The editorial team has prepared a digest of key events in the Web3 sector over the past week. It discusses the cryptocurrencies declared by Ukrainian officials, the lifting of restrictions on P2P transfers, the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump and their impact on the cryptocurrency market, as well as the billion-dollar losses from hacker attacks in the first quarter of 2025.
This is reported by Business • Media
Impact of Trump’s Tariffs on the Crypto Market
As of April 2, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on imports from several countries, leading to increased volatility in the Bitcoin market. A base tariff of 10% on all export goods will take effect on April 5, 2025. According to Quinn Thompson, a top manager at Lekker Capital, the price of Bitcoin could reach between $50,000 and $60,000 by the end of 2025. However, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of the BitMEX exchange, believes that the introduced tariffs could be beneficial for Bitcoin, while BlackRock CEO Larry Fink predicts a shift in the status of the reserve currency in favor of Bitcoin.
State of the Bitcoin and Ethereum Markets
Bitcoin continues to show growth in the portfolios of public companies. For example, Strategy acquired 22,048 BTC for $1.92 billion, while Tether purchased 8,888 BTC for $735 million in the first quarter of 2025. At the same time, according to JP Morgan, March 2025 was the worst month for 14 public mining companies, whose capitalization fell by 25%.
Ethereum is also undergoing technical changes. The Pectra upgrade scheduled for May 7, 2025, will expand the capabilities of smart contracts, but raising the minimum threshold for validator staking to 2,048 ETH could impact decentralization. Despite a decrease in network activity, analysts believe that the blockchain remains stable.
In the first quarter of 2025, Bitcoin and Ethereum recorded their worst performances in the last seven years, finishing the quarter down 11.82% and 45.41% respectively. In March, both assets experienced declines, which is different from previous years when they showed growth.
The global cryptocurrency market also suffered significant losses from hacker attacks, which reached $1.94 billion in 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, there were over 60 hacks that caused losses of $1.63 billion.
“In 2024, Ukrainian officials declared cryptocurrencies in 2,113 declarations, which is 2.2 times more than before the full-scale invasion in 2022.”
The National Bank of Ukraine did not extend the temporary limit on P2P transfers, which was in effect from October 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025. This step will promote the development of virtual assets in Ukraine.