Paul Atkins was confirmed as chair of the SEC, the U.S. Department of Justice shut its crypto-crime unit, American miners overpaid to import equipment, and other highlights of the week.
Bitcoin opened the week at $78,000. The downtrend from Sunday, 6 April, continued. On Monday morning the price slipped below the $75,000 level.
Over 24 hours the price of the “digital gold” fell by almost 10%. XRP lost about 21%, Dogecoin roughly 19%. Ethereum failed to hold $1,500, dropping by ~18%. The total crypto market capitalisation fell by ~12.5% to $2.46trn. Bitcoin’s dominance topped 60%.
Soon the price recovered to $80,000 amid rumours that U.S. President Donald Trump planned a 90‑day pause before implementing tariffs.
Overnight on 9 April the price of the first cryptocurrency touched a year‑to‑date low — below $75,000. The catalyst was the entry into force of Trump’s “liberating” tariffs.
Washington imposed tariffs of 10% and above on foreign goods. For China the rate reached 104% after Beijing refused to “make a deal”.
Ethereum briefly fell to its lowest since March 2023 — below $1,400. The ETH/BTC rate sank to 0.01855, a level last seen in December 2019.
Pav Hundal, lead analyst at Swyftx, estimated the crypto market’s decline since early February at $1.2trn.
Later the same day the price recovered to $78,000, but as a U.S. response Beijing raised tariffs on American goods from 34% to 84%. Bitcoin slipped back to $76,000.
By 10 April the price had jumped above $81,000 after the U.S. president said tariffs would be temporarily reduced for a number of countries while rates on Chinese imports would rise. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ gained 9.52% and 12.16%, respectively.
The release of U.S. consumer price index data prompted a brief spike in bitcoin to $82,500. Quotes then slipped to $81,000, trimming the 24‑hour gain to 4.3%.
On 11-12 April bitcoin extended its uptrend. After the announcement that semiconductors and a number of tech goods would be exempt from the “reciprocal tariffs”, the price topped $85,500 — a local high for the period the new tariffs have been in place.
At the time of writing the price is about $84,400, up 8.2% on the week.
For Ethereum, the week began around $1,500 after a slide from $1,800 over the preceding weekend.
On 9 April the price hit a local high of $1,675, but during the next day fell back to $1,500.
The following two days saw further gains; on 12 April the second‑largest cryptocurrency by market cap returned to $1,650.
At the time of writing the price is about $1,600, up 6.7% on the week.
Over seven days, all other top‑10 assets by market capitalisation also rose.
Fifty‑two senators backed the appointment, 44 voted against, and four did not take part.
President Donald Trump nominated Atkins to lead the SEC in December 2024. Many in the crypto industry deemed him a good fit given his sector experience.
Atkins served as an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008, then founded the consultancy Patomak Global Partners, whose clients have included crypto exchanges and DeFi projects.
At the end of March his candidacy cleared the Senate Banking Committee. Ahead of the hearings, journalists learned the prospective regulator chief owns stakes in three crypto firms: Securitize, Anchorage Digital and Off the Chain Capital.
During the debate some Democratic senators criticised Atkins over links to the collapsed exchange FTX.
Republican senator Tim Scott said at the hearing he hoped that under Atkins “the SEC will return to its core mission and ensure that our markets remain the envy of the world”.
Former chair Gary Gensler resigned on 20 January and returned as a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
Media reported that the Department of Justice shut the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET).
The decision was taken to implement an executive order by President Donald Trump aimed at streamlining digital‑asset regulation.
NCET was created in 2021 under the Joe Biden administration. The unit handled major crypto investigations, including the case against the mixer Tornado Cash and the hack of Mango Markets. It also pursued cases involving theft of digital assets by North Korean hackers.
Under the new directive, DOJ staff will no longer pursue crypto exchanges, mixers and offline wallets. Instead, prosecutors will focus on fraudsters using digital assets and those who cause real harm to investors.
U.S. senators called the decision to abolish the unit “a gross mistake”. A group of politicians, including Elizabeth Warren, Richard Durbin, Mazie Hirono, Sheldon Whitehouse, Christopher Coons and Richard Blumenthal, sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche.
In their view, this creates “a systemic vulnerability in the digital asset sector” that “drug traffickers, terrorists, fraudsters and adversaries” will exploit at scale. Mixers are the main tool for this category of actors, the lawmakers said.
The letter also mentions cryptocurrency projects of U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, suggesting a “potential link” between them and the department’s actions.
The senators demanded a briefing explaining the DOJ’s decisions by 1 May.
Authorities in several U.S. states put forward their own initiatives to integrate bitcoin into the financial system.
The North Carolina House of Representatives introduced a bill that would allow cryptocurrencies to be used for transactions such as paying taxes.
“Digital assets are recognised as a valid medium of exchange in North Carolina. A transaction may not be declined or its legal effect challenged solely because it uses cryptocurrencies,” the document says.
The Digital Asset Freedom Act sets out criteria digital assets must meet to be recognised as such:
The document places particular emphasis on decentralisation: digital assets must be launched fairly, without premine, insider distributions or control by centralised entities, and must not depend on a single actor or a small group of interested parties for operation and governance.
No specific examples of cryptocurrencies meeting the standards are given.
On 10 April the New Hampshire House of Representatives approved, by 192 “for” and 179 “against”, a bill to establish a state bitcoin reserve (SBR).
If approved by the Senate and the governor, the bill would allow the treasurer to allocate up to 5% of the general fund and other permitted funds to invest in precious metals and certain digital assets.
The bill specifies that funds may be invested only in cryptocurrencies with a market capitalisation above $500bn. At present only the digital gold meets this criterion.
New Hampshire became the fourth U.S. state where an SBR bill has passed one chamber of the legislature.
Arizona leads the race to adopt an SBR among the states.
Also on 10 April, the Florida House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee unanimously advanced an SBR bill. The measure must clear three committees before it reaches the state House floor.
As 9 April neared, large U.S. bitcoin miners chartered Southeast Asian cargo flights at $2-3.5m — two to four times normal rates.
Miners were racing to import ordered ASIC rigs before U.S. President Donald Trump’s “liberating” tariffs took effect. The rush centred on getting equipment out, and factories worked overtime to fulfil as many orders as possible.
On 2 April Trump announced new tariffs for trading partners. A minimum 10% for all countries took effect on 5 April.
From 9 April, “reciprocal tariffs” were introduced for a number of U.S. partners. In particular, rates were raised for: Malaysia (24%), Thailand (36%), Indonesia (32%), Taiwan (32%), while for China the rate ultimately came to 104%.
The first three jurisdictions host assembly plants for major miner manufacturers: Bitmain, MicroBT, Canaan, Bitdeer and Auradine. Taiwan’s TSMC supplies most of the chips underpinning the rigs.
In 2023, MicroBT opened miner production in the U.S. Bitmain made a similar move in January this year. However, these facilities cover only a small share of required volumes.
In 2024 U.S. miners imported equipment worth over $2.3bn. In Q1 alone the figure exceeded $860m. The country accounts for 35-40% of bitcoin’s hashrate.
Experts estimate tariffs will lift ASIC‑miner prices by 22-36%.
According to Hashrate Index, over the past 12 months the cost of rigs with an energy‑efficiency ratio up to 19 J/TH has fallen. A unit from Bitmain’s latest Antminer S21 series costs about $3,400.
In the first public interview with BestChange founder Denis Malkov, we learned which coins are most popular with the exchange’s users, whether the service shares information with the authorities, and how to operate under Russia’s ban on crypto advertising.
We reviewed the timeline of the Hyperliquid incident with reactions from industry leaders, the “convenient” actions of competitors, and the project team’s forced defensive measures that cast doubt on decentralisation principles.
We spoke with HAPI crypto‑security implementation expert Irakliy Dizenco about the Bybit hack, whether DeFi regulation is coming, and attacks in general and in particular.
