Coindesk

The Cardano Foundation has rolled out Veridian, a new open-source platform aimed at helping people and businesses manage their digital identities, according to a Friday release.

Alongside it comes the Veridian Wallet, a tool designed to keep personal info secure and let users prove who they are online without the usual hassles of sharing sensitive data.

This launch comes at a time when proving one’s identity online is more important and riskier than ever. Whether it’s for healthcare, banking, shipping, or school records, current systems often leave data exposed, and with smart devices and AI popping up everywhere, those flaws are getting tougher to fix, the Foundation said.

“From healthcare and financial services to supply chains and academics, identity verification serves as the cornerstone of trust,” Thomas A. Mayfield, head of Decentralized Trust and Identity Solutions at Cardano Foundation, wrote in the release. “Despite this, existing solutions often fail to provide adequate security and credential control, resulting in frequent data breaches. Last year alone, 1.7 billion records were compromised in the United States.”

Veridian tackles this by letting users take control instead of handing their information to a central authority. It uses open, shared tools to ensure legitimate communication and check identities without a go-between.

There’s even an option to link it to the Cardano blockchain for added assurance. The Veridian Wallet ties it all together, letting people manage their details safely from their phones.

The wallet application is built for individuals and businesses alike, with options for companies to tweak it for their needs.

Read more: Cardano: Deep Dive on the Trump Reserve Token Whose Blockchain Ignores TVL

Avara, the parent company of decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Aave, has announced the arrival of Lens Chain mainnet, a fast and inexpensive Ethereum overlay blockchain for developing decentralized social media applications.

There are now several blockchain-oriented, or “Web3,” startups looking to provide users with an alternative to the giant, centralized social media companies like Facebook and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).

To offer better alternatives to existing social media giants requires a fertile protocol level, according to Avara CEO Stani Kulechov. This means offering a developer-friendly layer 2 environment, propelled by composable features designed to unleash the economic potential of decentralized “SocialFi.”

“The direction we have taken with Lens in the past 12 months is to bring the best developer tooling for building on chain social experiences,” Kulechov said in an interview. “We chose the optimal stack to run Lens Chain where we get the lowest possible transaction in cost, but a sufficient amount of security for these social transactions.”

Lens Chain, a system that uses mathematical proofs to check the veracity of batched off-chain transactions, has its own dedicated stablecoin, Aave’s GHO, to handle gas fees, and its own decentralized data storage. A range of application building blocks are on offer to create things like composable social graphs, custom feeds, token-gated communities etc.

The blockchain has cemented partnerships with several DeFi and infrastructure projects including Uniswap, Balancer, LayerZero, Circle, Consensys and Chainlink.

The U.S. employment situation continued to roll along in strong fashion in March, adding another piece to the puzzle as the Federal Reserve contemplates the path of short-term interest rates in a world that’s markedly changed in the last 48 hours.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 228,000 last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning. Economists had expected a gain of just 135,000 following February’s increase of 117,000 jobs (revised from an originally reported 151,000).

The unemployment rate for March, however, rose a tick to 4.2% against economist consensus of 4.1% and February’s 4.1%.

The price of bitcoin (BTC) was little-changed in the minutes following the report at $82,600.

Ahead of the jobs report, the CME FedWatch Tool — which gauges market expectations for Federal Reserve policy — had priced in four rate cuts for 2025, which would bring the federal funds rate down to a target range of 3.25%–3.50%. While the Fed is still expected to hold rates steady at its May meeting, market participants are increasingly betting on a cut in June, with current odds showing a 60% probability.

All this comes, of course, as Trump’s Wednesday evening tariff announcements threw markets into an historic tizzy. The Nasdaq plunged 6% on Thursday and the S&P 500 just shy of 5%. Hopes for some sort of Friday bounce were dashed a few hours ago when China announced retaliatory tariffs. Prior to the jobs data, Nasdaq and S&P futures were pointing to opening declines of around 3%.

Bitcoin added to list of safe havens?

To no surprise, gold is among the assets where investors have been hiding out. Though it’s down a bit since the tariff announcement, it remains very close to its record high of around $3,200 per ounce. Also to no surprise, U.S. Treasury bonds have seen a strong bid, with the yield on the 10-year tumbling to 3.89% just ahead of this morning’s jobs news, now lower by nearly 100 basis points since Trump’s inauguration.

Bitcoin bulls may have been disappointed by the crypto’s behavior over the past weeks, with the price seemingly moving tick for tick with the struggling Nasdaq. Signs of a decoupling may be emerging though. Bitcoin on Thursday managed to hold the $80,000 level even as the Nasdaq tumbled throughout the day. Prior to this morning’s numbers, BTC was roughly flat in the $82,000 area even as futures pointed to a continuation of the Nasdaq plunge.

Next up is March inflation data to be reported next week, with both core and headline CPI still seen hovering around 3%.

Since the start of April, bitcoin (BTC) has experienced an unusual increase in conviction from both short-term and long-term holders.

According to Glassnode, short-term holders—those who have held bitcoin for less than 155 days—are typically more reactive to price movements, often buying during periods of euphoria and selling during downturns.

However, of late, short-term holders appear to have become value-driven buyers despite bitcoin currently sitting roughly 25% below its all-time high.

Since the start of April, this group has grown by around 15,000 BTC, now holding a total of just over 3.7 million BTC. That said, since February, they have distributed approximately 280,000 BTC—likely a mix of profit-taking from the November–December rally, which followed President Donald Trump’s election win. That’s in addition to panic selling during bitcoin’s 30% drawdown from its January all-time high.

Long-term holders—those who have held for at least 155 days – have boosted their coin stash by 400,000 BTC since February, with small amounts acquired this month, taking the overall tally to over 13.5 million. This suggests growing conviction among long-term holders, even amid recent price stagnation.

While bitcoin has remained relatively flat since the start of April, Nasdaq is down 3.5% in the same time frame, with futures pointing to a further 3% decline.

The VIX index, which shows the equity market’s expectations for 30-day volatility and is often called Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” rose to 39, the highest since October 2020, after China imposed retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., data from TradingView show.

The increase, coupled with the sharp sell-off in the U.S. stock-index futures, prompted traders to increase estimates of Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts to 116 basis points this year, up from 100 basis points before the China news hit the wires, CME’s FedWatch tool shows.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded 0.7% lower on the day at $82,500 at press time, having earlier put in highs above $84,600. Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility, represented by Deribit’s DVOL index, rose to an annualized 54.6%, the highest in two weeks.

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Major coins reversed early gains after Beijing stepped up trade tensions by announcing retaliatory tariffs following President Donald Trump’s Wednesday decision to impose additional levies on China and other nations.

Bitcoin dropped to $83,000 from $84,600, though the downside appeared limited, probably because the market’s worst fears have finally come true. Markets dislike uncertainty, and the anticipation of a looming threat often creates more anxiety and fear than the actual realization of that threat.

Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, markets have been wrestling with the threat of tariffs and a global trade war. That damped investor risk appetite, causing the BTC price to tumble from a record high over $109,000 to below $80,000 last month.

This week, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on 180 nations, with higher levies on China, the European Union and Southeast Asia. The effective U.S. tariff rate is now above the level of around 20% set by the 1930’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

This so-called tariffagedon moment marks the end of lingering uncertainty and could be liberating for markets, mainly because bond yields have dropped across the advanced world in the aftermath, pricing in disinflation. That’s contrary to the popular narrative that tariffs would lead to stagflation — high inflation plus low growth — forcing the Fed to keep interest rates elevated.

The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year bond yield has dropped below 4% for the first time since October and yields have fallen sharply in the U.K., Germany and Japan. Plus, oil has declined sharply this week on prospects of higher supply from OPEC countries.

All this bodes well for Fed rate cut bets and risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. The same can be said for Friday’s March jobs report, which, if it beats estimates, will likely be seen as backward-looking, failing to account for this week’s Trump tariffs, while a weak print will only add to Fed rate cuts.

With the major macro uncertainty behind us, the crypto market could return to focusing on positive developments, such as USDC issuer Circle’s IPO filing and technological advancements.

On Thursday, Coinbase Derivatives submitted documentation to the CFTC to self-certify futures for XRP. In addition, Ethereum developers chose May 7 as the date for the Pectra upgrade to go live on the mainnet.

Elsewhere, the SEC acknowledged Fidelity’s filing for a spot exchange-traded fund tied to SOL, which takes it closer to approval. A lot is happening within the industry, so stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

April 5: The purported birthday of Satoshi Nakamoto.

April 7, 7:30 p.m.: Syscoin (SYS) activates the Nexus upgrade on its mainnet at block 2,010,345.

April 9, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing about how U.S. securities laws could be updated to take into account digital assets. Livestream link.

April 17: EigenLayer (EIGEN) activates slashing on Ethereum mainnet, enforcing penalties for operator misconduct.

April 21: Coinbase Derivatives will list XRP futures pending approval by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Macro

April 4, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases March employment data.

Nonfarm Payrolls Est. 135K vs. Prev. 151K

Unemployment Rate Est. 4.1% vs. Prev. 4.1%

April 4, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases March employment data.

Unemployment Rate Est. 6.7% vs. Prev. 6.6%

April 4, 11:25 a.m.: Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will give a speech titled “Economic Outlook.” Livestream link.

April 5, 12:01 a.m.: The Trump administration’s 10% baseline tariff on imports from all countries takes effect.

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 14: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will join 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

Sky DAO is voting on an executive proposal that includes initializing ALLOCATOR-BLOOM-A, updating the Smart Burn Engine’s hop parameter, approving the Spark Tokenization Grand Prix DAO resolution and executing a Spark Proxy Spell to expand SparkLend’s liquidity operations. Voting ends May 3.

AaveDAO is discussing an upgrade to GHO Savings to introduce a technical design change to sGHO, a yield-bearing version of GHO designed for multichain integration. It also introduces the Aave Savings Rate (ASR) that will determine sGHO’s yield.

April 4, 9 a.m.: Core DAO to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session.

April 4, 2 p.m.: Sei’s research initiative to hold a livestream on real-world asset tokenization.

April 7, 9 a.m.: OriginTrail to host a “Shaping AI for Good” Zoom talk.

April 7, 4 p.m.: Livepeer to host a monthly community call focused on governance, funding, and the strategic direction of its on-chain treasury.

Unlocks

April 5: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 3.25% of its circulating supply worth $54.22 million.

April 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.59% of its circulating supply worth $10.17 million.

April 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $19.17 million.

April 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply worth $57 million.

April 12: Axie Infinity (AXS) to unlock 5.68% of its circulating supply worth $24.91 million.

Token Listings

April 4: Pintu (PTU), Spartan Protocol (SPARTA), Derby Stars (DSRUN), Veloce (VEXT), BOB and KryptoniteSEILOR) to be deslisted from Bybit.

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

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 3 of 4: ETH Bucharest Conference & Hackathon (Romania)

Day 2 of 4: BitBlockBoom (Dallas)

April 6-9: Hong Kong Web3 Festival

April 8-10: Paris Blockchain Week

April 10: Bitcoin Educators Unconference (Nashville)

April 15-16: BUIDL Asia 2025 (Seoul)

April 22-24: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)

April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)

April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)

April 24: Bitwise’s Investor Day for Bitcoin Standard Corporations (New York)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Infected, a crypto game, moves to Solana from Base network after saying the latter couldn’t handle its launch.

Infected claimed it faced technical issues during the start-up and Base was unable to handle high transaction volumes, leading to gas price spikes and a poor user experience.

It reported that a gas spike caused transaction failures during the critical first 30 minutes of the game’s debut, disrupting momentum.

Although front-end issues were suspected initially, the team concluded that Base’s scalability limitations were the root cause, a problem they say persists across Ethereum-based chains.

Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, rejected the claims, asserting that Base operated smoothly and did not crash. He emphasized that Base, with a $3.05 billion total value locked and 1.2 million active addresses, had offered support to resolve front-end issues, suggesting the problem was not inherent to the chain.

Base developer ‘Saedeh’ called out Infected’s inexperience, pointing to its introduction of multiple tokens and exaggerated market cap claims as missteps.

Derivatives Positioning

BTC, ETH puts are trading at a premium relative to calls out to June expiry, representing near-term downside concerns.

The positive dealer gamma at the $83K and $84K strikes means these market participants could trade against the market to hedge their books, potentially arresting price volatility.

Perpetual funding rates for most major tokens, excluding XRP and AVAX, remain marginally positive, implying cautiously bullish sentiment.

Market Movements

BTC is up 1.25% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $83,032.61 (24hrs: -0.28%)

ETH is up 0.61% at $1,795.41 (24hrs: +0.15%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 1.54% at 2,479.75 (24hrs: +0.62%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 6 bps at 3.08%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0023% (2.4988% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.47% at 102.56

Gold is up 0.48% at $3,111.90/oz

Silver is down 1.38% at $31.40/oz

Nikkei 225 closed -2.75% at 33,780.58

Hang Seng closed -1.52% at 22,849.81

FTSE is down 3.4% at 8,186.43

Euro Stoxx 50 is down 4.26% at 4,895.26

DJIA closed on Thursday -3.98% at 40,545.93

S&P 500 closed -4.84% at 5,396.52

Nasdaq closed -5.97% at 16,550.61

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -3.84% at 24,335.8

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.21% at 2,453.38

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 13 bps at 3.9%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 2.17% at 5,315.00

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 2.34%% at 18,238.75

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 2.26% at 39,854

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 63 (0.31%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.02162 (-1.05%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 839 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $46.31

Total Fees: 5.78 BTC / $478,070

CME Futures Open Interest: 135,025 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 27.1 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 7.69%

Technical Analysis

The ratio between the dollar prices of bitcoin and gold is looking to trend lower.

Gold, however, may see a “sell the fact” pullback in the wake of Wednesday’s Trump tariffs, potentially leading to a breakout in the BTC-gold ratio.

Such a move could be taken a sign of a renewed bull run in BTC, as the cryptocurrency tends to rally after gold.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $282.28 (-9.68%), down 1.11% at $279.14 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $170.76 (-6.66%), down 3.29% at $165.14

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.08 (-11.81%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $11.23 (-9.58%), down 3.29% at $10.86

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.30 (-8.98%), down 3.15% at $7.07

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.15 (-15.08%), down 1.96% at $7.01

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.41 (-7.61%), down 3.51% at $7.15

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.75 (-10.46%), down 0.16% at $12.73

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.06 (-8.02%), down 6.05% at $32

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $42.63 (-9.93%), down 0.09% at $42.59

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$99.8 million

Cumulative net flows: $36.23 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million.

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$3.6 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.37 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.39 million.

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

The global search interest for the term “tariffs” reached a peak value of 100 on Thursday, indicating heightened curiosity and concern about trade taxes among the general public over the past 90 days.

Peak interest among the general populace usually marks the end of a trend, meaning markets could soon be looking past tariffs.

While You Were Sleeping

Bitcoin Falls Back to $83K as China Announces 34% Tariffs on All U.S. Goods (CoinDesk): China announced retaliatory tariffs on all goods from the U.S.

March Jobs Report a ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Moment for Bitcoin Bulls (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s price stability above March lows suggests seller fatigue, with implied volatility indicating a potential 3.4% price swing in the next 24 hours.

South Korea’s President Yoon Ousted as Court Upholds Impeachment (Reuters): The Constitutional Court said Yoon overstepped his powers by declaring martial law. An election must be held within 60 days, with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo serving as interim president.

Inflation Fears Add to Pressure on Federal Reserve (Financial Times): Markets now see short-term U.S. inflation rising at its fastest pace since 2022.

Solana’s SOL Could See Nearly 6% Price Swing as Whales Dump Coins Before U.S. Jobs Data (CoinDesk): Volmex’s one-day implied volatility index indicates SOL may see a 6% price swing as large investors offload holdings ahead of the U.S. non-farm payroll report.​

China’s Response to New U.S. Tariffs Will Likely Focus More on Stimulus, Building Trade Ties (CNBC): China is likely to respond by boosting stimulus, deepening Asian and African trade ties, and keeping the yuan strong to shift inflationary pressure onto the U.S., analysts said.

In the Ether

Risk sentiment worsened during the European hours Friday after China announced retaliatory tariffs on all goods, responding to Trump’s Wednesday decision to boost the overall levy on Chinese goods to 54%.

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, fell by $1,600 to $83,000, erasing the early rise to $84,600, CoinDesk data shows. Other tokens like XRP, ETH, SOL and DOGE also reversed early gains to trade largely flat on the day.

Meanwhile, futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell over 2% amid escalating global trade tensions.

“China’s response is not only negative for the U.S. but it is also impacting the global outlook,” ForexLive’s analyst Justin Low wrote in a market update.

The U.S. stock-market slide prompted by President Donald Trump’s global tariff announcement on Wednesday sent the Nasdaq Composite Index into one of its biggest funks since the start of the century.

The tech-heavy index lost 5.5% on Thursday, just outside the top 20 worst single-day drawdowns since 2000, according to Investing.com. Most of the largest drawdowns occurred during the dot-com crash of 2000-2001 and the 2008 global financial crisis. Other equity measures also suffered, with the S&P 500 index falling almost 5%.

In contrast, the bitcoin (BTC) price, which is typically correlated with U.S. equities over short timeframes, bucked the trend. The largest cryptocurrency, which tumbled immediately after the announcement while stock markets were closed, rose 0.7% the following day, with momentum carrying into Friday, according to Glassnode data.

Bitcoin is now trading above $84,000 compared with about $87,000 before Trump started speaking. Nasdaq futures, meanwhile, are lower ahead of the U.S. jobs report due later in the day.

Bitcoin made its 2025 low in mid-March at around $76,000, whereas the Nasdaq hit a low on Thursday. Year-to-date, bitcoin is outperforming the Nasdaq, losing 10% against the index’s 11%.

Analyst Caleb Franzen highlighted bitcoin’s relative strength compared with the S&P 500 in this risk-off environment, noting its resilience around the 200-day moving average.

“It’s pretty remarkable to see that bitcoin is up +3.4% today relative to the S&P 500, particularly in a risk-off environment. As I’ve recently pointed out, BTC/SPY continues to hold above its 200-day moving average cloud,” Franzen said in a post on X.

As the pivotal U.S. nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report for March approaches, bitcoin (BTC) bulls find themselves in a situation reminiscent of the character Two-Face (Harvey Dent) from the movie “The Dark Knight,” who flips coins to make decisions, confident of controlling the fate irrespective of the outcome.

It’s a classic case of “heads I win, tails you lose,” which means that bitcoin bulls will likely come out on top after the impending jobs report, regardless of whether the data reveals labor market strength or weakness.

This situation arises from President Donald Trump’s Wednesday announcement of sweeping tariffs affecting 180 nations, prompting forward-looking markets to price in recession risks and expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts.

Consequently, stronger-than-expected jobs data, which typically strengthens the dollar and pressures risk assets like BTC, may be dismissed as outdated, overlooking the recent developments resulting from Trump’s policies. Therefore, any dip in BTC following a potentially hot NFP report could be swiftly reversed, leading to gains.

On the other hand, weak data would only add to recession fears and bolster Fed rate cut bets, stoking renewed risk-taking in financial markets.

At press time, bitcoin changed hands at $84,190, having hit lows below $82,000 Thursday, per CoinDesk data. The fact that prices have stayed well above the $77,000 March low despite peak tariff uncertainty indicates seller fatigue and potential for a price rise.

Volmex’s bitcoin one-day implied volatility index stood at an annualized 65%, indicating an expected price swing of 3.4% in the next 24 hours.

The jobs data is due at 12:30 UTC. According to FactSet, the median estimate for total nonfarm payroll employment in March is 130,000, down from February’s 151,000 tally. The jobless rate is forecast to have risen to 4.2% from 4.1%.

Ahead of the data release, rates traders are pricing 100 basis points of Fed rate cuts this year, with the first move expected to happen in June, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool.

Solana’s SOL token is poised for a potential price swing of almost 6% after some large investors, or whales, dumped their holdings ahead of the U.S. non-farm payroll (NFP) report due later Friday.

This estimate comes from Volmex’s one-day implied volatility index (IV) for SOL. At press time, the index showed a one-day reading annualized at 109.70%, indicating an expected 24-hour price volatility of 5.74%. (The daily figure is derived by dividing the annualized volatility by the square root of 365, the number of trading days in a year.)

A movement that size represents moderate volatility, especially considering that the cryptocurrency has experienced several days of 6% or higher volatility since early March, according to data from CoinDesk.

In other words, the market is likely to be volatile, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Whale selling

Data tracked by blockchain sleuth Lookonchain shows several whales unstaked and dumped SOL worth $46.3 million into the market.

Large offloading of coins by whales often leads to bearish price action. However, the amount sold early today equates to 0.97% of the cryptocurrency’s 24-hour trading volume of $4.7 billion.

So, it’s no surprise that SOL is trading little changed at around $116, having printed a low of $112 on Thursday. Broadly speaking, the cryptocurrency has been in a downtrend since reaching a high of $295 on Jan. 19.

Focus on payrolls

The U.S. jobs data, scheduled for release at 12:30 GMT, is forecast to reveal that the economy added 130,000 jobs in March, slowdown from February’s 151,000 and well below the 12-month average of 162,300, according to FactSet.

The median estimate for the jobless rate for March is is 4.2%, the highest since November and up from February’s 4.1% reading. Average hourly earnings are forecast to have risen 0.3% month-on-month, matching February’s pace.

A weaker-than-expected figure will likely validate renewed pricing for four 25-basis-point interest-rate cuts this year, potentially sending risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, higher.