Coin Market

Bitcoin volatility hits 3.6% amid heightened market uncertainty

Published

2 days ago

March 20, 2025

Bitcoin (BTC) volatility climbed to 3.6% on March 19 — the highest point since August 2024, according to data from CoinGlass.

The volatility reflects heightened market uncertainty amid structural unknowns in the US economy, according to Uldis Tearudklans, chief revenue officer at UK-based cryptocurrency exchange Paybis.

“The policy landscape is becoming more complex with the emergence of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency,” Tearudklans said. “While the initiative to reduce government spending has bipartisan backing, the broader economic effects — particularly on employment and consumer demand — remain difficult to quantify.”

The Department of Government Efficiency claims to have generated an estimated savings of $115 billion for the US government as of March 19. The alleged savings include workforce reductions, asset sales, grant cancellations, and regulatory savings.

Bitcoin volatility history from March 2013 to March 2025. Source: CoinGlass

According to Tearudklans, if fiscal tightening proceeds alongside stable or gradually declining interest rates, the resulting liquidity contraction “could create a mismatch in policy direction, limiting the intended stimulative effect of future rate cuts.”

On March 19, the Federal Open Market Committee announced that it would leave interest rates unchanged for the time being, although it left open the possibility for two more rate cuts in 2025.

Bitcoin volatility on display since Trump’s inauguration

Bitcoin’s volatility is well-known and has been on full display since US President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2025.

Since reaching a high of $109,590 on Jan. 20, BTC price suffered a 30% retracement to a low of $77,041 during the week of March 9-15. Selling pressure has increased as more short-term buyers currently find themselves down on their investments, though demand may be slightly returning. The cryptocurrency price bounced up to around $84,000 at this time of writing.

Tearudklans told Cointelegraph that the elevated volatility indicates that traders are pricing in divergent outcomes, including the possibility of fiscal contraction alongside stable or easing interest rates.

“This creates a complex feedback loop where reduced government spending could limit growth, potentially forcing the Fed to maintain a cautious stance or even delay future rate cuts.”

Bitcoin’s price action may also be tied to policy misalignment, he added. “While the Fed’s rate decision offers short-term clarity, the broader fiscal outlook introduces the risk of asymmetric market responses, reinforcing Bitcoin’s sensitivity to macroeconomic cycles and liquidity shifts.”

The volatility of Bitcoin comes as President Trump has expressed overtures to the crypto community. On March 7, he signed an executive order to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve and digital asset stockpile in the United States. On March 20, he spoke at the 2025 Digital Asset Summit, claiming the US will be a “Bitcoin superpower.”

However, Trump’s talk of tariffs and rising geopolitical tension are affecting the financial markets as a whole, including crypto.

Magazine: X Hall of Flame, Benjamin Cowen: Bitcoin dominance will fall in 2025

Coin Market

Gold-backed stablecoins will outcompete USD stablecoins — Max Keiser

Published

5 hours ago

March 22, 2025

Gold-backed stablecoins will outcompete US dollar-pegged alternatives worldwide due to gold’s inflation-hedging properties and minimum volatility, according to Bitcoin (BTC) maximalist Max Keiser.

Keiser argued that gold is more trusted than the US dollar globally, and said governments of foreign nations with an adversarial relationship to the United States would not accept dollar-pegged stablecoins. The BTC maximalist added:

“Russia, China, and Iran are not going to accept a US dollar stablecoin. I predict they will counter the USD stablecoin with a Gold one. China and Russia have a combined 50,000 tonnes of Gold — more than what is reported.”

The potential for gold-backed stablecoins to outcompete dollar-pegged tokens in international markets would upend plans to extend US dollar dominance through stablecoins proposed by US lawmakers.

Source: Max Keiser

Gold-backed stablecoins fulfill the original promise of USD?

Stablecoin issuer Tether launched a gold-backed stablecoin called Alloy (aUSD₮), backed by Tether’s XAU₮ — a token that provides a paper claim to physical gold — in June 2024.

According to PointsVille founder and former VanEck executive Gabor Gurbacs, “Tether Gold is what the dollar used to be before 1971.”

“XAU₮ is up 15.7% year-to-date, while the broad crypto market is in the red. Foundations and businesses should hedge their holdings with XAU₮,” the executive wrote in a March 19 X post.

XAUT is now at all-time highs following a historic rally in the gold market. Source: Gabor Gurbacs

US policymakers have a different idea

United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Trump administration would focus on using dollar-pegged stablecoins to protect the dollar’s reserve currency status and ensure US dollar hegemony in global financial markets.

Speaking at the March 7 White House Crypto Summit, Bessent indicated that this stablecoin regime would be a top priority for the administration.

Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller also voiced similar comments and expressed support for using stablecoins to prop up the US dollar before Bessent made the remarks at the summit.

US lawmakers have also introduced several stablecoin bills to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for tokenized fiat assets, including the Stable Act of 2025 and the GENIUS stablecoin bill.

Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom

Coin Market

The current BTC 'bear market' will only last 90 days — Analyst

Published

6 hours ago

March 22, 2025

The current Bitcoin (BTC) bear market, defined as a 20% or more drop from the all-time high, is relatively weak in terms of magnitude and should only last for 90 days, according to market analyst and the author of Metcalfe’s Law as a Model for Bitcoin’s Value, Timothy Peterson.

Peterson compared the current downturn to the 10 previous bear markets, which occur roughly once per year, and said that only four bear markets have been worse than the price decline in terms of duration, including 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2024.

The analyst predicted that BTC will not sink deeply below the $50,000 price level due to the underlying adoption trends. However, Peterson also argued that based on momentum, it is unlikely that BTC will break below $80,000. The analyst added:

“There may be a slide in the next 30 days followed by a 20-40% rally sometime after April 15. You can see that in the charts around day 120. This would probably be enough of a headline to bring weak hands back into the market and propel Bitcoin even higher.”

Crypto markets experienced a sharp downturn following United States President Trump’s tariffs on several US trading partners, which sparked counter-tariffs on US exports, leading to fears of a prolonged trade war.

Comparison of every bear market since 2025. Source: Timothy Peterson

Investors flee risk-on assets over trade war fears

Investor appetite for speculative assets is declining due to the ongoing trade war and macroeconomic uncertainty.

The Glassnode Hot Supply metric, a measure of BTC owned for one week or less, declined from 5.9% amid the historic bull rally in November 2024 to only 2.3% as of March 20.

According to Nansen research analyst Nicolai Sondergaard, crypto markets will face trade war pressures until April 2025, when international negotiations could potentially lower or diffuse the trade tariffs altogether.

A recent analysis from CryptoQuant also shows that a majority of retail traders are already invested in BTC, dashing long-held hopes that a massive rush of retail traders would inject fresh capital into the markets and push prices higher in the near term.

The trade war also placed Bitcoin’s safe haven narrative in doubt as the price of the decentralized asset collapsed over tariff headlines alongside other risk and speculative assets.

Magazine: Bitcoiners are ‘all in’ on Trump since Bitcoin ’24, but it’s getting risky

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.

Coin Market

Pakistan Crypto Council proposes using excess energy for BTC mining

Published

9 hours ago

March 22, 2025

Bilal Bin Saqib, the CEO of Pakistan’s Crypto Council, has proposed using the country’s runoff energy to fuel Bitcoin (BTC) mining at the Crypto Council’s inaugural meeting on March 21.

According to an article from The Nation, the council is exploring comprehensive regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrencies to attract foreign direct investment and establish Pakistan as a crypto hub.

The meeting included lawmakers, the Bank of Pakistan’s governor, the chairman of Pakistan’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SECP), and the federal information technology secretary. Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb had this to say about the meeting:

“This is the beginning of a new digital chapter for our economy. We are committed to building a transparent, future-ready financial ecosystem that attracts investment, empowers our youth, and puts Pakistan on the global map as a leader in emerging technologies.”

The Crypto Council represents a radical departure from the government of Pakistan’s previous stance on crypto. In May 2023, former minister of state for finance and revenue, Aisha Ghaus Pasha said crypto would never be legal in the country.

Pasha cited anti-money laundering restrictions under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as the primary motivation for the government’s anti-crypto stance.

The presence of Bitcoin miners can stabilize electrical grids. Source: Science Direct

Pakistan follows the United States in embracing crypto

The government of Pakistan moved to regulate cryptocurrencies as legal tender on Nov. 4, 2024 — the same day as the elections in the United States.

Following the re-election of Donald Trump in the US and the Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump moved quickly to establish pro-crypto policies at the federal level.

On Jan. 23, President Trump signed an executive order establishing the Working Group on Digital Assets — an executive advisory council tasked with exploring comprehensive regulatory reform on digital assets.

President Trump signs executive order establishing the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets. Source: The White House

The Jan. 23 order also prohibited the government from researching, developing, or issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

President Trump also signed an executive order creating a Bitcoin strategic reserve and a separate digital asset stockpile in March 2025 that will likely include cryptocurrencies made by US-based firms.

Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025