Trump once again triggers global asset linkage: US dollar collapses, gold breaks the top, Bitcoin rebounds

Author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

On April 22, the US asset market fell into the eye of the storm again. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 971 points, the Nasdaq fell more than 2.5%, and the S&P 500 fell below the 5200-point integer mark. The seven technology giants fell across the board, with Tesla and Nvidia falling more than 5.7% and 4.5% respectively. The VIX Panic Index soared by 14%, breaking through 33 points, indicating that the market's systemic risk aversion is rapidly heating up.

The US dollar index lost blood simultaneously, falling below the 98 mark, setting a new low in the past year and a half. The ICE USD Index and the Bloomberg USD Index both hit one of the worst monthly performances since 2009. At the same time, gold broke through $3,400, setting a new record high. After Bitcoin broke through $88,000 in the early morning, it pulled back to around $86,300 with the decline of US stocks. After the U.S. stock market closure, it once again showed a different tough attitude, rising through $88,800, while altcoins generally did not return to the early morning high.

According to Coinglass data, the entire network was liquidated by US$261 million in the past 24 hours, the long position was liquidated by US$14,100, and the short position was liquidated by US$12,100. Among them, Bitcoin liquidated $88.5787 million and Ethereum liquidated $67.5928 million.

Price changes are just the result, and deeper, they are the collective revaluation of the global asset anchor structure and the historic return of non-sovereign assets emerging in institutional cracks.

Fed independence is facing political reshaping

Trump once again publicly criticized Fed Chairman Powell, demanding "immediate rate cuts, otherwise the economy will slow down." The market's confidence in the Fed's political neutrality is being tested unprecedentedly. This is his second high-profile pressure on monetary policy path in just a few days. Not only did he issue a document through Truth Social directly pointing out that "the policy is too tight", but he also exposed the news on many occasions "consider the replacement of Powell."

According to Bloomberg, the Trump team is currently studying whether there is legal authority to fire Powell. On April 18, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Commission, publicly confirmed that Trump and his advisory team are "reviewing relevant options."

The move touched the most sensitive red line for global investors: whether the Fed is still a central bank independent of electoral politics. Over the past 40 years, the Federal Reserve has played a core role in the global asset allocation system.

But at present, the question that "whether Powell can maintain his position" which was originally regarded as an irrelevant issue has become one of the core variables that global financial capital is concerned about. Therefore, safe-haven funds are accelerating the flow of sovereign assets.

It is worth noting that this sell-off is not a reaction to the short-term interest rate path, but a feedback on the "decision rule uncertainty" itself. When investors cannot tell whether interest rates are still based on economic fundamentals rather than political cycles, the credit anchorage of the dollar begins to loosen.

Over the past decade, global capital has widely allocated US Treasury bonds and US dollar assets out of trust in the Fed's professional judgment ability and independence. However, once this trust is eroded, US debt will no longer be an unconditional safe-haven asset, and the US dollar will no longer have the premium attributes naturally. This will trigger a re-evaluation of the entire global asset anchoring system.

Gold and Bitcoin resonate and rise: "Anchored reconstruction mechanism"

in the crack of institutional trust

For a long time, the core asset structure of the global financial system has relied on an implicit institutional trust assumption that the Federal Reserve remains policy neutral, the U.S. government fulfills its credit obligations, and the market rules are stable and information symmetric.

It is this institutional trust that makes US Treasury bonds have the status of risk-free interest rates and the US dollar qualifies as a global reserve currency. When executive power intervenes in monetary policy at a high frequency, this assumption is challenged, global capital's first reaction is not to observe the next interest rate call from the Federal Reserve, but to actively reevaluate what is a truly credible asset.

Gold is a medium of stored value for thousands of years, and its price has never been a response to inflation, but also a vote on institutional stability. Looking back on history, every rapid rise in gold prices is accompanied by a tide of trust in the traditional political monetary system:

• In 1971, the "Bretton Woods System" collapsed, and gold prices soared after the US dollar were decoupled;
• After the global financial crisis in 2008, gold prices rose rapidly, hitting historical highs;
• The Federal Reserve is currently facing doubts of political interference, and gold hits a new high.

This rule has not changed because the essential advantage of gold is that it does not rely on national credit, is not subject to policy intervention, and does not have the risk of default. In the process of politicization of the system and short-termization of policies, gold provides a kind of time independence and historical stable expectations.

The reason why Bitcoin began to rise simultaneously in gold was not because it had central bank attributes, but precisely because it was not an appendix of any central bank.

Its currency issuance follows mathematical rules, with the total supply written into the code and is not affected by any political term, election cycle or fiscal deficit pressure. The rise of Bitcoin is an expression of distrust in the "man-rule monetary system".

When the Fed's independence was suspected and the US dollar was forced to accept administrative intervention, some of the funds in the market began to regard Bitcoin as a "depoliticized reserve value candidate."

Especially when U.S. Treasury credit is restricted (due to fiscal unsustainability), gold prices are overheated (high premiums may weaken risk-adjusted returns), and crypto-asset ETF compliance channels are gradually opened (improving accessibility), Bitcoin will play a mixed role of a type of "digital gold" and "decentralized dollar alternatives".

Signals of regulatory shift: Atkins' inauguration and system adjustments

to the financial governance framework

While Trump continues to pressure the Federal Reserve, Paul S. Atkins was sworn in as the 34th chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Although this personnel appointment seems to be in line with the rules in the process, it actually sends a strong policy signal. As an important advocate of the "limited financial market" trend in the Bush era, Atkins has always advocated that regulation should serve the market rather than dominate the market. His takeover means that the governance philosophy of the US capital market may enter a new turning cycle.

This transformation is particularly critical in the current context of crypto assets. If Atkins adheres to its consistent position, crypto assets may usher in an unprecedented period of policy channels in the future, including ETF compliance approval, RWA token issuance, and even the value distribution mechanism in the Token economic model.

But this laissez-faire tendency can also pose structural risks. While releasing positive expectations in the short term, the blurring of regulatory consistency and long-term behavior expectations will be accompanied by. The market was originally based on a compliance framework with clear rules, clear thresholds and measurable boundaries, and the softening of regulatory claims is very easy to break this institutional perception and cause market participants to make judgments disordered. The crypto industry was originally on the brink of regulation, but now this edge is not only not cleared by rules, but may intensify its institutional uncertainty due to the swaying left and right policy tendencies.

In other words, Atkins' inauguration marks a delicate reconstruction of the US financial governance framework: in the decentralized treatment of traditional regulatory tools, the space for market autonomy is greatly magnified, but it may also lose the last line of defense for governance unity. For the crypto asset industry, this is not only an opening of a window of compliance opportunities, but also a high degree of game during the evolution of the system.