💡 Time to Flip Bullish? Some Think So

Plus, đŸ„Š Conor McGregor’s REAL token fails, đŸ“ș Pump.fun revives livestreams, and đŸ›ïž Trump’s crypto banking reforms face resistance.

Author

Juan Aranovich
April 07, 2025

Hi! In today’s edition:

  • 📉 Bitcoin sinks amid market rout

  • đŸ„Š Conor McGregor’s REAL token K.O.’ed

  • đŸ“ș Pump.fun restores livestreaming
for some

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Bitcoin’s correlation with equities has resurfaced, mirroring sharp declines in U.S. stocks, despite showing initial resilience amid a market-wide sell-off of risk assets following President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs for 183 nations.

The original digital asset fell 8% in the 24 hours to 5:00 a.m. ET on Monday, to an intraday low of $76,350. 

Altcoins saw steeper declines, with ether dropping 16.5% to $1,497 during the same period and Solana shedding 15.6% of its value to trade at around $100.

The crypto sell-off intensified after China imposed a 34% tariff on all U.S. goods, retaliating against U.S. tariffs totaling 54% on Chinese imports.

BitMEX founder and Maelstrom CIO Arthur Hayes said $76,500 is a crucial resistance level for bitcoin to hold between now and the U.S. tax filing deadline of April 15. 

Meanwhile, more than 452,900 crypto derivatives traders saw collective liquidations of almost $1.4 billion in the same 24-hour period.

“[For what it’s worth, I] generally think it’s time to think about buying if you have dry powder or at least closing out shorts, esp[ecially] after the largest volume red day for equities in 3 years,” onchain analyst Will Clemente said on X. 

“Getting freshly bearish in this region feels pretty silly,” he said. “Downside is probably capped in [the] upper 60s on BTC.”

Memecoins backed by celebrities aren’t always destined for success, especially in an environment that has seen investor sentiment shift towards risk-off.

Irish professional mixed martial arts fighter and liable sexual assault perpetrator Conor McGregor's crypto venture, the REAL token, failed to launch after raising just 39% of its $1 million presale minimum target during a 28-hour sealed-bid auction.

The project, developed with the Real World Gaming DAO, aimed to sell 60 million tokens (3% of the total 2 billion supply) at $0.06 each, targeting a $3.6 million raise and a $120 million fully diluted valuation.

Despite McGregor promoting the project to his 57 million followers on X and Instagram, the token struggled to gain traction.

“We need to be real. We didn't hit our minimum raise. All bids will be refunded in full,” Real World Gaming said on X after only 668 participants joined the auction, adding, “This is not the end.”

Memecoin launchpad Pump.fun has revived its livestreaming feature for 5% of users after suspending it last November due to extreme content violations, including violent threats, self-harm incidents, and explicit acts used to manipulate token prices.

Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen announced the feature’s return with industry-standard moderation systems in place and transparent guidelines on X, saying it had been a “long time coming.”

The phased relaunch includes stricter moderation policies aimed at balancing creative expression with user safety. Some of the key changes include content restrictions on graphic violence, harassment, sexual content, youth endangerment, illegal activities, and terrorism.

Adult content is not subject to a blanket ban and will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, with moderation teams retaining authority to intervene.

Violations may lead to stream termination, account suspension, and appeals through support channels.

Aside from setting up a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, one of the Trump administration’s key priorities has been clearing the way for crypto firms to gain access to bank accounts in the U.S. 

In just the past few weeks, banking regulators such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, each of which were in the industry’s crosshairs because of alleged discrimination, have reversed course.

Specifically, the OCC and FDIC have independently updated guidance for banks to make it easier for them to service crypto clients, telling them to ignore reputational risks for prospective clients and letting them decide for themselves whether to handle digital assets.

Yet the biggest barrier remains untouched — and with the White House clashing with the Federal Reserve, can crypto banks ever truly break through?

The Bitcoin network appears to have passed an historic milestone, with multiple trackers reporting its hashrate briefly surpassing 1 Zetahash per second (ZH/s) — 1,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second — for the first time.

According to data from platform Mempool.space, a hashrate of 1.025 ZH/s was recorded on April 5, while data from BTC Frame show a hashrate of 1.02 ZH/s on April 4.

However, as cypherpunk and Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp pointed out two years ago, the discrepancies in hashrate charts is that they don’t disclose the forum/trailing time they used to calculate the estimate.

“Thus you end up with different sites reporting similar but out-of-sync numbers,” he said in a 2023 blog post explaining why it is difficult to obtain an accurate measure.

Nevertheless, given that the 30-day moving average of the network’s hash rate is around 0.845 ZH/s, the milestone may not be too far away.

Mantle is building the largest sustainable hub for on-chain finance. Launching three new core innovation pillars: Enhanced Index Fund, Mantle Banking and MantleX. 

  • đŸ’” The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said last week that most dollar-backed stablecoins do not fall within the purview of securities law, adding to a series of crypto clarifications under the Trump administration, although the announcement didn’t explicitly cover market leader Tether.

  • 📑 Acting SEC Chair Mark Uyeda on Saturday ordered a full review of previous agency crypto guidance, including investor warnings, Howey Test interpretations, and pandemic-era policy statements to align with pro-crypto deregulation goals under Presidential Executive Order 14192.

  • ⚠ Bitcoin secure storage firm Casa’s chief security officer, Jameson Lopp, has identified more than 48,000 suspected Bitcoin address poisoning attempts since 2023, warning that attackers are exploiting low fees to imitate wallet addresses and trick users into misdirecting funds.

  • 📡 Solana-powered Wi-Fi decentralized physical infrastructure network XNET revealed a live partnership with AT&T that’s been offloading mobile traffic since last September, with 688 hotspots now serving 9 million users through token-incentivized public infrastructure.

  • đŸ“Č PayPal and Venmo will roll out support for Chainlink and Solana, expanding U.S. users’ crypto access as part of PayPal’s continued push into digital assets following its own stablecoin launch.

  • đŸ§± Codex raised $15.8 million in a seed round led by Dragonfly Capital to build an enterprise-focused, Optimism-based layer 2 blockchain tailored for stablecoin use, aiming to streamline compliance, privacy, and business integration.

  • 🔄 Peer-to-peer app P2P.me secured $2 million from Multicoin and Coinbase Ventures to scale its decentralized stablecoin-to-fiat payment system, which bypasses traditional on-ramps by using vetted intermediaries and zero-knowledge proofs for identity.