The Daily: DOGE price drops as Musk says 'no plans' to use Dogecoin, BlackRock warns dollar could lose reserve currency status to bitcoin and more

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter,  The Daily , which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Monday! Amid the ongoing market downturn, ether continues to be hit harder than bitcoin, with the ETH/BTC ratio reaching its lowest point in nearly five years over the weekend and the COVID-19 crash lows now firmly in sight.

In today's newsletter, Elon Musk says the U.S. government has "no plans" to use Dogecoin, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warns the dollar could lose its world reserve currency status to bitcoin, the Trump family launch a bitcoin mining company with Hut 8 and more.

Meanwhile, altcoin investment products see inflows for the first time in five weeks as "positive but cautious" investors add $226 million to global crypto funds, CoinShares says.

Let's get started.

DOGE price drops as Elon Musk confirms 'no plans' to use the memecoin

Elon Musk clarified the U.S. government does not intend to use Dogecoin , dismissing speculation linked to the naming of the federal efficiency unit that he leads.

• "There are no plans for the government to use Dogecoin or anything as far as I know," Musk said during a town hall meeting on Sunday hosted by the America PAC, which he created last year.
• Musk emphasized the D.O.G.E unit and Dogecoin, whose ticker is DOGE, serve very different purposes, though its website did briefly sport the memecoin's logo in January.
• "I was going to call it Government Efficiency Commission but that's a super boring name," Musk said. "Then the internet said it needs to be Department of Government Efficiency. I was like, the internet is right!"
• "The names are similar, but they're doing two very different things," he added. "We're just literally trying to make the government 15% more efficient."
• The price of DOGE fell nearly 5% following Musk's comments before recovering and is currently trading for $0.17, according to The Block's Dogecoin price page .

BlackRock CEO warns dollar could lose world reserve currency status to bitcoin

In his annual letter to investors on Monday, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warned that the U.S. dollar could lose its world reserve currency status to digital assets like bitcoin if the country doesn't get its debt under control and deficits keep ballooning.

• "Decentralized finance is an extraordinary innovation. It makes markets faster, cheaper and more transparent," Fink said. "Yet that same innovation could undermine America's economic advantage if investors begin seeing bitcoin as a safer bet than the dollar."
• Reflecting on the firm's performance over the past year, Fink noted BlackRock's spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund IBIT became the largest ETF launch in history, growing to over $50 billion of assets under management in less than a year.
• The BlackRock CEO also suggested tokenization could "revolutionize investing" by turning real-world assets like stocks, bonds and real estate into digital tokens tradable online via blockchain technology, democratizing access and enabling fractional ownership.

Hut 8 partners with Trump-backed firm to launch American Bitcoin mining company

Hut 8 has partnered with American Data Centers, whose investors include Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., to launch a new Bitcoin mining company called American Bitcoin .

• Under the cashless merger, Hut 8 will own 80% of American Bitcoin, deploy over 60,000 ASIC machines to the venture and manage operations through a shared services agreement.
• The Trump-backed American Data Centers will hold a 20% stake, further expanding the famous family's corporate exposure to the crypto sector, including the DeFi project World Liberty Financial — of which they now reportedly control at least 60% .
• American Bitcoin's leadership team includes Mike Ho as executive chairman, Matt Prusak as CEO and Eric Trump as chief strategy officer. Ho will also serve on the board alongside Justin Mateen, Michael Broukhim and Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot.

Circle taps JPMorgan Chase, Citi ahead of planned IPO filing

Circle has enlisted the help of two of the largest U.S. investment banks , JPMorgan Chase and Citi, ahead of its planned IPO filing, Fortune reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

• Circle issues USDC, the second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin by market supply, behind Tether's USDT, and intends to file sometime in late April, but those plans could change, according to the outlet.
• The stablecoin issuer previously attempted to go public via a SPAC merger in 2021, but that arrangement later fizzled out. Circle also confidentially filed for an initial public offering of its equity securities in January 2024.
• Circle's plans to go public are part of a broader trend among crypto companies, including Kraken, Gemini and BitGo, aiming to list amid a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment.

Strategy buys another $1.9 billion worth of bitcoin

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) acquired another 22,048 BTC for $1.92 billion , an average price of $86,969 per bitcoin between March 24 and March 30, according to an 8-K filing with the SEC on Monday.

• Strategy now holds a total of 528,185 BTC — worth over $43 billion — bought at an average price of $67,458 per bitcoin for a total cost of around $35.63 billion, according to co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.
• The latest acquisitions were made using proceeds from the sale of its class A common stock, MSTR, and perpetual strike preferred stock, STRK, with its treasury holdings now the equivalent of 2.5% of bitcoin's total 21 million supply.

In the next 24 hours

• Eurozone CPI inflation figures are released at 5 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
• ECB President Christine Lagarde will speak at 8:30 a.m. U.S. FOMC member Thomas Barkin follows at 9 a.m.
• Sui, dYdX and EigenLayer are set for token unlocks.

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