Bitcoin (worth roughly $186 million) mined in Q1. 

On April 3, Marathon announced that it produced 829 BTC in March, up 17.4% from February and 10.5% higher than January.

Related: Bitcoin miner Bitfarms secures up to $300M loan from Macquarie

Cosmos, a blockchain network aiming to become the “internet of blockchains,” has launched Eureka, an interoperability layer designed to link its inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol with Ethereum.

According to an April 10 announcement, Eureka has expanded the Cosmos IBC protocol, changing IBC from an ecosystem standard “to a universal interoperability protocol,” setting the hub on a course to become the home of multichain apps.

Cosmos projects are integrating into IBC Eureka. Source: Cosmos

With the introduction of Eureka, many Cosmos-based applications and blockchains are now accessible to more users by expanding IBC to the Ethereum network. With the new protocol, developers can reportedly build multichain apps across multiple ecosystems without fragmenting the user base.

Related: Cosmos co-founder proposes peer-to-peer clearing system in white paper

American stock exchange Nasdaq has filed an application with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list and trade shares of the VanEck Avalanche Trust, a proposed exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to offer indirect exposure to the AVAX token.

The filing, signed by Nasdaq’s executive vice president and chief legal officer John Zecca, requests approval to list and trade shares of the VanEck Avalanche ETF under the company’s Rule 5711(d), which governs the trading of commodity-based trust shares. 

If approved, the VanEck Avalanche ETF would allow investors to gain exposure to the Avalanche (AVAX) price without directly holding them. The ETF would hold the tokens and track their price, allowing investors to profit from the token’s performance without needing crypto wallets or using digital asset trading platforms. 

According to the filing, asset manager VanEck Digital Assets will sponsor the trust, while a third-party custodian will hold all the Avalanche tokens on the trust’s behalf. 

Excerpt of Nasdaq’s Avalanche ETF listing application. Source: Nasdaq

Bitcoin wasn’t supposed to just sit still.

When Satoshi Nakamoto released the white paper in 2008, it wasn’t a blueprint for digital gold; it was a peer-to-peer cash system. But fast-forward to today, and Bitcoin’s biggest critics and supporters alike often agree on one thing: It doesn’t really work like money, at least not yet.

In the latest episode of The Clear Crypto Podcast, hosts Nathan Jeffay and Gareth Jenkinson speak with Eli Ben-Sasson, the co-founder of StarkWare and one of the leading minds in cryptographic scaling. His message? That might be about to change.

Bitcoin’s three pillars

Ben-Sasson lays out a compelling framework for how Bitcoin can evolve — not by abandoning its principles, but by scaling them. He describes three core pillars that need to align in order for Bitcoin to fulfill its promise. 

Broadness, integrity and verifiability, according to Ben-Sasson, are concrete, technical targets for Bitcoin’s widespread adoption and useability. Not only that, but the tools to hit these targets already exist. 

Austrian fintech unicorn Bitpanda has secured its third license under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework, further expanding its regulatory footprint across the bloc.

Bitpanda announced on April 10 that it would receive a new MiCA license from Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA), its third after approvals from regulators in Germany and Malta.

Its latest approval marks “another step toward building the most regulated crypto platform in Europe,” the exchange said in an announcement on X.

Source: Bitpanda

MiCA, which took full effect on Dec. 30, 2024, is designed to provide a harmonized legal framework for crypto asset service providers (CASPs) across the EU. Despite this goal, Bitpanda’s pursuit of multiple licenses raises questions about how consistently MiCA is being interpreted and enforced across the bloc.

Key takeaways

AI tools like ChatGPT can help both experienced and new crypto investors track portfolios with ease, freeing up time for other investment activities and making the process more accessible.

Defining specific requirements, such as which cryptocurrencies to track and the desired data points, is essential for building an effective portfolio tracker tailored to your investment goals.

By combining ChatGPT with real-time crypto data from APIs like CoinMarketCap, you can generate valuable market commentary and analysis, providing deeper insights into your portfolio performance.Developing additional features like price alerts, performance analysis and a user-friendly interface can make your tracker more functional, helping you stay ahead of market trends and manage your crypto investments more effectively.

If you’re a cryptocurrency investor, you’ve clearly got a strong appetite for risk! Cryptocurrency portfolios involve many immersive stages, from desktop research on the profitability of cryptocurrencies to actively trading crypto to monitoring regulations. Managing a portfolio of cryptocurrencies can be complex and time-consuming, even for savvy investors. 

Conversely, if you’re a newbie in the world of cryptocurrencies and want to set yourself up for success, you may be put off by the complexity of it all. 

Tokenized gold trading volume surged to a two-year high this week, topping $1 billion as investors pivoted toward safe-haven assets amid global uncertainty triggered by US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs.

The weekly trading volume of tokenized gold surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time since March 2023, when a US banking crisis saw the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the voluntary liquidation of Silvergate Bank. Signature Bank was also forced to close operations by New York regulators on March 12, two days after Silvergate’s liquidation.

Tokenized gold has experienced a significant surge in trading interest since early February, when global trade war fears started spreading to digital markets, according to a CEX.io research report shared with Cointelegraph.

Top tokenized gold assets, trading volume. Source: CoinGecko, Cex.io

Since Trump’s first tariff announcement on Jan. 20, Paxos Gold (PAXG) trading volume has surged by over 900%, Tether Gold (XAUT) trading rose over 300% and Kinesis Gold (KAU) volume increased by more than 83,000%.

United Kingdom regulators are increasingly concerned about the impact of stablecoins and the broader crypto industry on the country’s financial system and monetary stability.

During Financial Policy Committee meetings held on April 4 and 8, regulators noted that while the current “interconnectedness of unbacked crypto asset markets with the real economy and financial sector is growing but remains relatively limited,” stablecoins and crypto markets have expanded significantly in the past year, drawing heightened regulatory attention.

The UK, its central bank and its local regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, have been developing frameworks for stablecoins to ensure financial resilience. The committee claims to have determined the factors that make a stablecoin resilient:

“A key determinant of the resilience of stablecoins was the liquidity, credit and market risks of their backing assets, which were in place to ensure that redemptions can be met in a timely manner at par, even in periods of stress.“

The committee raised alarm over the “greater issuance of sterling offshore stablecoins with inappropriate backing assets.” This has implications for UK financial markets and “even with appropriate regulation, greater use of stablecoins denominated in foreign currencies could make some economies vulnerable to currency substitution,” the committee said.

Bank of England. Source: Wikimedia

Bitcoin (BTC) risks becoming part of a “classic bull trap” when the US-China trade war takes its next step, analysis warns.

In its latest bulletin to Telegram channel subscribers on April 10, trading firm QCP Capital cautioned over the latest crypto price rebound.

QCP: Chinese “countermeasures” may leave crypto bulls stranded

Bitcoin and altcoins joined global stock markets in rallying over the past 24 hours thanks to a decision by US President Donald Trump to pause many of his new trade tariffs.

China was a clear exception to the policy, with Trump doubling down on those tariffs while alleviating pressure on other countries. 

For QCP, now is the time not for relief, but to brace for China’s next move.

Over the past decade, issuance of Tether’s USDt (USDT) has consistently mirrored Bitcoin (BTC) price cycles, with mints often clustering around bull runs and burns following corrections.

Data from Whale Alert shows the relation between USDT issuance and Bitcoin price movements by plotting Tether’s net minting and burning alongside the price of Bitcoin from 2015 to early 2025. 

While many in the industry have long speculated about the correlation between USDT supply and BTC performance, this data set provides a clearer timeline for evaluating that relationship.

Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin with over $144 billion in market capitalization, has become a key liquidity vehicle in crypto markets and is often viewed as a proxy for broader capital inflows.

The data from Whale Alert reinforces how tightly its issuance patterns track with Bitcoin’s price cycles, though the direction of causality remains up for debate.

Jack Dorsey, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former Twitter CEO, is encouraging Signal Messenger to integrate Bitcoin for peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, a move that could shift the platform’s crypto strategy away from altcoins.

“Signal should use Bitcoin for P2P payments,” Dorsey wrote on X on April 9, replying to a post by Bitcoin developer Calle, who suggested that Bitcoin (BTC) would be a perfect fit for Signal’s private communication channel.

Source: Jack Dorsey

Dorsey’s call to action was echoed by other industry leaders, including former PayPal president David Marcus, who wrote that “all non-transactional apps should connect to Bitcoin.”

The endorsements reflect a growing push to promote Bitcoin as a functional payment system rather than just digital gold or a pure store of value, which alone — according to Dorsey — won’t ensure the success of BTC.

The Synthetix protocol’s native stablecoin, Synthetix USD (sUSD), fell to its lowest value in five years, extending a months-long struggle to maintain its $1 peg.

The asset has faced persistent instability since the start of 2025. On Jan. 1, sUSD dropped to $0.96 and only rebounded to $0.99 in early February. Prices continued to fluctuate through February before stabilizing in March.

On April 10, sUSD fell to a five-year low of $0.83, according to data from CoinGecko.

SUSD is a crypto-collateralized stablecoin. Users lock up SNX tokens to mint sUSD, making its stability highly dependent on the market value of SNX.

1-month price chart of Synthetix USD stablecoin. Source: CoinGecko

Bybit’s market share has rebounded to pre-hack levels following a $1.4 billion exploit in February, as the crypto exchange implements tighter security and improves liquidity options for retail traders.

The crypto industry was rocked by its largest hack in history on Feb. 21 when Bybit lost over $1.4 billion in liquid-staked Ether (stETH), Mantle Staked ETH (mETH) and other digital assets.

Despite the scale of the exploit, Bybit has steadily regained market share, according to an April 9 report by crypto analytics firm Block Scholes.

“Since this initial decline, Bybit has steadily regained market share as it works to repair sentiment and as volumes return to the exchange,” the report stated.

Block Scholes said Bybit’s proportional share rose from a post-hack low of 4% to about 7%, reflecting a strong and stable recovery in spot market activity and trading volumes.

Crypto stocks have surged as part of a broader recovery in the US stock market on April 9 following President Donald Trump’s 90-day pause on sweeping global tariffs.

The Wednesday, April 9 trading day closed with Michael Saylor’s Strategy up 24.76% to $296.86, while crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) closed up 17% to $177.09, according to Google Finance data.

Crypto mining companies also saw gains, with MARA Holdings (MARA) up 17%, Cipher Platforms (CIFR) up 16.59%, and Riot Platforms (RIOT) rising 12.77%.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, surged 24.76% during the trading day. Source: Google Finance

Most of the gains in crypto stocks and the broader US market came in the final three hours of the day's trading session, spurred by an afternoon post from Trump on his social media platform, Truth Social. 

Non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea has urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude NFT marketplaces from regulation under federal securities laws.

The SEC needs to “clearly state that NFT marketplaces like OpenSea do not qualify as exchanges under federal securities laws,” OpenSea general counsel Adele Faure and deputy general counsel Laura Brookover said in an April 9 letter to Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency’s Crypto Task Force.

Faure and Brookover argued that NFT marketplaces don’t meet the legal definition of an exchange under US securities laws as they don’t execute transactions, act as intermediaries or bring together multiple sellers for the same asset.

“The Commission’s past enforcement agenda has created uncertainty. We therefore urge the Commission to remove this uncertainty and protect the ability of US technology companies to lead in this space,” Faure and Brookover wrote.

OpenSea’s legal team has asked the SEC to issue informal guidance on NFT Marketplaces. Source: SEC

XRP has struggled to find sustained bullish momentum since reaching its cycle peak at $3.40 on Jan. 16, 2025. XRP (XRP) dropped as much as 46% over the past three months, but despite its recent drawdown, Glassnode data indicates that 81.6% of XRP’s current circulating supply remains in profit.

While the profit supply percentage is down from its year-to-date high of 92%, the data set highlighted the retention value for holders despite the recent corrections.

Percentage Supply in Profit for XRP, BTC, SOL ETH, TRX. Source: X.com

Currently, only Tron (TRX) has a higher profitable supply with 84.6%, while Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) exhibited 76.8%, 44.9% and 31.6%, respectively.

Analyst says Korean XRP traders are bearish

Data shows traders in Korea played a significant role in buying the first XRP dip below $2 on Feb. 3. Investors on Upbit and Bybit exchange filled their bids below $2, pushing the altcoin’s value back to $2.89 on Feb. 13.

Institutional crypto investment firm Bitwise has doubled down on its big Bitcoin price prediction for this year despite escalating global trade tensions.

“In December, Bitwise predicted that Bitcoin would end the year at $200,000. I still think that’s in play,” Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan said in an April 9 blog post. 

He suggested that the fallout from US President Donald Trump’s global tariff push could be beneficial for Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto because his administration “wants a weaker dollar, even if it means ending its role as the world’s reserve currency.”

Hougan cited an April 7 speech by Steve Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, which criticized the dollar’s reserve status as causing “persistent currency distortions” and “unsustainable trade deficits” that have “decimated” US manufacturing.

Hougan said a weaker greenback could have both short-term and long-term implications for Bitcoin. 

Ether’s (ETH) most recent sell-off saw it lose the crucial $1,500 support level, and a number of technical indicators suggest that ETH may witness a deeper correction before embarking on a sustained recovery.

Data shows Ether’s price dropped below its realized price — an onchain metric that recalculates the market value of a cryptocurrency based on the price at which each coin last moved on the blockchain.

According to CryptoQuant contributor, theKriptolik, ETH price trading below this metric, which is historically a bearish sign. When the realized price is above the spot price, it usually acts as resistance and places “most holders suddenly in a loss position,” the analyst said.

The analyst added:

“Drops below the realized price often mark the capitulation phase, where investors lose confidence and begin selling en masse.”

Ethereum realized price for accumulation addresses. Source: CryptoQuant

Solana non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden has acquired crypto trading app Slingshot as part of a strategy to expand beyond NFTs as other marketplaces fold amid a prolonged market downturn.

The move expands Magic Eden's support to more than 8 million tokens across almost every major blockchain, the firm said in an April 9 X post.

“No bridges. No CEXs. This is another major step towards our vision of providing the best platform to trade all assets, on all chains,” Magic Eden said.

Source: Jack Lu

Slingshot has amassed nearly 1 million users to date, allowing users to access any token on 10 of the largest blockchains with a universal USDC (USDC) balance.

Braden John Karony, the CEO of crypto firm SafeMoon, has cited the US Department of Justice’s directive to no longer pursue some crypto charges in an effort to get the case against him and his firm dismissed. 

In an April 9 letter to New York federal court judge Eric Komitee, Karony’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, said the court should consider an April 7 memo from US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that disbanded the DOJ’s crypto unit.

“The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” Blanche said in the memo, which added the DOJ “will no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets.”

Blanche also directed prosecutors not to charge violations of securities and commodities laws when the case would require the DOJ to determine if a digital asset is a security or commodity when charges such as wire fraud are available.

An excerpt of the letter Karony sent to Judge Komitee. Source: PACER

Bitcoin inflows into crypto exchange Binance have surged over the past two weeks amid uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the upcoming US Consumer Price Index (CPI) results, says an analyst.

However, another analyst argued that while it could signal an impending sell-off, it might also indicate a bullish trend.

Investors are “actively moving funds to Binance”

CryptoQuant contributor Maarten Regterschot said in an April 9 post that Binance’s Bitcoin (BTC) reserve increased by 22,106 BTC, worth $1.82 billion, over the last 12 days to a total of 590,874 BTC.

“This shows a strong acceleration in BTC inflows to Binance. It’s likely that investors are actively moving funds to Binance due to the macro uncertainty and before the upcoming CPI announcement,” Regterschot said. 

CoinMarketCap shows Bitcoin is trading at $82,474 at the time of publication, up 8.8% in the past day after receiving a boost from Trump’s 90-day tariff pause on all countries but China.

Ukraine’s financial regulator has proposed taxing certain crypto transactions as personal income at a rate of up to 23% but excluding crypto-to-crypto transactions and stablecoins.  

Crypto transactions would be taxed at 18% with a 5% military levy on top as part of the proposed framework, released on April 8 by Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission. 

NSSMC Chairman Ruslan Magomedov said in an April 8 statement that “the issue of crypto taxes is not a hypothesis, but a reality that is fast approaching.” 

He added that the agency created the framework to help lawmakers make an “informed resolution” by considering each suggestion’s advantages and disadvantages because “these aspects can have a critical impact on the market and tax liability.”

Under the NSSMC’s proposed crypto framework, a tax will be applied when crypto is cashed out for fiat currency or exchanged for goods or services. 

Digital asset manager 21Shares has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a spot Dogecoin exchange-traded fund, following similar filings from rivals Bitwise and Grayscale.

The 21Shares Dogecoin ETF would seek to track the price of the memecoin Dogecoin (DOGE), according to the firm’s April 9 Form S-1 registration statement. The Dogecoin Foundation’s corporate arm, House of Doge, plans to assist 21Shares with marketing the fund.

21Shares said Coinbase Custody would be the proposed custodian of its Dogecoin ETF but did not specify a fee, ticker or what stock exchange it would list on.

Source: James Seyffart

21Shares must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator's approval process for the fund. 

Update April 10 at 1:41 am UTC: This article has been updated to include background on Paul Atkins and to correct the vote count.

The US Senate has confirmed US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Paul Atkins, as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission in a 52-44 vote largely along party lines.

Atkins’ confirmation on April 9 comes after Trump named the pro-crypto former Wall Street consultant to lead the agency late last year. Atkins also served as an SEC commissioner between 2002 and 2008, during the global financial crisis.

”A veteran of our Commission, we look forward to him joining with us, along with our dedicated staff, to fulfill our mission on behalf of the investing public,” the agency’s commissioners wrote in an April 9 statement.

Atkins founded financial consulting firm Patomak Global Partners in 2009, specializing in regulatory compliance and risk management, and served as co-chair of crypto advocacy group Token Alliance between 2017 and late 2024.

Ethereum researcher Virgil Griffith was released from prison custody on April 9, the Bureau of Prison (BOP) officials confirmed to Cointelegraph.

According to crypto developer Brantly Millegan, Griffith will remain in a halfway house for several weeks while waiting to complete the next steps in his parole process.

Griffith was arrested in 2019 for giving a lecture about blockchain technology and its power to circumvent US sanctions to an audience in North Korea.

Virgil Griffith pictured in the center with his parents immediately following his release from prison custody on April 9. Source: Brantly Millegan

The US government claimed the researcher violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) by giving North Korea "highly technical information" despite the content of the lecture being widely available knowledge published on the internet.

Aave’s tokenholders approved a governance proposal to start buying back the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol’s governance token, AAVE, as part of a broader tokenomics overhaul, Aave said on April 9. 

The proposal — which was approved by more than 99% of AAVE tokenholders — permits the protocol to purchase $4 million in AAVE (AAVE) tokens, enough for one month of buybacks. 

The move is a “first step” toward a broader plan to repurchase $1 million AAVE tokens weekly for six months. It is also the latest instance of DeFi protocols implementing buyback mechanisms in response to tokenholder demands.

“The goal is to sustainably increase AAVE acquisition from the open market and distribute it to the Ecosystem Reserve,” the proposal said. 

The AAVE token’s price rallied more than 13% on April 9, bringing the protocol’s market capitalization to more than $2.1 billion, according to data from CoinGecko.

US equities and crypto markets shifted dramatically on April 9 after  US President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariffs, except for China. Bitcoin (BTC) price responded by surging by 5% in less than an hour, reclaiming the $83,000 level which was last seen on April 6.

While the S&P 500 gained 8%, Bitcoin derivative metrics have yet to turn bullish as traders remain cautious about changes in US long-term government bonds.

Bitcoin 2-month futures annualized premium. Source: Laevitas.ch

The BTC futures premium briefly rose above the neutral 5% threshold but failed to sustain its momentum. Investors were skeptical about whether the US Federal Reserve would lower interest rates throughout the year. However, this indicator has moved away from the 3% level observed on March 31, signaling growing confidence among Bitcoin bulls after several failed attempts to push prices below $76,000.

Bitcoin traders worry after 10-year yield volatility

Traders’ hesitancy can partly be attributed to the April 9 release of minutes from the Federal Reserve Committee (FOMC) meeting held on March 18-19. The minutes highlighted concerns about stagflation. According to CME FEDWatch Tool data, the probability of the Federal Reserve reducing interest rates below 4% by Sept. 17 dropped from 97.6% on April 8 to 69.7% on April 9.