Welcome to your Good Friday edition of the daybook. With markets on a shortened schedule for the Easter holiday, today’s update is shortened as well. CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas will be back to its regular size on Monday, April 21. Enjoy the holiday!
By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
It’s Easter. Traditional markets are closed in many parts of the world and plenty of people are taking a break from work, and that’s keeping crypto markets in check as well. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), a measure of the biggest, most active cryptocurrencies, has gained less than 0.1% in the past 24 hours with bitcoin (BTC) up just 0.1%.
That’s a pretty muted response to calls from President Donald Trump for the removal of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Trump criticized Powell over his reluctance to cut interest rates, further adding to the economy uncertainty that has left bitcoin treading water and seen Wall Street piling onto gold.
Trump, on his social media platform Truth Social, said Powell was “too late” in lowering interest rates, saying his “termination cannot come fast enough!” The President’s words come after Powell said the central bank sees unemployment and inflation rising because of the tariffs Trump imposed on most other countries.
The tit-for-tat has further raised uncertainty, to the point the S&P 500 closed the shortened trading week up just 0.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.1%.
“Right now, markets are extremely reactionary to White House decision making and are poised to remain that way for the foreseeable future,” Ira Auerbach, head of tandem at Offchain Labs and former head of digital assets as Nasdaq, told CoinDesk.
“Trump’s push for rate cuts amid tariff-driven inflation risks could reignite bitcoin’s original ‘hedge against eroding purchasing power’ narrative. Its recent risk-off behavior may be short-lived as monetary policy uncertainty intensifies.”
For the time being, though, the hedge against currency debasement and uncertainty appears to be gold. The precious metal’s recent bull run has meant that, over the last 20 years, it’s outperforming the S&P 500. That’s including dividends.
For crypto investors, signals are mixed. While on the macro front uncertainty reigns, under the Trump administration regulatory outlook has been improving and institutions have shown more comfort with the space.
“It is probably sound to ‘let the dust settle’ as tariff implementations and bilateral negotiations unfold,” dYdX Foundation CEO Charles d’Haussy told CoinDesk. “Market participants’ consensus seems to signal central banks’ action past the summer.” Stay alert!
