By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Bitcoin (BTC) is taking a breather near $94,000, having dropped to $92,000 in the past two days. The cryptocurrency chalked out a bullish breakout above key resistance early this week, shifting focus to the $100,000 level and leaving major altcoins like XRP, ETH, SOL, ADA and DOGE behind.
However, smaller coins like STX, SUI, ONDO and GRT put in double-digit gains in the past 24 hours, outperforming both BTC and the wider market: The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) has gained about 3%.
BTC’s $20,000 surge since April 7 has been underpinned by increased on-chain accumulation by whales and significant inflows through spot ETFs, with the 11 U.S.-listed funds amassing almost $1.5 billion in net inflows over the past three days, according to Farside Investors.
Market gains have been bolstered by policy developments in the U.S. Late Thursday, the Federal Reserve lifted its restrictive crypto guidance, saying state member banks no longer need to provide advance notice before engaging in crypto-related activities.
“Market internals currently suggest a consolidation phase — our base case projects accumulation between $90,000 and $95,000, with potential pullbacks to $87,000, ahead of a possible breakout toward $100,000 or more in the coming weeks,” said Valentin Fournier, the lead research analyst at BRN.
QCP Capital echoed the sentiment, noting that a decisive catalyst is needed to push prices above $100,000.
Later today, the University of Michigan will publish its final survey-based inflation expectations report for April. President Donald Trump’s trade war has stoked Main Street inflation concerns, so the report is likely to show an increase. The market, however, likely priced in those fears early this month and is probably focusing on next week’s U.S. jobs data.
“The next big chapter here will be whether all this volatility has hit real world decisions — especially in the U.S. jobs market. There is plenty of U.S. jobs data released next week and any deterioration here could trigger another round of dollar losses — albeit a more benign dollar decline on the view that the Federal Reserve would be riding to the rescue after all,” ING said.
“In terms of Fed pricing, the market now seems comfortable to price the first cut in July — potentially once we all know whether the 90-day pause in Liberation Day tariffs is temporary or longer lasting,” it said. Stay alert!
What to Watch
- Crypto:
- April 25, 1 p.m.: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Crypto Task Force Roundtable on “Key Considerations for Crypto Custody“.
- April 28: Enjin Relaychain increases active validator slots to 25 from 15 to enhance decentralization.
- April 29, 1:05 a.m.: BNB Chain (BNB) — BSC mainnet hardfork.
- April 30, 9:30 a.m.: ProShares expects its XRP ETF, offering exposure through futures and swap agreements, to begin trading on NYSE Arca.
- April 30, 10:03 a.m.: Gnosis Chain (GNO), an Ethereum sister chain, will activate the Pectra hard fork on its mainnet at slot 21,405,696, epoch 1,337,856.
- Macro
- Day 5 of 6: World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington.
- April 25, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases (Final) February retail sales data.
- Retail Sales Ex Autos MoM Est. -0.4% vs. Prev. 0.2%
- Retail Sales MoM Est. -0.4% vs. Prev. -0.6%
- Retail Sales YoY Prev. 4.2%
- April 25, 10:00 a.m.: The University of Michigan releases (Final) April U.S. consumer sentiment data.
- Michigan Consumer Sentiment Est. 50.8 vs. Prev. 57
- April 28: Canadian federal election.
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
Token Events
- Governance votes & calls
- Lido DAO is voting to extend its delegate incentivization program (DIP) through Q4 with a $225,000 LDO budget. Voting ends April 28.
- Uniswap DAO will vote on establishing a licensing and deployment framework for Uniswap v4 to accelerate its adoption across multiple chains. The proposal grants the Uniswap Foundation a blanket exemption to deploy v4 on any DAO-approved chain and gives the Uniswap Accountability Committee authority to update deployment records. Voting is April 24-30.
- April 30, 12 p.m.: Helium to host a community call meeting.
- Unlocks
- April 30: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $23.45 million.
- May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $221.99 million.
- May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $11.28 million.
- May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.73% of its circulating supply worth $13.69 million.
- May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $13.91 million.
- May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $11.33 million.
- Token Launches
- May 2: Binance to delist Alpaca Finance (ALPACA), PlayDapp (PDA), Viberate (VIB) and Wing Finance (WING).
- May 5: Sonic (S) to be listed on Kraken.
Conferences:
CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
- Stablecoin supply on Solana hit a record $12.8 billion on Thursday, buoyed by Circle minting $1.75 billion of its USDC stablecoin in the recent weeks.
- The minting signals strong demand and liquidity growth in Solana’s ecosystem despite a market lull.
- Supply of Tether’s USDT on Tron crossed the $70 billion mark on Thursday.
- Rollup builder Initia’s new INIT tokens climbed to 92 cents after a Thursday issuance at an initial price of 60 cents. The token was airdropped to users based on their activity on the Initia network.
- Content coin creation platform Zora’s ZORA dropped 17% despite being added to the Coinbase listing roadmap (which is historically bullish for tokens) after failing to grab demand among retail traders.
Derivatives Positioning
- SUI, ONDO, UNI and HBAR are have shown the most growth in perpetual futures open interest in the past 24 hours.
- Open interest in BTC and ETH futures has flatlined.
- Perpetual funding rates for most major tokens remain moderately positive, highlighting bullish sentiment.
- The CME bitcoin futures basis still remains below 10%.
- In options, traders bought ETH puts via OTC platform Paradigm while the BTC call option at $95K dominated the flow.
Market Movements
- BTC is up 0.23% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $93,701.46 (24hrs: +1.32%)
- ETH is up 0.62% at $1,774.26 (24hrs: +1.92%)
- CoinDesk 20 is up 0.45% at 2,750.46 (24hrs: +2.79%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 1 bps at 3.13%
- BTC funding rate is at 0.0024% (2.6608% annualized) on Binance
- DXY is up 0.26% at 99.63
- Gold is up 0.9% at $3,304.78/oz
- Silver is down 0.45% at $33.38/oz
- Nikkei 225 closed +1.9% at 35,705.74
- Hang Seng closed +0.32% at 21,980.74
- FTSE is up 0.15% at 8,419.93
- Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.68% at 5,149.61
- DJIA closed on Thursday +1.23% at 40,093.40
- S&P 500 closed +2.03% at 5,484.77
- Nasdaq closed +2.74% at 17,166.04
- S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.04% at 24,727.53
- S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.83% at 2,521.21
- U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 2 bps at 4.3%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.24% at 5,524.75
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.26% at 19,373.00
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.11% at 40,219.00
Bitcoin Stats:
- BTC Dominance: 64.18 (-0.37%)
- Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01902 (1.01%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 815 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $48.25 PH/s
- Total Fees: 8.97 BTC / $834,273
- CME Futures Open Interest: 139,505 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 28.1 oz
- BTC vs gold market cap: 7.98%
Technical Analysis
- Bitcoin layer-2 protocol Stacks’ native token, STX, has crossed above the Ichimoku cloud to suggest a bullish shift in momentum.
- The ascending 5- and 10-day simple moving averages (SMAs) suggest the same, with $1.05, the August 2024 low, as immediate resistance.
Crypto Equities
- Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $350.34 (+1.33%), up 0.19% at $351 in pre-market
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $203.87 (+4.66%), up 1.8% at $205.67
- Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$20.68 (+10.41%)
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.01 (-0.85%), up 0.71% at $14.11
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.79 (+3.87%), unchanged in pre-market
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.53 (+5.76%)
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.86 (-0.11%), unchanged in pre-market
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.06 (+4.07%)
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.44 (+0.47%), up 2.47% at $35.29
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $45.21 (+2.54%), down 0.44% at $45.01
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
- Daily net flow: $442 million
- Cumulative net flows: $38.13 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~ 1.14 million
Spot ETH ETFs
- Daily net flow: $63.5million
- Cumulative net flows: $2.32 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~ 3.32 million
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
- The number of BTC held in wallets tied to centralized exchanges continues to slide, hitting the lowest in five years.
- “Historically, such declines have often preceded price increases, as shown in the chart,” CryptoRank said.
While You Were Sleeping
- ARK Invest Raises 2030 Bitcoin Price Target to as High as $2.4M in Bullish Scenario (CoinDesk): ARK’s revised bitcoin outlook sees a 2030 bull-case price 60% above last year’s estimate, with base and bear scenarios projecting $1.2 million and $500,000, respectively.
- Stacks’ STX Is Week’s Best Performer as Bitgo Link Seen Boosting Institutional Use (CoinDesk): BitGo opened the door for its customers to explore yield-generating opportunities on Stacks by integrating sBTC, a synthetic derivative that represents bitcoin in a 1:1 ratio on the Stacks blockchain.
- Nvidia Continues to Keep Crypto at Arm’s Length (CoinDesk): A last-minute halt on a crypto announcement underscores how Nvidia still excludes blockchain projects from its flagship programs, despite continued outreach from the sector.
- China May Exempt Some U.S. Goods From Tariffs as Costs Rise (Bloomberg): China is reviewing tariff relief for select U.S. imports, including medical devices, ethane, industrial chemicals, semiconductor inputs and plane leases as officials respond to mounting pressure from affected sectors.
- Ukraine May Have to Give Up Land for Peace – Kyiv Mayor Klitschko (BBC): Speaking hours after a Russian strike on Kyiv killed 12, Klitschko said President Volodymyr Zelensky may accept territorial concessions for temporary peace, though Ukrainians would never accept Russian occupation.
- American Companies Shred Outlooks Over Tariff Uncertainty (The Wall Street Journal): Business leaders say shifting trade levies stall hiring, blur earnings projections and postpone capital spending, forcing continual forecast revisions across airlines, manufacturers and consumer brands.
In the Ether
