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BITCOIN BOX SCORE

Exchange Rate: $81,910
Market Capitalization: $1.63T
Hash Rate (90 days): 803.5 EH/s
Transactions (30 days): 11,686,790
Network Fees (economy): 3 sat/vB
Bitcoin Dominance: 62.88%

What do these numbers mean?

It's T-Day. Borrowing from Churchill, "We shall tariff on the beaches, we shall tariff on the landing grounds, we shall tariff in the fields and in the streets," writes Rabobank's Michael Every on President Trump's new tariffs.

The financial establishment is panicking. Wall Street faces drawdowns and volatility as economists of the neoclassical school issue dire predictions. Perhaps surprisingly to some, bitcoin stands unfazed. Perhaps it is because bitcoin lies outside the fragile web of global trade agreements and retaliatory economic policies.

As governments rush to manipulate their currencies to counter the effects of Trump's tariffs, bitcoin cannot be tariffed or sanctioned and does not depend on diplomatic relations – or any counterparty – to have value.

As Marty Bent observed, "We know that continuing with the status quo was destined for failure." The current renegotiation of long-standing economic arrangements across the planet are uncomfortable, and anybody who says they’re certain about what happens next is either lying or hopelessly partisan. What we can say with confidence is that the chaos has created space for bitcoin to shine as a non-sovereign store of wealth and trading medium.

NEWS

Bankrupt Fed continues to follow “DIY Accounting” rules

The Federal Reserve reported losses of $77.6 billion in 2024 (and $114.3 billion in 2023), yet it continues to operate despite maintaining a negative net worth of $173.5 billion. Unlike private companies that would face bankruptcy, the Fed creates fictional "deferred assets" to offset its liabilities while still paying over $1 billion in dividends to member banks last year.

The losses come from the Fed paying 4.4% interest on $3.4 trillion in reserves while earning only 2.6% on its securities portfolio.

Accounting standards for thee but not for me

Economists like Morgan Stanley's Seth Carpenter suggest the Fed might return to profitability "in a couple of years" – a time extension that any bankrupt entity would desire. As Douglas French points out, the Fed is essentially running an operation like SBF's FTX, only it can get away with it because it follows different rules.

China may reconsider hardline stance following U.S. bitcoin reserve

A new Grayscale report suggests that Trump's formation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve might push China to reassess its restrictive policies. The asset manager identifies China as "the most important country to watch" in the bitcoin adoption race noting that any policy easing from Beijing could significantly accelerate worldwide bitcoinization.

Bitcoin as an instrument of statecraft?

Despite its current bans on trading and mining, China permits holding bitcoin and has allowed bitcoin expansion in Hong Kong. China's Supreme Court recently discussed how bitcoin should be treated in future legal cases, potentially signaling a policy shift as the U.S. embraces it as a strategic asset.

In related news, the U.S.’s new tariffs are expected to affect the production of ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits), which are the “brain” inside bitcoin mining machines). This will push American miners to either ship them to other countries and reship to the United States or create ASIC factories here at home.

Circle files IPO while facing competition and rate challenges

Stablecoin issuer Circle filed an S-1 with the SEC for an initial public offering, potentially becoming just the second U.S.-based publicly-listed crypto firm (the other being Coinbase). Despite managing the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization (USDC), Circle faces significant competitive and macroeconomic headwinds that could impact its valuation.

Profit margins raise questions

Circle reported $1.7 billion in revenue for 2024, but netted only $156 million after paying $908 million to Coinbase in distribution costs. This pales in comparison to Tether's $13 billion profit in 2024. With 99% of Circle's revenues coming from reserve interest income, expected Fed rate cuts could further squeeze its already thin margins. The company's acquisition of money market fund issuer Hashnote signals preparations for this changing rate environment but questions remain about the IPO's timing and valuation.

Eric Trump launches American Bitcoin Corp with plans to go public

Eric Trump is expanding the Trump family's bitcoin interests with the launch of American Bitcoin Corporation, a mining venture in partnership with Miami-based Hut 8. The plan is to scale quickly, produce bitcoin at lower cost than its spot price, and eventually pursue a public offering.

Mining powerhouse in the making?

The deal gives Hut 8 an 80% stake for contributing its mining infrastructure, with the remaining 20% going to the Trump-backed venture. Eric Trump recently joined Metaplanet's advisory board, citing his family's banking challenges as motivation for getting more involved in the bitcoin industry.

"That’s when I realized how important crypto is—cheaper, faster, more transparent, uncancelable, global. That’s what made me fall in love with Bitcoin," Eric Trump stated in a recent Fox Business interview.

BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES

Breez launches Misty Breez, a new Lightning wallet built with their Nodeless SDK on Liquid, offering self-custody and support for BOLT 11/12 invoices, LNURL-Pay, Lightning Addresses, and offline payments via mobile notifications.

Texas House Bill 4258 advances to committee, authorizing the state comptroller to invest up to $250 million from the "Rainy Day Fund" into bitcoin, with a potential September 2025 implementation if passed.

The U.S. government will reveal its estimated 198,000 bitcoin holdings ($16 billion) on April 5 following President Trump's executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve with a no-sell policy.

The Smarter Web Company plans to go public on the AQUIS Stock Exchange with a bitcoin treasury strategy built into its financial DNA.

West Virginia State Senator Chris Rose champions a bitcoin reserve bill allowing up to 10% of state pension and severance tax funds to be invested in bitcoin, calling it a "freedom tool" against potential CBDCs.

HOW BITCOIN WORKS

Learn one key idea about bitcoin each week. This week:

Ecash is bitcoin’s next UX revolution

While headlines focus on tariffs, a quiet revolution is happening in bitcoin's user experience. As Marty Bent highlighted, bitcoin payments are approaching parity with state-of-the-art fiat experiences through technologies like "tap to pay" using NFC.

This improvement comes via ecash protocols like Cashu, which implement cryptographer David Chaum's original vision for digital cash first published all the way back to 1983. Ecash provides three key benefits: better privacy, offline payments, and instant settlement.

Ecash on bitcoin works through a system of "mints" – essentially private banks where people can deposit bitcoin. The mint issues ecash tokens in return, which people can spend wherever they choose. What makes this revolutionary is the use of blind signatures – cryptographic techniques that allow the mint to verify a token's authenticity without knowing who it belongs to or where it's being spent.

When you use ecash, you're making a tradeoff. You give up some of the benefit of self-custody (including zero counterparty risk) in exchange for better privacy, speed, and cheaper transaction fees. The mint operator cannot see your payments, and transactions happen instantly, even when devices are offline.

As Shinobi explained, the Cashu ecosystem envisions numerous small, local mints interconnected via the Lightning Network. This approach distributes trust across multiple operators rather than centralizing it. People can even split their balances across multiple mints to minimize counterparty risk.

The next layer of innovation comes from programmable tokens. Ecash can be locked with conditions similar to bitcoin script, allowing for features like offline payments secured to specific public keys, time-based locks, or even complex multi-signature arrangements.

What Hal Finney imagined back in 2010 as an "interconnected free banking system" is emerging through this stack of bitcoin + lightning + ecash mints. This stack will not replace self-custody for savings but rather provide spending wallets that combine the best aspects of bitcoin with the convenience users expect from modern payment systems.

All this coincides with today’s news that Jack Dorsey has confirmed Square is working on integrating bitcoin into its widely-used payments platform. Could we finally be entering the long-overdue era of bitcoin payments?

COIN CHECK

During which years were David Chaum’s commercial offering of ecash technology active at a chartered bank?

1. 1983-1985

2. 1995-1998

3. 2008-2011

4. 2021-2022

Check your answer at the end of the page.

FROM THE MEME POOL

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ANSWER

1. From 1995-1998, “eCash” was offered as a micropayments service by the Mark Twain bank in Saint Louis, Missouri.

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