Today’s Big Story

Et tu, Bitcoin?

Maybe it’s not so independent from the rest of the market

In his 2025 letter to investors, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink issued a quiet but seismic warning: “If the U.S. doesn’t get its debt under control… America risks losing [its reserve currency position] to digital assets like Bitcoin.” That possibility just became more real and more urgent due to the ongoing trade war caused by President Trump’s increased tariffs.

Starting around April 6, the Bitcoin price started sinking. It’s sitting at around $79,000 as of this writing—after touching a low of about $74,000. But that’s quite a fall from the all-time highs it hit in January, when it was worth more than $100,000. Even last week, it was worth almost $90,000.

And it’s not just Bitcoin; the carnage is happening across the full crypto market. Reuters reports that U.S.-listed shares of crypto companies tumbled on Monday, mirroring a sharp drop in Bitcoin as escalating trade tensions and fears of a recession triggered a broad retreat from risk assets. The slide could also shake investors' faith in Bitcoin's role as a safe-haven during times of turbulence.

However, many cryptocurrency experts believe (or maybe hope?) it’s still likely to hold up better than other asset classes if a global trade war drags on. As The Verge points out, if Bitcoin were—as true believers often say—a government-free currency, Trump’s tariffs should have strengthened it. “After all, one of the main use cases for Bitcoin is crime, and given the sheer volume of tariffs, smuggling and tax evasion seem like they’re about to get very popular. But for Bitcoin’s sizable base of casual owners, the allure is financial speculation. And unsurprisingly, as money shows signs of getting tight, they seem to be bailing.”

According to CNBC, some investors have been bracing for a Bitcoin correction since the beginning of the year, around the time the cryptocurrency hit its record of $109,350.72. At the time, stocks were climbing to their own record peaks and “the potential for a pullback was evident”. Over a longer term, however, deglobalization and rising geopolitical tensions should benefit a “decentralized, open source, neutral, scarce reserve asset like Bitcoin,” Will Clemente, an independent investor and previous cofounder of Reflexivity Research said. And it has remained relatively stable, bucking the broader market meltdown and rising to end the week as stocks tumbled and even gold fell.

Trade Tensions Escalate

Rattled Wall Street donors enlist GOP lawmakers on Trump tariffs

In public and private, the big names of high finance are trying to get a message across to President Trump: stop the madness. As Axios points out, Trump is making it clear he won't tolerate any limits on his ability to impose tariffs, but rattled GOP donors wanted lawmakers to help convince the president that tariffs are crushing the economy. The criticism is an early sign that the economic tumult caused by Trump’s trade war could leave lasting political scars for the president.

According to the Wall Street Journal, even those (both in business and in Washington) who support tariffs in theory, were saying that the current plan is “misguided and will cause irreparable damage.” Some big bank executives were feeling shut out and lectured at, some of them said. And while everyday Americans fret over their 401(k)s and fears of higher prices, the president insisted, in a series of Truth Social posts, that prices are down, he’s just fixing the mistakes of his predecessors, and “some day people will realize that Tariffs, for the United States of America, are a very beautiful thing!” Then he dropped a new moniker for anyone who says otherwise: Panican.

Intelligencer says it’s likely a combination of “panic” and “Republican”, but it’s not an obvious jab, as evidenced by the fact that Trump needed to explain the meaning. (“A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!”) On the bright side, some calm returned to the markets today as China unleashed a series of measures to stabilize stocks. In turn, share prices jumped a bit in Asia and Europe. But analysts are bracing for the new higher-rate tariffs set to go into effect tomorrow.

Florida Wins NCAA Tournament Over Houston

March Madness delivered on its namesake promise, from early-round upsets to Final Four comebacks

How’d your bracket stand up? The March Madness road ended on Monday in San Antonio, where the finale between Florida and Houston went to the wire at the Alamodome, with Florida ultimately winning the 2025 men's NCAA championship—overcoming a 12-point second-half deficit and making one final defensive stand.

Houston was denied what would have been its first national title. Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson, 69, was trying to win his 800th career game and become the oldest coach ever to win a men’s basketball title. Instead, he was left frozen after the final possession went wrong, and it was 39-year-old Gators coach Todd Golden who sprinted onto the floor under a flood of confetti after the final buzzer.

The Gators had not won the national title on the hardwood since doing so back-to-back in 2006 and 2007 under Billy Donovan. This is the program’s third national title. Fox Sports says the Alamodome saw some fantastic Final Four games, and the men’s basketball season was capped with one of the best battles between two No. 1 seeds in the national championship in recent memory.

Dire Wolves Become First Species Revived From Extinction

“We took a 13,000 year old tooth and a 73,000 year old skull, and we made puppies"

Have you heard of dire wolves? Until now, they existed mostly within the fictional worlds of fantasy movies and games. They last walked the Earth 12,000 years ago. But today, three genetically engineered wolves that resemble extinct dire wolves are trotting, sleeping and howling in an undisclosed secure location in the U.S. The pups, which range in age from three to six months old, have long white hair, muscular jaws and already weigh in at around 80 pounds—on track to reach 140 pounds at maturity, researchers at Colossal Biosciences reported Monday.

Yes, this is the same biotechnology company that’s attempting to bring back the woolly mammoth by 2028. (Welcome … to Jurassic Park!) Colossal Biosciences also said it had cloned four red wolves, a critically endangered animal with under two dozen thought to be left in the wild. “We're not a foundation or a nonprofit, we are not an academic think tank,” Ben Lamm, the company’s CEO and co-founder, told ABC News and SyFy Wire. “We’re trying to actually develop products and build technologies—we took a 13,000 year old tooth and a 73,000 year old skull, and we made puppies.”

Colossal Biosciences scientists knew from the fossil record that dire wolves shared a lot of characteristics with modern gray wolves, the major difference being their size. Dire wolves exhibit enhanced skeletal and muscular features, giving them pronounced shoulders, wider heads, larger jaws and teeth, and more muscular legs. They sequenced ancient DNA from two dire wolf fossils and computational analysis revealed, for instance, that dire wolves had white fur. Rather than create a dire wolf from scratch using only ancient DNA and laboratory handwaving, Colossal Biosciences used ancient DNA to identify the important ingredients in the dire wolf recipe, then used that information to engineer a gray wolf with those traits.

Your April Reading List

From a coming-of-middle-age cautionary tale to posthumous memoirs

Adapt to the situation.