Open Range | April 13th, 2025 | Bitcoin Shines Amid Tariff-Driven Market Turbulence

This week, the market continued to navigate the complexities of the Trump administration's tariff policies. Bitcoin ended the week roughly flat, but demonstrated resilience versus the broader market, maintaining a price around $84,234 amidst broader market volatility. Despite the flat performance, nation state, corporate, and individual adoption continues to increase.

Bitcoin & Macro Update

After a choppy week bitcoin ended up down less than 1%. In legacy markets, since the close on Friday last week, the SPY increased 3.7%, the NASDAQ gained 4.5%, and the DOW improved 3.1%, though all remain lower than Liberation Day levels. Notably, the S&P index showed more volatility than bitcoin, which has historically been one of the main critiques of bitcoin as a store of value. 

Notably, the dollar index (DXY) dropped 2.5% this past week while the ten-year treasury increased 48 bps over the past week, and rose significantly versus Liberation Day, indicating that investors are finding safety outside of US based assets. The Swiss Franc rose 4.1% versus the dollar, while gold saw a 4.8% increase. Meanwhile oil prices softened 3.3%, indicating fears of a near-term economic slowdown. 

Elsewhere, March CPI declined 0.1% m/m, increased 2.4% y/y, both below forecasts. However, this did not yet include any potential impact from tariffs, which could cause the Federal Reserve pause when considering the appropriate Federal Funds Rate. 

After issuing reciprocal tariffs last week, on Wednesday President Trump put a 90 day hold on all tariffs for those countries who did not escalate. This includes most countries outside of China, who have raised tariffs on US goods to be 125%. Below is a chart of the expected US tariff rates assuming that the pause in reciprocal tariffs over 10% on countries excluding China are permanently cancelled.

Due to the uncertain approach to tariff negotiations and less friendly trading stance (regardless of the negotiation tactics), investors outside of the US have started to consider safety in non-US assets, which have historically been the most liquid and strongest assets globally. 

Among all of the chaos of the recent uncertainty, bitcoin offers the similar benefits of gold, with faster transaction times, better monetary policy, and better governance properties. The events of the past week have caused some investors to identify bitcoin over alternatives due to its apolitical censorship-resistant nature and monetary policy in a world with rising political risks.

Institutional Update

VanEck published a report where they explained that China and Russia are using bitcoin to settle some energy transactions to avoid settlement in dollars, which has been weaponized by the US over the past few years ever since the US seized Russia's Treasuries. The large tariffs on China should likely accelerate that transition.

Pakistan plans to use surplus energy generation capacity on bitcoin mining as well as AI data centers, according to the head of Pakistan's Crypto Council. This comes shortly after CZ, former Binance CEO, was appointed as a crypto advisor to the country.

River recently published its year-end financials, highlighting the company’s corporate treasury of $40m bitcoin, as well as income statements.

Regulatory Update

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned how bitcoin is becoming a store of value, while mentioning that gold has historically been a store of value, a nod to how the current monetary order is shifting. 

Based on an order of President Trump, the US Justice Department disbanded its national currency enforcement team (NCET), and will prioritize investigations into "individuals who victimize digital asset investors, or those who use digital assets in furtherance of criminal offenses such as terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, organized crime, hacking, and cartel and gang financing." The Justice Department will would stop targeting virtual currency exchanges, offline wallets and services, known as mixers and tumblers aiming to create anonymous transactions. 

In politics, the House approved Trump's budget plan, which does not include any spending cuts as initially hoped, as the debt and deficit continue to rise.

Early Riders Media

Beyond Store of Value: Bitcoin and Lightning Are the Real FinTech Opportunity

In this episode of Final Settlement, hosts Brian Cubellis & Liam Nelson are joined by Graham Krizek of Voltage and Pierre Corbin of Flash to discuss bitcoin payments, stablecoins, the state of the Lightning Network, the power of interopable protocols, Nostr Wallet Connect, eCash, Liquid & more.

The guests explore that bitcoin's ability to serve all needs of money, including as a savings technology and medium of exchange, with the Lightning Network playing a crucial role in enabling micropayments and efficient transactions.

Pierre discusses Flash's use of Nostr Wallet Connect, which allows wallets to connect and automate payments without Flash holding custody, enhancing user control. This interoperability enables Flash to manage fees and subscriptions dynamically, choosing networks like Lightning or Liquid based on user wallet capabilities, obfuscating complexity for end-users. Graham echoes the importance of simplifying experiences, comparing it to the ease of credit card payments, and sees Nostr Wallet Connect as a step toward seamless point-of-sale integrations.

Bitcoin is the True Fintech is referenced, highlighting bitcoin's superiority over traditional fintech, which often maps onto slow rails like SWIFT. The report underscores bitcoin as an elite savings technology, with custodial properties reducing risk, and its interoperable nature enabling consumer rewards, payroll, and escrow, positioning it as a revolutionary financial technology.

The discussion contrasts bitcoin's deliberate, grassroots development with faster-moving blockchains like Solana, which sacrifice decentralization for speed. All open protocols and cutting-edge development is discussed in this episode that you won't want to miss.