Tariff tension crescendo
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 1st April 2025.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
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What’s up
Crypto Tip-Toes Upstairs
Big coins ticked slightly higher Tuesday morning as traders brace for the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs set to be unveiled tomorrow, Wednesday, April 2. Bitcoin, as of 7:19 a.m. (EST), was trading at about $84,150, up 2.5% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
Other members of the Big Ten have been enjoying what is perhaps one last day of relative calm before a potentially chaotic episode, depending on the details of the plan.
Solana gained 3%. XRP gained 4%. Dogecoin and Cardano each gained 5%.
"Right now, the market is in a wait-and-see mode," Presto Research Analyst Min Jung told The Block. "The market's next move will largely hinge on the tone and substance of the actual announcement," Jung added.
What's down
King Crypto's Unbecoming Quarter
Bitcoin's spot price fell 11.8% during the first quarter of 2025, per Coinglass. That marks BTC's worst Q1 performance since 2018.
"Everyone expected Trump's pro-crypto stance to spark immediate results, but the reality is, policy rollout takes time," said Enmanuel Cardozo, market analyst at Brickken.
Speaking of policy rollouts, tomorrow's tariff plan still remains a mystery. Trump is expected to make a splashy "Liberation Day" announcement of "a number of massive tariffs" by way of a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, according to CNN.
The administration reportedly is contemplating a blanket 20% tariff on most imports.
Stock futures were in the red to start Tuesday morning. The S&P 500 on Monday touched a six-month low but rebounded to finish the session.
During Q1, the S&P 500 fell 4.6%. The Nasdaq fell 10%. The rocky first three months of '25 marked the worst quarterly performance for both benchmarks since 2022 (CNBC).
What's next
No Joke: Dollar Reserve Currency Status Threatened By BTC, Says BlackRock Chairman
If the U.S. fails to control its spiraling debt, the greenback could lose its reserve currency status to Bitcoin, cautions Larry Fink, chairman of BlackRock.
"I'm obviously not anti-digital assets," Fink wrote in his annual letter to shareholders. "But two things can be true at the same time — decentralized finance is an extraordinary innovation — yet that same innovation could undermine America's economic advantage if investors begin seeing Bitcoin as a safer bet than the dollar."
In January 2024, BlackRock launched a spot BTC ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which today has nearly $50B in assets, making it the most successful crypto ETF ever created. BlackRock has also issued a tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, which is close to $2 billion in assets.
“Every stock, every bond, every fund — every asset — can be tokenized," Fink wrote. "If they are, it will revolutionize investing."
