Coindesk

There’s something that stands out about Monday’s suspicious transfer of more than 3,520 BTC ($330.7 million) to privacy coin monero (XMR), a conversion that blockchain sleuth ZachXBT said was probably linked to a hack: coordinated activity in the derivatives market.

Monero, which obscures the sender’s and recipient’s addresses to provide an untraceable currency, has limited liquidity on exchanges, which makes it harder for users to transact without affecting the market and exposes them to slippage, the chance of the price changing for the worse before the deal is finalized.

The decision to go through an illiquid cryptocurrency is unusual. Tether’s USDT or ether (ETH) would have provided an easier, less-slippage-prone way of moving the funds about, and mixers such as Tornado Cash could help obscure the transaction path. Of course, stablecoins like USDT are also easier to intercept and freeze.

Trading data, however, suggests there was more going on than a simple case of someone trying to launder stolen funds.

The possible hacker very likely did encounter slippage during the transaction. Combined market depth, which measures order book liquidity over a given price range, was relatively low at around $1 million per 2% on both sides of the book. XRM surged by 45% due to the limited liquidity on exchanges, meaning they could have lost as much as 20% — $66 million — by purchasing XMR rather than a more-liquid token.

For a more complete picture, take a look at derivative markets. While monero was surging, open interest — the number of outstanding futures and options contracts — in XMR on the main centralized exchanges more than doubled to $35.1 million, according to Coinalyze.

A 45% rise in XMR’s price should have boosted open interest only to $24.2 million instead of the figure it ended up at. Taking into account the $1 million in liquidations, someone, or some people, were already long on XMR to the tune of $11 million.

While the price increase on that holding wouldn’t have compensated for the full amount of slippage, it would help soften the blow. Moreover the figure doesn’t take into account any positions that might have existed in decentralized exchanges, and let’s not forget the funds were probably stolen in the first place, so the (assumed) perpetrators are still a couple of million dollars ahead.

This is not the first time bad actors have flooded spot purchases to move the derivative needle. Last month a trader manipulated JELLY prices on decentralized exchange HyperLiquid. They bought JELLY on illiquid exchanges, tricking the pricing oracle to feed an inaccurate price to HyperLiquid and thus generating profit for holders of long positions.

Both cases draw similarities to the $114 million exploit on Mango Markets in 2022, which involved a trader named Avi Eisenberg manipulating MNGO prices by borrowing assets using ill-gotten gains as collateral. Eisenberg was found guilty by a jury in 2024 and faces 20 years in prison.

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2780.05, up 0.4% (+9.87) since 4 p.m. ET on Monday.

Nine of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: BCH (+6.3%) and ETH (+1.8%).

Laggards: SUI (-2.6%) and HBAR (-2.1%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

On April 14, someone put in a sell order for 2,500 bitcoin, worth roughly $212 million, on the Binance order book at $85,600, around 2-3% above the spot prices trading at the time.

Seeing such a large order, the bitcoin price started to gravitate to this level at around 17:00 UTC.

Suddenly, the order was gone, as seen using Coin Glass data, which caused a brief moment of market apathy as bulls and bears tussled to fill a void in liquidity.

The bitcoin price at the time, however, was already on shaky ground due to geopolitical concerns. Subsequently, it went lower after the vanishing order caused chaos for the traders.

So what happened?

One answer could be an illegal technique that involves placing a large limit order to rile trading activity and then removing the order once the price comes close to filling it. This is called “order spoofing,” defined by the 2010 U.S. Dodd-Frank Act as “the illegal practice of bidding or offering with the intent to cancel before execution.”

As seen in the liquidity heatmap in the image above, on the surface, the order with a price of $85,600 seemed like a key area of resistance, which is why market prices started to gravitate towards it. However, in reality, that order and liquidity were likely spoofed, giving traders the illusion of a stronger market.

Liquidity heatmaps visualize an order book on an exchange and show how much of an asset rests on the book at each price point. Traders will use a heatmap to identify areas of support and resistance or even to target and squeeze under-pressure positions.

In this particular case, the trader seemed to have placed a possible spoof order when the U.S. equity market was closed, usually a time period of low liquidity for the 24/7 bitcoin market. The order was then removed when the U.S. market opened as the price moved towards filling it. This could still have had the desired effect, as, for instance, a large order on one exchange might spur traders or algorithms on another exchange to remove their order, creating a void in liquidity and subsequent volatility.

Another reason could be that the trader placing a $212 million sell order on Binance wanted to create short-term sell pressure to get filled on limit buys, and then they removed that order once those buys were filled.

Both options are plausible, albeit still illegal.

‘Systemic Vulnerability’

Former ECB analyst and current managing director of Oak Security, Dr. Jan Philipp, told CoinDesk that manipulative trading behavior is a “systemic vulnerability, especially in thin, unregulated markets.”

“These tactics give sophisticated actors a consistent edge over retail traders. And unlike TradFi, where spoofing is explicitly illegal and monitored, crypto exists in a gray zone.”

He added that “spoofing needs to be taken seriously as a threat as it helped trigger the 2010 Flash Crash in traditional markets, which erased almost $1 trillion in market value.”

Binance, meanwhile, insists that it is playing its part in preventing market manipulation.

“Maintaining a fair and orderly trading environment is our top priority and we invest in internal and external surveillance tools that continuously monitor trading in real-time, flagging inconsistencies or patterns that deviate from normal market behavior,” a Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk, without directly addressing the case of the vanishing $212 million order.

The spokesperson added that if anyone is found manipulating markets, it will freeze accounts, report suspicious activity to regulators, or remove bad actors from its platform.

Crypto and spoofing

Spoofing, or a strategy that mimics a fake order, is illegal, but for a young industry such as crypto, history is rife with such examples.

During 2014, when there was little to no regulatory oversight, the majority of trading volume took place on bitcoin-only exchanges from retail traders and cypherpunks, opening the industry to such practices.

During 2017’s ICO phase, when trading volume skyrocketed, tactics such as spoofing were also expected, as institutions were still skeptical about the asset class. In 2017 and 2018, traders regularly placed nine-figure positions that they had no intention of filling, only to pull the order shortly after.

BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes said in a 2017 blog post that he “found it incredible” that spoofing was illegal. He argued that if a smart trader wanted to buy $1 billion of BTC, they would bluff a $1 billion sell order to get it filled.

However, since the 2021 bull market, the crypto market has experienced waves of institutional adoption, such as Coinbase (COIN) going public, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) going all-in on bitcoin, and BlackRock launching exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

At the time of writing, there are no such large orders that indicate further spoofing attempts, and spoofing attempts have seemed to have become less blatant. However, even with billions traded by TradFi firms, examples of such a strategy still exist across many crypto exchanges, particularly on low-liquidity altcoins.

For example, last month, cryptocurrency exchange MEXC announced that it had reined in a rise in market manipulation. An internal investigation found a 60% increase in market manipulation attempts from Q4 of 2024 to this first quarter of this year.

In February, a trader manipulated the HyperLiquid JELLY market by tricking a pricing oracle, and HyperLiquid’s response to the activity was met with skepticism and a subsequent outflow of capital.

How does the crypto market combat spoofing?

The burden ultimately lies with the exchanges and regulators.

“Regulators should set the baseline,” Dr. Jan Philipp told CoinDesk.” [Regulators] should define what counts as manipulation, specify penalties and outline how platforms must respond.”

The regulators have certainly tried to clamp down on such schemes. In 2020, rogue trader Avi Eisenberg was found guilty of manipulating decentralized exchange Mango Markets in 2022, but the cases have been few and far between.

However, crypto exchanges must also “step up their surveillance systems” and use circuit breakers while employing stricter listing requirements to clamp down on market manipulation, Philipp said.

“Retail users won’t stick around if they keep getting front-run, spoofed and dumped on. If crypto wants to outgrow its casino phase, we need infrastructure that rewards fair participation, not insider games,” Philipp concluded.

Read more: Crypto Traders Apparently Spam Truth Terminal Into Pumping Coin Associated With Brian Armstrong’s Dog

Miden, a protocol specializing in privacy and fast transaction speeds for large institutions, is spinning out of Polygon and has raised $25 million in a seed round.

The funding will be used to develop the Miden’s roadmap, including ecosystem expansion and developer tooling.

This round was led by a16z crypto, 1kx and Hack VC, with participation from Finality Capital Partners, Symbolic Capital, P2 Ventures, Delta Fund, and MH Ventures.

Miden’s design, which makes use of zero-knowledge technology, is geared for large institutions that need transaction confidentiality when executing large payment batches. For example, the protocol could be used for “every single time Apple needed to pay a supplier, and people started to mess with their public stock price because of a misunderstanding of what’s going on [on-chain],” said Azeem Khan, a co-founder of Miden, in an interview with CoinDesk.

Khan shared that many of those large institutions and investors are telling the Miden team that they need some kind of privacy solution that is compliant with regulation but also doesn’t compromise on performance and decentralization.

So Miden, which should launch its main network by the end of the year, works by allowing institutions and applications to choose whether they want to execute transactions in a public or private fashion at scale, relying on the network for fast speeds and privacy.

“It’s very different from most other blockchains on a technical level, and it had to be different because of the type of use cases and functionality we want to enable,” said Bobbin Threadbare, another co-founder of Miden, to CoinDesk. “I don’t think something like this is possible to build on top of Ethereum or Solana.”

Miden was incubated in Polygon in 2021, and was originally supposed to be a different type of scaling solution for the ecosystem. The spin-off comes as Polygon changed refocuses its efforts on its AggLayer, and as the total value locked of the protocol has dropped significantly since Miden’s launch. Currently, $864 million is locked within Polygon networks, down about 80% from the day Miden was announced at $4.4 billion, according to data from DefiLlama.

“Miden is what the future of blockchains looks like,” said Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon Labs, in a press release shared with CoinDesk. “With edge execution at its core, it’s not just an upgrade — it’s the blueprint for the final form of blockchain architecture.”

Read more: Polygon Starts Aggregator Program, Successful Projects Will Airdrop Up to 15% Native Token to POL Stakers

Bitcoin staking protocol Solv, which has over $2 billion worth of BTC locked on its platform, announced Tuesday the launch of a Shariah-compliant yield product called SolvBTC.core.

The new offering, a liquid staking token for BTC, has been developed in collaboration with the Core ecosystem, which offers a range of DeFi applications, including lending, restaking, liquid staking and decentralized exchanges.

Created with guidance from Nawa Finance and accredited by Amanie Advisors for Shariah compliance, SolvBTC.CORE generates yield by securing the Core blockchain network and engaging in on-chain DeFi activities while adhering to Islamic finance principles.

Solv Protocol enables BTC holders to lend, stake, earn yields, and invest, unlocking the full potential of their coin stash. The launch of the Shariah-compliant SolvBTC.CORE means BTC holders from the Middle East can now directly participate in the Core blockchain’s expanding ecosystem to generate additional yield on top of their spot holdings.

Ryan Chow, founder of Solv Protocol, said the Shariah-compliant product could open up new avenues for institutional investors in the Middle East.

“By aligning with both regional regulations and global financial standards, SolvBTC.CORE paves the way for sovereign wealth funds and traditional financial institutions to securely and confidently stake Bitcoin and earn real, on-chain yields. This is a significant step in accelerating the institutional adoption of digital assets in the region,” Chow said in a press release shared with CoinDesk.

Shaqir Hashim, core contributor at Nawa Finance, said that BTC is the most widely held asset in markets like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and the next thing holders are looking out for is generating an additional yield.

“The next chapter is yield. At Nawa Finance, we’re helping power that evolution by enabling ethical, values-aligned Bitcoin yield strategies that meet the compliance expectations of both institutions and communities across these regions,” Hashim said.

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin (BTC) remains stuck near the $95,000 mark, apparently unfazed by the Canadian election result, which saw the crypto-friendly candidate for prime minister lose his seat. Key macroeconomic data due later this week could serve as a catalyst for bitcoin’s next move, with the standout being Friday’s non-farm payrolls report.

In the meantime, the largest cryptocurrency is reaching a series of higher lows and lower highs, forming a symmetrical triangle consolidation pattern. This setup following a strong uptrend typically implies a continuation. A decisive breakout above $95,500 could spark the next leg higher, while a drop below support would indicate a potential reversal.

On the technical front, bitcoin’s hashrate, which has surged over recent months and is now about 10% away from its record, is beginning to decelerate. A downward difficulty adjustment of more than 5% is anticipated in four days and will provide some much-needed relief to miners, who have been grappling with hashprice levels near five-year lows.

The week’s macroeconomic data include personal spending and GDP growth figures on Wednesday, though Friday’s jobs report takes center stage. Economists forecast a drop in new jobs to 135,000 during April, down from March’s 228,000 figure, which was the strongest in three months.

The unemployment rate is projected to have held steady at 4.2%, underscoring a persistently tight labor market. The CME FedWatch Tool currently indicates a 91% probability of the Fed funds rate being held at at 4.25%–4.50% at the May 7 FOMC meeting.

Also in the mix, earnings season is heating up, particularly among the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks. Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META) report after the market close on Wednesday, followed by Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN) and Strategy (MSTR) on Thursday. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • April 30, 9:30 a.m.: ProShares will debut three ETFs that will provide leveraged and inverse exposure to XRP: ​​the ProShares Ultra XRP ETF, the ProShares Short XRP ETF and the ProShares UltraShort XRP ETF.
  • 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.
  • May 1: Coinbase Asset Management will introduce the Coinbase Bitcoin Yield Fund (CBYF), which is aimed at non-U.S. investors.
  • May 1: Hippo Protocol starts up its own layer-1 blockchain mainnet built on Cosmos SDK and completes a migration from Ethereum’s ERC-20 HPO token to its native HP token, enabling staking and governance.
  • May 1, 9 a.m.: Constellation Network (DAG) activates the Tessellation v3 upgrade on its mainnet, introducing delegated staking, node collateral, token locking and new transaction types to enhance network security, scalability and functionality.
  • May 1, 11 a.m.: THORChain activates its v3.5 mainnet upgrade, adding the TCY token to convert $200 million in debt into equity. TCY holders earn 10% of network revenue, while native RUNE remains the protocol’s security and governance token. TCY activates May 5.
• Macro
  • April 29, 10 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases March JOLTs report (job openings, hires, and separations).
    • Job Openings Est. 7.5M vs. Prev. 7.568M
    • Job Quits Prev. 3.195M
  • April 29, 10 a.m.: U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing titled “Regulatory Overreach: The Price Tag on American Prosperity.” Livestream link.
  • April 30, 8 a.m.: Brazil’s Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases March unemployment rate data.
    • Unemployment Rate Prev. 6.8%
  • April 30, 8 a.m.: Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases (preliminary) Q1 GDP growth data.
    • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Prev. -0.6%
    • GDP Growth Rate YoY Prev. 0.5%
  • April 30, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases (advance) Q1 GDP growth data.
    • GDP Growth Rate QoQ Est. 0.4% vs. Prev. 2.4%
  • April 30, 10 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases March consumer income and expenditure data.
    • Core PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0.1% vs. Prev. 0.4%
    • Core PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.8%
    • PCE Price Index MoM Est. 0% vs. Prev. 0.3%
    • PCE Price Index YoY Est. 2.2% vs. Prev. 2.5%
    • Personal Income MoM Est. 0.4% vs. Prev. 0.8%
    • Personal Spending MoM Est. 0.6% vs. Prev. 0.4%
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • April 29: PayPal Holdings (PYPL), pre-market, $1.16
  • April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market, $0.33
  • May 1: Block (XYZ), post-market, $0.97
  • May 1: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, $0.02
  • May 1: Riot Platforms (RIOT), post-market, $-0.23

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Uniswap DAO is voting on a proposal to renew the Uniswap Accountability Committee (UAC) for Season 4, extending its mandate until the end of 2025. Voting ends April 29.
  • Balancer DAO is voting on allocating $250,000 worth of ARB to a multisig controlled by contributors to fund testing of new automated market maker (AMM) pool models.
  • April 30, 2 a.m.: NEO to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with its founder, Da Hongfei.
  • April 30, 12 p.m.: Helium to host a community call meeting.
  • May 5, 4 p.m.: Livepeer (LPT) to host a Treasury Talk session on Discord.
• Unlocks
  • April 30: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $24.75 million.
  • May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $267.86 million.
  • May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $12.10 million.
  • May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.73% of its circulating supply worth $13.44 million.
  • May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $14.01 million.
  • May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $12.35 million.
• Token Launches
  • April 29: MilkyWay (MILK) to be listed on Bybit.
  • April 29: Virtual (VIRTUAL) to be listed on Binance.US.
  • 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.

• Day 3 of 4: Web Summit Rio 2025
• Day 2 of 2: Staking Summit Dubai
• April 29: El Salvador Digital Assets Summit 2025 (San Salvador, El Salvador)
• April 29: IFGS 2025 (London)
• April 30-May 1: TOKEN2049 (Dubai)
• May 6-7: Financial Times Digital Assets Summit (London)
• May 11-17: Canada Crypto Week (Toronto)
• May 12-13: Dubai FinTech Summit
• May 12-13: Filecoin (FIL) Developer Summit (Toronto)
• May 12-13: Latest in DeFi Research (TLDR) Conference (New York)
• May 12-14: ACI’s 9th Annual Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance Forum on Fintech & Emerging Payment Systems (New York)
• May 13: Blockchain Futurist Conference (Toronto)
• May 13: ETHWomen (Toronto)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• BNB Chain’s Lorentz upgrade went live earlier Tuesday, boosting BNB token fundamentals by making the network faster and more efficient.
• The upgrade improved the way validators exchange data, making the process quicker and smoother to reduce delays and speed up transaction processing.
• It also added a method allowing validators to receive multiple blocks at once, instead of one by one.
• The time it takes to create a new block is reduced to about 1.5 seconds and could fall to as low as 0.75 seconds. Faster block times mean transactions are confirmed more quickly, making the network feel snappier for users.
• The update makes decentralized apps (dapps) like games or financial tools run faster and smoother. Developers can keep building apps the same way because the update doesn’t change how the network works with their code.
• A faster, more efficient network attracts more users and developers, which can increase demand for BNB and make it more valuable over time.

Derivatives Positioning

• Total open interest (OI) across perpetuals, options and futures now stands at $122 billion globally, according to data from Laevitas.
• SUI has seen a sharp surge in derivatives activity, with its share of global perpetuals volume peaking at 5.06% ($7.12 billion) on April 25.
• It has since sustained volume dominance above 3.5%, significantly higher than its historical average of under 2%, suggesting renewed speculative appetite driven by recent project announcements.
• According to Coinalyze, the top OI gainers in the past 24 hours among tokens with market caps over $100 million are:
  • SAFE: +123%
  • RAY: +92%
  • MOCA: +68%

Market Movements:

• BTC is up 0.43% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $95,009.93 (24hrs: +0.33%)
• ETH is up 2.81% at $1,838.46 (24hrs: +1.9%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 0.85% at 2,792.69 (24hrs: -0.08%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 28 bps at 2.975%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0005% (0.5749% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is up 0.27% at 99.28
• Gold is down 1.11% at $3,306.08/oz
• Silver is up 0.41% at $33.28/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +0.38% at 35,839.99
• Hang Seng closed +0.16% at 22,008.11
• FTSE is up 0.16% at 8,430.89
• Euro Stoxx 50 is unchanged at 5,168.63
• DJIA closed on Monday 0.28% at 40,227.59
• S&P 500 closed +0.06% at 5,528.75
• Nasdaq closed -0.1% at 17,336.13
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.36% at 24,798.59
• S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.74% at 2,549.44
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 6 bps at 4.21%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.14% at 5,561.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.15% at 190557.75
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.36% at 40,515.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 64.24 (-0.24%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01928 (1.80%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 842 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $48.7 PH/s
• Total Fees: 6.98 BTC / $651,628
• CME Futures Open Interest: 132, 750 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 28.6 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 8.10%

Technical Analysis

• Ether (ETH) is showing signs of recovery after reclaiming the value area (defined by the two blue dotted lines), suggesting a return to its high-volume price zone established since the October 2023 rally.
• The Point of Control (PoC) remains near $2,200, serving as a major magnet for price action and a critical bullish target.
• ETH is also approaching the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA), a potential inflection point that may spark volatility.
• The level is particularly notable because many altcoins have beaten ether to reclaim their 50-day EMAs.
• Importantly, price action has now broken above the descending trendline stemming from the December 2024 high, a key structural shift favoring bullish momentum.
• Upside targets include:
  • $2,104 to confirm a higher high
  • $2,200 (PoC), volume-weighted focal point
  • $2,480 (200-day EMA), long-term resistance
• To maintain its bullish bias, ETH must hold above the lower boundary of the value area (~$1,745), or risk a return to bearish sentiment.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed Monday at $369.25 (+0.15%), up 0.30% at $370.34 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $205.27 (-2.08%), up 0.58% at $206.47
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at $21.21 (2.81%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.01 (-2.03%)
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.63 (-1.8%), up 0.39% at $7.66
• Core Scientific (CORZ) closed at $8.24 (-0.84%), up 1.21% at $8.34
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.57 (-4.88%), up 0.12% at $8.58
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.33 (-1.58%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $35.37 (-3.99%), up 1.78% at $36.00
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $42.18 (-7.30%), up 1.92% at $42.99

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $591.2 million
• Cumulative net flows: $38.99 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.14 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $64.1 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.48 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.40 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• BTC dominates derivatives, with $32.97B in open interest (OI), over 40% of the total and more than double ETH’s $12.26B.
• Memecoins like DOGE, TRUMP, PEPE and FARTCOIN each exceed $480M in OI, outperforming many large-cap assets, showing the strength of memecoins within derivatives positioning.
• ETH + SOL combined ($16.11B) remain fall far short of BTC’s OI, underscoring bitcoin’s continued derivatives supremacy.

While You Were Sleeping

• Bitcoin-Friendly Poilievre Loses Seat as Carney’s Liberals Win 2025 Election (CoinDesk): Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre lost his Ottawa-area seat as Mark Carney’s Liberal Party won enough seats to form at least a minority government.
• Canadian Dollar Slips as Liberals Head for Only Narrow Victory (Bloomberg): Prime Minister Mark Carney faces pressure to ease Canada’s reliance on its southern neighbor as the currency remains sensitive to trade negotiations and U.S. tariff risks.
• DOJ Seeks 20-Year Sentence for Celsius Founder Alex Mashinsky (CoinDesk): Mashinsky pleaded guilty to deliberately misleading customers about the safety of their deposits while manipulating the CEL token for personal gain. Sentencing is set for May 8.
• Russia Hopes Warmer Weather Will Boost Flagging Spring Offensive (The Wall Street Journal): Ukrainian forces have stalled Russia’s advances this spring, but analysts warn warmer weather will harden ground and thicken cover, making future attacks harder to repel.
• Gold Prices Drop as Tariff Concerns Ease; US Data in Focus (Reuters): Growing risk appetite, supported by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s statement that several major trading partners have made strong proposals, is reducing demand for gold.
• EU Faces Trade War on Many Fronts (Financial Times): European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s strategy is to negotiate with Trump, strengthen trade with other nations, and lower internal market barriers to support EU exporters.

In the Ether

SIGN, the token linked to its namesake’s multi-chain identity protocol, rose by 60% on Tuesday after being listed on Korean exchange Upbit.

The listing follows the token’s release on Binance, where it became the first project to be selected by the Binance Alpha campaign.

Trading was initially muted on Binance as it traded between $0.06 and $0.08. The Upbit listing boosted prices to $0.129 before receding to $0.11.

Trading volume also increased from $402 million in the 24-hour period prior to Upbit’s listing announcement to $898 million, indicating notable interest among Korean traders.

The move follows a wider trend related to Korean exchange listings, earlier this month filecoin (FIL) rose by 30% following an Upbit listing alongside a similar rise in trading volume.

The BlackRock iShares Bitcoin (BTC) Trust ETF (IBIT) saw $970.9 million in inflows, marking its second-largest net inflow since launching in January 2024, according to Farside data.

Monday accounted for $591.2 million in new capital, which saw heavy outflows from competitors: Fidelity’s FBTC lost $86.9 million, Bitwise’s BITB dropped $21.1 million, and ARK’s ARKB saw $226.3 million in outflows.

The rise comes alongside a 7.2% rise in BTC over the past seven days with it now trading at $94,900.

Since April 22, IBIT has amassed over $4.5 billion in net inflows, bucking the market trend.

Industry experts have taken note. Nate Geraci, President of The ETF Store, remarked:

“Nearly $1 billion into iShares Bitcoin ETF today… Second-largest inflow since January 2024 inception. I still remember when there was ‘no demand’.“

Eric Balchunas, Senior Bloomberg ETF Analyst, added:

“ETFs are in two-steps-forward mode after taking one step back, exactly the pattern we predicted.“

Meanwhile, in derivatives markets, open interest (OI) on CME Bitcoin Futures continues to fall, now sitting at 132,750 BTC after four consecutive days of decline, according to CME data.
The recent decline in open interest could be coming to an end, as the annualized basis yield has climbed from around 5% to 9% in April, according to Velo data. This resurgence in basis trade profitability could prompt renewed activity and a short-term rebound in open interest.

Why it matters: In a typical basis trade, investors buy spot bitcoin and short bitcoin futures to lock in the price gap. When the yield is high, demand for futures rises, boosting OI. As the yield shrinks, fewer traders engage in the strategy, leading to declining open interest and signaling reduced leverage in the market.

Viant Technology (DSP), an ad tech company, could unlock significant shareholder value by adopting a bitcoin (BTC) treasury strategy according to Eric Semler, the chairman of Semler Scientific (SMLR), the scientific-equipment maker that also adopted a bitcoin-buying policy.

Viant joins Zoom Communications (ZOOM) and Coursera, Inc. (COUR) on Semler’s list of “Zombie Zone” companies that, he says, have untapped capital and an urgent need to rethink strategic direction. Neither of the previous two followed his advice.

In a post on X, Semler highlighted Viant’s stock performance as a key indicator of investor skepticism toward the company’s long-term growth prospects. The shares are down 44% since the company’s 2021 IPO and slumped 50% in February alone.

Despite this, Viant maintains a strong financial foundation, including $205 million in net cash — about 25% of its $900 million market cap — and $34 million in free cash flow in 2024, with expectations for steady growth through 2028.

Viant faces intensifying competition from tech giants like Google and Amazon and the commoditization of demand-side platforms. Chris Vanderhook, one of the three brothers that founded the company, has publicly expressed enthusiasm for decentralized technologies, referencing crypto, blockchain, and NFTs as core to a “New Open Web” vision.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

Circle, the issuer of the second-largest stablecoin, USDC, said it received in-principal regulatory approval from Abu Dhabi, paving the way for an expansion across the Middle East.

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) granted the company the preliminary green light to operate as a money services provider, edging closer to a full license after incorporating in the financial hub last December.

The approval “advances our strategy to establish deep roots in markets embracing the onchain economy, creating new pathways for investment and innovation in the region,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a statement on Tuesday.

The company also announced a partnership with Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s tech ecosystem, which includes initiatives in ADGM’s digital regulatory sandbox, grants to startup founders and offers access to institutional networks.

The company did not comment on further plans in the region due to a “quiet period” after filing paperwork in the U.S. to be listed as a public company, a spokesperson said.

Stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, are a rapidly growing group of digital assets and a key piece of infrastructure in the blockchain-based economy. They are widely used for crypto trading, and are becoming increasingly popular in the everyday economy for payments and remittances as a cheaper and faster alternative to traditional banking systems. The total stablecoin market capitalization sits around $230 billion, according to rwa.xyz data.

Read more: Stablecoins Could Bring ‘ChatGPT’ Moment to Blockchain Adoption, Hit $3.7T by 2030: Citi

Circle’s flagship USDC token, fully reserved with dollar assets such as government bonds, is a key player in this field with a $62 billion supply, up over 40% in 2025.

As regulations around stablecoins advance globally, the company has been courting global jurisdictions to enter. Circle claimed the bragging rights as the first large stablecoin issuer to comply with the European Union’s MiCA regulations last year. It also launched USDC last month in Japan with SBI Holdings.

Last week, Circle unveiled a cross-border payments network to further boost stablecoin use.