Luxor Technology wants to make bitcoin mining easier. That’s why the firm has rolled out a panoply of products (mining pools, hashrate derivatives, data analytics, ASIC brokerage) to help bitcoin miners, large and small, develop their operations.

Aaron Forster, the company’s director of business development, joined in October 2021, and has seen the team grow from roughly 15 to 85 people in the span of three and a half years.

Forster worked a decade in the Canadian energy sector before coming to bitcoin mining, which is one of the reasons why he’ll be speaking about the future of mining in Canada and the U.S. at the BTC & Mining Summit at Consensus this year.

Follow full coverage of Consensus 2025 in Toronto May 14-16.

In the leadup to the event, Forster shared with CoinDesk his thoughts on bitcoin miners turning to artificial intelligence, the growing sophistication of the mining industry, and how Luxor’s products enable miners to hedge various forms of risk.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

CoinDesk: Mining pools allow miners to combine their computational resources to have higher chances of receiving bitcoin block rewards. Can you explain to us how Luxor’s mining pools work?

Aaron Forster: Mining pools are basically aggregators that reduce the variance of solo mining. When you look at solo mining, it’s very lottery-esque, meaning that you could be plugging your machines in and you might hit block rewards tomorrow — or you might hit it 100 years from now. But you’re still paying for energy during that time. At a small scale, it’s not a big deal, as you scale that up and create a business around it.

The most common kind of mining pool is PPLNS, which means Pay-Per-Last-N-Shares. Basically, that means the miner does not get paid unless that mining pool hits the block. That’s also due to luck variance, so it’s no different from that solo miner’s situation. However, that creates revenue volatility for those large industrial miners.

So we’re seeing the emergence of what we call Full-Pay-Per-Share, or FPPS, and that’s Luxor is operating for our bitcoin pool. With FPPS, regardless of whether we find a block or not, we’re still paying our miners their revenue based on the number of shares they’ve submitted to the pool. That gives revenue certainty to miners, assuming hashprice stays the same. We’ve effectively become an insurance provider.

The problem is that you need a very deep and strong balance sheet to support that model, because while we’ve reduced the variance for miners, that risk is now put on us. So we need to plan for that. But it can be calculated over a long enough period of time. We have different partners in that regard, so that we don’t bear the full risk from our balance sheet.

Tell me about your ASIC brokerage business.

We’ve become one of the leading hardware suppliers on the secondary market. Primarily within North America, but we’ve shipped to 35+ countries. We deal with everybody from public companies to private companies, institutions to retail.

We’re primarily a broker, meaning we match buyer and seller, mostly on the secondary market. Sometimes we do interact with ASIC manufacturers, and in certain cases we do take principal positions, meaning we use money from our balance sheet to purchase ASICs and then resell them on the secondary market. But the majority of our volume comes from matching buyers and sellers.

Luxor also launched the first hashrate futures contracts.

We’re trying to push the Bitcoin mining space forward. We’re a hashrate marketplace, depending on how you look at our mining pools, and we wanted to take a big leap and take hashrate to the TradFi world.

We wanted to create a tool that allows investors to take a position on hashprice without effectively owning mining equipment. Hashprice is, you know, the hourly or daily revenue that miners get, and that fluctuates a lot. For some people it’s about hedging, for others it’s speculation. We’re creating a tool for miners to sell their hashrate forward and use it as a basic collateral or a way to finance growth.

We said, ‘Let’s allow miners to basically sell forward hashrate, receive bitcoin upfront, and then they can take that and do whatever they need to do with it, whether it’s purchase ASICs or expand their mining operations.’ It’s basically the collateralization of hashrate. So they’re obligated to send us X amount of hashrate per month for the length of the contract. Before that, they’ll receive a certain amount of bitcoin upfront.

There’s a market imbalance between buyers and sellers. We have a lot of buyers, meaning people and institutions wanting to earn yield on their bitcoin. What you’re lending your bitcoin at is effectively your interest rate. However, you could also look at it like you’re purchasing that hashrate at a discount. That’s important for institutions or folks that don’t want physical exposure to bitcoin mining, but want exposure to hash price or hashrate. They can do that synthetically through purchasing bitcoin and putting it into our market, effectively lending that out, earning a yield, and purchasing that hashrate at a discount.

What do you find most exciting about bitcoin mining at the moment?

The acceptance and natural progression of our industry into other markets. We can’t ignore the AI HPC transition. Instead of building these mega mines that are just massive buildings with power-dense bitcoin mining operations, you’re starting to see large miners turning into power infrastructure providers for artificial intelligence.

Using bitcoin mining as a stepping stone to a larger, more capital intensive industry like AI is exciting to me, because it kind of gives us a bit more acceptance, because we’re coming at it from a completely different angle. I think the biggest example is the Core Scientific / CoreWeave deal structure, how they’ve kind of merged those two businesses together. They’re complimentary to each other. And that’s really exciting.

When you look at our own product roadmap, we have no choice but to follow a similar roadmap to bitcoin miners. A lot of the products that we built for the mining industry are analogous to what is needed at a different level for AI. Mind you, it’s a lot simpler in our industry than in AI. We’re our first step into the HPC space, and it’s still very early days there.

As the crypto industry matures, much of the focus remains on regulation, custody, and scalability. But in 2025, the biggest barrier to adoption isn’t policy — it’s user experience. Crypto’s interfaces are still too complex for everyday users. From managing seed phrases to deciphering blockchain transactions, onboarding feels more like navigating a maze than joining a financial revolution. Wallets remain fragmented, unintuitive, and risky.

To reach mainstream adoption, the industry must prioritize usability — making wallets and financial tools more accessible — without compromising the core principles of decentralization. Until then, poor UX will continue to hold crypto back.

Vitalik Buterin’s Call for Account Abstraction

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has been one of the most vocal proponents for improving the usability of crypto wallets. His critique centers on the fact that wallets are designed with developers, not end-users, in mind. While technical innovations in blockchain security are advancing, wallets often remain rooted in outdated models that prioritize control over ease of use, leaving the average user overwhelmed and vulnerable to mistakes.

Buterin’s proposed solution (EIP-7702), account abstraction, is a breakthrough concept that could reshape how we interact with crypto assets. Account abstraction allows smart contract functionality to be applied to externally owned accounts (EOAs), the most common type of wallet used in crypto. This would enable more intuitive and flexible security mechanisms, such as social recovery, multi-signature support, and customizable authentication methods, without compromising decentralization or self-custody.

At its core, account abstraction decouples the traditional reliance on a single private key for securing assets, creating the potential for much more user-friendly experiences. Rather than expecting users to memorize long and complex seed phrases or manage multi-step transactions, account abstraction can allow for recovery options, automatic transaction approvals, and even the option to delegate certain actions to trusted contacts — without ever losing ownership of the private keys.

A Call for Human-Centered Design in Crypto

Crypto’s UX problem isn’t just about cleaner interfaces — it’s about rethinking design to prioritize human needs. Historically, tools have been built for power users comfortable with seed phrases and command-line interfaces. But for mass adoption, crypto must serve people who’ve never held a private key.

This is where human-centered design becomes essential. Developers must build wallets and tools that are intuitive, context-aware, and focused on user safety. The shift must move from catering to the technically inclined to empowering everyday users who are new to crypto. To succeed, wallets need to embrace the following core design principles:

Smart Defaults and Progressive Onboarding: Users should not need to dive into settings or security configurations to get started. Newcomers should be able to start using a wallet with minimal friction, but with built-in guidance and the option to unlock more advanced features as they become more familiar with the space. By providing clear default security settings — such as social recovery options and automatic transaction limits — wallets can offer both ease of use and security from the outset.

Clear, Intuitive Signing Processes: Transaction signing should be straightforward, with clear explanations of what users are agreeing to. If a user is about to approve a transaction that could drain their wallet, this should be prominently displayed in plain language, not buried under hexadecimal codes or complex jargon. Reducing ambiguity in these interactions will help mitigate the risks of scams and human error.

Social and Multi-party Recovery Systems: Relying solely on seed phrases as a recovery method is an outdated and risky practice. Instead, wallets should adopt social recovery systems, where users can designate trusted parties to help restore access to their wallet in case of lost keys. This approach not only makes wallets more resilient but also adds a layer of user trust and security.

Built-In Education and Contextual Help: To truly empower users, crypto wallets need to include educational tools directly within the interface. Contextual prompts, tooltips, and interactive tutorials can help users understand the significance of each action they take, without overwhelming them with dense technical documentation.

Automation with Control: Features like auto-payment for transaction fees or the ability to batch transactions can make using crypto wallets much more intuitive, especially for newcomers. But these features must be balanced with user control. Users should have the final say over transactions, but automation can help reduce some of the cognitive load that crypto novices experience.

The Future of Crypto Is Usability and Security—Without Compromise

As crypto moves forward, the real challenge will be to reconcile usability with the core tenets of decentralization and security. Innovations like account abstraction are promising, but the industry must continue to prioritize human-centered design. The goal should be to design tools that make crypto accessible, secure, and simple — without sacrificing self-custody or decentralization.

The future of crypto will not be determined by how fast blockchains can scale or how complex DeFi protocols can get; it will be defined by whether the average person can use crypto with confidence. Until then, crypto will remain an exclusive tool for developers and enthusiasts, rather than a technology that empowers the masses.

The question is simple: Can crypto be both intuitive and secure, or will it continue to be a space designed only for the technically proficient? The answer will determine whether crypto achieves its promise of financial freedom for all.

The proliferation of mainstream artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the last couple of years has stirred the crypto and blockchain industry to explore decentralized alternatives to Big Tech products.

The synergy between AI and blockchain is built on addressing the risk of centralized ownership and access to data that powers AI. The theory goes that decentralization can mitigate against the entire AI economy being powered by the data owned by a few tech behemoths like Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Alibaba (9988) and Tencent (0700).

It is unclear as yet whether or not this will prove to be a significant problem at all, much less whether the blockchain industry will be able to solve it. What is clear, however, is that crypto venture capitalists (VCs) are willing to spend millions of dollars finding out. Decentralized AI has thus far attracted $917 million in VC and private equity money, according to startup deal platform Tracxn.

The question remains whether the trend of investing in blockchain-based AI is still built on hype or has now transcended to being the real deal.

Blockchain investment company Theta Capital described AI x crypto as “the inevitable backbone of AI,” in a recent “Satellite View” report, which explored insights and outlooks from the sector’s prominent investors.

AI agents

“No trend stands out more than the intersection of AI and crypto,” the report said, using the examples of AI agents trading on blockchains and even launching tokens.

This may appear to be a more sophisticated form of speculation for degens, but Theta argues it’s a route to tackling some of AI’s problems that only crypto can solve.

“Crypto wallets enable the participation of autonomous agents in financial markets,” according to the report. “Decentralized token networks are bootstrapping the supply side of key AI infrastructure for compute, data and energy.”

The report’s conclusion is far from being hype and speculation; AI x crypto is “the new meta.” Meta is short for “metagame,” a term borrowed from gaming referring to the dominant way of playing with regard to characters, strategies or moves based on the competitive landscape.

Decentralized AI

Alex Pack, managing partner of blockchain venture capital firm Hack VC, described Web3 AI as “the biggest source of alpha in investing today,” in the “Satellite View” report.

Hack VC has dedicated 41% of its latest fund to Web3 AI, according to the report, in which it sees the main challenge as building a decentralized alternative to the AI economy.

“AI’s rapid evolution is creating massive efficiencies, but also increasing centralization,” Pack said.

“The intersection of crypto and AI is by far the biggest investment opportunity in the space, offering an open, decentralized alternative.”

One of Hack VC’s most prominent portfolio companies is Grass, which encourages users to participate in AI networks by offering up their unused internet bandwidth in return for tokens.

This is designed as an alternative to large firms installing software code into apps in order to scrape their users’ data.

“Users unwittingly donate their bandwidth without compensation,” Grass founder Andrej Radonjic said in Theta’s report.

“Grass provides an alternative [by] forming a massive opt-in, peer-to-peer network able to produce high-quality data at the scale of Google and Microsoft.”

The dreaded AI “takeover”

Decentralized AI presents risks for investors, Theta concedes. It could lead to the proliferation of all the least desirable facets of the internet as it already exists: putrid online discourse, spam emails or vapid social media content in the form of blogs, videos or memes. In the crypto world, an example of this may be the creation of meme tokens. The questionable endorsements, the wash trading and the pump and dumps can all be handled by AI engines even more efficiently than humans.

Some VCs see blockchain as the basis for mitigation. Olaf Carlson-Wee, CEO and founder of Polychain, provided the examples of proof-of-humanity mechanisms to verify that users are human and disincentivizing spam through micropayments or spam.

“If sending an email costs $0.01, it would destroy the economics of spam while remaining affordable for average users,” he said in the report.

With blockchain possibly providing some of these safeguards, Carlson-Wee believes AI will underpin digital and financial systems, as they could outperform humans in markets. This reality, he claims, would be gladly accepted, as opposed to dreaded as some sort of bleak dystopia.

“Over time, AI systems will evolve into long-term capital allocators, predicting trends and opportunities years into the future, [which] humans will entrust their funds to, because of the superior ability to make data-driven decisions,” Carlson-Wee said.

“The AI takeover won’t be a war we lose – it will be a suggestion we agree to,” he concluded.

It’s been an exceptionally volatile week, but one measure may be signaling longer-term bullish sentiment for bitcoin.

The sell-off in equities began on April 3, spurred by President Donald Trump’s tariff-led uncertainties. Each day since then has been marked by sharp moves in both directions. The panic has hit both the equities and bond markets, while gold has surged to new all-time highs, and the DXY Index has broken below 100 for the first time since July 2023.

In response, the S&P Volatility Index (VIX)—often called Wall Street’s “fear gauge” —has surged to its highest level since last August and this is where things get interesting for bitcoin.

The ratio of bitcoin to VIX has hit 1,903 currently, touching a long-term trendline that last time coincided with market volatility around the unwinding of the yen carry trade. At the time, bitcoin had reached a bottom of around $49,000.

In fact, this is the fourth time this ratio has hit the trendline and then found the bottom. Previously, it touched the line in March 2020 during the peak COVID-19 crisis and initially in August 2015, both times followed by a rally in prices.

If this trendline continues to serve as reliable support, it could suggest that bitcoin might have once again found a long-term bottom.

Read more: Bitcoin’s Recent Drawdown Proves Its More Than Just a Leveraged Tech Play

April—a month marked by extreme market volatility—saw intensifying U.S.-China tensions and a broad selloff in global markets that led to panic selling of almost all asset classes.

Amid the chaos, one of the most improbable winners emerged from the strange depth of the crypto market: Fartcoin (FART).

The Solana-based memecoin, has rallied nearly 90% in the past week and roughly 300% over the past month, leaving traditional assets — and much of the crypto market— far behind.

By comparison, bitcoin (BTC)—the largest and most established cryptocurrency—has been roughly flat over the past week and month, while riskier altcoins like ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and XRP are in the red. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index has slid around 2% over the past week and is down nearly 5% over the month as rising bond yields and geopolitical tensions weigh on risk assets.

It has even outperformed gold, which recently hit an all-time high driven by safe-haven demand, gaining 6.5% in a week and up 12% in a month.

“Fartcoin’s absurd outperformance is the perfect metaphor for this market,” said Kirill Kretov, trading automation expert at CoinPanel, in a message on Telegram. “A joke wrapped in volatility, where escalating U.S.-China tariffs make ‘rational’ trading a fantasy.”

What FARTCOIN’s rise mean for cryptos

By design, memcoins are cryptocurrencies that occupy an extreme corner of the crypto market. Unlike more established digital currencies, they have no utility or scarcity. These tokens, like Fartcoin, are unapologetically speculative, driven largely by social media hype, online communities and the momentum of short-term traders.

Read more: Crypto for Advisors: Memecoins

Launched in October, Fartcoin quickly gained prominence as one of the tokens propagated by Truth Terminal, an autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agent created by Andy Ayrey, and became a viral hit amid the crypto-AI speculative wave driven by launchpad Pump.fun. Popularized with joke community slogans like “hot air rises” and “billions must fart,” the token’s market cap swelled from zero to just shy of $2.5 billion by mid-January.

Then, it all came crashing down with the crypto market as Donald Trump’s inauguration, and the TRUMP token launch marked the peak of speculative froth. FART, similarly to other small and risky cryptocurrencies, tumbled over 90% to a $200 million market value by March. But, since then, it bottomed out and has staged a staggering comeback, becoming one of the best tokens in the digital assets sector.

What makes fartcoin’s rally dumbfounding is that it completely decouples from other speculative memecoins. Since Fartcoin has already quadrupled in price, other prominent meme tokens like dogecoin (DOGE), pepecoin (PEPE), dogwifhat (WIF) and TRUMP languished near their lows.

“I have never seen such relative strength during macro uncertainty and no signs of animal spirits for altcoins,” said pseudonymous crypto trader Smiley Capital, who has gained a substantial following for his blunt commentary. “It takes a special kind of retardation paired with conviction to simply size up into an asset named Fartcoin whilst the global economy is imploding.”

The token’s outperformance could also be an early signal of risk-on sentiment returning to markets—at least amid crypto traders—after past week’s extreme fear, Smiley Capital speculated.

“It’s also a barometer and frontrunner for broader risk assets,” he pointed out. “That’s a statement most of you are not ready to hear yet, or even grasp.”

Whether the unpredictable and absurd nature of the new financial order is highlighted by Fartcoin’s rise or simply another chapter in the memecoin market remains to be seen.

But Fartcoin’s stunning rally, outperforming most of the asset classes, serves as a reminder that virality often trumps fundamentals in the current market, regardless of how absurd it may sound.

Read more: TRUMP Token Pops 12% After U.S. President Calls It ‘The Greatest of Them All’

Bitcoin (BTC) rose over 1.5% to $84,900 Saturday, looking to break a three-month downtrend after the Trump administration issued new guidance on reciprocal tariffs, listing several exemptions like smartphones, computers, chips and other electronics.

These exclusions published by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection exclude the listed products from President Donald Trump’s 125% China tariff and his baseline 10% global levy.

“The US imports over $60 BILLION of smartphones per year. These exemptions cover some of the most crucial imports in another sign of the U.S. conceding in the trade war. After all, the bond market is forcing Trump to concede,” The Kobeissi Letter said on X.

The U.S. and China ratcheted up trade tensions this week, imposing import tariffs in excess of 100% over each other. Still, some sections of the financial market priced in disinflation in the U.S. going against the popular inflation fears to suggest the Fed might soon have a leeway to cut interest rates.

The chart shows that BTC is looking to establish a foothold above the descending trendline characterizing the steep sell-off from record highs above $109K. The so-called trendline breakout could entice more chart-driven buyers to the market.

Meanwhile, major alternative cryptocurrencies like ETH, XRP, and ADA surged by 6% on the day, indicating a trend of increased risk-taking in the broader crypto market. The cumulative market cap of top two stablecoins, USDT and USDC, held steady above $200 billion, just shy of record highs.

This positive momentum in the crypto market, opened for trading over the weekend, suggests the potential for price gains on Wall Street come Monday.

Late Friday, attorneys with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Binance filed a joint status report asking a federal judge to continue a 60-day pause in the case for another 60 days.

You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.

Who’s left?

The narrative

We heard about two more Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cases this week. The first, Binance and the SEC, was last paused in February, though late Friday attorneys asked for another extension to continue discussing matters. Separately, Nova Labs settled allegations with the regulator.

Why it matters

As we continue to watch the SEC develop its new views on digital asset issues, how it treats its active litigation remains a key signal.

Breaking it down

On Friday, attorneys with the SEC and Binance (as well as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, Binance.US and other parties) filed a joint motion asking the federal judge overseeing the case to extend a pause originally set to expire Monday by another 60 days.

Originally, the SEC said it was requesting the pause to see how the agency’s new crypto task force might address digital assets and the application of securities laws. Friday’s filing echoed this argument, saying the task force’s work “may impact” its claims in the ongoing litigation. The original pause was set to end on April 14.

The SEC also filed a motion for a consent judgement after apparently coming to a settlement agreement with Nova Labs, the company behind Helium. According to the proposal, Nova Labs would pay $200,000 but would not admit to or deny the allegations.

The SEC first sued Nova Labs in January 2025 — specifically, Jan. 17, 2025, three days before Donald Trump was sworn into office as the 47th U.S. President.

I imagine there are more cases or investigations being resolved than CoinDesk has caught — if you’ve received a Wells Notice and that’s now been resolved, please hit us up, we’re very curious. You can reply to this email or reach out on Telegram and Signal.

Stories you may have missed

DOJ Axes Crypto Unit as Trump’s Regulatory Pullback Continues: The Departmetn of Justice disbanded its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and ordered prosecutors not to bring a case where it may find itself adjudicating what a security or commodity is in the digital assets sector. More on this next week.

Inside North Korea’s Favorite Crypto Laundering Tool: THORChain: THORChain and wallets built on the network have become increasingly favored by North Korean hackers looking to move funds stolen from other crypto projects. The network’s operators have refused to block transactions tied to the Bybit theft from February.

SEC Approves Trading of Ether ETF Options: The SEC has not yet approved any new exchange-traded products for tokens like Solana or Litecoin ETFs but it did green-light ether ETF options trading this week.

New SEC Staff Statement Urges Detailed Crypto Token Disclosures: The latest SEC staff statement, which came out a day before its second roundtable discussion, focused on the details it’s observed in disclosures from crypto companies launching registered security products.

Atkins Confirmed by U.S. Senate to Take Over SEC Formerly Run by Gensler: Speaking of the SEC, the Senate confirmed Trump’s nominee for chair Paul Atkins, though he hadn’t been sworn in by 1:00 p.m. ET Friday.

Former Ethereum Developer Virgil Griffith Leaves Prison, Seeks Pardon: Virgil Griffith, an Ethereum developer who pleaded guilty to violating sanctions law and was sentenced to 56 months in prison, has been released to a halfway house and is now seeking a pardon, one of his attorneys said.

President Trump Signs Resolution Erasing IRS Crypto Rule Targeting DeFi: U.S. President Donald Trump signed the joint House and Senate resolution overturning the IRS’ DeFi broker rule under the Congressional Review Act, meaning the IRS can never bring a similar rule forth again. This is the first crypto-specific, Congressionally-passed item Trump has signed since taking office, marking a milestone for the crypto industry.

1 In 5 Cross-Chain Crypto Investigations Involve More Than 10 Blockchains, Elliptic Finds: Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said 20% of its investigations into funds sent across multiple chains now involve at least 10 different networks.

Ripple and SEC File Joint Motion to Pause Appeals: Ripple and the SEC have filed a joint motion to pause their ongoing appeals, following on from last month’s announcement that the parties came to an agreement to resolve the case entirely.

Block Agrees to $40M Settlement With New York Over Faulty Money-Laundering Controls: Block and the New York Attorney General’s office settled allegations that Block did not have a fully functioning anti-money laundering process for its Cash App.

Judge Rules Against Most of DCG’s Motion to Dismiss NYAG’s Civil Securities Fraud Suit: A New York state judge tossed out two of the New York Attorney General’s claims against Digital Currency Group and its executives but allowed most of the case to proceed in a late Friday ruling.

This week

Wednesday

14:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. ET) The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing to discuss issues ahead of an expected market structure bill addressing crypto.

18:00 UTC (2:00 p.m. ET) The House Agriculture Committee also held a hearing on similar topics.

Thursday

14:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. ET) The Senate Banking Committee held a confirmation hearing on a raft of nominees, including Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision nominee Michelle Bowman. While she received a few questions about reviewing the regulatory response to Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, there was not anything substantive around crypto during the hearing.

14:30 UTC (10:30 a.m. ET) The court overseeing the Department of Justice’s case against Do Kwon held a status conference hearing, where his trial was rescheduled to February 2026. Prosecutors said the DOJ memo from earlier this week would have no bearing on the case.

Friday

17:00 UTC (1:00 p.m. ET) The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission held its second crypto roundtable, this time on trading rules. Acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda, in recorded remarks, suggested that the agency could look at an interim regulatory framework for companies until it has more permanent rules in place.

Elsewhere:

(CNN) On Monday, pseudonymous X (formerly Twitter) accounts posted about a “90-day pause in tariffs” that sent markets soaring, before the White House denied the claim, which may have been based on a misinterpretation of White House official Kevin Hassett’s response to a question during a Fox News interview.

(CNN) On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump did announce a 90-day pause in the higher tariff rates against most countries, leaving in place the 10% tariff rate he first announced last week. Tariff rates on China went up to 125% (later clarified to 145%).

(CNBC) The U.S. stock market had a “historically wild week” with swings up and down as traders reacted to the possible effects new U.S. tariffs might have on global trade.

(Reuters) Aircraft parts manufacturer Howmet Aerospace, based in Pittsburgh, warned customers that U.S. tariffs might cause it to halt some shipments.

(Bloomberg) Website owners said Google’s new AI-generated answers feature has cratered traffic to their websites, though Google is denying this.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.

See ya’ll next week!

The idea of “safe haven” assets—traditionally marked by gold and government bonds—amid market turmoil, is being tested like never before.

For decades, portfolio construction and risk management were simple: 60% equities, 40% bonds and when markets panicked, capital typically flowed into gold and government bonds. These assets were slow, steady, and predictable, making them an ideal safe haven for investors looking for protection against volatility. But in today’s world of 24/7 markets, geopolitical instability, and rising distrust in sovereign systems, have turned that logic on its head, asking the question: does the definition of a safe haven need a refresh?

Enter the new kid in the block: bitcoin.

It is highly volatile, widely misunderstood, and often dismissed as a speculative asset by many corners of Wall Street and Main Street. Yet, it has staged an extraordinary run since the COVID-19 market lows.

It’s up over 1,000% since the COVID-19 market crash in March 2020. During that same period, long-duration bonds—measured via iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT)—are down 50% from their 2020 highs. Even gold, the true and tried safe haven asset—up 90% over five years—looks less impressive when adjusted for monetary debasement, which saw, in 2020 alone, over 40% of the total USD money supply being printed.

Still, bitcoin’s safe haven credential remains contested by investors.

In several recent risk-off events, it acted less like a hedge and more like a high-beta risk asset against the Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1 ETF.

Covid-19 (March 2020): BTC fell 40% vs QQQ’s 27%

Bank crisis (March 2023): BTC -14%, QQQ -7%

Yen carry trade unwind (Aug 2024): BTC -20%, QQQ -6%

Tariff-led selloff (April 2025): BTC -11%, QQQ -16%

The first three examples show bitcoin as a kind of leveraged tech trade. But the most recent tariff shock broke the pattern — bitcoin dropped less than the Nasdaq, showing relative strength in an otherwise weak macro environment spurred by President Trump’s tariffs.

While these data points may not make a trend, this evolving behavior highlights a broader phenomenon: the global financial backdrop has changed.

“Non-sovereign stores of value, like bitcoin, should do well,” said NYDIG Research in a note. “Politically neutral assets should be exempt from the global machinations at play right now.”

Bitcoin is volatile, yes, but it is also globally liquid, decentralized, censorship-resistant, and immune to tariffs or central bank policy. In an era of geopolitical tension and financial repression, those attributes start to make the asset look more enduring than other safe havens.

Meanwhile, traditional safe havens aren’t looking so safe. Gold’s gains look less impressive when weighed against the scale of monetary expansion. Long-duration bonds aren’t faring much better either as the 30-year treasury yield approaches 5%, making them painful for duration-heavy portfolios.

Since the sell-off began last Thursday, the Nasdaq has dropped nearly 10%, bitcoin is down 6%, TLT has fallen over 4%, and gold has slipped more than 3%. Meanwhile, the DXY index — which tracks the U.S. dollar against a basket of foreign currencies — remains relatively flat, while the all-important U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has surged nearly 8%.

On a risk-adjusted basis, bitcoin is holding its ground—performing no worse than traditional safe-haven assets like gold or TLT.

Looking at these four major crisis events, a pattern emerges: : each sell-off in bitcoin has marked a significant long-term bottom. During the COVID crash, BTC dropped to ~$4,000 — a level never seen again. In the March 2023 banking crisis, it briefly fell below $20,000 before resuming its climb. The August 2024 yen carry trade unwind brought it down to $49,000 — again, a level that hasn’t returned. If history is any guide, wherever this current low takes us, it may well establish the next long-term floor.

So, is Bitcoin a safe haven?

If the old framing — low volatility and downside protection during a panic — still holds, then BTC falls short.

But in a financial world dominated by sovereign risk, inflation, and constant policy uncertainty, bitcoin starts to look more like an asset that investors might need to consider for durability, neutrality and liquidity.

In this evolving landscape, maybe bitcoin isn’t failing the safe haven test. Maybe the old playbook of what safe haven is, needs to change.

A New York judge ruled Friday that the majority of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil securities fraud suit against crypto venture firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) and two of its executives can proceed to trial.

In 2023, James sued James sued DCG and its CEO Barry Silbert, DCG’s now-bankrupt lending arm Genesis Global Capital and its former CEO Michael Moro and crypto exchange Gemini, alleging that they worked together to cover up a gaping $1 billion hole in Genesis’ balance sheet caused by the wipe-out of Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) in 2022.

James said DCG and Genesis made “false assurances” on social media that DCG had absorbed Genesis’ losses from 3AC’s implosion when, in fact, they had just papered over the hole with a promissory note, pleading to pay Genesis $1.1 billion over 10 years at a 1% interest rate. While DCG has adamantly maintained that the promissory note was legitimate, James’ suit claimed that DCG has “never made a single payment under the Note.”

While Gemini and Genesis both settled with the OAG, DCG, Silbert and Moro have fought them tooth and nail. Last spring, DCG and both executives filed motions to dismiss the suit, alleging that the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) had failed to state a claim — essentially arguing that they were not selling securities and thus should not be sued under New York State securities laws.

But the judge presiding over the case disagreed in her Friday ruling, writing that the OAG had, at least at the current stage of the case, adequately alleged that the Gemini Earn program — the now-defunct Gemini lending product that went belly-up in November 2022 and which sits at the center of James’ case — was a security.

Crane did, however, agree to toss out two of James’ claims against DCG, Moro and Silbert — one claim under New York’s Executive Law that they engaged in a scheme to defraud in the first degree, and another that they engaged in a conspiracy in the fifth degree — ruling that those claims were duplicative.

Though Crane ruled the case can proceed, DCG said it isn’t done fighting.

“As we have stated from the beginning, the allegations against DCG are a thin web of innuendo, mischaracterizations, and unsupported conclusions,” a spokesperson for DCG told CoinDesk. “We’re encouraged by the judge’s dismissal of the New York Attorney General’s most outrageous claims based on alleged violations of criminal fraud and conspiracy statutes. We will continue to fight this baseless lawsuit as we remain focused on our mission in support of the digital assets industry.”

Attorneys for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Binance asked a federal judge on Friday to continue a pause in the regulator’s case against the crypto exchange for another two months, citing “productive discussions.”

The SEC sued Binance in 2023, alleging the exchange — alongside its U.S. affiliate and executives such as former CEO Changpeng Zhao — violated federal securities laws by operating as an unlicensed clearing agency, broker and exchange. The SEC also alleged commingling and that Binance.US’s trading volume was manipulated. In February, after U.S. President Donald Trump retook office and appointed Commissioner Mark Uyeda as acting agency chair, the regulator asked for a 60-day pause in the case, which was set to expire on Monday. The SEC pointed to a newly created crypto task force aiming to draft clearer guidance around how securities law might apply to digital assets as part of its explanation for the requested pause.

In Friday’s filing, the attorneys involved said the discussions included “how the efforts of the crypto task force may impact the SEC’s claims,” and requested another 60 days’ pause.

“In light of these continued discussions and the time required for the staff to seek authorization from the Commission as necessary to approve any resolution or changes to the scope of this litigation, the SEC requested that the Defendants agree to continue the current stay for an additional 60 days, and the Defendants agreed that continuing the stay is appropriate and in the interest of judicial economy,” the filing said.