90-Day Breather, but Risk-On is Still Off
Ryze Roundup
Market Commentary
This week underscored the risks of tying market confidence to unpredictable political leadership. After triggering one of the steepest global selloffs in recent memory, President Trump’s abrupt reversal on tariff policy offered a brief reprieve, but the damage was already done.
Last week, Trump unveiled sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs targeting over 180 countries, with rates as high as 50%. Markets unraveled. The S&P 500 fell over 12% through April 8, while the Nasdaq dropped 15%, its worst weekly performance since 2020. The CBOE Volatility Index spiked to nearly 58, reflecting widespread panic.
Crypto followed suit. Bitcoin sank below $75,000 on Tuesday, down over 25% from its March highs. Altcoins were hit harder, with some losing 30–40% in a matter of days. Spot volumes collapsed, liquidations surged, and sentiment plunged into “Extreme Fear.” Whatever optimism existed around Trump’s pro-crypto stance was eclipsed by the severity of his trade actions.
The situation reversed, at least temporarily, on Wednesday, when Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs (excluding China, where rates were raised to 125%). Markets staged a historic rally: the S&P 500 gained 9.5% in a single day, and crypto rebounded alongside equities. Bitcoin climbed back to $82,000, ETH and SOL jumped over 10%, and crypto stocks like Coinbase and MicroStrategy surged over 20%.
But the recovery is incomplete. Risk assets remain below pre-announcement levels, and macro signals continue to flash caution. Today’s March CPI came in below expectations at 2.4% YoY, sparking hopes of Fed rate cuts later this year. Yet forward indicators, like elevated breakeven inflation and rising recession odds, suggest the relief rally may be short-lived.
As our managing partner Matthew Graham noted earlier this week, Trump’s tariff doctrine is ideological. His view of trade deficits as theft, combined with a rejection of market feedback, has left investors without an anchor. This isn’t 2020. It feels more like 1987: no adults in the room, and a policy regime willing to break things to prove a point.
For crypto, the path forward is fragile. The 90-day pause buys time, but not certainty. With China’s retaliatory tariffs and broader global tensions simmering, volatility is unlikely to fade. Positioning remains light, offering some upside potential. But risk-on is dead for now. Until macro clarity returns, defensiveness is the only rational stance.
Key News and Events
Confidential Balances Go Live on Solana
Solana has officially launched Confidential Balances on mainnet, a notable step forward in enabling privacy-preserving blockchain transactions without compromising compliance. Built with Token Extensions, this feature allows token issuers to encrypt token balances and transfer amounts, offering configurable levels of confidentiality, from optional to mandatory.
Key features of Confidential Balances include:
Confidential Transfers: Obscures token movements between accounts, ensuring transaction amounts remain private.
Confidential Transfer Fees: Enables confidentiality for transaction fees, maintaining privacy in fee structures.
Confidential Mint and Burn: Allows for private creation and destruction of tokens, ensuring supply adjustments are discreet.
These features rely on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and homomorphic encryption, allowing transaction validation without revealing sensitive data. All transactions remain verifiable on-chain, preserving transparency at the protocol level.
Currently supported via Solana CLI and Rust, JavaScript integration is expected later this year—paving the way for confidential transactions in browser and mobile wallets.
AUSD, the stablecoin issued by Agora, is among the first to adopt Confidential Balances, highlighting the real-world potential of this privacy layer for compliant financial instruments.
With this upgrade, Solana adds an important dimension to its infrastructure, positioning itself as a viable platform for institutions and developers seeking private, regulatory-aligned solutions in an increasingly privacy-conscious market.
Lens Chain: The Social Layer of Web3
Lens Chain is a Layer 2 network purpose-built for social applications, leveraging ZKSync’s elastic chain for scalability, Avail for low-cost data availability, and GHO as its native gas token. It also integrates “Family” login infrastructure to enable seamless, wallet-less onboarding.
By selecting Avail, Lens Chain reduces data availability costs by over 90% compared to Ethereum, making it viable for social platforms with high data throughput and global scale.
Developed by Aave founder Stani Kulechov, Lens Chain aims to power an open, user-owned social graph. Its modular architecture enables developers to build decentralized social apps while supporting creators with monetization tools like NFTs, subscriptions, and tokens. Applications like Orb.club, Hey.xyz, Tape.xyz, and Soclly are already live in the ecosystem.
Earlier this year, Lens Chain migrated over 125GB of social data from Polygon—including 660,000 profiles and 50 million interactions—demonstrating both technical execution and commitment to user ownership. Key features include token-gated content, micropayments, and embedded smart wallet capabilities.
With $46 million in funding and a token yet to launch, Lens Chain is positioning itself as a foundational layer for Web3 social. While regulatory and UX challenges remain, Lens Chain shows strong potential in terms of technical architecture, business model, and market prospects, making it worthy of attention.