Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• US stocks may be faring okay, but the rest of the market isn’t. 

• Blockspace’s Colin Harper shares a guest section focused on mining stocks’ evolving correlation to bitcoin. 

• Check out the latest Forward Guidance podcast roundup. We covered a lot of ground this week.

Wild week in review

It’s been quite a week. 

We had Manic Monday and then Blink Wednesday, followed by what I’ll dub “That Didn’t Last Long Thursday.” Sadly, today’s not shaping up to be Fun Friday. 

The good news: If you bought the S&P 500 when the president told you to, you’re still in the green. For now, at least. 

The bad news: everything else. Not to be dramatic. 

The dollar is slipping: The DXY is down 3.7% today from Wednesday and the euro is at a three-year high against USD. 

Treasury markets are still selling off — worse now than the Tuesday night meltdown that reportedly inspired the president’s pivot. Yield on the 10-year once again surpassed 4.5% Thursday morning, and it’s looking like Treasurys will post the biggest weekly loss since 2019, when the Fed had to step in. 

Analysts say markets are realizing that a 10% baseline tax on almost all trading partners — although better than the initial plans — could still spell trouble for inflation and growth. 

Consumers aren’t feeling too optimistic, either. Consumer sentiment fell to 50.8 in April, down from 57 in March and lower than expected, according to data released this morning by the University of Michigan. The one-year inflation outlook also rose from 5% to 6.7%. 

In terms of clarity on the future of trade policy, we are back to where we were pre-Liberation Day. Bulls insisted early last week that no matter what the administration announced, having a concrete plan on the table would be a silver lining.

Now, the administration has 88 days to ink deals with 150 countries. There’s also the fallout with China, which this morning raised levies on US imports from 84% to 125%. 

Trump’s National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said on CNBC today that there’s “a big inventory of deals” approaching the “finish line,” so there’s that. We hope he’s right, but forgive us if the past week of White House communications has made us skeptical. 

I hope everyone is able to unplug this weekend. Maybe heed the advice a friend gave me last Friday, which I certainly will be doing come 5 pm.

We’ll see you back here on Monday.

— Casey Wagner

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The week-over-week change in bitcoin’s price, as of 1 pm ET Friday. It hovered around $82,760 at that time. 

That relatively flat number comes despite the major market swings in recent days as investors digested tariff developments. Remember, for example, BTC’s plummet below $75,000 on Tuesday.

As for what’s next? There are guesses, but no one knows for sure.

This article is a collaboration with Blockspace Media, a publication dedicated to covering Bitcoin tech, markets, mining and ordinals. Get Blockspace articles directly in your inbox by clicking the image above.

Bitcoin mining equities are trading less and less in step with bitcoin. 

Shares of these companies have historically traded as high-beta plays on bitcoin, similar to how gold miner stocks trade with high volatility against gold’s price movements. When bitcoin rallies, public miners increase by an even greater multiple — and vice versa when bitcoin crashes. 

But this correlation has become weaker over time. Looking at 30-day rolling correlations between Cleanspark, Hut 8, MARA and Riot — four of the most liquid bitcoin mining equities with some of the longest trading histories — from 2021 to present, mining stocks are no longer trading in lockstep with bitcoin. 

The correlation still exists, but it has been less pronounced in recent years. When measuring correlation, a value of 1 means an asset’s price moves correlate perfectly with another. A value of -1 means it does not correlate at all.

These stocks were more closely correlated with bitcoin in 2021 and 2022. There were then more divergences in this correlation in 2023. 

We see the divergence accelerate in 2024 as the correlations dip more regularly and more deeply into negative territory compared to prior years. So far in 2025, the correlations are more in line with pre-2023 precedent.

This is likely in response to bitcoin’s poor price performance year to date. As we see in the data for 2022 (a bear market year for bitcoin), these stocks correlate more tightly with bitcoin in harsher market environments.

Put another way, bitcoin mining equities are sharing less in bitcoin’s upside but still suffering from its downside. 

The introduction of US spot bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 could largely explain the shift in investor appetite. Those who previously held mining stocks as a sort of proxy exposure to bitcoin can now instead get direct exposure with bitcoin ETFs.

It’s also worth noting that investors now have more bitcoin mining options to choose from. In January 2021, there were roughly 10 publicly traded bitcoin miners. Now there are more than 30. The market is saturated, and the spoils are reduced accordingly.

Perhaps in response to both this oversaturation and diminishing returns, a handful of miners have pivoted to AI and high-performance computing business lines — most notably Core Scientific, Bit Digital, IREN and Hut 8. These companies have been able to cash in on market hype for AI, and they’ve generally outperformed pure-play miners year over year.

If bitcoin miners continue to enjoy diminishing upside from bitcoin, it stands to reason that they will continue to lean into other computing business lines. Especially considering AI could provide more stable revenues and continues to hog the spotlight on Wall Street.

— Colin Harper 

• President Trump yesterday signed a Congressional Review Act resolution to strike down the so-called DeFi broker rule. Crypto industry advocates lauded the move. If you need a refresher on what we’re talking about, check out this and this. 

• The SEC’s second crypto roundtable — titled “Between a Block and a Hard Place: Tailoring Regulation for Crypto Trading” — is going on now. Keep an eye on your inbox, as we’ll break down what happened on Monday.

• Speaking of the SEC, Nova Labs (creator of the Helium Network) agreed to pay $200,000 to settle claims that it misled investors during a funding round. Helium co-founder Amir Haleem said on X that the agency, as part of the deal, agreed to dismiss the unregistered securities allegations it made against Nova Labs in January.

• US spot bitcoin ETFs saw a sixth straight day of net outflows on Thursday, according to Farside Investors data. Roughly $870 million has exited those products over that span.