Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick announced that the White House was finalizing a trade deal with an unnamed country.
Another relatively calm day was experienced by the crypto market on Tuesday, despite widespread pessimism about the economic impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs.
A 1% increase has been seen by Bitcoin (BTC) in the last 24 hours, with it trading at nearly $95,400 and nearing $96,000 for the first time since the second half of February. The CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, exchange coins, and memecoins — rose by 1.1%, with Bitcoin Cash (BCH) outperforming the rest of the index by surging 6.3%.
On Tuesday, fairly muted performances were seen by crypto stocks, with Coinbase (COIN) and Strategy (MSTR) rising by 0.9% and 3.3%, respectively. Janover (JNVR) continued to benefit from its SOL accumulation strategy, with a further increase of 16%.
The recovery from the early April tariff-induced panic continued in the stock market, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each seeing an increase of 0.55%.
For some observers, the market’s performance has seemed disconnected from the wave of economic data suggesting that U.S. economic activity is being slowed down by the tariff policies enacted by the White House.
According to a Conference Board survey, consumer confidence was reported at its lowest level since May 2020, while the consumer outlook was recorded at its lowest point since 2011. Meanwhile, the JOLTS survey showed that job openings had fallen to 7.19 million in March, compared to the expected 7.5 million.
In fresh tariff news, it was stated by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick today that a trade deal had been reached with an unspecified country, although ratification by that country’s leaders is still needed.
It was posted on X by Jeff Park, head of Alpha Strategies at Bitwise, that the market’s blindness is hard to fathom.
It was said by Park that a Fed cut means nothing if U.S. creditworthiness is permanently impaired by the global community due to dollar weaponization, referring to recent speculation about whether the U.S. central bank will be forced to lower rates to counter the effects of Trump’s tariffs. “That’s the mispricing being discussed here,” was added by him. “The myopic focus on whether [we] will get a Fed cut in May/June is completely irrelevant if the notion of the risk-free as we know it is fundamentally challenged forever, which means the cost of capital globally will rise.”
