Daily News | Trump's Tariff Policy Continues to Cause Turmoil in Global Markets, Fed May Resume Interest Rate Cuts in the 3rd Quarter

Crypto Daily Digest: Vitalik released Ethereum L1 privacy roadmap, the Fed may resume rate cuts in the third quarter

According to Farside Investors data, yesterday’s US Bitcoin spot ETFs had a total net outflow of $149 million, achieving six consecutive days of net outflows. Among them, Fidelity FBTC had an outflow of $74.5 million, and other BTC ETFs had mainly small outflows. Yesterday, Ethereum spot ETFs had an outflow of $45 million, Fidelity FETH had an outflow of $36 million, and BlackRock ETHA data has not been updated yet.

According to Alternative data, today’s crypto fear and greed Index is 21 (yesterday was 25), and market sentiment is still in the panic stage.

Vitalik Released Ethereum L1 Privacy Roadmap

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik released the Ethereum L1 privacy roadmap (minimalist version), which covers four main forms of privacy: privacy of on-chain payments, partial anonymization of on-chain activities within applications, privacy of on-chain reads (ie RPC calls), and anonymity at the network level.

This roadmap can be combined with the long-term roadmap, which may involve deeper changes to L1, privacy-preserving application-specific Rollups, or other more complex features. The roadmap proposes measures such as integrating privacy tools (such as Railgun), defaulting to “one address per application”, implementing FOCIL and EIP-7701. Vitalik emphasized that the goal is to achieve default privacy transfers, uncorrelated cross-application activities, and resist privacy threats on the chain and RPC nodes, setting a new benchmark for privacy protection in the Ethereum eco.

Vitalik commented that this roadmap aims to improve the privacy level of the Ethereum eco in the lightest way possible, while laying the foundation for deeper long-term solutions (such as L1 improvements or dedicated Rollups).

The current mainstream CEX and DEX funding rates rebounded slightly, but are still bearish overall

According to Coinglass data, the current mainstream CEX and DEX funding rates have rebounded slightly, but are still bearish overall. The specific mainstream currency funding rates are shown in the attached figure.

Funding rates are the rates set by crypto trading platforms to maintain a balance between the contract price and the price of the underlying asset, and are usually applicable to perpetual contracts. It is a mechanism for exchanging funds between long and short traders. The trading platform does not charge this fee, and it is used to adjust the cost or benefit of traders holding contracts to keep the contract price close to the price of the underlying asset.

When the funding rate is 0.01%, it indicates the base rate. When the funding rate is greater than 0.01%, it indicates that the market is generally bullish. When the funding rate is less than 0.005%, it indicates that the market is generally bearish.

Viewpoint: The Fed is expected to remain on the sidelines and restart rate cuts in the third quarter

CICC’s research report pointed out that both core and overall CPI inflation in the United States fell in March, both lower than market expectations. The slowdown in inflation shows that total demand in the United States had weakened before the arrival of “reciprocal tariffs”, such as the sharp drop in oil prices, air tickets and hotel prices.

The impact of tariff shocks on core commodity prices has not yet been fully reflected, but this may begin to appear in the coming months. Looking ahead, it is expected that the US price level may rise in the second quarter before demand finally suppresses inflation. It is expected that the Federal Reserve will continue to wait and see and will not cut interest rates in the short term. It may restart interest rate cuts in the third quarter.

Market Trends: BTC ETF experienced net outflows for six consecutive days, MANEKI surged 30% in a day

Market Hotspots

The new coin BABY was launched on major mainstream trading platforms including Gate.io last night, reaching a high of $0.17 and has now fallen back to around $0.081; the current full circulation market value of BABY is $810 million, and the valuation of the project’s last round of financing is also $800 million; BABY is the native token of the Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon. According to community feedback, BABY has given very few airdrops to users, and BABY should still be under a highly controlled state;

Solana chain cat meme coins POPCAT and MANEKI soared. POPCAT once exceeded $2 billion in circulation market value at the end of 2024, and MANEKI also hit a record high of $250 million. Both tokens have fallen by more than 90% from their historical highs. MANEKI is a Japanese lucky cat image meme coin. Its current circulation market value is only $10 million, and its on-chain liquidity pool is as high as $5 million.

Mainstream Coins

BTC’s intraday volatility has increased, and it is obviously affected by the macro level. In addition, the BTC ETF has experienced net outflows for six consecutive days. Today’s AHR999 index is 0.68, indicating that the current price is suitable for long-termists to invest regularly;

ETH followed the market ups and downs, but the increase was significantly weaker than BTC. ETH/BTC fell again to around 0.0192;

Altcoins generally fell, and the market lacked a collective narrative hotspot.

Macro News: US stocks collectively plummeted, and the probability of the Fed cutting interest rates in May dropped to 19%

The three major U.S. stock indexes fell collectively, with the S&P 500 falling 3.46% to 5,268.05 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 2.50% to 39,593.66 points, and the Nasdaq falling 4.31% to 16,387.31 points. In terms of U.S. bonds, the benchmark 10-year U.S. bond yield was 4.40%, and the 2-year U.S. bond yield, which is most sensitive to the Fed’s policy rate, was 3.84%.

As the market increases its bets on the Fed to cut interest rates, a number of Fed officials have spoken out intensively, emphasizing that controlling inflation is the top priority, warning that tariffs may cause lasting price pressure, and suggesting that there is no rush to cut interest rates in the short term.

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, said that as Trump’s tariff policy has caused continued turmoil in global financial markets, investors have fallen into “some kind of trauma, shock or fear”, which has seriously damaged the reputation of the United States. Dalio warned that the U.S. economy is likely to fall into recession and is also worried about further escalation of conflicts. The current economic situation is the result of a variety of complex factors, including financial market turmoil, political policy uncertainty and international tensions. “This is not an ordinary recession. We are changing the monetary order.”