Original: The Round Trip
Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews
In an era where crypto and AI intersect, the truly important stories are often hidden outside the noise. In order to find these overlooked truths, PANONY and Web3.com Ventures jointly launched the English video program "The Round Trip". Co-hosted by John Scianna and Cassidy Huang, the program will lead viewers to explore the drastic fluctuations in the crypto market, the absurdity and breakthroughs of AI technology, the logic of success and failure of venture capital, and those moments of market crashes that easily cost billions of dollars. From Silicon Valley to Asia, go deep into the market noise, decode the narrative behind it, and dig out the deep truth beyond the news headlines.
Is the global economy on the brink of a cliff?
Over the past week, the dramatic escalation and rapid easing of the tariff war has become the focus of the market. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has sharply lowered its forecast for global economic growth in 2025 from 3.3% at the beginning of the year to 2.8%, the lowest level since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020. This adjustment points directly to two core pressures: the continued increase in US tariffs on China and the risk of a break in the global trade chain - Flexport data shows that US container orders to China have plummeted by more than 60% in three weeks.
At the same time, the US economic policy uncertainty index climbed to a 40-year peak, and gold futures prices broke through $3,500 per ounce for the first time. Interestingly, Bitcoin rose 10% against the trend, hitting a high of $94,000. Is this the market adapting to the "new normal" or the calm before the storm?
The “retreat to advance” strategy in the Sino-US tariff game
A subtle turn of events has occurred in the smoke of the trade war: US Treasury Secretary Basit publicly admitted that the "tariff stalemate with China is unsustainable", and the White House has signaled that tariffs on some goods may be reduced from the current high level to 50%-65%. President Trump also stated that high tariffs may be significantly reduced, but will not be completely eliminated, and stressed that he will not show weakness in negotiations with China.
John believes that although it seems that the United States was the first to loosen up, in fact, China had already begun to make arrangements as early as 2018 when Trump first imposed tariffs on Chinese products, including restricting the export of key rare earths and relocating factories to Vietnam and Mexico to circumvent tariff barriers. Trump's own trading strategy has also been traced, and China has already had a plan for this and has sufficient chips to fight back.
Bitcoin Rise and ETF Development
This week, the crypto market experienced significant volatility. The US spot Bitcoin ETF recorded the largest single-day inflow since January, with a cumulative net inflow of more than $912 million this week, reflecting a significant recovery in investor sentiment, which helped push the price of Bitcoin above $93,000.
In addition, Bitcoin rose 11% this week, surpassing Google in market value for the first time, becoming the world's fifth largest asset.
Ethereum, Solana, Dogecoin and Cardano also rose. In the last cycle, many people predicted that the price of Ethereum would reach $10,000. Although the current price of Ethereum is still hovering around $1,000/2,000, many investors are still looking forward to the realization of this goal. With the good news about Ethereum ETF, the market's confidence in it has recovered. Ethereum ETF has recorded the highest net inflow since February, with more than $150 million in funds inflow in the past few days alone.
In addition, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission approved China Asset Management and OSL to jointly launch an Ethereum ETF that supports staking. This is the world's first Ethereum ETF that can directly receive staking rewards. It not only tracks prices, but also brings staking returns to investors. This move marks Hong Kong's accelerated innovation in crypto finance and its efforts to build a global crypto hub. In contrast, ETFs in the US market are currently limited to tracking prices and fail to provide staking returns.
Crypto assets as a hedge against market volatility
Another major event this week was the $3.6 billion Bitcoin acquisition plan initiated by Brendan Lotnick. As the son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lotnick, Brendan's plan will hold about 42,000 Bitcoins, making him the world's third largest Bitcoin reserve institution. Partners include SoftBank, Tether (which has contributed more than $1.5 billion in Bitcoin) and Bitfinex. The overall strategy imitates MicroStrategy's holding model - continuously increasing Bitcoin holdings by issuing stocks and debt.
The newly formed company is led by Strike CEO Jack Mallers, who has actively promoted the popularity of Bitcoin in El Salvador and is considered one of the most staunch believers in Bitcoin. It is widely believed that he has the potential to replicate Michael Saylor's success model and may even end up holding hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins.
Unlike the poor performance of the crypto market during the global financial crisis in 2020, Bitcoin has performed quite well this time. Although it briefly fell when gold rose, it quickly rebounded. This shows that Bitcoin is becoming a mature hedging tool, while gold will continue to play its traditional safe-haven role.
Interestingly, there are "gold machines" in shopping malls in Shanghai that can melt gold directly and then transfer the money to a WeChat account within 30 minutes. This convenient way of trading gold is not common in the United States.
Regulatory trends and market competition
The US SEC welcomes its new chairman, Paul Atkins, who will attend the SEC's cryptocurrency roundtable on Friday. The meeting focuses on crypto asset custody, and subsequent meetings will discuss RWA on-chain and DeFi. Atkins served as an SEC commissioner from 2002 to 2008 and is known for supporting financial innovation. He often shares his views on crypto asset regulation at crypto conferences, so the crypto market is satisfied with his appointment.
There are currently 72 crypto-related ETFs awaiting approval, covering a wide range of digital assets including XRP, Litecoin, Solana, as well as meme coins like Dogecoin and even derivatives like 2X Melania.
Interestingly, Trump extended an olive branch to Trump ticket holders: the first 220 holders can attend the Washington Golf Club dinner, and the first 25 holders will be eligible for a VIP meeting.
China's acceleration in the AI race
In the field of artificial intelligence, Beijing held a special marathon on April 19, with 20 humanoid robots and 12,000 human runners competing for 21 kilometers. The Tiangong Ultra finished the race in 2 hours and 40 minutes. Behind this technology show is China's ambition to promote the application of AI in daily life.
In addition, at the Shanghai Auto Show on April 23, BMW announced a partnership with Chinese startup DeepSeek, planning to apply DeepSeek's AI system to new cars that will enter the Chinese market later this year. This shows that BMW is actively adapting to the needs of the Chinese market and strengthening cooperation with Chinese technology companies to remain competitive.
It is worth noting that a few years ago, DeepSeek was just a hedge fund that used AI and machine learning for quantitative trading. With the rise of large language models (LLM) in 2021, they transformed into developing AI models and have now become one of the world's important AI companies. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also met with the DeepSeek team during his visit to China last week to discuss plans to customize chips for the Chinese market.
The upcoming Token 2049 conference is expected to have an optimistic atmosphere. Institutional funds are flowing into the crypto market, and Bitcoin ETFs have changed the entire market sentiment. Last month, Dubai also announced plans to put more than $150 billion of real estate assets on the chain. This conference will set the tone for the industry direction in the next few quarters, and more crypto projects may explore decentralized LLM and AI tools in the future.
