Tariffs, Bitcoin and rule reversals: Inside Trump’s first 100 days in office

Donald Trump’s second-term opening relied on the stroke of a pen rather than acts of Congress.

Between Jan. 20 and Apr. 29, he issued 143 executive orders, 42 proclamations, and 42 memoranda, while only five bills became law.

Trade policy involved a blanket 10% levy on imports and a punitive 145% duty on Chinese goods, triggering Beijing’s 125% rebuttal.

At the same time, the White House wrote the first chapter of official American Bitcoin ownership, transferring forfeited coins worth about $12 billion into a new Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and promising never to auction them again.

Regulatory deletions followed as the SEC struck Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, erasing the extra capital charge that had pushed banks out of crypto custody.

Congress and the president nullified the IRS rule that would have treated decentralized exchanges as brokers.

Former commissioner Paul S. Atkins returned as SEC chair with a pledge to make the United States “the best and most secure place in the world to invest and do business.”

Together, those moves reopened the door for large financial institutions to handle digital assets and positioned Bitcoin alongside gold and treasuries on the federal balance sheet.

[Editor’s Note: This report focuses purely on policy or rhetoric that has a correlational impact on crypto or Bitcoin.]

Measured by formal legislation, Washington was quiet: the Laken Riley Act, a temporary spending extension, and three narrower measures cleared both chambers. Yet the Federal Register tells a different story. Trump’s 143 orders in 100 days eclipse every previous president’s full-term tally prior to World War II.

The center of gravity lay in trade, tax, and digital-asset policy, where the administration could move without negotiating with Senate Democrats. Markets, therefore, spent the quarter discounting White House decrees that arrived with little forewarning and took immediate effect.

Structure and size

Executive Order 14257 of Apr. 2 declared a national emergency over trade deficits and imposed a universal 10% duty plus a 145% surcharge on goods of Chinese origin.

An amendment on Apr. 8 widened the scope after China’s retaliation. According to Tax Foundation estimates, the package touches roughly $620 billion in 2024 import value according to Census figures.

Immediate economic ripples

Importers front-loaded shipments before the higher rates took effect, helping real GDP contract 0.3% annualized in Q1. Beijing’s 125 % reply landed on Apr. 11 and has already depressed Chinese export orders; the PMI slid to 49.0 in April.

Inflation risk and Fed calculus

The Bureau of Labor Statistics put March headline CPI at 2.4% year-on-year, but a shelter-driven core reading of 2.8% leaves little room for tariff-induced pass-through before real yields tighten.

For Bitcoin, the prospect of higher goods prices and a more patient Federal Reserve provided a macro tailwind: the coin appreciated from about $83,000 at the inauguration to $86,500 by day 100, even with elevated realized volatility.

The mechanics of the Mar. 6 order

Trump’s Executive Order established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate Digital Asset Stockpile for non-bitcoin tokens. Agencies must transfer seized bitcoin to the Treasury-run reserve instead of auctioning it, reversing a decade-old practice that had cap-weighted supply shocks after each Department of Justice sale.

The first tranche contained roughly 134,000 BTC forfeited in Silk Road, Bitfinex, and other cases, valued at nearly $12 billion at the order’s signing. Future acquisitions must be budget-neutral, so Treasury is authorized to explore bitcoin-backed repos or swap lines rather than direct purchases.

Market read-through

The escaped-supply effect is immediate. Previous auctions delivered price-sensitive blocks to the market; the new policy freezes the coins, functionally reducing free-float by about 0.7% of the total supply.

That tailwind coincided with spot bitcoin ETF inflows of roughly $3.1 billion in March and April, according to Farside data, amplifying scarcity. Analysts are already comparing the reserve to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve: a balance-sheet asset that can be mobilized in crises but otherwise sits outside daily trading.

The symbolism is arguably larger as Bitcoin is now a presidentially recognized reserve instrument for the world’s primary issuer of fiat money. Washington’s imprimatur also blunts the “no intrinsic value” refrain that colored earlier policy debates.

SAB 121 rescission

On Jan. 23, the Commission issued Staff Bulletin 122, deleting the 2022 direction that had forced banks to hold dollar-for-dollar capital against client crypto deposits.

The move lifts a major balance-sheet impediment and paves the way for blue-chip ETF sponsors to offer cash-settled swaps or margin lines backed by insured bank custody rather than off-exchange trustees.

DeFi broker rule overturned

The IRS rule that would have classified decentralized exchanges as brokers was struck down on Apr. 11 under the Congressional Review Act and signed by Trump the same day.

Coinbase and Kraken still shoulder 1099 reporting for spot trades, but avoid impossible KYC obligations on liquidity-pool users. Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy says it will re-draft language “in consultation with industry.”

Paul S. Atkins returns to the SEC

Confirmed on Apr. 9 and sworn in twelve days later, Atkins brings a track record of cost-benefit analysis and an affinity for permissionless ledgers to the Commission.

His inaugural Crypto Task Force round-table emphasized a desire for statutory clarity on exchange registration and stablecoin reserve audits by year-end. Bo Hines, the administration’s “crypto sherpa,” told reporters that the legislative package is ready for an August finish.

The upshot is that market structure rules that once drifted between the SEC and CFTC may get hard deadlines, a precondition for derivatives exchanges to list physically settled bitcoin futures at scale.

A budget resolution adopted on Apr. 10 opens reconciliation space for $5.3 trillion in tax cuts over ten years, with the largest slice aimed at making expiring individual provisions permanent and exempting service-industry tips from federal income tax.

If nominal GDP tracks the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline, the Joint Committee on Taxation projects deficits above $2 trillion annually through 2027.

For Bitcoin, the fiscal backdrop matters: widening deficits increase Treasury issuance, which swaps liquidity away from risk assets unless the Fed caps yields. Should real rates stay suppressed by a tariff-fed inflation pulse, bitcoin keeps its relative scarcity appeal.

The administration also used executive power to restrict asylum eligibility and green-card quotas, moves that 15 sanctuary jurisdictions are challenging in federal court.

An energy order accelerated approvals for small modular nuclear reactors and revived the Keystone XL permit, further underlining the preference for agency action over negotiated legislation.

Led by Elon Musk, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency eliminated fifteen sub-cabinet agencies and announced plans to outsource select data-processing tasks to private contractors. This decision prompted bipartisan concern about cybersecurity readiness.

Removing SAB 121 and the DeFi broker rule clears two structural hurdles that have suppressed US-domiciled liquidity since the FTX collapse.

Banks can now offer custody without punitive leverage ratios, enabling tri-party repo against bitcoin collateral within existing Basel III constraints.

Exchanges no longer face impossible tax collection duties for permissionless trades, so that liquidity providers can operate order books without geo-blocking US wallets.

The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve reduces expected supply overhangs from government auctions and sends a signal of sovereign validation. This narrowed Coinbase’s bitcoin–USD spread by about 8 basis points in April and lifted aggregated 2% market depth on US venues to $160 million, the highest since late 2023, according to Kaiko.

CME front-month futures moved from a consistent $250 discount to spot during February to a $120 premium by mid-April, reflecting renewed institutional demand as bank counterparties re-engaged.

Price action corroborates the structural pivot. Bitcoin defended the $82,000 level despite a 60% jump in one-week realized volatility on Apr. 12.

Funding rates on perpetual swaps, which spiked to 75 basis points annualized, retraced within a week as long positions rotated into regulated futures.

Options markets priced a five-month at-the-money implied volatility at 58%, down from 72% pre-reserve order, implying lower forward uncertainty.

Ethereum, by contrast, lagged: without a comparable policy tailwind, its ETHBTC cross fell from 0.063 to 0.059. Stablecoin market capitalization remained flat at $153 billion, reinforcing the view that Bitcoin’s bid stemmed from policy surprise rather than fresh cash injections.

Trump’s first 100 days showed how quickly policy can pivot when the White House leans on executive authority.

Tariffs reshaped global supply chains overnight, the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve turned seized coins into a national asset, and regulatory rollbacks dismantled two of the most onerous post-FTX constraints on US crypto activity.

Congress is now drafting comprehensive digital-asset legislation for an August vote; success would convert ad-hoc relief into statute and give the SEC a clear perimeter.

On trade, both sides have signaled openness to talks but remain far apart on concessions, so markets must price higher input costs and the inflation they portend.

The signal for the crypto industry is clear: once a headwind, US policy is rapidly becoming an accelerant.

Whether that momentum endures depends on how the administration balances its new bitcoin stake against a fiscal stance that still rests on deficit finance and tariff protection. T

he coming months will test whether executive speed can translate into durable frameworks, or if the next order will again rewrite the playbook overnight.