- BTC briefly decoupled from the U.S. stocks amid Fed-Trump tension.
- Paul Atkins was sworn in as the 34th SEC chairman.
Bitcoin’s [BTC] outperformance against the U.S. equities was among the top crypto headlines.
Since the declaration of ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in early April, the king coin performance has been subdued, similar to risk-on U.S. stocks.
Source: Bitwise
However, BTC extended its rally to an April high of $88.8K just before Tuesday’s U.S. market trading session opened.
Gold also tapped a record high of $3.5K per ounce, a move analysts noted as a flight to ‘safe haven’ amid President Donald Trump’s threats to Fed independence.
Crypto trading firm QCP Capital said,
“The move underscores a broader flight from U.S. equities, Treasuries and the dollar, as concerns around Federal Reserve independence escalate.”
Trump slammed the Fed chair Jerome Powell for being ‘too late’ to cut interest rates and threatened to oust him before his term ends next year.
Market reaction to Trump has been swift and negative for the US dollar, and stocks but BTC and gold soared.
Circle rivals SWIFT, Atkins sworn in
Stablecoin giant Circle unveiled a new cross-border payment network (CPN) to rival SWIFT, Mastercard, and even Ripple.
So, what does the solution aim to solve? Current platforms like SWIFT can take up to three days and incur 6% fees on the transferable amount. Circle stated,
“With CPN, banks and payment providers can move money at internet-speed using fully reserved digital dollars and euros.”
For his part, Nic Carter, partner at Castle Island and former Fidelity crypto analyst, noted that the move would be an ‘equivalent of SWIFT.’
It remains to be seen how competition with Ripple, whose business model also hinges on cross-border payments, will play out.
Still on Ripple, XRP could face another regulatory hiccup following a recent Oregon Attorney General (AG) complaint against Coinbase.
The suit claimed that XRP, Solana [SOL] and 29 other tokens have been traded on the platform as unregistered ‘crypto securities.’
However, Coinbase slammed the complaint for several omissions, including Judge Analisa Torres’ decision on XRP that only sales to institutional investors amounted to a ‘security.’
Finally, on Monday, pro-crypto Paul Atkins was sworn in as the 34th SEC chairman. This followed a U.S. Senate confirmation on 9 April 2025 and a hearing where he pledged a ‘rational’ crypto regulation.
Following his swearing-in, Nate Geraci of ETF Store projected pending applications, including staking on ETH ETFs, would be fast-tracked.