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The election of US President Donald Trump was supposed to usher in a golden era of crypto. Although the regulatory stars are aligning, the crypto industry just experienced its worst quarter in years.

The prices of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) recorded their worst Q1 in seven years, market sentiment fell to its lowest point since the last bear market, and Coinbase stock experienced its worst sell-off since the FTX debacle. 

With the first quarter finally in the books, investors are looking forward to positive catalysts for Bitcoin and the broader market. This could come in the form of favorable Spring seasonality, more clarity on Trump’s tariff policy and shifting policy winds at the Federal Reserve. 

Coinbase stock suffers worst quarter since 2022

Coinbase stock, which has long been considered an important bellwether for the crypto industry, plunged by 33% in the first quarter despite reporting strong business fundamentals and a solid revenue outlook. As Cointelegraph reported, it was the worst quarterly decline since the FTX exchange collapse in late 2022.

Like other crypto-native businesses, Coinbase’s performance languished under the pressure of Trump’s tariff war, volatile digital asset prices and the overhang of tightening financial conditions from the previous quarter.

First Trust Advisors has launched two Bitcoin (BTC) strategy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) designed to provide investors with Bitcoin exposure while capping losses and earning yield, the asset manager said. 

The move comes amid an outpouring of funds seeking to enhance Bitcoin’s appeal to traditional investors by offering tailored exposure to the cryptocurrency’s performance.

The FT Vest Bitcoin Strategy Floor15 ETF (BFAP) is designed to track Bitcoin’s performance up to a capped upside while limiting drawdown risk to approximately 15%, First Trust said in an announcement.

“Over the past few years, investors have shown a remarkably strong appetite for bitcoin-linked ETFs, but the potential for sharp drawdowns has kept many on the sidelines,” Ryan Issakainen, an ETF strategist at First Trust, said in a statement.

First Trust launched two new Bitcoin strategy funds. Source: First Trust

Bitcoin (BTC) price has managed to stay above the $80,000 level as volatility wrecked US stock markets on April 3 and April 4. The failure of the bears to capitalize on the opportunity shows a lack of selling at lower levels.

Risky assets were rattled after US President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on several countries on April 2. The fall in the US markets deepened on April 4 after China announced a retaliatory tariff of 34% on all imported US goods starting April 10.

While several market participants are concerned about the near-term impact of tariffs, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said he loves tariffs since he expects them to be positive for Bitcoin and gold in the medium term.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

On the more cautious side was market commentator Byzantine General, who said in a post on X that the cryptocurrency market’s upside would be limited due to possible tariff responses. 

Despite growing tariff-related uncertainty, there is a 70% probability cryptocurrency markets will find the local bottom in the next two months, which will serve as the supporting foundation for the next leg up in the 2025 cycle, according to Nansen analysts.

Savvy traders continue making generational wealth despite growing volatility and lack of risk appetite. One unidentified trader turned an initial $2,000 investment into over $43 million by trading the popular frog-themed memecoin, Pepe.

70% chance of crypto bottoming before June amid trade fears: Nansen

The cryptocurrency market may see a local bottom in the next two months amid global uncertainty over ongoing import tariff negotiations, which have been limiting investor sentiment in both traditional and digital markets.

US President Donald Trump on April 2 announced reciprocal import tariffs, measures aimed at reducing the country’s estimated trade deficit of $1.2 trillion in goods and boosting domestic manufacturing. 

While global markets took a hit from the first tariff announcement, there is a 70% chance for cryptocurrency valuations to find their bottom by June, according to Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at the Nansen crypto intelligence platform.

A group of investors with cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Bakkt Holdings filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false or misleading statements and a failure to disclose certain information.

Lead plaintiff Guy Serge A. Franklin called for a jury trial as part of a complaint against Bakkt, senior adviser and former CEO Gavin Michael, CEO and president Andrew Main, and interim chief financial officer Karen Alexander, according to an April 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The group of investors allege damages as the result of violations of US securites laws and a lack of transparency surrounding its agreement with clients: Webull and Bank of America (BoA).

April 2 complaint against Bakkt and its executives. Source: PACER

The loss of Bank of America and Webull will result “in a 73% loss in top line revenue” due to the two firms making up a significant percentage of its services revenue, the investor group alleges in the lawsuit. The filing stated Webull made up 74% of Bakkt’s crypto services revenue through most of 2023 and 2024, and Bank of America made up 17% of its loyalty services revenue from January to September 2024.

Blockchain startup Codex has raised $15.8 million to build a layer-2 network specifically for stablecoins, signaling that more builders are rushing to capitalize on the growing industry and regulatory alignment around fiat-backed stable assets. 

The seed round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with additional participation from Coinbase, Circle, Cumberland Labs, Wintermute Ventures and others, Codex told Fortune.

The funding will be used to help Codex build its stablecoin-only platform from the ground up, said co-founder and CEO Haonan Li.

Source: Victor Yaw

Codex has disavowed “general-purpose blockchains” because of their inefficiencies in meeting real-world use cases, said Li. Instead, Codex is building a stablecoin-only chain on top of Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution that uses rollup technology to boost transaction speeds and lower costs.

Stablecoin firm Circle, the issuer of the USDC (USDC) dollar-pegged token, might delay its planned initial public offering (IPO) amid macroeconomic uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s trade policies, the The Wall Street Journal reported.

Circle registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 1 to take the company public. It is now “waiting anxiously” before taking further steps, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Circle joins a growing list of companies considering IPO delays, including fintech company Klarna and ticketing firm StubHub.

Circle’s S-1 registration form for its initial public offering. Source: SEC

Circle is planning to sell its shares under the ticker symbol "CRCL." Circle's prospectus materials do not provide details of the number of shares to be offered or the initial stock price.

Bitcoin (BTC) sits in one of its least bullish phases since January 2023. According to Bitcoin’s “bull score index,” investor sentiment is showing its lowest reading in two years. 

Bitcoin bull score index. Source: CryptoQuant

CryptoQuant’s “Crypto Weekly Report” newsletter explained that “bull score index” readings that sit below 40 for extended periods increase the likelihood of a bear market. The bull score remained above 40 throughout 2024, only dipping below this threshold in February 2025, as identified in the chart above. 

However, over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin price has displayed resilience when compared against the massive losses seen in the US stock market. On April 3, Bitcoin closed the day with a green candle, while the S&P 500 was down 4.5%, a historic first.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones extended their decline on April 4, dropping 3.87% and 3.44%, respectively, while Bitcoin held steady near the breakeven point.

Global payments platform PayPal has expanded its cryptocurrency offerings to include Chainlink (LINK) and Solana (SOL), giving US-based users the ability to buy, sell and transfer the popular tokens. 

Support for LINK and SOL will be rolled out over the next few weeks and will also be extended to users of Venmo, a US mobile payment platform owned by PayPal, the company disclosed on April 4. 

Source: Cointelegraph

Roughly 83 million people used Venmo at least once in 2023, according to the latest available information from PayPal. 

PayPal’s global reach extends to roughly 428 million accounts as of December, the majority of which are in the United States. 

Digital asset manager Grayscale registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list the Grayscale Solana (SOL) Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The ETF will trade under the ticker symbol "GSOL" and will hold spot SOL as the underlying asset, according to the April 4 S-1 filing.

Grayscale announced plans to convert its existing Grayscale Solana Trust into an ETF in its 19b-4 application filed with the SEC in December 2024.

The filing is among several crypto ETF applications in the United States following a regulatory shift in Washington DC, and Solana is widely expected to be the next digital asset ETF approved by the SEC.

Grayscale Solana Trust ETF S-1 registration form. Source: SEC

Analysts say Bitcoin (BTC) price could drop to $70,000 within the next ten days as one BTC pricing model suggests that the US-led trade war could upend investors’ risk-asset sentiment.

In his latest X analysis, network economist Timothy Peterson warned that Bitcoin may return to its 2021-era all-time high.

$70,000 is Bitcoin’s “practical bottom”

Bitcoin price expectations continue to deteriorate as the impact of “higher than expected” US trade tariffs hits home.

For Peterson, the outlook now includes an uncomfortable trip down memory lane.

“Bitcoin to $70k in 10 days?” he queried.

Opinion by: Matt Mudano, CEO of Arch Labs 

Ethereum is struggling, and decentralized finance (DeFi) is suffering as a result. Layer-2 (L2) solutions have fractured liquidity, making capital inefficient. In search of greener pastures, the community has turned to Solana — only to find a memecoin-driven ecosystem fueled by pump-and-dump schemes, attracting liquidity extractors, and turning the chain into a playground for speculation and fraud.

DeFi needs a reset that returns to first principles and aligns with Satoshi’s original vision of a decentralized financial system. The only network capable of sustaining the next evolution of DeFi isn’t Ethereum or Solana. It’s Bitcoin.

DeFi is struggling on Ethereum 

Ethereum was once the undisputed home of DeFi, but today, it’s clear that the ecosystem is struggling. The network’s roadmap constantly changes, with no clear path toward long-term sustainability.

L2 solutions were supposed to scale Ethereum. Instead, they’ve fractured DeFi into isolated liquidity silos. While L2s have lowered transaction fees, they now compete for liquidity rather than contributing to a unified financial system. The result? A fragmented landscape that makes capital inefficient and DeFi protocols harder to scale.

Bitcoin (BTC) price dodged the chaotic volatility that crushed equities markets on the April 4 Wall Street open by holding above the $82,000 level.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

US stocks notch record losses as analysts predict “long trade war”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed erratic moves on Bitcoin’s lower timeframes as the daily high near $84,700 evaporated as BTC price dropped by $2,500 at the start of the US trading session.

Fears over a prolonged US trade war and subsequent recession fueled market downside, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index both falling another 3.5% after the open.

S&P 500 1-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Earlier this week, Bitcoin mining giant Hut 8 revealed a partnership that includes two members of the Trump family — Donald Jr. and Eric — and its plans to launch a new mining venture, American Bitcoin. 

In an exclusive interview on Decentralize with Cointelegraph’s Byte-Sized Insight series, Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot shared new details about the venture’s vision, why the timing was right and how the company plans to scale.

The right team and the right time

“We’ve thought about splitting out our Bitcoin mining and energy infrastructure businesses for some time,” Genoot said. “Meeting Eric and Don Jr., and seeing their deep passion for Bitcoin and infrastructure, was the perfect catalyst.”

According to Genoot, the goal is clear: to build one of the world’s largest and most efficient Bitcoin mining platforms, rooted in American soil and aligned with pro-Bitcoin sentiment growing under President Donald Trump’s administration. “Eric told me, ‘I don’t want to get involved in anything that isn’t the biggest and the best,’” he said.

The move comes at a pivotal moment for US-based mining. With China out of the picture post-2021 crackdown, and Washington now openly exploring the idea of a strategic Bitcoin reserve, America’s place in the global mining ecosystem is under transformation.

Solana whales have offloaded their tokens to cash in on gains from a staking play that began four years ago. 

In April 2021, four whale addresses staked 1.79 million Solana (SOL) tokens, then worth about $37.7 million. The stake was unlocked on April 4, in what Arkham Intelligence called “the largest single-day unlock of staked SOL.” The firm noted that the next similar unlock is not expected until 2028.

At the time of the unlock, the tokens were valued at roughly $206 million, representing a 446% gain from the initial staking period.

Solana tokens scheduled to be unlocked on April 4. Source: Arkham

Solana whales sold nearly $50 million

After the tokens were unlocked, the whales started to dump their holdings. Arkham data shows that over 420,000 SOL tokens, worth about $50 million, had been unstaked by the four Solana wallets at the time of writing. 

Despite a $30 billion surge in stablecoin supply to new record levels, cryptocurrency investors remained cautious as they awaited market stability amid US tariff fears.

The total stablecoin supply rose by more than $30 billion in the first quarter of 2025, even as the overall crypto market capitalization fell 19%, according to a new report by crypto intelligence platform IntoTheBlock.

“The correlation between crypto and stocks climbed as macro expectations quickly shifted from “golden era” optimism to tariff-led doom and gloom,” according to IntoTheBlock’s quarterly report, shared with Cointelegraph.

Source: ITB Capital Markets

The stablecoin supply’s growth reflects a “cautious stance, with investors holding stablecoins as a hedge, likely waiting for market stability or better entry points,” according to Juan Pellicer, senior research analyst at IntoTheBlock crypto intelligence platform.

Stablecoins are front and center of late: critical bills have made their way through US Congress, First Digital’s coin briefly depegged over reserve concerns, and Coinbase’s efforts to take on banks saw pushback from lawmakers — to name just a few recent headlines.

Dollar-backed cryptocurrencies are under the spotlight as the market considers the role of the US dollar and the future of US economic power under the controversial policies of President Donald Trump.

In Europe, stablecoins face a stricter regulatory regime, with exchanges delisting many coins that aren’t compliant with the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory package passed by the EU in 2023. 

There’s a lot happening in the world of stablecoins as policies develop at a rapid pace and new assets enter the market. Here are the most recent developments.

Stablecoin adoption law faces vote in US House of Representatives 

After passing a critical vote in the US House Financial Services Committee, the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, will soon face a vote from the entire lower house of the American legislature. 

Strategy Inc, formerly MicroStrategy, has discarded its core product, assumed a new identity, swallowed over half a million Bitcoin, spawned equity classes with double-digit yields, and inspired an arsenal of leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — a unique and significant market phenomenon.

Michael Saylor’s firm has constructed a comprehensive financial framework based around Bitcoin (BTC), tying its corporate performance directly to the cryptocurrency’s price fluctuations. As a result, Strategy’s common stock has evolved into a proxy for Bitcoin exposure, its preferred shares offer yields tied to cryptocurrency risk, and a series of leveraged and inverse ETFs now track its equity movements, all fundamentally connected to its substantial Bitcoin holdings.

Recently, there was an announcement of another purchase by MSTR (Strategy’s common equity) of close to $2 billion of BTC in one clip, inviting even more raised eyebrows and caution.

This concern is not merely because of Strategy’s bet on Bitcoin but the market architecture that has grown around it. A parallel financial ecosystem has emerged, binding its fate to a risk asset that, as Saylor himself notes, trades 24/7. He’s championed the idea that “volatility is vitality,” suggesting that this constant motion draws attention, sustains interest, and breathes life into the entire “Strategyverse” and its related equities.

To some, this is financial innovation in its purest form: bold, unhedged and transformative. To others, it is a fragile lattice of conviction and leverage, one black swan away from unraveling.

First Digital Trust (FDT) has redeemed almost $26 million in stablecoin withdrawals after its FDUSD token briefly lost its US dollar peg following allegations of insolvency by Tron founder Justin Sun.

First Digital USD (FDUSD) briefly depegged on April 2, falling as low as $0.87 after Sun claimed that First Digital was insolvent.

On April 4, Sun doubled down on his allegations, claiming the firm had transferred over $450 million of customer funds to a Dubai-based entity and that it violated Hong Kong securities regulations.

Source: H.E. Justin Sun

“FDT transferred $456 million of its custodial clients to a private company in Dubai without their authorization and has not yet returned the money,” Sun claimed.

The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.

While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.

On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.

Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.

Tariffs compound existing mining challenges

Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.

Update (April 4, 1:45 pm UTC: This article has been updated to add a comment from an OKX spokesperson.

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws in the past.

Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based arm — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in 2023, the authority announced on April 3.

While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU said.

OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.

Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.

A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.

In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.

CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.

CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI

The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.

The value locked in Bitcoin-based decentralized finance (BTCFi) has surged by more than 2,700% over the past year, potentially transforming Bitcoin from a passive store of value into a productive, yield-bearing asset, according to new research from Binance.

BTCFi is a new technological paradigm that aims to bring decentralized finance capabilities to Bitcoin’s base layer. It is one of the fastest-growing crypto sectors, reaching a total value locked (TVL) of over $8.6 billion.

The growing value of BTCFi, “along with potential interest rate cuts, may reinforce positive sentiment for Bitcoin in the medium and long term,” Binance Research wrote in a report shared with Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin DeFi, total value locked, 2025 chart. Source: Binance Research

If the BTCFi sector’s growth trajectory continues, it could open up “new opportunities for Bitcoin holders to generate yield through lending, liquidity provision, and other DeFi mechanisms,” a Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph, adding:

Update April 4, 10:40 am UTC: This article has been updated to insert comments from Bitlayer co-founder Kevin He.

More than $21 million worth of Bitcoin was unstaked from the Babylon protocol in the 24 hours after the platform’s token airdrop, according to blockchain data shared by a developer.

On April 4, Bitfeed developer Mononaut shared that in the previous 24 hours, 256 Bitcoin (BTC) had been unstaked from the staking protocol. Mononaut said that the unstaking transactions paid 1.35 BTC in fees and consumed 1.318 Megavirtualbytes (MvB) of blockspace. This means the transactions generated high fees and occupied roughly a third of an entire Bitcoin block. 

The activity followed Babylon’s 600 million airdrop of its native token, BABY, which was distributed to early users and contributors.

Related: Bitcoin L2 ’honeymoon phase’ is over, most projects will fail — Muneeb Ali

Opinion by: Merav Ozair, PhD

Tech moguls cannot stop heralding the artificial intelligence revolution — from Bill Gates to Sundar Pichai to Jensen Huang — signaling that agentic AI and robotics will claim our jobs and act as our autonomous assistants performing on our behalf in our professional and personal lives.

Whether these scenarios happen in a few years or are decades away, we will most likely evolve into that future in some manner, and technology, once again, will reshape our lives. Without the support of blockchain technology, however, it would be quite difficult, and potentially impossible, for agentic AI and robotics to evolve to what its proponents expect them to.

If we expect these services and devices to act autonomously, security, privacy, transparency and accountability will be at the top of our minds. These areas are where blockchain shines and can support AI weaknesses to facilitate the scaling and evolution of this vision. 

Blockchain strengths support AI weaknesses

Blockchain technology can significantly bolster the security of AI models by leveraging its key features such as decentralization, immutability, traceability, smart contracts, data privacy and identity verification. For example, but not limited to:

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes says US President Donald Trump's tariffs may rattle the global economy in some ways, but that same disruption could be exactly what Bitcoin needs to rally.

“Global imbalances will be corrected, and the pain papered over with printed money, which is good for BTC,” Hayes said in an April 3 X post.

Several factors contribute to Bitcoin’s potential pump

“Some of y'all are running scurred, but I LOVE TARIFFS,” Hayes said. 

His comments come just a day after it was announced that the Trump administration will hit all countries with a 10% tariff starting April 5, with some countries facing even larger rates, such as China facing a 34% tariff, the European Union 20%, and Japan 24%. 

Hayes explained that tariffs positively impact Bitcoin's (BTC) price for several reasons. 

Online battle royale shooter Fortnite has just added a new secret “Dill Bits” server mine location to its latest map update — prompting a small spike in an otherwise obscure memecoin.

Videos on social media show a new “Dill Bit” server farm location in the game — made to look like a cryptocurrency mining operation. There are other locations on the map where it has appeared.

Fortnite added a Bitcoin mine to the new map pic.twitter.com/z8ABokLG2b

Players in the game can collect Dill Bits by destroying the equipment. It’s a unique resource that is typically hard to obtain.

Dill Bits memecoin spikes

Solana-based memecoin Dill Bits, inspired by the Fortnite in-game currency, spiked 200% to $0.0005 on April 4 as the crypto community also took notice of the latest addition.

European Union regulators are reportedly mulling a $1 billion fine against Elon Musk’s X, taking into account revenue from his other ventures, including Tesla and SpaceX, according to The New York Times.

EU regulators allege that X has violated the Digital Services Act and will use a section of the act to calculate a fine based on revenue that includes other companies Musk controls, according to an April 3 report by the newspaper, which cited four people with knowledge of the plan.

Under the Digital Services Act, which came into law in October 2022 to police social media companies and “prevent illegal and harmful activities online,” companies can be fined up to 6% of global revenue for violations.

A spokesman for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, declined to comment on this case to The New York Times but did say it would “continue to enforce our laws fairly and without discrimination toward all companies operating in the EU.”

In a statement, X’s Global Government Affairs team said that if the reports about the EU's plans are accurate, it “represents an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on free speech.”

US crypto exchange Coinbase has filed with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to launch futures contracts for Ripple’s XRP token.

“We’re excited to announce that Coinbase Derivatives has filed with the CFTC to self-certify XRP futures — bringing a regulated, capital-efficient way to gain exposure to one of the most liquid digital assets,” stated Coinbase Institutional on April 3. 

The firm added that it anticipates the contract going live on April 21.

According to the certification filing, the XRP (XRP) futures contract will be a monthly cash-settled and margined contract trading under the symbol XRL.

The contract tracks XRP’s price and is settled in US dollars. Each contract represents 10,000 XRP, currently worth about $20,000 at $2 per token.