Trump’s Fed Outburst Fails to Jolt Bitcoin (BTC) Price

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!

What to Watch

Crypto:
- April 18: Pepecoin (PEP), a layer-1, proof-of-work blockchain, undergoes its second halving, reducing block rewards to 15,625 PEP.
- April 20, 11 p.m.: BNB Chain (BNB) — opBNB mainnet hardfork.
- April 21: Coinbase Derivatives will list XRP futures pending approval by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
- April 25, 1 p.m.: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Crypto Task Force Roundtable on “Key Considerations for Crypto Custody”.
Macro
- April 18, 10 a.m.: Argentina’s Torcuato Di Tella University releases April consumer confidence data.
  - Consumer Confidence Prev. 44.1
- April 22, 8:30 p.m.: Statistics Canada releases Mach producer price inflation data.
  - PPI MoM Prev. 0.4%
  - PPI YoY Prev. 4.9%
- April 22, 6 p.m.: Fed Governor Adriana D. Kugler will deliver a speech titled “Transmission of Monetary Policy.”
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- April 22: Tesla (TSLA), post-market
- April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market

Token Events

Governance votes & calls
Unlocks
- April 18: Official Trump (TRUMP) to unlock 20.25% of its circulating supply worth $314.23 million.
- April 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.65% of its circulating supply worth $84.4 million.
- April 18: Official Melania Meme (MELANIA) to unlock 6.73% of its circulating supply worth $10.72 million.
- April 18: UXLINK (UXLINK) to unlock 11.09% of its circulating supply worth $16.52 million.
- April 18: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.37% of its circulating supply worth $10.03 million.
- April 22: Metars Genesis (MRS) to unlock 11.87% of its circulating supply worth $126.7 million.
- April 30: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $20.74 million.
- May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $156.87 million.
- May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $10.32 million.
Token Launches

Conferences:

Token Talk

By Francisco Rodrigues

The memecoin trading frenzy doesn’t appear to over quite yet. Since token-launch protocol Pump.fun introduced its trading platform PumpSwap in March, volumes have skyrocketed.
According to Artemis data, Solana-based Pump.fun was seeing roughly $110 million of trading volume a day before the PumpSwap debut. That figure exploded to $650 million on April 17, with $444 million being traded on PumpSwap.
Daily transaction volumes on the platform now top 40,000, roughly double the figures seen before PumpSwap’s launch, Dune data shows.
The heightened trading volume helped Pump.fun’s 24-hour revenue top that of layer-1 network Tron, bringing in roughly $2 million over the period. The figure is also above that of platforms like Hyperliquid and Aave.
Outside of Solana, other networks have seen their share of trading activity. Even Nasdaq-listed exchange Coinbase found itself embroiled in alleged front-running after three wallets bought its “Base is for everyone” token before the launch was announced.

Market Movements:

BTC is down 0.69% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $84,550 (24hrs: +0.30%)
ETH is up 0.15% at $1,587.85 (24hrs: -0.36%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 1% at 2,460.30 (24hrs: +0.2%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 15 bps at 2.98%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0069% (7.5927% annualized) on Binance

DXY is unchanged at 99.38
Gold is down 0.54% at $3308.8/oz
Silver is down 1.55% at $32.42/oz
Nikkei 225 closed +1.03% at 34,730
Hang Seng closed +1.61% at 21,395
FTSE closed Thursday at 8275.66.
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.63% at 4935.34
DJIA closed on Thursday -1.33% at 39,142
S&P 500 closed +0.13% at 5282.7
Nasdaq Composite closed -0.13% at 16,286.45,
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.36% at 16,286.45
S&P 40 Latin America is up 1.64% at 2,383.75
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.13% at 5,312.75
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.02% at 18,380
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 1.31% at 39,329

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 63.91 (-0.18%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.019 (0.54%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 913 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $44.32
Total Fees: 6.01 BTC
CME Futures Open Interest: 141,280
BTC priced in gold: 25.5 oz.
BTC vs gold market cap: 7.23%

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $317.20 (1.78%), down 0.30% at $316.35 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $175.03 (1.64%)
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.36 (-1.41%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.66 (2.76%), up 0.16% at $12.68
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $6.46 (1.57%)
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $6.63 (0.61%), up 0.29% at $6.65
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.51 (3.16%), up 0.27% at $7.53
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.04 (1.09%), up 0.42% at 12.09
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $32.49 (4.79%), up 2.60% at $33.33
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $36.58 (-1.64%), up 4.98% at $38.40