Bitcoin Surges 2% to $84,000, Memecoins Lead Market Higher

Bitcoin has been on a bullish run, surging over 2% to exceed $84,000, with memecoins leading the market higher, followed by tokens associated with artificial intelligence and gaming. In traditional markets, gold set another record, surpassing $3,140, and futures linked to major U.S. equity indices are pointing to a positive open.

President Donald Trump has pledged a "very kind" yet firm approach toward all trading partners ahead of Wednesday's planned reciprocal tariffs announcement. However, market flows reveal nervousness likely stemming from tariff uncertainty. An aggressive move could ratchet up inflation expectations, which would lower risk asset prices, including cryptocurrencies.

Reports suggest that the Treasury and other federal agencies are expected to disclose their holdings of bitcoin and other tokens on April 5, in accordance with the March 11 document that called for such an action within 30 days of Trump's March 6 decision to issue an executive order to form a strategic crypto reserve.

Some indicators call for caution. For instance, bitcoin's one-year percentage change is approaching the negative zone, according to crypto research firm Alphractal. "Out of the four times this has happened, three led to bearish movements, while one had no significant effect," the firm said. BTC's apparent demand by 30-day change, derived from the flow of coins into exchanges and adjusted for factors including net outflows, now shows the most negative values in over a year, according to data source CryptoQuant.

In the broader market, decentralized AI data liquidity network Vana unveiled the VRC-20 data token standard for fair and transparent data token transactions. "For data markets to work, tokens must be reliable, secure, and useful. As a universal standard for data-backed tokens, VRC-20 delivers this by ensuring fair and transparent data token trading," Vana said on X.

Elsewhere, the MOVE Index, which measures the 30-day implied volatility for the U.S. Treasury notes, is rising. A volatile Treasury market often causes financial tightening worldwide, leading to reduced demand for risk assets. Stay alert!

On April 1, ONINO (ONI) will have its mainnet launch. On April 2, XIONMarkets (XION) will have its mainnet launch. On April 5, the alleged birthday of Satoshi Nakamoto will be celebrated. On April 9, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing about how the U.S. securities laws could be updated to take into account digital assets.

In other news, a hacker involved in February's multimillion exploit of the zkLend DeFi protocol said they inadvertently sent their stolen funds to a phishing site posing as mixing service Tornado Cash. The hacker lost all 2,930 ETH stolen from zkLend to the apparent phishing attack, according to Lookchain and blockchain data. They then sent an on-chain message via Etherscan to zkLend apologizing for the "havoc and losses caused," claimed to no longer hold the stolen funds and urged zkLend to redirect recovery efforts toward the phishing site’s operators.

Market watchers expressed skepticism, suggesting the alleged phishing site was set up by the hacker in an attempt to shift scrutiny away from the attackers' known wallets to the address that purportedly ended up thieving the thief. zkLend responded by requesting the hacker to return any remaining funds. The protocol has been actively working on fund recovery, having launched a "Recovery Portal" on March 5, to compensate affected users, and is collaborating with security teams, centralized exchanges and authorities to trace the stolen assets.