BTC’s Haven Claim Hit as U.S., China Play Tariff Chicken

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

One thing markets despise is uncertainty, and right now it’s coming from all corners of the globe, largely fueled by Trump’s tariffs.

Markets rebounded somewhat on Tuesday following Monday’s bloodbath in Asia and Europe, but it was more of a relief rally than a true recovery. At the heart of the conflict are the U.S. and China, both refusing to be the first to blink — even if it means prolonged uncertainty and pain for global markets.

As markets took a breather from the turmoil, crypto skeptics were quick to point out how bitcoin’s (BTC) safe haven narrative — bolstered by its resilience late last week — quickly unraveled on Monday when the price crashed to $75,000.

While that’s true, expecting the bitcoin price to remain unaffected was overly optimistic. During crises investors historically rush to cash, liquidating even traditional havens investments such as gold. Monday was no exception. Still, bitcoin has shown lower beta than U.S. equities since the tariff announcement.

In the bigger picture, bitcoin is holding up fairly well. The Nasdaq is down over 22% from its all-time high, while bitcoin is off by 28%. In previous episodes — like the yen carry-trade unwind in August 2024 or the COVID crash in March 2020 — bitcoin suffered far deeper relative losses.

Since the New York market closed on Wednesday, BTC has declined 8.4%, outperforming the S&P 500’s 10% drop and the Nasdaq’s 11% fall.

“What matters is that BTC’s beta to broader risk assets appears meaningfully lower in this sell-off than in previous ones. This suggests a growing recognition of bitcoin’s potential role as a non-sovereign store of value during periods of economic stress,” David Lawant, head of research at FalconX, said in an email.

Monday’s trading session also included an episode of “short-term madness” driven by false reports about a 90-day tariff delay. The markets spiked and then promptly crashed back down after the reports were refuted. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
• Macro
  • April 9, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s higher individualized tariffs on imports from top U.S. trade deficit countries take effect.
  • April 9, 8:00 a.m.: Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) releases March consumer price inflation data.
    • Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.48%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.65%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.28%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.77%
  • April 9, 12:01 p.m.: China’s 34% retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports take effect.
  • April 9, 2:00 p.m.: The Fed releases minutes of the FOMC meeting held March 18-19.
  • April 9. 8, 9:30 p.m.: China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) releases March’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
    • Inflation Rate MoM Prev. -0.2%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 0% vs. Prev. -0.7%
    • PPI YoY Est. -2.3% vs. Prev. -2.2%
  • April 10, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing on the nomination of Michelle Bowman as Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision. Livestream link.
  • April 14: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will join U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House for an official working visit.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
• Unlocks
  • April 8: Tensor (TNSR) to unlock 35.96% of its circulating supply worth $14.44 million.
  • April 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $15.84 million.
  • April 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply worth $51.01 million.
  • April 12: Axie Infinity (AXS) to unlock 5.68% of its circulating supply worth $21.18 million.
  • April 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 4.37% of its circulating supply worth $15.79 million.
  • April 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.01% of its circulating supply worth $25.22 million.
• Token Listings

Conferences

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Fartcoin (FART) jumped 30% to extend monthly gains over 130%.
• The absurdly-named token extended a multiday run the broader crypto market staged a relief rally, displaying signs of steady buying demand from traders.
• Speculators keep an eye on continual strength in memecoins, especially when they tend to buck market trends, because the tokens tend to jump higher after a sell-off in the market. This can create possible profit opportunities for short-term traders, with some eyeing a move higher for the token in coming weeks.

• FART, among some crypto circles, is a symbol of the absurd and a light-hearted rebellion against the grim financial forecasts. It holds no intrinsic value, but enjoys a cult following — possibly driving buying demand even as the market falls.

Derivatives Positioning

• Bitcoin CME futures basis is holding firm above an annualized 5% amid the macro turmoil.
• CME options skew, however, is showing bias for downside protection, or puts.
• Together, both metrics show cautious sentiment without signaling panic, according to Thomas Erdösi, head of product at CF Benchmarks.
• On Deribit, BTC and ETH put biases have moderated, but BTC implied volatility term structure remains in backwardation, indicating persistent fears of wild price swings in the short-term.
• In BTC options, the $70K put is now the most popular strike, boasting a notional open interest of $957 million. That’s a 180-degree shift from the bias for $100K-$120K strike calls early this year.
• Most of the top 25 coins, excluding TRX, HBAR, LINK and DOT, have seen a drop in perpetual futures open interest in the past 24 hours.

Market Movements

• BTC is unchanged from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $78,894.34 (24hrs: +2.61%)
• ETH is down 0.32% at $1,514.40 (24hrs: +5.22%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 0.8% at 2,268.01 (24hrs: +4.76%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 77 bps at 3.69%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0049% (5.3118% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 103.32
• Gold is up 2.19% at $3015.9/oz
• Silver is up 1.9% at $30.07/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +6.03% at 33,012.58
• Hang Seng closed +1.51% at 20,127.68
• FTSE is up 2.1% at 7,863.79
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.36% at 4,719.66
• DJIA closed on Monday -0.91% at 37,965.60
• S&P 500 closed -0.23% at 5,062.25
• Nasdaq closed +0.1% at 15,603.26
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.44% at 22,859.50
• S&P 40 Latin America closed -2.94% at 2,227.14
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 2 bps at 4.16%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.58% at 5,178.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.35% at 17,799.50
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 2% at 38,930.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 63.46 (-0.11%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01980 (0.97%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 902 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $40.50
• Total Fees: 6.59BTC / $510,645
• CME Futures Open Interest: 137,695 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 26.2 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.43%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows monthly activity in the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield since the 1980s.
• While the crypto community is hoping for a return to the zero-yield era, the chart suggests otherwise, revealing a long-term bullish shift in rates.
• The trend change is evident from the key 50-, 100- and 200-month simple moving averages — which are aligned bullishly one above the other for the first time since the 1980s.
• Elevated rates might be the new normal.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $268.14 (-8.67%), up 1.47% at $272.09 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $157.28 (-2.04%), up 1.72% at $159.98
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$12.34 (-8.8%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $11.26 (-0.35%), up 2.04% at $11.49
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.11 (-0.42%), up 0.28% at $7.13
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.02 (-2.23%), up 1.85% at $7.15
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.43 (+1.5%), up 0.67% at $7.48
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.41 (+0.73%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.15 (0.89%), down 1.02% at $33.80
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $41.84 (-6.25%), down 5.16% at $39.68

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: -$103.9 million
• Cumulative net flows: $36.07 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $0.0
• Cumulative net flows: $2.38 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.37 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart by CryptoQuant shows daily net flow of BTC from wallets linked with miners.
• On Monday, these wallets registered a cumulative net outflow of 1,627 BTC, the most since Dec. 24.
• According to Bloomberg, the Trump tariffs have disrupted the bitcoin mining industry.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether