Coindesk

As bitcoin (BTC) and ether’s (ETH) recovery rally gathered momentum Tuesday, the perpetual futures market saw an even more pronounced increase in open interest, pointing to growing investor confidence as the Trump administration dialed back on its trade-tariff, anti-Fed rhetoric.

BTC, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, rose 6.79% nearly topping $94,000 for the first time since March, CoinDesk data show. That’s the most significant single-day percentage gain since April 9. The Ethereum blockchain’s ether token jumped 11% to $1,1175, it’s best performance since April 2.

The rally came as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent discussed de-escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions, followed by President Donald Trump saying tariffs on Chinese goods will drop substantially from the present 245%. Trump further said he does not intend to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

The price surge was characterized by traders deploying money for perpetual futures trading on major offshore exchanges as evidenced by bigger increases in open interest at Binance, Bybit, OKX and Deribit and leading on-chain perpetual-focused decentralized exchange Hyperliquid.

The cumulative notional open interest, or the dollar value of the number of active bets in BTC perpetual futures, rose by 10% to $17.83 billion, according to data source Velo. That’s the biggest single-day increase since March 2, when Trump mentioned XRP, ADA and SOL as potential candidates for a strategic digital assets reserve that would hold bitcoin and ether as the core. The administration later said it would keep bitcoin seized in enforcement actions as a reserve.

“Bitcoin’s Open Interest surged faster than its Price, with most positions originating from Binance,” Joao Wedson, CEO of Alphractal Research, said on X. “The issue is that a large portion consists of Longs, so increased volatility is expected in the coming hours.”

The price surge was likely aided by short squeeze, or unwinding of short perpetual futures bets. Funding rates were negative roughly 24 hours ago, implying a bias for shorts.

Ether’s notional open interest jumped nearly 16% to $6.60 billion, the largest single-day increase since Nov. 27.

An increase in open interest alongside a price rise is said to confirm the bullish momentum. In other words, BTC and ETH could continue to rise.

Funding Rates Bullish

The bias for bullish long positions is also evident from the moderately positive annualized perpetual funding rates, ranging between annualized 5% to 10% for BTC and ETH.

Funding rates, charged every eight hours, are payments exchanged between traders holding long and short positions in perpetual futures. They are designed to ensure the contract price stays close to the underlying asset’s spot price.

A positive funding rate implies that traders are more inclined and willing to pay fees to hold long positions. As such, it’s considered a sign of bullish sentiment. However, excessively high funding rates can indicate overcrowding or bullish speculative fervor, but that’s not the case right now.

Bitcoin (BTC) has become the fifth-largest asset by market capitalization, reaching $1.86 trillion and surpassing Google (GOOG) as it breaks through $94,000.

This marks the highest position bitcoin has ever attained in the rankings, even though its market cap previously exceeded $2 trillion when its price was over $109,000. At that time, however, tech stocks were significantly more elevated than they are at the moment.

Bitcoin has just broken above $94,000, turning positive for the year. Renewed optimism is emerging amid easing tensions in the U.S.–China tariff trade war, which has fueled gains for both bitcoin and tech stocks, with Nasdaq futures rising 2%.

Technically, bitcoin has now moved above key resistance levels that were noted on Tuesday. Additionally, it has set a new record relative to the Nasdaq, indicating a breakout not only against major tech indices but also across a range of key asset classes.

Cardano’s ADA and ether (ETH) zoomed more than 14% in the past 24 hours, leading gains among major cryptocurrencies, as bitcoin (BTC) crossed $93,500 late Tuesday on renewed hopes of a tempered approach to the tariff wars.

BTC jumped 6.5%, with Solana’s SOL, XRP and BNB Chain’s BNB all adding 8%. Major memecoins dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) climbed more than 11%, with Sui Network’s SUI surging 30% to lead gains among midcaps.

Overall market capitalization rose 4.4% to $3.03 trillion. The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) advanced 5%, indicative of the average jump among majors.

The gains came after President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will substantially reduce his tariffs on China while also clarifying that he would not attempt to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

While the tone shift gave investors much-needed relief, it also raised concern over the administration’s ability to maintain consistency and reliability, which has fueled the recent increases in the price of gold and U.S. Treasury yields, traders said.

“Bitcoin’s narrative as a ‘store of value’ seems to be overtaking its correlation with US markets, as BTC pumped during both negative and positive news related to Trump’s tariffs and Powell comments, showcasing its potential to reach new all-time highs,” Nick Ruck, director at LVRG Research, said in a Telegram message.

Bitcoin’s resilience relative to U.S. equities has strengthened its store-of-value narrative among some market observers.

“There is strong potential for bitcoin to lose its long-running correlation with US equities and may now turn to its digital gold narrative as the price of gold has reached an all-time high,” Jupiter Zheng, partner of research at HashKey Capital, said in an email. “We remain positive that investors will evaluate BTC as a long-term store of value.”

Some market watchers said that gold’s advance and the decoupling of bitcoin from equities seems to be concentrated in Asian morning hours.

“Data shows that gold has been deriving most of its rally during the Asian hours, suggesting possible central bank and official flows getting out of USD into alternative safe havens,” said Augustine Fan, head of insights at SignalPlus. “The USD decoupling does seem to be more pronounced than previous episodes.

“One of the possible ramifications of the US decoupling is a revisit to the long-term BTC bull case as a store of value. While we have also been critiquing BTC as a levered Nasdaq proxy over the past year, it has finally started to show some signs of its own decoupling away from equity markets,” Fan said.

In a rare legal defeat for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency has formally dropped its fraud case against Richard Schueler, better known as Richard Heart, founder of the crypto projects HEX, PulseChain, and PulseX.

On April 21, the SEC informed the Eastern District Court of New York it would not amend its complaint, effectively bringing the case to a close.

“That brings the case to an end with a complete victory for Mr. Heart,” said David Kirk, partner at Kirk & Ingram LLP, who represented the HEX founder in an email to CoinDesk. “To my knowledge, this is the only SEC enforcement action against a participant in the cryptocurrency industry that was dismissed in its entirety by a federal judge.”

The court had previously dismissed the SEC’s initial complaint in February, citing a lack of jurisdiction.

Judge Carol Bagley Amon noted that Heart’s activities were not clearly targeted at U.S. investors, CoinDesk previously reported, undermining the SEC’s case.

“This is a victory for open-source software, cryptocurrency, and free speech. The SEC actually sued software code itself in this case, claiming it could be an alter ego of a person,” Heart posted on X. “This would have set a terrible precedent and caused perhaps multiple billions of dollars of damage to the vital open source and free software industry that powers most of the Internet and your speech on it.”

Though the regulator was granted an opportunity to amend the complaint, it declined to do so by the extended April 21 deadline.

The SEC had originally filed suit in July 2023, accusing Heart of raising over $1 billion through unregistered securities offerings.

Futures bets against higher crypto prices lost over $500 million in the past 24 hours as a surge higher, buoyed by a possible cooldown of China tariffs by the U.S., led to the largest short liquidations since October.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose from Tuesday’s low of $88,000 to above $93,500 in Asian morning hours, data shows, leading a jump in the broader market with ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA and dogecoin (DOGE) up 14%. Solana’s SOL and XRP rose 7%, with all tokens in the top hundred by market cap in the green.

Meanwhile, Sui Network’s SUI, UniSwap’s UNI and Near Protocol’s showed strength with gains of as much as 18%. Memecoin mog (MOG) rocketed 30%, continued its tendency to act as a beta bet to ETH’s move.

Nearly $530 million in shorts, or bets on lower prices, booked losses amid a general unwinding of leveraged bets. Data shows that most short liquidations took place on Bybit at $234 million, followed by Binance at $100 million and Gate at nearly $70 million.

The largest single liquidation order happened on Binance, an ETH futures position that was worth over $4.5 million.

Liquidations occur when an exchange forcefully closes a trader’s leveraged position owing to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial margin. It happens when a trader cannot meet the margin requirements for a leveraged position, that is, when they don’t have sufficient funds to keep the trade open.

An uptick in crypto markes came as Trump said he planned to be “very nice” to China in any trade talks and that tariffs will drop if the two countries can reach a deal — a sign that may temper an ongoing cautious sentiment among traders.

“Fears of an escalating trade war have abated as traders largely see the U.S. and China coming to a trade agreement in the coming weeks,” Jeff Mei, COO at BTSE, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message. “Whether or not this will be temporary remains to be seen.”

“But what the last couple of weeks has shown us is that the likelihood of rate cuts and a depreciating U.S. dollar are high, which explains bitcoin’s surge. If the U.S. dollar is weakening, there aren’t many other currencies to turn to as many other countries may also depreciate their currencies. This could pave the way for bitcoin to become a major store of value,” Mei added.

Brandon Lutnick, son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and chair of Cantor Fitzgerald, is launching a listed bitcoin investment vehicle backed by SoftBank, Tether, and Bitfinex, the Financial Times first reported.

The special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), dubbed Cantor Equity Partners, raised $200 million in January and will help form a new firm, 21 Capital, seeded with $3 billion in bitcoin (BTC) from the crypto heavyweights. The deal mirrors MicroStrategy’s bitcoin proxy model and would convert the BTC into equity at a valuation of $85,000 per coin.

Cantor Fitzgerald is one of Tether’s custodians, holding the majority of its U.S. Treasuries. Howard Lutnick, however, has softened his stance on Tether’s liquidity while testifying before the Senate after initially saying the stablecoin issuer could account for every dollar.

Tether and Bitfinex are contributing $1.5 billion and $600 million, respectively, while SoftBank is adding $900 million. The venture plans to raise another $550 million through bonds and private equity to purchase more BTC.

The SPAC comes amid renewed crypto optimism under the Trump administration, with bitcoin hovering near $92,000 and regulatory tailwinds shifting. The deal is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, but could still change, according to the FT.

Tesla (TSLA) still holds almost $1 billion in bitcoin, according to the automaker’s latest earnings report.

The electric vehicle firm reported digital asset holdings worth $951 million as of March 31, down from $1.076 billion on Dec. 30. Tesla currently holds 11,509 bitcoin in its balance sheet, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.

The change is almost certainly due to bitcoin’s price depreciating between the two quarters. Data from Arkham Intelligence indicates that Tesla did not perform any transactions in the last three months. Arkham marks Tesla’s holdings as being currently worth $1.049 billion.

A new rule from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) requires corporate holders of digital assets to begin marking those assets to market each quarter.

Tesla also reported $19.34 billion in revenue for the first quarter of the year; analysts had expected the carmaker to rake in $21.37 billion.

The TSLA shares were up more than 2% in after-hours trading.

Bitcoin (BTC) surged past $91,000 on Tuesday, climbing nearly 5% amid renewed investor optimism and fresh hopes of a thaw in U.S.-China trade tensions, but headwinds persist that could cap further upside, analytics firm CryptoQuant cautioned.

The largest crypto by market capitalization hit $91,700 in the U.S. afternoon, its strongest price since early March. Altcoins followed BTC higher, with Ethereum’s ether (ETH) rising 8% over the past 24 hours above $1,700, and dogecoin (DOGE) and Sui’s native token (SUI) gaining 8.6% and 11.7%, respectively. The broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index advanced 5.2%.

Markets were buoyed by remarks from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who reportedly told investors at a closed-door JPMorgan event that the tariff standoff with China was unsustainable. Bessent said de-escalation would come “in the very near future,” characterizing current conditions as a “trade embargo.” However, he cautioned that a more comprehensive deal between the two nations could take even years.

Stocks recovered from yesterday’s decline, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq finishing the session 2.5% and 2.7% higher, respectively. Gold, meanwhile, sharply reversed from its record price of $3,500 during the day and was down 1%.

“As capital rotates into safe-haven and inflation-hedging assets, BTC and gold are proving to be key beneficiaries of the exodus from USD risk,” analysts at hedge fund QCP Capital said in a Telegram broadcast.

They highlighted rejuvenating inflows to spot U.S.-listed BTC ETFs and the return of the so-called Coinbase price premium, suggesting demand from American institutional investors. BTC ETF booked over $381 million net inflows on Monday adding to Thursday’s $107 million, according to Farside Investors data.

But not all signs point to a sustained breakout.

Despite the price jump, on-chain data points to fragility beneath the surface, CryptoQuant analysts said in a Tuesday report. Bitcoin’s apparent demand has decreased by 146,000 BTC over the past 30 days—an improvement from the sharp drop in March, but still negative. CryptoQuant’s demand momentum metric, which tracks new investor interest, has deteriorated further to its the most bearish level since October 2024, the report noted.

Market liquidity remains soft, with the report using USDT’s market cap growth as a proxy for crypto liquidity. USDT grew $2.9 billion over the past two months, below its 30-day average. Historically, BTC rallies coincided with USDT growth above $5 billion and above trend — a threshold not yet met.

Adding to the caution, bitcoin is now facing a key resistance zone between $91,000 and $92,000 at around the “Trader’s On-chain Realized Price” metric, a level that has often served as resistance in bearish conditions. CryptoQuant’s on-chain bull score classified current market conditions as bearish, suggesting a pause or pullback could follow if sentiment weakens.

Unicoin has rebuffed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) attempt to negotiate a settlement agreement to close an ongoing probe into the Miami-based crypto company, its CEO Alex Konanykhin revealed in a Tuesday letter to investors.

In his letter, Konanykhin said Unicoin was given an “ultimatum” by the SEC to attend a settlement negotiation meeting last week, on April 18.

“We declined to show up,” Konanykhin told CoinDesk, adding that the SEC had made demands ahead of the meeting that he found “unacceptable.” He declined to share specifics, telling CoinDesk that the communication between Unicoin’s lawyers and the SEC was confidential.

Unicoin received a Wells notice — a sort of official heads-up from the SEC that it intends to file an enforcement action against the recipient — in December, shortly before former Chair Gary Gensler stepped down, alleging violations related to fraud, deceptive practices, and the offer and sale of unregistered securities. No official enforcement action has yet been filed.

Since President Donald Trump took office, the SEC has reversed its once-aggressive stance toward crypto regulation, backing off from many of its open investigations into crypto companies, including blockchain gaming firm Immutable and non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, and even some of its ongoing litigation, including against Coinbase and Cumberland DRW.

Other SEC enforcement cases against crypto companies, including its cases against Binance and Tron, have been paused while the parties attempt to negotiate a settlement. The agency recently reached a settlement agreement with Nova Labs, the parent company behind the Helium blockchain, that saw Nova Labs pay a $200,000 fine to settle civil securities fraud charges, and the SEC dropped its claims that Helium (HNT) and other related tokens were securities.

In his letter to investors, Konanykhin claimed that the SEC’s probe has caused “multi-billion-dollar damage” to the company and its investors.

“We would likely be a $10B+ publicly traded company by now if the SEC had not blocked our ICO, stock exchange listing and fundraising,” Konanykhin wrote, adding that the SEC had prevented Unicoin from acting on the “very favorable market opportunities.”

“We were forced into a standstill,” Konanykhin wrote.

The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.

Crypto-related stocks surged on Tuesday, riding the momentum of a broader crypto rally that has reignited risk appetite across digital assets with bitcoin (BTC) crossing above $90,000.

Shares of Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate BTC holder, and crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) were up 8% to 9% during the session.

Leading the move higher were bitcoin miners, with many of them posting double-digit gains, outpacing BTC’s 5% advance. Bitdeer Technologies (BTDR) rallied some 20%, while Bitfarms (BITF), CleanSpark (CLSK), Cipher Mining (CIFR), MARA Holdings (MARA), and Riot Platforms (RIOT) soared between 10% and 15% during the session.

Meanwhile, the broader stock market also rebounded from yesterday’s decline, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 up 2% and 1.7%, respectively. The rally in the TradFi market came as reports of potential de-escalation of U.S.-China tariff tension lifted investor sentiment.

Miners and tariff risks

The bounce in mining stocks comes after months of underperformance, weighed down by compressed margins, rising hashrate competition, and tariff-induced difficulties, all of which are combined with broader market weakness for risk assets. Most, if not all, publicly traded miners are still trading near multi-month lows.

At issue for U.S.-based mining operations is the Trump administration’s tariff policy, which threatens to make ASICs (the machines used to mine bitcoin) much more expensive to import. That means that mining operations in the U.S. will probably grow at a much slower rate or even stop growing altogether.

The tariffs “will materially affect future spending and CapEx in the U.S.,” Taras Kulyk, co-founder and CEO of mining hardware provider Synteq Digital, told CoinDesk recently.

“Other jurisdictions that had previously looked higher cost [will] become sought after targets for new infra and capex deployment. Canada in particular, will likely be a benefactor to the implementation of the global tariff regime that’s been put in place by the White House.”

Relatedly, one of the reasons behind Bitdeer’s outperformance may be because the company is developing its own ASIC manufacturing business and recently took the decision to build out its self-mining capacities instead of selling its rigs in a slower market. Stablecoin giant Tether has also been on a buying spree of BTDR shares; as of last Thursday, the company had invested $32 million in Bitdeer.

Even so, most miner stocks have been on the downtrend since December, long before the White House unveiled its new tariff policy. Now, with BTC climbing above key technical levels and liquidity flowing back into the space, miners are probably catching a bid as a leveraged proxy for BTC’s upside.

Regardless of the outperformance today, tariffs will continue to play a key role in miners and most crypto-related stocks, along with other risk assets. With earnings season starting soon, all eyes will be on comments from CEOs about how the tariff situation will change the corporate outlook. Notably, Elon Musk’s Tesla, which also holds bitcoin in its treasury, will report its earnings post-market on Tuesday, potentially providing some insight into how traders should price in the trade war uncertainties.