Coindesk

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

One thing markets despise is uncertainty, and right now it’s coming from all corners of the globe, largely fueled by Trump’s tariffs.

Markets rebounded somewhat on Tuesday following Monday’s bloodbath in Asia and Europe, but it was more of a relief rally than a true recovery. At the heart of the conflict are the U.S. and China, both refusing to be the first to blink — even if it means prolonged uncertainty and pain for global markets.

As markets took a breather from the turmoil, crypto skeptics were quick to point out how bitcoin’s (BTC) safe haven narrative — bolstered by its resilience late last week — quickly unraveled on Monday when the price crashed to $75,000.

While that’s true, expecting the bitcoin price to remain unaffected was overly optimistic. During crises investors historically rush to cash, liquidating even traditional havens investments such as gold. Monday was no exception. Still, bitcoin has shown lower beta than U.S. equities since the tariff announcement.

In the bigger picture, bitcoin is holding up fairly well. The Nasdaq is down over 22% from its all-time high, while bitcoin is off by 28%. In previous episodes — like the yen carry-trade unwind in August 2024 or the COVID crash in March 2020 — bitcoin suffered far deeper relative losses.

Since the New York market closed on Wednesday, BTC has declined 8.4%, outperforming the S&P 500’s 10% drop and the Nasdaq’s 11% fall.

“What matters is that BTC’s beta to broader risk assets appears meaningfully lower in this sell-off than in previous ones. This suggests a growing recognition of bitcoin’s potential role as a non-sovereign store of value during periods of economic stress,” David Lawant, head of research at FalconX, said in an email.

Monday’s trading session also included an episode of “short-term madness” driven by false reports about a 90-day tariff delay. The markets spiked and then promptly crashed back down after the reports were refuted. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

April 8: Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF (XXRP) lists on NYSE Arca.

April 9: The Mercury network upgrade gets applied to the Neutron (NTRN) mainnet, migrating it from Cosmos Hub’s Interchain Security to a fully sovereign proof-of-stake network.

April 9, 10 a.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing on updating U.S. securities laws to take into account digital assets. Livestream link.

April 10, 10:30 a.m.: Status conference for former Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

April 11, 1 p.m.: U.S. SEC Crypto Task Force Roundtable on “Tailoring Regulation for Crypto Trading” in Washington.

Macro

April 9, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s higher individualized tariffs on imports from top U.S. trade deficit countries take effect.

April 9, 8:00 a.m.: Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) releases March consumer price inflation data.

Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.48%

Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.65%

Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.28%

Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.77%

April 9, 12:01 p.m.: China’s 34% retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports take effect.

April 9, 2:00 p.m.: The Fed releases minutes of the FOMC meeting held March 18-19.

April 9. 8, 9:30 p.m.: China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) releases March’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.

Inflation Rate MoM Prev. -0.2%

Inflation Rate YoY Est. 0% vs. Prev. -0.7%

PPI YoY Est. -2.3% vs. Prev. -2.2%

April 10, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing on the nomination of Michelle Bowman as Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision. Livestream link.

April 14: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will join U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House for an official working visit.

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

No earnings scheduled.

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

Uniswap DAO is discussing a proposal to support v4 expansion with the creation of ENS subdomains to track BSL license exemptions and official deployments, granting the Uniswap Foundation a blanket license to deploy v4 on target chains.

Bancor DAO is discussing the expansion of its taker fee to 0.001% on stable-to-stable trades on Sei v2 to make Carbon DeFi more competitive.

April 8, 12 p.m.: Lido to host a Lido Node Operator Community Call.

April 10, 10 a.m.: Hedera to host a community call discussing the HBR Foundation joining ERC3643, the non-profit’s standards, and the Header Asset Tokenization Studio.

April 11, 3 p.m.: Zcash to host a town hall on lockbox distribution & governance.

April 14, 10 a.m.: Stacks to host a livestream with recent announcements from the project.

Unlocks

April 8: Tensor (TNSR) to unlock 35.96% of its circulating supply worth $14.44 million.

April 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $15.84 million.

April 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply worth $51.01 million.

April 12: Axie Infinity (AXS) to unlock 5.68% of its circulating supply worth $21.18 million.

April 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 4.37% of its circulating supply worth $15.79 million.

April 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.01% of its circulating supply worth $25.22 million.

Token Listings

April 8: Avalanche (AVAX) to be listed on Coins.ph.

April 9: IOST airdrop claims portal for a roughly 1.7 billion IOST token airdrop to open.

April 10: Ren (REN), KonPay (KON), and Symbol (XYM) to be delisted from Bybit.

April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.

Conferences

CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Day 1 of 2: Digital Accord Summit 2025 (Paris)

Day 1 of 3: Paris Blockchain Week

April 8: Seine & Crypto Connect (Paris)

April 9: Blockchain & Finance – Evolution or Revolution? (Paris)

April 9: FinTech and Banking Unconference Colombia 2025 (Bogota)

April 9-10: FIBE Fintech Festival Berlin 2025

April 9-10: Mexico Finance & Fintech Summit 2025 (Mexico City)

April 9-10: Middle East Resilient Banking and Payments Symposium 2025 (Abu Dhabi)

April 10: Bitcoin Educators Unconference (Nashville)

April 10: FinXtex Malaysia 2025 (Kuala Lumpur)

April 10: Institutional Crypto Conference (New York)

April 10: SheFi Sumit 2025 (Seoul)

April 10-11: BITE-CON 2025 Conference (Miami)

April 10-11: 2025 Fintech and Financial Institutions Research Conference (Philadelphia)

April 11-12: Strategy’s OPNEXT Conference (Tysons, Va.)

April 12: Ethereum Argentina (Córdoba)

April 12-13: DeSci London 2025

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Fartcoin (FART) jumped 30% to extend monthly gains over 130%.

The absurdly-named token extended a multiday run the broader crypto market staged a relief rally, displaying signs of steady buying demand from traders.

Speculators keep an eye on continual strength in memecoins, especially when they tend to buck market trends, because the tokens tend to jump higher after a sell-off in the market. This can create possible profit opportunities for short-term traders, with some eyeing a move higher for the token in coming weeks.

FART, among some crypto circles, is a symbol of the absurd and a light-hearted rebellion against the grim financial forecasts. It holds no intrinsic value, but enjoys a cult following — possibly driving buying demand even as the market falls.

Derivatives Positioning

Bitcoin CME futures basis is holding firm above an annualized 5% amid the macro turmoil.

CME options skew, however, is showing bias for downside protection, or puts.

Together, both metrics show cautious sentiment without signaling panic, according to Thomas Erdösi, head of product at CF Benchmarks.

On Deribit, BTC and ETH put biases have moderated, but BTC implied volatility term structure remains in backwardation, indicating persistent fears of wild price swings in the short-term.

In BTC options, the $70K put is now the most popular strike, boasting a notional open interest of $957 million. That’s a 180-degree shift from the bias for $100K-$120K strike calls early this year.

Most of the top 25 coins, excluding TRX, HBAR, LINK and DOT, have seen a drop in perpetual futures open interest in the past 24 hours.

Market Movements

BTC is unchanged from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $78,894.34 (24hrs: +2.61%)

ETH is down 0.32% at $1,514.40 (24hrs: +5.22%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 0.8% at 2,268.01 (24hrs: +4.76%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 77 bps at 3.69%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0049% (5.3118% annualized) on Binance

DXY is unchanged at 103.32

Gold is up 2.19% at $3015.9/oz

Silver is up 1.9% at $30.07/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +6.03% at 33,012.58

Hang Seng closed +1.51% at 20,127.68

FTSE is up 2.1% at 7,863.79

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.36% at 4,719.66

DJIA closed on Monday -0.91% at 37,965.60

S&P 500 closed -0.23% at 5,062.25

Nasdaq closed +0.1% at 15,603.26

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -1.44% at 22,859.50

S&P 40 Latin America closed -2.94% at 2,227.14

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 2 bps at 4.16%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.58% at 5,178.00

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.35% at 17,799.50

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 2% at 38,930.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 63.46 (-0.11%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01980 (0.97%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 902 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $40.50

Total Fees: 6.59BTC / $510,645

CME Futures Open Interest: 137,695 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 26.2 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 7.43%

Technical Analysis

The chart shows monthly activity in the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield since the 1980s.

While the crypto community is hoping for a return to the zero-yield era, the chart suggests otherwise, revealing a long-term bullish shift in rates.

The trend change is evident from the key 50-, 100- and 200-month simple moving averages — which are aligned bullishly one above the other for the first time since the 1980s.

Elevated rates might be the new normal.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $268.14 (-8.67%), up 1.47% at $272.09 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $157.28 (-2.04%), up 1.72% at $159.98

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$12.34 (-8.8%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $11.26 (-0.35%), up 2.04% at $11.49

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.11 (-0.42%), up 0.28% at $7.13

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.02 (-2.23%), up 1.85% at $7.15

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.43 (+1.5%), up 0.67% at $7.48

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.41 (+0.73%)

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.15 (0.89%), down 1.02% at $33.80

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $41.84 (-6.25%), down 5.16% at $39.68

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$103.9 million

Cumulative net flows: $36.07 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: $0.0

Cumulative net flows: $2.38 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.37 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

The chart by CryptoQuant shows daily net flow of BTC from wallets linked with miners.

On Monday, these wallets registered a cumulative net outflow of 1,627 BTC, the most since Dec. 24.

According to Bloomberg, the Trump tariffs have disrupted the bitcoin mining industry.

While You Were Sleeping

China Offers First Hint of Devaluation With Weak Renminbi Fix (Financial Times): China set the yuan-dollar rate at its lowest level since September 2023 to counter mounting U.S. tariffs. Analysts say significant devaluation is unlikely.

First XRP ETF in the U.S. to Go Live on Tuesday With Launch of Teucrium’s Leveraged Fund (CoinDesk): The Teucrium 2x Long Daily XRP ETF lists on NYSE Arca with the ticker XXRP, giving exposure to XRP with 2x leverage. Management fee: 1.85%.

Cboe Set to Debut New Bitcoin Futures With FTSE Russell (CoinDesk): Cboe Digital plans to introduce a cash-settled bitcoin futures contract April 28.

WazirX Creditors Back Restructuring Plan to Payback $230M Hack Victims (CoinDesk): If approved by the Singapore High Court, the scheme will initiate payouts within 10 business days followed by phased resumptions of withdrawals and trading, subject to regulatory compliance.

Russia’s Medvedev Predicts More Countries Will Acquire Nuclear Weapons (Reuters): Russia’s Security Council deputy chair said nuclear disarmament is no longer feasible, even if the Ukraine war ends.

Trump Order Seeks to Tap Coal Power in Quest to Dominate AI (Bloomberg): Trump is set to sign an executive order directing two federal agencies to ease coal mining limits and label the fuel a critical mineral for national security.

In the Ether

Monday’s trading session will go down as one of the most volatile since the COVID crash in March 2020, with global markets caught in the crossfire as the U.S. and China face off over tariffs and neither superpower shows any impulse to back down.

As equity markets teetered, the volatility spilled into every asset class. Bitcoin (BTC), for example, swung as much as 10% intraday. The real focus, however, is on the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield. That’s the so-called risk-free interest rate, which the Trump administration said it wants to lower as it looks to refinance trillions in national debt.

The yield dropped to 3.9% from 4.8% late last week after President Donald Trump bolstered trade tensions with sweeping import tariffs, boosting demand for the Treasury notes.

Bond prices typically rise, sending yields lower, when Wall Street turns risk averse. Unusually, as the risk-aversion increased on Monday, yields turned higher, jumping to 4.22%.

This spike wasn’t confined to the U.S. The U.K. experienced its sharpest rate jump since the Liz Truss-era pension crisis in October 2022, and yields rose globally, signaling growing instability and diminishing confidence in sovereign debt and currencies.

Ole S Hansen, the head of commodity strategy at Saxobank, pointed to the scale of the move in long-dated Treasuries as a sign of something deeper potentially unfolding.

“U.S. Treasuries suffered a massive sell-off yesterday, with long yields rising the most since the turbulence during the pandemic outbreak—a possible sign of large holders of Treasuries, such as foreign holders, selling and repatriating their assets,” Hansen said in a post on X. “The 30-year U.S. Treasury benchmark rose from lows near 4.30% to as high as 4.65% yesterday, while the 10-year benchmark lifted back to 4.17% from a low near 3.85% the prior day.”

While Hansen pointed fingers at foreign selling, especially China, which is said to have offloaded $50 billion in Treasuries, Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, challenged that narrative.

“No, foreigners were not selling Treasuries to punish the U.S. (Trump),” he wrote, pointing instead to a sharp rally in the Dollar Index (DXY), which climbed 2.2% in just three days.

“If China or other foreigners were selling Treasuries … they would have to convert those dollars to a foreign currency. Otherwise, selling Treasuries and leaving the money in dollars in a U.S. bank is pointless. If they sold enough Treasuries to swing yields … the subsequent selling of dollars … would have driven down the dollar. Instead, it rallied more than usual.

“This suggests that foreign money was moving into the U.S., not away from it … the selling was more domestic and more concerned about inflation.”

Despite these views, unconfirmed reports about China’s sales continue to circulate. As of January 2025, China still held approximately $761 billion in U.S. government debt, the largest owner after Japan.

The narrative that the 10-year and 30-year yields surged on Chinese is unconvincing because most of the official Chinese investments in dollar-denominated assets are not in longer duration instruments, but agency bonds, shorter-term bills and bank deposits.

There is a perception China can gain leverage in the trade war through its holdings of U.S. Treasury notes. That’s not necessarily true.

As the economist and author of “The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead for the World Economy” Michael Pettis has long argued, China’s holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds are directly linked to its current account surplus and it cannot weaponize these holdings against the U.S.

It’s no surprise that China has been lightening up its Treasury investments since 2013 with its current account surplus peaking during the 2008 crash.

Crypto exchange WazirX has bagged over 93% approval votes from creditors for its proposed Scheme of Arrangement, bringing victims of its $230 million July hack closer to a partial asset recovery.

The voting process, conducted on the Kroll Issuer Services platform from March 19 to March 28, involved over 141,000 creditors representing $195.65 million in approved claims.

Of those, 131,659 creditors, holding $184.99 million, voted in favor, equating to 93.1% by count and 94.6% by value. This exceeded the requirements of Singapore’s Companies Act, where parent Zettai is based, which mandated a majority by count and 75% by value for approval.

If the scheme was not approved, the process would have shifted towards liquidation under Singapore’s Companies Act, likely resulting in lower asset recovery for creditors with an estimated date of 2030, WazirX said in February.

With the voting results now in hand, Zettai plans to seek a sanction from the Singapore Court. If approved, the scheme would trigger an initial payout within 10 business days, followed by phased resumptions of withdrawals and trading, subject to regulatory compliance.

Part of the refund plan is to launch a decentralized exchange (DEX), Issue recovery tokens that can be traded, and perform a periodic buyback of recovery tokens using platform profits and new revenue streams.

WazirX users lost over $230 million in a Lazarus Group-led security breach in July 2024 after an apparent private key interception, which the exchange attributed to its custody provider, Liminal, a claim the latter rejected, pointing instead to vulnerabilities on WazirX’s end.

The hacker laundered all the stolen funds to various addresses using Tornado Cash to obscure the transactions, as CoinDesk reported in September, dampening hopes of a full recovery. WazirX has since worked to recover the funds with limited success.

Cboe Digital, the crypto arm of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, is hoping to roll out a new bitcoin (BTC) futures product later this month if approved by regulators, the exchange said on Monday.

The new trading vehicle, in partnership with FTSE Russell, will be cash-settled and based on the XBTF Index, which represents 1/10th the value of the FTSE Bitcoin Index. It will settle on the last business day of each month.

If regulators approve Cboe’s application, the futures would begin trading on April 28, it said.

Futures are a type of derivatives where the buyer and seller agree to trade an asset at a fixed price and date in the future. They are a popular vehicle to hedge and manage risk and capitalize on trends and market behavior.

“This launch comes at a pivotal time as demand for crypto exposure continues to grow and market participants are increasingly seeking more capital-efficient and versatile ways to gain and manage that exposure,” said Catherine Clay, Global Head of Derivatives at Cboe, in a statement.

In November 2023, Cboe became the first U.S. regulated exchange to offer both spot and leveraged derivatives trading on a single platform after it received approval from the CFTC to list margined bitcoin and ether (ETH) futures.

Bitcoin (BTC) clawed its way back to almost $80,000, staging a relief rally after dipping below $75,000 late Monday and spurring a run-up in major tokens.

Dogecoin (DOGE), BNB Chain’s BNB, XRP and Cardano’s ADA rose as much as 10%, alleviating some of the past 24 hours’ losses. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) added nearly 9%.

Overall, crypto market cap has pulled back to levels seen in early November last year, when Donald Trump’s victory triggered a rally that propelled the total value through a level that had been seen as offering resistance to further gains.

Equity markets staged a bounce late Monday as rumors of an impending tariff respite caused the S&P 500 to soar over 7%, and then gave up nearly all those gains after the White House called the speculation “fake news.”

Crypto-tracked futures amassed over $1.2 billion in liquidations on Monday as major cryptocurrencies slumped more than 20% at one point, setting the stage for a bounce as traders cut short positions and reversed overextended selling, as CoinDesk noted.

Meanwhile, traders are eying bitcoin price action for cues on dip buying, with some saying they are cautious due to the uncertainty caused by the tariff wars.

“We’re optimistic that investors seeking safe havens may look to buy the dip on Bitcoin if it can show some relative strength against traditional assets during an eventual recovery period in the short term,” Jupiter Zheng, a partner at HashKey Capital, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. “While global markets are experiencing record sell-offs, Bitcoin has also declined but remains relatively stable.”

Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro’s chief market analyst, said the market looked “emotionally oversold” and while a rebound was in place, the catalysts required for it to be a reversal were “not yet in place.”

“Crypto market sentiment has returned to the extreme fear zone of 23, which is significantly higher than what we see in equities,” he said in an email. “This does not mean that cryptocurrency investors are more confident about the future. Rather, it signals that the sell-off here is more organised, making it more dangerous.”

Teucrium Investment Advisors will debut the first-ever XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S.

The Teucrium 2x XRP ETF (XXRP) give investors a 2x leveraged exposure to the closely related Ripple token. XXRP will start trading on the NYSE Arca on Tuesday even before a standard “spot” XRP ETF has been approved by regulators.

“Very odd (maybe a first) that a new asset’s first ETF is leveraged. Spot XRP still not approved, although our odds are pretty high,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas said in an X post.

Typically, ETFs tracking emerging assets like cryptocurrencies begin with unleveraged “spot” funds — those that directly hold the underlying asset — before more complex leveraged products are introduced.

Teucrium will charge a management fee of 1.85%. The firm cautioned that XRP’s price volatility and declining usage on the Ripple network could pose challenges to the fund’s performance, reflecting broader concerns about the token’s adoption and market stability.

Ripple’s Legal Resolution Fuels ETF Momentum

Teucrium’s leveraged ETF arrives amid a flurry of applications for spot XRP ETFs still under SEC review. Major fund managers, including WisdomTree, Bitwise, 21Shares, Canary Capital, and Franklin Templeton, have filed proposals to bring unleveraged XRP ETFs to market.

The SEC has previously acknowledged these applications, and decisions expected in the coming months could pave the way for additional XRP investment options.

XRP is up 6.5% in the past 24 hours, in line with a broader market move higher.

China eased its grip on the yuan (CNY) on Tuesday, allowing it to depreciate beyond a key level, likely in response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs.

Crypto analysts anticipate that the yuan’s depreciation could favor bitcoin (BTC), drawing parallels to similar events from a decade ago.

Early Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) set the so-called daily yuan fix at 7.2038 per dollar on Tuesday, the weakest since September. The yuan isn’t a free float currency like the USD, euro and other G-7 nations and is allowed to trade in a range of 2% on either side of the daily fix announced at 9:15 a.m. Beijing time.

The 7.2 level has been considered a “harder line in the sand” for the central bank for years. The USD/CNY pair has traded above the said level a few times since 2022 but never established a foothold.

That could change with the PBOC explicitly setting the daily mid-point beyond the 7.2 level. In other words, the move signals a shift to managed depreciation of the yuan, which will help keep China’s exports cheaper and competitive, potentially offsetting the negative impact of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.

Capital flight into BTC?

The managed depreciation could also trigger capital flight from China, which may find home in cryptocurrencies, according to analysts.

“The U.S. is now pursuing full-scale economic pressure on China, which may be forced to respond with quantitative easing and a currency devaluation. If so—and if China permits capital flight—Bitcoin could surge, much like it did in 2015,” Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, said in a note to clients Monday.

The Chinese central bank devalued the yuan by 1.9% on Aug. 11, 2015, the most significant single-day depreciation in over two decades, sending shockwaves across global financial markets. Bitcoin initially fell over 20% with the U.S. stocks but quickly turned higher and surged nearly 60% in the following four months.

Ben Zhou, CEO and founder of the crypto exchange Bybit, voiced a similar opinion on X, saying yuan depreciation tends to bode well for bitcoin.

“China will try to lower RMB to counter the tariff, historically, whenever RMB drops, a lot of Chinese capital flow into BTC, bullish for BTC,” Zhou said on X.

Regulatory hurdles

While history tells us to expect a bullish BTC reaction to yuan depreciation, note that over the years, China has become anti-crypto, citing financial stability risks and has some of the world’s harshest regulations.

A new regulation announced earlier this year requires banks to monitor and report suspicious international transactions, including those involving cryptocurrency. Banks are obligated to investigate and report any risky crypto trades, which may result in financial restrictions and potential blacklisting for the trader.

The stringent stance means local traders may have a tough time diversifying into bitcoin and other digital assets in the event of a sustained yuan depreciation.

“Since August 2024, the Supreme People’s Court has significantly increased the legal risks for individuals using cryptocurrencies in connection with money laundering, which could easily extend to cases of capital flight,” Thielen said. “This presents a major deterrent, despite rising economic uncertainty.”

Galaxy Digital is moving closer to a U.S. stock market listing after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved its registration statement tied to a corporate reorganization.

The crypto and AI infrastructure firm, currently listed in the Toronto Stock Exchange, aims to shift its home base from the Cayman Islands to Delaware and list shares on the Nasdaq as “GLXY.” The firm’s expansion into the U.S. market comes as institutional demand for regulated crypto products continues to grow.

The company has scheduled a shareholder vote on the reorganization for May 9. The firm is expected to list shortly afterward. CEO Mike Novogratz called the registration effectiveness “an important milestone” in the firm’s bid to expand its reach.

Galaxy provides institutional services in crypto trading, asset management, and tokenization. It also invests in and operates data centers that power AI and high-performance computing.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

The market for tokenized financial instruments, or real-world assets (RWAs), could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033 as the technology’s growth is nearing a “tipping point,” according to a joint report on Monday by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) by payments-focused digital asset infrastructure firm Ripple.

That would mean an average 53% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), taking the middle ground between the report’s conservative scenario of $12 trillion in tokenized assets in the next eight years and a more optimistic $23.4 trillion projection.

Tokenization is the process of using blockchain rails to record ownership and move assets—securities, commodities, real estate. It’s a red-hot sector in crypto, with several global traditional financial firms pursuing tokenization to achieve efficiency gains, faster and cheaper settlements and around-the-clock transactions. JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform has already processed more than $1.5 trillion in tokenized transactions, with over $2 billion in daily volume. BlackRock’s tokenized U.S. dollar money market fund (BUIDL), issued with tokenization firm Securitize, nears $2 billion in assets under management and is increasingly being used in decentralized finance (DeFi).

“[The] technology is ready, regulation is evolving, and foundational use cases are in the market,” said Martijn Siebrand, Digital Assets Program Manager at ABN AMRO, in the report. The report highlighted tokenized government bonds, U.S. Treasuries, as an early success, allowing corporate treasurers seamlessly shift idle cash into tokenized short-term government bonds from digital wallets without any intermediaries, managing liquidity in real time and around the clock.

Private credit is another sector drawing attention, opening access to traditionally opaque and illiquid markets while offering investors clearer pricing and fractional ownership. Similarly, carbon markets are flagged as fertile ground, where blockchain-based registries could enhance transparency and traceability of emissions credits.

Key challenges still linger

Despite the growth, the report identified five key barriers for broader adoption: fragmented infrastructure, limited interoperability across platforms, uneven regulatory progress, inconsistent custody frameworks, and lack of smart contract standardization. Most tokenized assets today settle in isolation, with off-chain cash legs limiting efficiency gains. Tokenized asset markets struggle to unlock secondary liquidity without shared delivery-versus-payment (DvP) standards.

Regulatory clarity varies significantly by region. Switzerland, the EU, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates have developed comprehensive legal frameworks for tokenized securities and infrastructure, while major markets like India and China remain restrictive or undefined. This uneven progress complicates cross-border operations and forces firms to tailor infrastructure market-by-market.

Despite these headwinds, early adopters are expanding fast. The report identifies three phases of tokenization: low-risk adoption of familiar instruments like bonds and funds; expansion into complex products such as private credit and real estate; and full market transformation, including illiquid assets like infrastructure and private equity. Most firms are currently in the first or second phase, with scalability hinging on regulatory alignment and infrastructure maturity.

Cost is becoming less of a constraint for firms, the report said. Focused tokenization projects can now launch for under $2 million, while end-to-end integrations—covering issuance, custody, compliance, and trading—can cost up to $100 million for large institutions.

Tokenization can unlock meaningful savings for processes such as bond issuances, real estate fund tokenization and collateral management, driving further growth, the report noted.

However, without industry-wide coordinated action, the same silos and fragmentation tokenization seeks to eliminate could reemerge in digital form, said in the report Jorgen Ouaknine, global head of innovation and digital assets at Euroclear, a global financial market infrastructure provider.

Pierre Rochard, who calls himself a “bitcoin maximalist OG,” first discovered Bitcoin in 2012 while studying at UT Austin. With interests in Austrian economics and open-source software, he was “captivated” by bitcoin as the intersection of both. He became an early thought leader, co-founding the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute to house foundational writings and cypherpunk philosophy.

Across roles at BitPay, Kraken, and most recently Riot Platforms (RIOT), his work has spanned bitcoin infrastructure and advocacy. At Riot, he led responses to environmental criticisms, including a viral parody video that “put the critics on the defensive” and reframed the debate around mining and value creation.

Pierre Rochard is a speaker at Consensus 2025, in Toronto, May 14-16. Get your pass here.

“Critics think mining is wasteful because they don’t believe bitcoin has value,” Rochard said. “But it’s about monetary sovereignty — the ability to control your own money.”

Now, with The Bitcoin Bond Company, he is taking on the next frontier: unlocking bitcoin for fixed-income investors.

Unlike Michael Saylor’s long-only strategy, Rochard wants to build “bankruptcy-remote, bitcoin-only structures” with clear life-cycles and risk-tranching. The idea is to make Bitcoin more palatable to traditional credit allocators.

His goal? Acquire $1 trillion in bitcoin over the next 21 years — market conditions permitting.

On the price cycle, Rochard believes the four-year halving model is losing relevance for price prediction purposes. “Bitcoin’s CAGR is now tied to interest rates,” he said, noting its shift toward becoming a global macro asset. “Higher Fed rates pull capital out of Bitcoin — that’s what slows adoption.”

While education remains a major hurdle, he’s optimistic. “Ten years ago, this idea was laughed off. Today, Bitcoin-backed credit products are inevitable.”

At Consensus 2025, Pierre is focused on accelerating that education, especially among institutions looking to diversify beyond real estate and equities.

Rochard was also clear-eyed about the risks and hurdles in bitcoin adoption. “The biggest challenge is education,” he emphasized. “Most investors have never seen a fixed-income product backed purely by bitcoin. They’re used to real estate or corporate debt — this is a new asset class for them.”

When asked about concerns like low transaction fees or empty blocks in 2025, Rochard pushed back. “People worry about low fees, but that assumes a static system. If there’s ever an attack or censorship, fees skyrocket — and miners spin up. It’s anti-fragile by design.”

Ultimately, Rochard’s pitch is simple: “Bitcoin is no longer a fringe experiment. It’s a core monetary technology — and it’s time the credit markets caught up.”

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