Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin (BTC) Price Settles Above $83K as Tariffs Rattle Stocks, Currencies

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

Liberation Day is done, and markets finally have clarity on U.S. tariffs. Starting April 5, all U.S. trading partners will face a minimum of a 10% import tariff, with higher, country-specific tariffs kicking in on April 9 for about 60 countries.

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President Donald Trump introduced the tariffs based on perceived trade imbalances and non-tariff barriers, saying the goal is to encourage reshoring of production, generate revenue to help fund tax cuts and level the playing field for U.S. manufacturers.

Among the most affected countries is China, which faces a new 34% tariff on top the existing levy, bringing its total to 54%. Many other Asian economies have also been hit hard, while the European Union faces a 20% tariff.

There’s been growing interest in how the U.S. determined the tariff rates, which the administration called reciprocal. One user on X claims to have cracked the formula: Take a country’s trade deficit with the U.S. and divide it by that country’s exports to the U.S.

For example, Vietnam exports $136.6 billion to the U.S. and imports just $13.1 billion, resulting in a $123.5 billion trade deficit. When you divide the deficit by exports, you get about 90%, which aligns with the implied reciprocal tariff rate the U.S. has applied.

Global stocks are under pressure, with the Nikkei 225 losing 2.8% after dropping as much as 4.6% and the FTSE 100 losing more than 1%. Nasdaq futures are down over 3.5%. Vietnam led losses in Asia, falling 5.5% in its worst single-day drop for over four years.

The dollar weakened too, with the yen rallying to 147 against the U.S. currency and the pound to 1.31. The dollar index (DXY) fell to 102.5. Bitcoin (BTC) remains firm above $83,000, though still below its 200-day moving average of $86,400 — a key level it needs to reclaim.

The all-important U.S. 10-year Treasury yield is hovering just above 4%, the lowest level since October, which is seen as a positive for the administration in order to get interest-rates down. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto: April 5: The purported birthday of Satoshi Nakamoto. April 9, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing about how the U.S. securities laws could be updated to take into account digital assets. Livestream link.

Macro April 3, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended March 29. Initial Jobless Claims Est. 225K vs. Prev. 224K April 3, 9:00 a.m.: S&P Global releases Brazil March purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data. Composite PMI Prev. 51.2 Services PMI Prev. 50.6 April 3, 9:30 a.m.: S&P Global releases Canada March purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data. Composite PMI Prev. 46.8 Services PMI Prev. 46.6 April 3, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (Final) U.S. March purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data. Composite PMI Est. 53.5 vs. Prev. 51.6 Services PMI Est. 54.3 vs. Prev. 51 April 3, 10:00 a.m.: Institute for Supply Management (ISM) releases U.S. March economic activity data. Services PMI Est. 53 vs. Prev. 53.5 April 3, 10:00 a.m.: April 3, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will meet in executive session to vote on the nominations of Paul Atkins as SEC chair and Jonathan Gould as comptroller of the currency. Livestream link. April 3, 12:30 p.m.: Fed Vice Chair Philip N. Jefferson will give a speech titled “U.S. Economic Outlook and Central Bank Communications.” Livestream link. April 4, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases March employment data. Unemployment Rate Est. 6.7% vs. Prev. 6.6% April 4, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases March employment data. Nonfarm Payrolls Est. 140K vs. Prev. 151K Unemployment Rate Est. 4.1% vs. Prev. 4.1% April 4, 11:25 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will give a speech titled “Economic Outlook.” April 5, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s 10% baseline tariff on imports from all countries takes effect. April 9, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s higher individualized tariffs on imports from top U.S. trade deficit countries take effect.

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data) No earnings scheduled.

(Estimates based on FactSet data)

Token Events

Conferences

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Treasure DAO, a decentralized video-game ecosystem, is restructuring to extend its financial runway to February 2026, with chief contributor John Patten resuming a leadership role and proposing a plan to streamline operations, cut costs, and focus on four key products: marketplace, Bridgeworld, Smolworld and AI agent.

As part of cost-cutting measures, 15 contributors have left or been laid off, Patten said in a video posted on X, and game publishing support and the treasure chain will be terminated.

He further proposed withdrawing $785,000 from Flowdesk to increase the DAO's treasury, which currently holds $2.4 million and 22.3 million MAGIC tokens valued at $2.3 million.

Patten warned that with the current burn rate of $8.3 million annually and a potential decline in MAGIC's value, the DAO could become unsustainable between December 2025 and February 2026 without these changes.

Derivatives Positioning

BTC, ETH basis on the CME and offshore exchanges is holding at around an annualized 5% after the overnight sell-off.

XRP, BNB and SOL are seeing negative funding rates in a sign of renewed bias for bearish, short bets, according to data source Velo.

XRM, BTC and OM stand out with positive cumulative volume deltas hinting at net buying in the past 24 hours.

The bearish mood in Deribit's BTC and ETH options now extends out to the end of June as opposed to May before the U.S. tariff announcement.

Market Movements

BTC is down 2.17% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $83,799.17 (24hrs: -1.62%)

ETH is down 1.93% at $1,844.66 (24hrs: -3.15%)

CoinDesk 20 is down 0.56% at 2,559.88 (24hrs: -0.07%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 8 bps at 3.02%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0047% (5.0983% annualized) on Binance

DXY is down 1.66% at 102.09

Gold is up 0.32% at $3,149.9/oz

Silver is down 4.14% at $33.07/oz

Nikkei 225 closed -2.77% at 34,735.93

Hang Seng closed -1.52% at 22,849.81

FTSE is down 1.33% at 8,494.33

Euro Stoxx 50 is down 2.13% at 5,191.06

DJIA closed on Wednesday +0.56% at 42,225.32

S&P 500 closed +0.67% at 5670.97

Nasdaq closed +0.87% at 17,601.05

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.09% at 25,307.20

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.3% at 2,448.23

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 7 bps at 4.05%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 3.05% at 5,538.00

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 3.3% at 19,105.25

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 2.53% at 41,416.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 62.86 (0.13%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02176 (0.05%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 835 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $47.31

Total Fees: 4.43 BTC / $377,634

CME Futures Open Interest: 138,385 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 26.5 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 7.53%

Technical Analysis

SOL's daily price chart. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

Solana's SOL token dropped below $125, which acted as demand zone several times last year.

The breakdown of the key support signals continuation of the downtrend, with the next support at $100 followed by $78, the January 2024 low.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $312.54 (+2.13%), down 4.69% at $297.89 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $182.95 (+4.83%), down 5.49% at $172.90

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$17.10 (+4.72%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.42 (+4.9%), down 6.28% at $11.64

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.02 (+6.37%), down 5.61% at $7.57

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.42 (+5.25%), down 6.18% at $7.90

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.02 (+6.08%), down 7.11% at $7.45

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.24 (+4.17%)

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $37.03 (+1.4%)

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $47.33 (+3.73%), down 0.72% at $46.99

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: $218.1 million

Cumulative net flows: $36.33 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.12 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$51.3 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.38 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.42 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Traders on decentralized prediction platform Polymarket now see an above-50% chance of the U.S. economy slipping into a recession this year.

The outlook may weigh on risky assets in the short-term.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether