Malicious actors are attempting to steal crypto with malware embedded in fake Microsoft Office extensions uploaded to the software hosting site SourceForge, according to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky.
One of the malicious listings, called “officepackage,” has real Microsoft Office add-ins but hides a malware called ClipBanker that replaces a copied crypto wallet address on a computer’s clipboard with the attacker’s address, Kaspersky’s Anti-Malware Research Team said in an April 8 report.
“Users of crypto wallets typically copy addresses instead of typing them. If the device is infected with ClipBanker, the victim’s money will end up somewhere entirely unexpected,” the team said.
The fake project’s page on SourceForge mimics a legitimate developer tool page, showing the office add-ins and download buttons and can also appear in search results.
Kaspersky said it found a crypto-stealing malware on the software hosting website SourceForge. Source: Kaspersky
Kaspersky said another feature of the malware’s infection chain involves sending infected device information such as IP addresses, country and usernames to the hackers through Telegram.
The malware can also scan the infected system for signs it’s already been installed previously or for antivirus software and delete itself.
Attackers could sell system access to others
Kaspersky says some of the files in the bogus download are small, which raises “red flags, as office applications are never that small, even when compressed.”
Other files are padded out with junk to convince users they are looking at a genuine software installer.
The firm said attackers secure access to an infected system “through multiple methods, including unconventional ones.”
“While the attack primarily targets cryptocurrency by deploying a miner and ClipBanker, the attackers could sell system access to more dangerous actors.”
The interface is in Russian, which Kaspersky speculates could mean it targets Russian-speaking users.
“Our telemetry indicates that 90% of potential victims are in Russia, where 4,604 users encountered the scheme between early January and late March,” the report stated.
To avoid falling victim, Kaspersky recommended only downloading software from trusted sources as pirated programs and alternative download options carry higher risks.
“Distributing malware disguised as pirated software is anything but new,” the company said. “As users seek ways to download applications outside official sources, attackers offer their own. They keep looking for new ways to make their websites look legit.”
Threat Fabric said in a March 28 report it found a new family of malware that can launch a fake overlay to trick Android users into providing their crypto seed phrases as it takes over the device.
The Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs could collapse US demand for Bitcoin mining rigs, which would benefit mining operations outside the country as manufacturers will look outside the US to sell their surplus inventory for cheaper, says Hashlabs Mining CEO Jaran Mellerud.
“As machine prices rise in the U.S., they could paradoxically decrease in the rest of the world,” Mellerud said in an April 8 report. “The demand for shipping machines to the U.S. is set to plummet, likely nearing zero.”
“Manufacturers will be left with excess stock originally intended for the US market. To offload this surplus, they’ll likely need to lower prices to attract buyers in other regions,” he added.
Falling mining rig prices could see non-US mining operations scale up and take a larger slice of Bitcoin’s total hashrate, Mellerud said.
US President Donald Trump unveiled his administration’s “reciprocal tariffs” on nearly every country on April 2. Some of the largest crypto mining machine makers are based in countries hardest hit by the tariffs, including Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, which saw tariffs of 36%, 32% and 24%, respectively.
Crypto mining rig makers Bitmain, MicroBT and Canaan moved to some of these countries to circumvent a 25% tariff that Trump imposed on China in 2018 during his last administration.
Annual change in US tariffs on China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand since 2017. Source: Hashlabs Mining
Mellerud noted that Trump’s latest tariffs would mean a mining rig that initially costs $1,000 would be priced at $1,240 in the US.
“Meanwhile, in Finland and most other countries, there are no tariffs, so the cost of a $1,000 machine remains unchanged.”
“In an industry as cost-sensitive as Bitcoin mining, a 22% price increase on machines can make operations financially unsustainable,” he added.
No coming back from Trump’s tariffs — ‘Damage is done’
“Even if these tariffs are rolled back within a few months, the damage is done — confidence in long-term planning has been shaken,” Mellerud said. “Few will feel comfortable making major investments when critical variables can change overnight.”
He said US miners felt reassured when Trump returned to the White House, expecting a more stable regulatory environment.
“But they are now experiencing the flip side of his unpredictable policy shifts,” Mellerud said.
The US accounts for nearly 40% of the network’s hashrate. Mellerud said there’s no reason for US miners to unplug their machines and doesn’t expect the total Bitcoin hashrate coming from the US to drop.
However, the path to expansion is now “steep and uncertain,” he said, and as a result, the US could lose a considerable share of hashrate.
Trump’s tariffs have shaken up almost every market, including the crypto markets and Bitcoin (BTC), which is down 4% over the last 24 hours to $76,470, CoinGecko data shows.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has released the list of executives from US crypto and finance giants that will take part in a roundtable discussion on crypto trading regulation.
On April 7, the regulator said its upcoming April 11 roundtable will discuss how it should handle crypto trading rules, calling it “Between a Block and a Hard Place: Tailoring Regulation for Crypto Trading.”
It will be the second in a series of discussions on crypto, headed by its recently-formed Crypto Task Force.
Taking part are Uniswap Labs chief legal officer Katherine Minarik, Cumberland DRW associate general counsel Chelsea Pizzola and Coinbase institutional product vice president Gregory Tusar — all firms that had once been in the regulator’s scope.
Under the Biden administration, the regulator sued Cumberland DRW in October and Coinbase in June 2023 for alleged securities law violations, but both lawsuits were dropped this year under the Trump administration.
The SEC also started an investigation for possible enforcement action into Uniswap Labs in April 2024, which was dropped in February with no further action.
Also taking part in the roundtable are New York Stock Exchange product chief Jon Herrick, crypto brokerage FalconX business lead Austin Reid, securities tokenizing firm Texture Capital CEO Richard Johnson and the University of California, Berkeley finance chair Christine Parlour.
Dave Lauer, co-founder of the advocacy group We the Investors and Tyler Gellasch, CEO of the not-for-profit Healthy Markets Association, will also take part, while law firm Goodwin Procter partner Nicholas Losurdo will moderate the discussion.
Representing the SEC will be acting chair Mark Uyeda, Crypto Task Force chief of staff Richard Gabbert and Commissioners Caroline Crenshaw and Hester Peirce.
The roundtable is the second crypto-focused discussion in a series of five that the SEC dubbed the “Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity.” The first was on March 21, regarding the legal status of crypto, while three future discussions will cover custody, tokenization, and decentralized finance (DeFi).
SEC’s Uyeda orders review of staff crypto comments
The roundtables come as the SEC, under President Donald Trump, works to revamp its oversight of the crypto industry, with its latest action being to review staff statements on crypto so they can possibly be changed or withdrawn.
Uyeda said in an April 5 statement shared by the SEC on X that due to Trump’s executive order on deregulation and recommendations from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, he was reviewing seven staff statements, five of which concerned crypto.
“The purpose of this review is to identify staff statements that should be modified or rescinded consistent with current agency priorities,” Uyeda said.
The first on the list was an April 2019 analysis from the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology on how crypto sales could be investment contracts under the securities defining Howey test — an argument the agency had made to sue multiple crypto firms for legal violations.
Also up for review are two Division of Investment Management statements, one from May 2021 asking investors to consider the risks of funds with exposure to Bitcoin futures and a November 2020 statement asking for feedback on whether state-chartered banks meet standards to be qualified custodians.
The SEC will also look into a December 2022 Division of Corporation Finance statement that urged SEC-regulated companies to evaluate their disclosures to mention if a slew of crypto firm bankruptcies and collapses at the time impacted their business.
Finally, the agency will review a Division of Examinations alert from February 2021 that said, “a number of activities related to the offer, sale and trading of digital assets that are securities present unique risks to investors.”
Authorities in Spain have arrested six people who helped operate a global AI-powered investment scam that stole over $20 million from at least 208 victims.
The scammers would swindle victims up to three times. After stealing an initial sum through the investment scam, the fraudsters contacted victims twice more, masquerading as investment managers and then as authorities, offering to recover the stolen funds for a fee, Spanish police said in an April 7 statement.
The scammers used deepfake ads of “national personalities” promising high returns on crypto investments, and would occasionally pose as financial advisers or even feign romantic interest to lure in victims.
Experts have been warning of a rise in AI-enhanced scams. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said in its Feb. 13 Crypto Scam Revenue 2024 report that generative AI is making “scams more scalable and affordable for bad actors to conduct.”
🚩Detenidas seis personas por estafar más de 19 millones de euros usando #inteligenciaartificial
🔴Engañaban a las víctimas a través de anuncios manipulados con #IA para que realizaran inversiones con #criptomonedas en productos supuestamente muy rentables pic.twitter.com/rMrdgBpOYz
“Victims were not selected randomly; instead, algorithms selected those whose profiles matched the cybercriminals’ searches,” Spanish police said.
“Once they selected their victims, they placed advertising campaigns on the websites or social networks they used, offering them cryptocurrency investments with high returns and zero risk of asset loss — investments that, obviously, turned out to be a scam.”
When victims could not withdraw the funds, most realized it was a scam, according to Spanish police; however, the ruse didn’t end there.
Scammers would trick victims again with follow-up scams
The cybercriminals would then contact victims again, posing as investment managers, claiming the stolen funds were frozen and could be recovered if they paid a deposit.
“The victims, hoping to finally recover their money, made the deposit without realizing they had been scammed again,” Spanish police said.
The scammers would then contact victims a third time, this time posing as Europol agents or lawyers from the United Kingdom, offering to return the stolen funds if the victim paid the corresponding taxes in the country where it was blocked.
Spanish authorities arrested six people involved in the syndicate, charging them with fraud, money laundering and falsifying documents in a criminal organization.
During a raid on the alleged leader behind the scam, Spanish authorities seized numerous cell phones, computers, hard drives, a simulated weapon and extensive documentation.
Several people linked to the plot have also been identified in other countries, and the syndicate allegedly created a large number of fake companies to channel the stolen funds.
“Furthermore, the members of the organization used multiple false identities. In the case of the leader, for example, he used more than 50 different identities,” Spanish police said.
Update: April 8 at 1:01am UTC: This article has been updated to include James Murphy’s responses to two questions from Cointelegraph.
A crypto lawyer has sued the US Department of Homeland Security, alleging the agency may know who created Bitcoin — compelling the department to share what it knows.
The Freedom of Information Act lawsuit was filed by James Murphy, who based his accusations on claims made by DHS Special Agent Rana Saoud at a conference in April 2019, where she said a few of her colleagues had previously met with four people involved in creating Bitcoin.
“My FOIA lawsuit simply asks for the notes, email and other documents relating to that alleged interview,” Murphy posted to X after announcing the April 7 suit.
“IF the interview really happened as the DHS Agent claimed, there should be documentation of the substance of that meeting,” added Murphy, who goes by MetaLawMan on X.
Speaking at the OffshoreAlert Conference North America in Miami in April 2019, Saoud said DHS agents met with the four people it believed to have created Bitcoin, asking what their motives were and what the “end game” is for Bitcoin.
“The agents flew to California and they realized that he wasn’t alone in creating this, there were three other people, they sat down and talked with them to find out how this actually works and what the reason for it was,” Saoud said in the presentation, which is available on YouTube.
If the DHS resists disclosure, Murphy said he will “pursue the case to conclusion” to solve the mystery.
Murphy, however, noted that it is possible that Saoud and the other DHS agents were mistaken and did not interview the real Satoshi Nakamoto.
Murphy is being assisted by former Assistant US Attorney Brian Field, who specializes in Freedom of Information Act litigation.
The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act is to promote transparency and accountability by granting the public access to information held by the government.
2 questions for James Murphy, aka MetaLawMan
Cointelegraph asked Murphy two questions about the DHS lawsuit. Here are his responses in full.
Question #1: What is your gut feeling—do you think the DHS actually interviewed the real Satoshi?
Answer: “I think it’s very possible that the DHS agent was mistaken in what she said at that conference. I think DHS agents may have met with bitcoin code maintainers, or with actual Satoshi imposters. But, who knows? The DHS agent was a pretty high ranking official and was in a position to know what she was talking about. Either way, I think it will be productive to find out and hopefully resolve this question. Nothing prevents DHS from voluntarily revealing the information without need for protracted litigation.”
Question #2: If the agency did speak with the four creators — who may be ordinary US citizens — why do you believe revealing their identities serves the public interest, even if it could put their safety or privacy at risk?
Answer: “I don’t understand the question. The identities of the creators of all of the largest blockchain projects, like Charles Hoskinson and Vitalik Buterin etc., are all well known in the crypto community. There are also many major figures like Michael Saylor, Tim Draper and others who have amassed enormous wealth through investment in bitcoin and their identities are well known.
There are hundreds of documentaries on YouTube where amateur sleuths have tried to identify Satoshi. I’m not one of them. I’m not hiring investigators to try to track down Satoshi, I’m seeking government records under transparency laws in effect in the U.S. If DHS did, in fact, learn Satoshi’s identity, then I’m not sure what the rationale is for dozens of government employees to have this information but withhold it from the general public.
Our government is required to be transparent and not keep secrets from the citizens, absent a legitimate national security concern or other limited exemption. We consider this a fundamental aspect of our freedom in the USA. It is why we have something called the “Freedom of Information Act.” Transparency is good, the government hiding information from the citizenry is generally bad.
I am open about the fact that I am pro-bitcoin, having been an investor in bitcoin and a bitcoin miner since 2017. I speak to groups of executives and policy makers about bitcoin and I advocate for bitcoin adoption. What I find when I give these talks is very often these audiences (who are new to bitcoin) struggle with the idea that the creator of bitcoin is unknown while the provenance of the other major crypto projects is (relatively) transparent.
So, my intention is to either conclusively refute the claim of the DHS agent that they interviewed Satoshi, or achieve some transparency that will open the door to greater bitcoin adoption in the U.S. and around the globe. I support President Trump’s initiatives to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile.
Since the bitcoin code is open source and can only be changed through the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) procedure, Satoshi (if he or they were identified) would have no ability to unilaterally affect changes to bitcoin. As a result, any revelation of Satoshi’s identity is unlikely to adversely impact bitcoin. It’s more likely that such transparency would be a net positive for growing bitcoin adoption. Others may have different views on that and I respect their opinions.”
Efforts to identify Satoshi Nakamoto have failed
The lawsuit follows a wave of recent efforts attempting to uncover Satoshi’s identity.
Last October, a controversial HBO documentary claimed that Peter Todd, a Bitcoin cypherpunk, invented Bitcoin. Todd refuted that conclusion, and most industry pundits said HBO’s evidence was weak.
Nick Szabo, Adam Back and Hal Finney have also had their names tied to Satoshi’s identity. Szabo and Back regularly refute claims they’re Satoshi, as did Finney before he died in 2013.
Meanwhile, members of the Bitcoin community are split on whether unveiling Satoshi’s identity would be a net positive for Bitcoin.
Some worry that revealing Satoshi’s identity could compromise Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos and put Satoshi’s safety at risk, while others want to be reassured that Bitcoin wasn’t created by the US government.
Alon Cohen, co-founder of the Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, is set to bring back live streaming on the platform — five months after suspending the feature after several incidents involving harmful content.
Posting on X on April 4, Cohen said the feature has returned with “industry standard moderation systems in place and transparent guidelines.” He said it had been rolled out to just 5% of users.
Pump.fun’s website describes the purpose of its new live-streaming moderation policy as being “to cultivate a social environment on pump fun that preserves creativity and freedom of expression and encourages meaningful engagement amongst users, free of illegal, harmful, and negative interactions.”
Breaches of the moderation policy could see creators having their livestreams and Pump.fun accounts terminated.
The policy prohibits certain types of content, including violence, animal abuse, pornography and youth endangerment. However, it also creates ambiguity by claiming that “pump fun does not intend to universally define what content is ‘appropriate’ or ‘inappropriate.’”
“There is an implicit assumption that some content — perhaps much content — generally defined as NSFW will in fact appear on pump fun,” Pump.fun’s moderation policy states.
The platform added it reserves the right to “unilaterally determine the appropriateness of content where necessary and to moderate it accordingly.”
Live-streaming return comes as memecoin market crumbles
Pump.fun removed its live-streaming feature last November after it became awash with extreme content as memecoin creators turned to increasingly shocking tactics to promote their tokens.
Some users were allegedly threatening violence or self-harm if a token didn’t reach a price goal.
The platform said its unprecedented growth had put a strain on its moderators, and that it would pause the live-streaming functionality indefinitely to ensure the safety of its users “until the moderation infrastructure is ready to deal with the heightened levels of activity.”
At the time, Mikko Ohtamaa, co-founder of algorithmic trading firm Trading Strategy, said that if Pump.fun continued to allow live-streaming without appropriate moderation, it would quickly be shut down once a mainstream audience became aware of what was going on.
“I advocate for freedom of speech, but these streams are causing practical issues where people are breaking the law in live broadcasts. This will trigger a shutdown when the mainstream media catches a wind on this,” Ohtamaa said.
Pump.fun’s decision to reintroduce its live-streaming feature comes as interest in memecoins has been down significantly following a series of high-profile rug pulls such as Libra (LIBRA) and Melania Meme (MELANIA). That’s coupled with the poor price performance of tokens like Trump (TRUMP) — which, according to CoinGecko, is now down over 90% from its January highs.
Data from Dune Analytics showed in March that the graduation rate for tokens launched on Pump.fun — that is, the percentage of tokens that achieve a large enough market cap to become tradable on a regular decentralized exchange — had fallen to under 1%, down from highs of around 1.67%.
Combined with a sharp drop in the number of tokens being launched on the platform, this has seen the total number of tokens graduating from highs of around 5,400 per week in January to under 1,500 in March.
The number of tokens launched on the Solana network has also fallen dramatically overall. Only 31,651 launched on April 5, according to Solscan, less than one-third of the 95,578 created at the peak of the memecoin frenzy on Jan. 26.
Cryptocurrency prices tumbled as the US stock futures market opened sharply lower on April 6 as the Trump administration doubled down on its global tariff strategy.
The Trump administration hit all countries with a 10% tariff starting April 5, with some slapped at higher rates, including China at 34%, the European Union at 20%, and Japan at 24%.
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped over 6% in the last 24 hours and was trading around $77,883. Meanwhile, Ether (ETH) shed over 12% in the same time frame and was trading at $1,575, according to CoinGecko. The total crypto market cap dropped over 8% to $2.5 trillion.
Prices have clawed back some losses since. Bitcoin has recovered 1.4% to $78,500. Meanwhile, Ether regained $1,594.
At the same time, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which measures market sentiment for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, returned a score of 23 in its latest April 7 update, which is considered extreme fear.
In a statement, Charlie Sherry, head of finance at Australian crypto exchange BTC Markets, said the drop is unsurprising because global markets are generally more illiquid on Sundays.
“As a result, a few large sell-offs can have a disproportionate impact, pushing prices down quickly,” he said.
“There’s no mystery behind the trigger: President Trump’s recent tariff talk has rattled macro markets, with global trade relations suddenly looking uncertain.”
Futures tied to the S&P 500 dropped nearly 4%, according to Google Finance. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures sank by over 8%.
Trading resource the Kobeissi Letter said in an April 6 post to X that the drop in US stock market futures puts S&P 500 futures in ”bear market territory,” adding that the US stock market has now erased an average of $400 billion per trading day for the last 32 days.
Tom Dunleavy, a managing partner at venture capital firm MV Global, said it could be the “worst three-day move for US stocks of all time” if “tonight’s futures hold.”
In an April 6 statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump doubled down on the tariffs, saying the US has massive financial deficits with China, the European Union and many others, which the levies will solve.
“The only way this problem can be cured is with TARIFFS, which are now bringing tens of billions of dollars into the USA. They are already in effect, and a beautiful thing to behold,” he said.
He also told reporters aboard Air Force One that he wasn’t intentionally trying to cause a market sell-off but added that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
At the same time, US National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said in an April 6 interview with ABC’s This Week program that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to negotiate fresh trade deals.
“They’re doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff,” he said.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged US trading partners in an April 2 interview with Bloomberg against taking retaliatory steps, arguing “this is the high end of the number” for tariffs if they don’t try to add more levies in response.
Investors who bid on the REAL (REAL) token promoted by former UFC champion Conor McGregor will receive a full refund after the project failed to raise above its $1 million minimum requirement.
“We need to be real. We didn’t hit our minimum raise,” the developers of the Real (REAL) token, Real World Gaming said in an April 6 X post, adding that “All bids will be refunded in full.”
“This is not the end,” RWG said.
The team only managed to raise $392,315 in USDC (USDC) over a 28-hour presale on April 5 and 6 — less than half of the minimum required and approximately 11% of the $3.6 million target, which was conducted via a sealed-bid auction.
The public sale of 60 million REAL tokens (3% of the total 2 billion REAL supply) initially targeted a fully diluted value of $120 million, with the sealed bid auction starting at $0.06 per token.
McGregor, a UFC fighter turned entrepreneur and Ireland political candidate, initially claimed that his token would be more legitimate than other celebrity-endorsed tokens, which have frequently resulted in rug pulls:
“This isn’t some celebrity-endorsed bullshit token, it’s a REAL game changer that will improve the crypto ecosystem as well as make REAL change in the world,” McGregor said in a statement shared with Cointelegraph.
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner and vocal crypto critic Caroline Crenshaw has accused the US regulator of downplaying risks and misrepresenting the US stablecoin market in its newly published guidelines.
However, many in the crypto industry see the SEC’s decision as a step in the right direction.
In an April 4 statement, Crenshaw said that the SEC’s statement on stablecoins — issued on the same day — contained “legal and factual errors that paint a distorted picture of the USD-stablecoin market that drastically understates its risks.”
Crenshaw disagrees, crypto industry applauds
Under the new SEC guidelines, stablecoins that meet certain criteria are now considered “non-securities” and are exempt from transaction reporting requirements.
Crenshaw disputed the accuracy of the analysis made by the SEC in arriving at that decision. She pushed back on the SEC for reiterating issuer actions “that supposedly stabilize price, ensure redeemability, and otherwise reduce risk.”
The SEC said that “albeit briefly, that some USD-stablecoins are available to retail purchasers only through an intermediary and not directly from the issuer.”
Crenshaw argued this was misleading. She said:
“It is the general rule, not the exception, that these coins are available to the retail public only through intermediaries who sell them on the secondary market, such as crypto trading platforms.”
“Over 90% of USD-stablecoins in circulation are distributed in this way,” Crenshaw added.
Meanwhile, many in the crypto industry expressed optimism over the decision.
Token Metrics founder Ian Ballina said it “feels like a clear step in focusing on what really matters in the crypto space.” Vemanti CEO Tan Tran said he wished the SEC reached this point three years ago, while Midnight Network’s head of partnerships Ian Kane said it “feels like progress for crypto folks trying to play by the rules.”
Crenshaw said it is “also grossly inaccurate” for the SEC to reassure users that an issuer has sufficient reserves to satisfy unlimited redemption requests just because its reserve is valued “at or above the par value of its outstanding coins.”
“The issuer’s overall financial health and solvency cannot be judged by the value of its reserve, which tells us nothing about its liabilities, risk from proprietary financial activities, and so forth,” Crenshaw said.
She explained that stablecoins always carry some risk, particularly during market stress or when their price begins to fall.
It comes only weeks after stablecoin issuer Tether was reportedly engaging with a Big Four accounting firm to audit its assets reserve and verify that its USDT stablecoin is backed at a 1:1 ratio.
On March 22, Cointelegraph reported that Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the audit process would be more straightforward under pro-crypto US President Donald Trump.
Bitcoin (BTC) price could head back toward the $100,000 level quicker than investors expected if the early signs of its decoupling from the US stock market and gold continue.
The “gold leads, Bitcoin follows” relationship is starting
Bitcoin has shrugged off the market jitters caused by US President Donald Trump’s April 2 global tariff announcement.
While BTC initially dropped over 3% to around $82,500, it eventually rebounded by roughly 4.5% to cross $84,700. In contrast, the S&P 500 plunged 10.65% this week, and gold—after hitting a record $3,167 on April 3—has slipped 4.8%.
BTC/USD vs. gold and S&P 500 daily performance chart. Source: TradingView
The fresh divergence is fueling the “gold-leads-Bitcoin narrative,” taking cues from price trends from late 2018 through mid-2019 to predict a strong price recovery toward $100,000.
Gold began a steady ascent, gaining nearly 15% by mid-2019, while Bitcoin remained largely flat. Bitcoin’s breakout followed shortly after, rallying over 170% in early 2019 and then surging another 344% by late 2020.
BTC/USD vs. XAU/USD three-day price chart. Source: TradingView
“A reclaim of $100k would imply a handoff from gold to BTC,” said market analyst MacroScope, adding:
“As in previous cycles, this would open the door to a new period of huge outperformance by BTC over gold and other assets.
The outlook aligned with Alpine Fox founder Mike Alfred, who shared an analysis from March 14, wherein he anticipated Bitcoin to grow 10 times or more than gold based on previous instances.
The BTC/XAU ratio is flashing a familiar pattern that traders last saw in 2021. The breakdown followed a second major support test at the 50-2W exponential moving average.
BTC/XAU ratio two-week chart. Source: TradingView
BTC/XAU is now repeating this fractal and once again testing the red 50-EMA as support.
In the previous cycle, Bitcoin consolidated around the same EMA level before breaking decisively lower, eventually finding support at the 200-2W EMA (the blue wave). If history repeats, BTC/XAU could be on track for a deeper correction, especially if macro conditions worsen.
Interestingly, these breakdown cycles have coincided with a drop in Bitcoin’s value in dollar terms, as shown below.
BTC/USD 2W price chart. Source: TradingView
Should the fractal repeat, Bitcoin’s initial downside target could be its 50-2W EMA around the $65,000 level, with additional selloffs suggesting declines below $20,000, aligning with the 200-2W EMA.
A bounce from BTC/XAU’s 50-2W EMA, on the other hand, may invalidate the bearish fractal.
US recession would squash Bitcoin’s bullish outlook
From a fundamental perspective, Bitcoin’s price outlook appears skewed to the downside.
Investors are concerned that President Donald Trump’s global tariff war could spiral into a full-blown trade war and trigger a US recession. Risk assets like Bitcoin tend to underperform during economic contractions.
Further dampening sentiment, on April 4, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against expectations for near-term interest rate cuts.
Powell warned that inflation progress remains uneven, signaling a prolonged high-rate environment that may add more pressure to Bitcoin’s upside momentum.
Nonetheless, most bond traders see three consecutive rate cuts until the Fed’s September meeting, according to CME data.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
