Recent fluctuations in the international trade situation are quite evident. Reports indicate that starting from mid-January, the United States has implemented phased tariff adjustments on imported goods from several European countries—initially at 10%, with plans to increase to 25% after six months. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Finland are among the first affected, and market concerns about potential trade frictions have significantly intensified.

Interestingly, whenever geopolitical or trade risks increase locally, safe-haven assets tend to attract attention. Traditional safe-haven assets like gold and silver have reached new highs, while the crypto market is also experiencing subtle changes. Especially tokens in the privacy sector, due to their features of anonymous transactions and asset privacy protection, are being re-evaluated by investors—once financial regulations tighten (such as anti-money laundering standards and stricter cross-border fund tracking), on-chain tools with censorship resistance will stand out in value.

Take ARPA as an example. This public chain primarily focuses on privacy computing, supporting anonymous transfers and privacy smart contracts. From on-chain activity, after trade risk exposure, the deployment of related privacy contracts increased by 22% month-over-month, and staking of ecosystem tokens like DUST is also rising. Similar privacy projects include DUSK and SCRT, which have recently attracted a significant influx of risk-tolerant capital reallocation.

Behind this market movement is actually a hedging consideration against policy uncertainty—the valuation logic of privacy tools is being re-priced as macroeconomic conditions change.