According to Edward Felten, co-founder and chief scientist of off-chain labs, the crypto market is shaped by the same macro-army that sucks traditional financial markets, but its international, boundary-free nature provides a layer of protection.
Speaking about CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia,” Ferten said recent volatility in the crypto market has been driven by wider concerns about global trade and economic policy. The source comes from the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs and comments from President Donald Trump.
Off-Chain Lab is the team behind Arbitrum, one of the leading Ethereum (ETH) layer 2 scaling solutions.
“The whole world is really trying to decipher what President Trump is saying, what he wants to do with tariffs, what his ultimate goal is.”
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The boundless nature of Crypto offers strategic advantages
Despite recent volatility, Felten pointed out that there is a growing sense of long-term optimism throughout the crypto space.
“People are more bullish in the long run as technology continues to develop,” he said. “We see more adoption by agencies and more regulatory clarity.”
When asked if Trump was focusing on the US trade deficit, Felten dismissed the idea that codes are constrained by borders.
“I think Crypto is inherently international,” he explained. “When we think about the development teams we have and the customers who use the technology, we don’t think it’s being silenced by the state. It’s really an international community in nature, a series of companies.”
Felten emphasized that the crypto market is not affected by global economic turbulence, but not by trade barriers that could disrupt other sectors.
“We feel the general market is unrest,” he said. “But we don’t have the same kind of barrier to the borders you’ve seen in several other markets.”
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