Bitcoin gives back this week’s gains, temporarily trading around $66,780 as of April 3. Bitcoin miner MARA lays off 15% of staff, shifting its strategy to energy and digital infrastructure. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic says North Korean hackers may be using a Drift Protocol vulnerability to profit $286 million.
Macro Events & Crypto Hotspots
1、According to Blockspace, Bitcoin miner MARA cuts roughly 15%, involving full-time employees and contractors across multiple departments. In an internal memo, CEO Fred Thiel says this is a strategic adjustment rather than a purely financial decision. The company is transitioning from a purely Bitcoin mining firm to an energy and digital infrastructure company. Affected employees will receive one month of paid leave, 13 weeks of severance pay, and full compensation for unused vacation days.
MARA previously reached partnerships with Starwood and Exaion, converting about 1 GW of its Bitcoin mining infrastructure into AI compute capacity infrastructure. MARA recently sold 15,133 Bitcoins for $1.1 billion to repay $1 billion in convertible bonds. The company’s net loss in 2025 is $1.3 billion.
2、Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic says the $285 million attack event targeting the Solana-based Drift Protocol shows multiple characteristics of DPRK hackers supported by the North Korean state. Elliptic’s analysis indicates this is a long-planned, carefully orchestrated on-chain activity, along with an organized cross-chain money-laundering process—similar to past crypto theft cases involving North Korea. The case highlights how Solana’s fragmented account model and the increasing number of cross-chain money-laundering strategies make investigations more complex, making entity-level clustering and comprehensive tracking tools crucial.
Arkham’s data shows that more than $250 million has been transferred from Drift to temporary wallets, and then transferred to various other addresses.
News Updates
1、Grayscale: March’s crypto market shows resilience, but there’s still a long road to recovery
2、Bitcoin miner MARA lays off 15%, strategically shifting to energy and digital infrastructure
3、Trump appoints Todd Blanche, the author of a crypto law-enforcement memo, as Acting U.S. Attorney General
4、Besides Illinois, the U.S. CFTC also sues Connecticut and Arizona over issues related to regulatory authority for prediction markets
5、In March, hedge funds withdrew from global stock markets at the fastest pace in 13 years
6、Fed Williams: Inflation and employment risks are trending toward balance, leaning toward staying put
7、U.S. military bombs an Iranian bridge; further strikes on infrastructure may follow
8、SpaceX is expected to push for a $2 trillion valuation, surpassing Meta and Tesla
9、Hyperliquid continues taking market share from CEXs; perpetual contract market share nears 6%
10、Tether pushes for fundraising at a $500 billion valuation, urging investors to commit to an agreement within two weeks
Market Performance
1、Latest on Bitcoin: $BTC gives back this week’s gains, temporarily trading around $66,780. In the past 24 hours, $234 million was liquidated, with the main liquidation on long positions;
2、U.S. stocks were sharply volatile on April 2 ahead of the long weekend holiday. President Trump reiterated that the war is “nearly over,” but still threatened an “extremely intense” new round of strikes on Iran in the coming weeks. Oil prices surged as much as 11%. The three major U.S. stock indexes opened sharply lower, but later recovered most of their losses as diplomatic mediation signals eased concerns, and ended with mixed results. The Dow Industrial Average fell 61.30 points, a decline of 0.1%, to close at 46,504.67. The S&P 500 rose 7.21 points, an increase of 0.1%, to close at 6,582.69. The Nasdaq Composite rose 39.42 points, up 0.2%, to close at 21,879.18. The three major indexes notched their largest weekly gain in four months, and also the first weekly close in the green in six weeks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 0.4%, and Intel (Intel) jumped 4.9%.
（Source: Gate）
3、In the Gate BTC/USDT liquidation map, based on the current 66,764.20 USDT: if it drops to around $66,064, the total amount of long-position liquidation exceeds $124 million; if it rises to around $67,422, the total amount of short-position liquidation exceeds $119 million. The liquidation amount on the bears is lower than on the bulls. It’s advisable to manage leverage levels reasonably to avoid triggering large-scale liquidations amid market fluctuations.
（Source: Coinglass）
4、Over the past 24 hours, BTC spot inflows were $2.1 billion, and outflows were $2.1 billion—net flows are flat.
（Source: Coinglass）
5、Over the past 24 hours, net outflows led for contracts such as $STO, $ZEC, $PIPPIN, $XAU, $PAXG, indicating trading opportunities.
Selected Views From X KOLs
Phyrex Ni（@Phyrex_Ni）：「Writing recent assignments has been getting harder and harder. Let me say this first: tomorrow is Good Friday, so the U.S. stock market is closed. So today is the last trading day of this week; the next open day is Monday. My biggest hope right now is that Trump doesn’t stir up any trouble over the weekend—but I guess he’ll probably do basically whatever he can do. The next three weeks may still mainly be driven by the Iran conflict. Today is also pretty weird: oil prices keep climbing, yet U.S. stocks are rebounding—there’s even a chance they could close up.」
「Even though tomorrow is a holiday, there’s still a release of the non-farm payrolls data. Although the data isn’t extremely important, it still has some impact on the market. Based on the forecast numbers, the unemployment rate will stay unchanged. Non-farm employment just needs to move from last month’s negative figure to a positive one—then that’s enough. I can’t really think too far ahead, but while there’s another policy meeting at the end of the month, the probability of no change is still the highest. Many friends are worried about an interest-rate hike, but at this point it’s still a bit too early.」
「The war has been getting more and more intense. The price of U.S. oil has already climbed above $110. The Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea may both face restrictions. Previously, Trump said they could transit, but now it’s basically: the U.S. won’t rely on the Strait of Hormuz—whoever relies on it handles it themselves. That said, there’s probably nothing wrong with that. Europe is holding meetings to study it today. At the moment, Iran is restricting the U.S. and Israel from passing; for other ships, they can probably pass by paying. From this angle, Trump’s announcement that the Strait of Hormuz is open may not necessarily be wrong.」
「For this war, I think Trump will end up regretting it and getting angry. The situation was originally pretty good, but now it’s stuck here in Iran. Then there are still a whole bunch of other annoying issues waiting for him afterward.」
「Coming back to the Bitcoin data: turnover rate has increased a bit, but not by that much. Also, investors’ sentiment is relatively relaxed. Even though the price is down somewhat, we haven’t seen obvious panic. Right now, most of the selling mainly comes from short-term investors, and there’s still a portion of investors gradually turning into long-term investors. Unfortunately, liquidity really is too poor, and the overall market sentiment is still being driven by the war, so investors’ capital remains fairly cautious.」
「Next comes the weekend for three days, and liquidity will be even worse. Hopefully Trump doesn’t go around causing any nonsense.」
Looking Ahead Today
1、China March S&P Global Composite PMI, prior value 55.4
2、China March S&P Global Services PMI, prior value 56.7
3、U.S. March unemployment rate, prior value 4.4%
4、U.S. March seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment change (thousands), prior value -92
5、Taiwan Children’s Day make-up holiday market closed
6、Hong Kong Good Friday holiday market closed
7、Canada Good Friday holiday market closed
8、Italy Good Friday holiday market closed
9、U.S. Good Friday holiday market closed
10、Germany Good Friday holiday market closed
11、U.K. Good Friday holiday market closed
12、Australia Good Friday holiday market closed
13、No night-session trading ahead of China Qingming Festival
14、France Good Friday holiday market closed
15、New Zealand Good Friday holiday market closed
