Decentral Block Post

Crypto-friendly billionaire investor Bill Ackman is considering the possibility that US President Donald Trump may pause the implementation of his controversial proposed tariffs on April 7.

"One would have to imagine that President Donald Trump's phone has been ringing off the hook. The practical reality is that there is insufficient time for him to make deals before the tariffs are scheduled to take effect," Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, said in an April 5 X post.

Trump may postpone tariffs to make more deals, says Ackman

"I would, therefore, not be surprised to wake up Monday with an announcement from the President that he was postponing the implementation of the tariffs to give him time to make deals," Ackman added.

On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries, which took effect on April 5. Harsher reciprocal tariffs on trading partners with which the US has the largest trade deficits are scheduled to kick in on April 9.

Ackman — who famously said "crypto is here to stay" after the FTX collapse in November 2022 — said Trump captured the attention of the world and US trading partners, backing the tariffs as necessary after what he called an "unfair tariff regime" that hurt US workers and economy "over many decades." 

The White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks says Meta’s release of its latest AI model, Llama 4, has pushed the United States into the lead in the global race for artificial intelligence dominance.

“For the US to win the AI race, we have to win in open source too, and Llama 4 puts us back in the lead,” Sacks said in an April 5 X post, as speculation continues to mount over the US and China competing for the top spot in the global AI race.

Sacks has been outspoken about the AI race since taking on his role following US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Just over a week into the job, Sacks said he is “confident in the US, but we can’t be complacent.”

Llama 4 “best in their class for multimodality,” says Meta

Sack’s latest comment came after Meta’s AI division said in an X post on the same day that it is introducing the fourth generation of its Llama models, Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick.

Source: David Sacks

Traders on the Kalshi prediction market place the odds of a US recession in 2025 at 61%, following the sweeping tariff order signed by President Donald Trump on April 2.

Kalshi uses the standard criteria of a recession, two business quarters of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth, as reported by the United States Department of Commerce.

Odds of a US recession on the prediction platform have nearly doubled since March 20 and mirror the current 2025 US recession odds on Polymarket, which traders on the platform currently place at 60%.

The macroeconomic outlook for 2025 deteriorated rapidly following US President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff order and the ensuing sell-off in capital markets, sparking fears of a prolonged bear market.

Odds of US recession in 2025 top 60% on the Kalshi prediction market. Source: kalshi

Solana’s native token SOL (SOL) dropped by 9% between March 28 and April 4, but several key metrics grew during the same period. Despite SOL’s price downturn, the Solana network continues to outpace competitors, maintaining its second-place position in deposits and trading volume. Traders now wonder how long it will take for SOL’s price to reflect this onchain strength.

Solana outperforms rivals in TVL deposits and DEX volumes

Investor’s declining interest in SOL could be linked to the April 4 staking unlock of 1.79 million SOL, worth over $200 million. The selling pressure is clear, as these tokens were staked in April 2021, when SOL traded near $23. Another factor is the decline in interest for memecoins, which had been a major driver of new user adoption on Solana. With fewer speculative inflows, growth in activity may not translate to immediate price gains.

Several meme-themed cryptocurrencies, including WIF, PENGU, POPCAT, AI16Z, BOME, and ACT, saw declines of 20% or more over the past seven days. Yet, despite worsening market conditions, the Solana network outperformed some competitors. Its Total Value Locked (TVL) rose to the highest level since June 2022, while decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes showed notable resilience.

Solana Total Vale Locked (TVL), SOL. Source: DefiLlama

Deposits in Solana network’s DApps rose to 53.8 million SOL on April 2, marking a 14% increase from the previous month. In US dollar terms, the $6.5 billion total stands $780 million ahead of its closest competitor, BNB Chain. Solana’s top DApps by TVL include Jito (liquid staking), Jupiter (leading DEX), and Kamino (lending and liquidity platform).

XRP (XRP) price has plunged more than 35% since reaching a multi-year high of $3.40 in January — and the downtrend may deepen in April as new bearish signals emerge.

Let’s examine these catalysts in detail.

XRP nears a classic technical breakdown

XRP's recent price action is flashing a classic bearish reversal signal dubbed “inverse cup and handle formation.”

The inverse cup and handle is a bearish chart pattern that signals fading buyer momentum after an uptrend. It resembles an upside-down teacup, with the “cup” marking a rounded decline and the “handle” forming after a brief consolidation.

Inverse cup-and-handle pattern illustrated. Source: 5Paisa

Mixed-martial arts (MMA) champion Conor McGregor launched a memecoin called "REAL" on April 5, which will reportedly feature staking rewards and voting rights for token holders.

Spokespeople for the project told Cointelegraph that the token was launched through a sealed-bid auction to eliminate snipers and bots hijacking the token launch. The project was developed in a collaboration with the Real World Gaming decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

REAL token initial allocation breakdown. Source: Real World Gaming DAO

The auction will take place from April 5-6. In a statement shared with Cointelegraph, McGregor touted the launch as a fair memecoin offering:

"This is not some celebrity-endorsed bullshit token, it is a REAL game changer that will change the crypto ecosystem as well as make REAL change in the world. The sealed-bid auction is the new way of launching a token to prevent rug pulls and snipers.

"This is about transparency — we are showing the world how it is done with integrity,” McGregor continued.

Opinion by: James Newman, chief corporate affairs officer at Chiliz

The perception of blockchain, especially for those outside the industry, has often been driven primarily by stories of extreme volatility, bad actors and speculation. 

In past months, the industry has been dominated by the narratives around the rise and subsequent fall of memecoins like HAWK, Fartcoin and LIBRA. Rewind to 2021, and lacking a genuine use case, the massive hype around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) failed to translate to long-term success, with the average NFT project today having a lifespan 2.5 times shorter than the average crypto project. 

For many, however, the appeal of these assets lies in their volatility, turning a few dollars into a fortune overnight. While NFTs and memecoins are undeniably part of Web3 culture, what sustains projects, keeps users engaged, and drives the industry forward is not volatility but providing genuine solutions to real-world problems. Ultimately, it’s about utility. 

Utility drives stability 

Many blockchain projects fail because they are solutions searching for a problem rather than solving an existing one. Assets that offer no utility at all are unlikely to be more than a flash-in-the-pan moment of volatile speculation. While digital assets continue pushing technological innovation’s boundaries, human needs for utility and tangible value remain constant. Moreover, a digital asset’s utility promotes stability by shifting focus away from short-term speculation to meaningful engagement.

US President Donald Trump's trade policies will create worldwide macroeconomic turmoil and short-term financial crises that will ultimately lead to greater adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as a store of value asset, according to Bitwise analyst Jeff Park.

Economic instability from the trade war will cause governments to adopt inflationary fiscal and monetary policies, which will further debase currencies and lead to a worldwide flight to safety in alternative stores of value, like Bitcoin, Park argued.

This increased demand for BTC will drive prices much higher in the long term, the analyst concluded. In an X post on Feb. 2, Park predicted the immediate impact of a trade war:

"The tariff costs, most likely through higher inflation, will be shared by both the US and trading partners, but the relative impact will be much heavier on foreigners. These countries will then have to find a way to fend off their weak growth issues."

Despite the Increased demand for Bitcoin as a store of value against rapidly depreciating fiat currencies driving BTC prices higher in the long term, global financial markets would feel the short-term pain and wealth destruction of the trade war, according to Park.

Bitcoin hit with short-term price shock due to Covid-19 in March 2020 before rallying to all-time highs during the 2020-2021 bull market. Source: TradingView

The most successful cryptocurrency traders are still chasing quick profits in memecoins, despite signs that the broader “supercycle” for the speculative assets may be winding down. The shift follows recent disappointment tied to memecoin launches associated with US President Donald Trump.

The industry’s most successful cryptocurrency traders by returns — tracked as “smart money” traders on Nansen’s blockchain intelligence platform — continue hunting for quick memecoin returns.

While growing stablecoin holdings show increased caution, smart money remains open to speculative plays, according to Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at Nansen.

“There was the recent meme surge and smart money is always happy to capitulate on that. But they’re also happy to rotate out of these quickly as well,” he said during Cointelegraph’s Chainreaction live show on X.

“The recent meme frenzy was just a fun play they worked on, while the broader market is sorting out the direction because memecoins aren’t necessarily affected by the same macroeconomy as Bitcoin and Ethereum,” he added.

Bitcoin is gaining renewed attention as a hedge against financial instability after holding relatively steady during a record-breaking stock market downturn that saw $5 trillion wiped from the S&P 500.

The S&P 500 posted a $5 trillion loss in market capitalization over two days, its largest drop on record, surpassing the $3.3 trillion decline in March 2020 during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an April 5 report by Reuters.

The record sell-off occurred after US President Donald Trump announced his reciprocal import tariffs on April 2. The measures aim to shrink the country’s estimated trade deficit of $1.2 trillion in goods and boost domestic manufacturing.

S&P 500 record $5.4 trillion loss. Source: Zerohedge

Bitcoin’s (BTC) dip after the tariff announcement was significantly smaller than traditional markets, proving Bitcoin’s growing maturity as a global asset, according to Marcin Kazmierczak, co-founder and chief operating officer of RedStone blockchain oracle firm.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.

The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.

While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.

According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.

Source: Web.archive.org

The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump's tariffs continue to ramp up.

On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market's $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.

Nasdaq 100 is now "in a bear market"

Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.

The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now "in a bear market" after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.

"US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%," it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump's April 2 tariff announcement was "historic" and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be "impossible to avoid."

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner and vocal crypto critic Caroline Crenshaw has accused the US regulator of downplaying risks and misrepresenting the US stablecoin market in its newly published guidelines.

However, many in the crypto industry see the SEC’s decision as a step in the right direction.

In an April 4 statement, Crenshaw, who is widely known for opposing the spot Bitcoin ETFs, said that the SEC's statement on stablecoins contained "legal and factual errors that paint a distorted picture of the USD-stablecoin market that drastically understates its risks."

Crenshaw disagrees, crypto industry applauds

Under the new SEC guidelines, stablecoins that meet certain criteria are now considered "non-securities" and are exempt from transaction reporting requirements.

Crenshaw disputed the accuracy of the analysis made by the SEC in arriving at that decision. She pushed back on the SEC for reiterating issuer actions "that supposedly stabilize price, ensure redeemability, and otherwise reduce risk."

Bitcoin (BTC) price could head back toward the $100,000 level quicker than investors expected if the early signs of its decoupling from the US stock market and gold continue.

Source: Cory Bates / X

The “gold leads, Bitcoin follows” relationship is starting

Bitcoin has shrugged off the market jitters caused by US President Donald Trump’s April 2 global tariff announcement.

While BTC initially dropped over 3% to around $82,500, it eventually rebounded by roughly 4.5% to cross $84,700. In contrast, the S&P 500 plunged 10.65% this week, and gold—after hitting a record $3,167 on April 3—has slipped 4.8%.

BTC/USD vs. gold and S&P 500 daily performance chart. Source: TradingView

Cryptocurrency firms felt the heat from US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff rollout this week as market turbulence sent share prices tumbling and foiled initial public offering (IPO) plans. 

From exchanges to Bitcoin (BTC) miners, crypto stocks suffered as much, if not more, than shares of other companies — despite the industry’s warm relationship with the US president. 

On April 2, Trump announced he was placing tariffs of at least 10% on practically all imports into the United States and adding additional "reciprocal" tariffs on some 57 countries. 

Since then, major US stock indices — including the S&P 500 and Nasdaq — tumbled by roughly 10% as traders braced for a looming trade war. 

Bitcoin miners sold off on Trump’s tariff news. Source: Morningstar

Brazilian judges have been authorized to seize cryptocurrency assets from debtors who owe money and are behind on their payments, signaling a growing recognition that digital assets can be both a form of payment and a store of value.

According to local media reports, the Third Panel of Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice unanimously authorized judges to send letters to cryptocurrency brokers informing them about their intent to seize an account holder’s assets to repay creditors.

The report was confirmed by the Superior Court of Justice, which issued a notice on its website.

The decision was reached unanimously by the Third Panel, which reviewed a case brought forward by a creditor.

“Although they are not legal tender, crypto assets can be used as a form of payment and as a store of value,” a translated version of the Superior Court of Justice’s memo read.

Under new SEC guidelines, stablecoins that meet certain criteria are considered ”non-securities” and are exempt from transaction reporting requirements, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission said in a notice published April 4.

"Covered stablecoins," as the SEC classifies them, are fully backed by physical fiat reserves or short-term, low-risk, highly liquid instruments and are redeemable at a 1:1 ratio with US dollars.

The definition precludes algorithmic stablecoins that maintain their US dollar peg using software or an automated trading strategy, leaving the regulatory status of algorithmic stablecoins, synthetic dollars, and yield-bearing fiat tokens uncertain.

Current stablecoin market overview. Source: RWA.XYZ

Industry leaders and executives are pushing for regulatory changes that would allow stablecoin issuers to share yield opportunities with stablecoin holders and offer onchain interest.

As stock markets crumbled for a second day on April 4, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the Trump administration’s “reciprocal tariffs” could significantly affect the economy, potentially leading to "higher inflation and slower growth."

Addressing the public at a conference on April 4, Powell maintained a cautious approach and noted that tariffs could spike inflation “in the coming quarters,” complicating the Fed’s 2% inflation target, just months after rate cuts indicated a soft landing. Powell said,

“While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent.” 

Moments before Powell’s speech, US President Donald Trump called out the Fed chair to “CUT INTEREST RATES” in a post on the Truth Social, taking a jab at Powell for being “always late.”

Source: Truth Social

Currently, the Fed faces a critical choice: pause interest rate cuts throughout the year or respond quickly with rate reductions if the economy shows signs of weakening. While the Fed official noted that the economy is in a good place, Powell said that it was,

Stablecoins are “in a bull market of their own,” even as smart contract platforms — including Ethereum and Solana — sputter amid the marketwide tumult, asset manager VanEck said in an April 3 monthly note.

The diminished activity on smart contract platforms reflects cooling market sentiment in cryptocurrencies and beyond as traders brace for the impact of US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff policies and a looming trade war. 

But stablecoin adoption — a key measure of Web3’s overall health — continues apace. This is partly because ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty “could accelerate the strategic case for crypto,” Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of research, said in an April 4 X post.

Tokenized treasury bills help support stablecoin adoption. Source: VanEck

Related: Circle considers IPO delay amid economic uncertainty — Report