Coindesk

In today’s crypto for advisors, Todd Bendell from Amphibian Capital breaks down bitcoin yield products as a strategy to grow bitcoin holdings beyond price appreciation.

Then, Rich Rines, an initial Core DAO developer, provides guidance to Bitcoin developers in Ask an Expert.

Exclusive event alert for financial advisors: Join CoinDesk for Wealth Management Day on May 15th at Consensus Toronto. Registered wealth advisors are provided with their own day of networking and learning where they will acquire timely and actionable information about digital assets. Approved advisors receive a complimentary 3-day Platinum Pass ($1,750 value) to Consensus. Apply today.

– Sarah Morton

You’re reading Crypto for Advisors, CoinDesk’s weekly newsletter that unpacks digital assets for financial advisors. Subscribe here to get it every Thursday.

The Next Frontier for Bitcoin Holders: Generating BTC-on-BTC Yield

Bitcoin was never meant to sit idle.

For over a decade, bitcoin has served as a digital store of value, a hedge against monetary debasement and more recently, a core allocation in institutional portfolios. As the asset matures and infrastructure improves, long-term holders are asking a new question: How do I put my bitcoin to work — without leaving the Bitcoin ecosystem?

The answer lies in a growing but underexplored category of strategies: BTC-on-BTC yield.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t about lending your BTC on unregulated platforms or chasing high annual percentage yields (APYs) à la BlockFi. That playbook collapsed under the weight of counterparty risk and opacity. What’s emerged over the last two years is a more institutional alternative — diversified, risk-managed access to systematic arbitrage and quantitative strategies, all denominated in bitcoin.

Why BTC-native yield matters

For most assets, it’s a given that money should work for you. We don’t keep dollars under a mattress or tucked away on a thumb drive — we invest them. Yet in the bitcoin world, the dominant narrative has long been “hold and wait.”

That mindset made sense when bitcoin was fighting for legitimacy. But in today’s environment — where BTC is being adopted by sovereign wealth funds and traded on major exchanges — long-term holders need better tools.

BTC-on-BTC yield solves this. It aligns with the ethos of accumulating more BTC but does so through institutional-grade strategies that aim to generate returns in BTC, not just on BTC. That distinction matters.

Cold storage isn’t a strategy

There’s also a myth that simply holding bitcoin in cold storage is the safest option. The phrase “not your keys, not your coins” has become dogma — but it deserves a second look.

In reality, cold storage comes with its own risks: human error, hardware failure, loss of keys and in many cases, an inability to generate any yield whatsoever. Meanwhile, professional custodians — regulated, insured and audited — are now standard infrastructure providers in digital asset management.

For allocators managing material BTC positions, yield-generating custody isn’t a tradeoff. It’s an upgrade.

How these strategies work

Today’s BTC-native yield opportunities span a wide range — from delta-neutral basis trades and statistical arbitrage to DeFi yield farming and machine learning-driven quant execution — but all settled in BTC.

Returns are calculated and distributed in kind. The objective is simple: accumulate more BTC over time, without needing to rely solely on price appreciation.

By allocating across a diversified mix of strategies and managers, investors can pursue consistent BTC growth while mitigating single-strategy or single-manager risk.

Why BTC-on BTC yield is timely

Several forces are converging right now:

Volatility has returned. Major liquidation events — like the $10 billion flush in February — create dislocations that sophisticated funds can capitalize on.

Infrastructure is stronger than ever. Custody, execution and risk tools have matured significantly since the last cycle.

Institutional interest is real. ETFs have opened the floodgates — but most capital is still under-allocated and under-deployed.

In short, bitcoin is growing up. The question is whether the strategies around it will grow with it.

Rethinking HODLing

BTC-on-BTC yield and long-term holding aren’t mutually exclusive. Allocators can continue to hold core BTC positions while using active strategies to pursue steady accumulation.

That requires moving beyond cold storage maxims and exploring yield strategies that reflect the sophistication of today’s markets. With proper risk controls, BTC-native yield offers a pragmatic path to accumulate more BTC without abandoning its core principles.

The bottom line is that bitcoin doesn’t have to sit on the sidelines. It can move with the market — and grow with it.

For allocators thinking in decades, BTC-on-BTC yield opens the door to a more productive bitcoin strategy — one that matches conviction with action.

– Todd Bendell, Managing General Partner, Amphibian Capital

Ask an Expert

Q. What’s the best way to align early developer incentives with long-term protocol value?

A. The key is to reward real product-market fit and real users — not short-term speculation. That starts with building tight relationships and solving problems for real communities. From there, it’s about fostering an “eat what you kill” ecosystem, in which builders who ship products people actually use are rewarded with real economic upside — not just points, grants or temporary incentives. When developers are compensated based on the value they create for users, long-term alignment takes care of itself.

Q. When just starting out in crypto, how can developers filter for signal over noise?

A. Don’t just chase the hot thing — look for what will still matter in 5 to 10 years. That’s one of the key reasons Bitcoin remains a compelling foundation for builders. It has dedicated users, immense value and a clear product-market fit. Developers should focus on real usage and demand instead of short-term token price action. If you’re building something that keeps people engaged because it’s useful — not because it’s yield-farming season — you’re already filtering signal from noise.

Q. What lessons from Bitcoin’s design philosophy are still underutilized?

A. Bitcoin is dominant not because it does the most, but because it does one thing better than anyone else. Its product-market fit as digital gold is crypto’s most proven use case — and yet it’s still underrated. Too many forget that simplicity with real utility wins. Building around Bitcoin and extending its utility without compromising its foundation remains one of the most underrated opportunities in the space today.

– Rich Rines, an initial contributor, Core DAO

Keep Reading

CoinDesk’s Digital Assets Quarterly Report provides a comprehensive analysis of the crypto market’s performance.

Sweden is the latest country to explore using bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the end of its crypto “enforcement by prosecution” policies.

VanEck is bringing an actively-managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking digital asset stocks to the market after receiving approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The VanEck Onchain Economy ETF (NODE) will aim to hold 30-60 stocks, VanEck’s head of digital asset research Matthew Sigel, said in a post on X.The management fee will be 0.69%.

Stocks included will range among crypto exchanges, miners, data center, energy infrastructure, semiconductors, hardware, TradFi rails, consumer/gaming, asset managers and “balance sheet HOLDers.” Up to 25% of NODE’s exposure will be in crypto exchange-traded-products (ETPs).

“The global economy is shifting to a digital foundation,” Sigel said. “NODE offers active equity exposure to the real businesses building that future.”

The fund is expected to start trading on May 14th and will use an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to be able to get indirect exposure to products like commodity futures, swaps, and pooled investment vehicles while complying with U.S. federal tax regulations.

As a growing amount of crypto-related stocks start trading on the market, with several companies looking to go public this year, investors are increasingly wanting exposure to crypto-related stocks. A survey among financial advisors at an ETF conference in March found that crypto equity ETFs are at the forefront of what advisors are interested in investing.

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 2468.7, up 1.2% (+29.84) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Eighteen of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: BCH (+4.2%) and NEAR (+3.7%).

Laggards: APT (-1.4%) and FIL (-1.1%).

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

Stellar, a superfast and low fee-public blockchain, says it plans to hold $3 billion in real-world asset (RWA) value and power $110 billion in RWA volume by the end of 2025.

The goal set by the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the nonprofit that supports the development and growth of the Stellar network, is building on existing partnerships with the likes of Franklin Templeton and Wisdom Tree.

In addition, Stellar is welcoming a new round of tokenization specialists such as Paxos, Ondo, Etherfuse and SG Forge, the blockchain innovation division of French bank Société Générale.

“We have a goal of powering $3 billion in real-world asset value on Stellar in 2025,” Lauren Thorbjornsen, VP and chief of staff at Stellar Development Foundation, said in an interview. “That would be more than a 10x increase from the $290 million in RWA we had in Stellar at the end of December 2024. But already we see a lot of growth happening on the network, just in the first quarter of this year.”

Tokenizing a range of existing financial assets has become all the rage among traditional finance firms over the past year or so, with major companies including BlackRock entering the space.

Stellar, established in 2014 by former Ripple CTO Jed McCaleb, is designed to facilitate fast and low-cost cross-border transactions between any pair of currencies or assets.

Almost one year to the day after Ethereum protocol EigenLayer launched its “restaking” network to unprecedented industry fanfare, the network is finally adding a core feature that was, until now, glaringly absent: “slashing.”

Eigen Labs hopes slashing — EigenLayer’s system for keeping “restakers” honest by revoking collateral if they act maliciously — will finally realize the year-old protocol’s original pitch.

“We are happy to say now that the whole promise has been delivered,” said EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan.

EigenLayer became one of the buzziest protocols in Ethereum history when it introduced investors to the concept of restaking, an evolution of “proof-of-stake” on Ethereum.

Ethereum’s “proof-of-stake” system lets users “stake” ether (ETH) collateral with the chain to help run and secure it in exchange for interest. EigenLayer lets users stake ETH on Ethereum and then restake it again with other protocols for even more interest.

Despite launching its main network last year, slashing, a primary component of EigenLayer’s shared security technology, was missing until Thursday. This led to criticism that EigenLayer’s ambitious pitch didn’t match its technical reality.

Today, EigenLayer boasts more than $7 billion in restaked assets, making it one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) apps. It also supports an ecosystem of 39 actively validated services (AVSs) that use its security model.

The new slashing system will roll out on Thursday, but AVS teams will need to opt-in, meaning it may take some time before slashing is live in any applications. Eigen Labs announced April 17 as the launch date for slashing earlier this month.

Redesigning for Safety

EigenLayer users restake ether (ETH) and other tokens through third-party “operators” — infrastructure providers who delegate their pooled EigenLayer deposits across different AVSs.

Operators that delegate stake to an AVS help run it in exchange for rewards: the more they stake, the higher the rewards.

In theory, slashing ensures these operators are running AVSs correctly. If operators “are proven to be malicious according to an on-chain Ethereum contract, then they may lose their stake or a portion of their stake,” explained Kannan.

When slashing goes live on Thursday, AVSs will have the option to set slashing conditions and begin penalizing bad actors.

“Other than Ethereum and Cosmos, most proof-of-stake systems, including Solana, are running live without any slashing,” said Kannan. “Even though it is the core accountability mechanism, it’s not like every proof of stake system already has this—that’s not true. That’s what we’re building.”

As for why EigenLayer received so much blowback compared to other incomplete proof-of-stake systems: “We’ve talked a lot about slashing, so we are held to that bar,” said Kannan.

Removing leverage

EigenLayer’s slashing system was redesigned last year to address fears that the protocol introduced an unsafe form of leverage to the Ethereum ecosystem.

“I think we completely cured that problem with this redesign,” said Kannan.

The entire idea behind EigenLayer is to allow new protocols to immediately tap into a large security pool — the total pool of restaked assets.

In proof-of-stake systems, the amount of assets staked with a protocol roughly corresponds to how secure it is. In general, attacking a protocol like Ethereum requires controlling half or more of the assets staked, which can run into billions of dollars.

EigenLayer’s pooling model has led to fears that a poorly built slashing system could expose the entire protocol to new risks, where a single bad actor on one AVS could harm every operator.

The version of EigenLayer going live Thursday, which has been tested on Ethereum’s developer networks since December, was designed so operators can limit their exposure to a given AVS, meaning bad actors on one won’t necessarily impact another.

“You have unique attributability of stake to a particular AVS,” explained Kannan. “As an AVS, I know I have, like, 10 million of ‘slashable’ stake that is not double counted — so there is no leverage.”

Additionally, the system has been configured so that “even if my AVS has a small amount of slashable stake, it is still protected in some sense, by the large amount of capital,” said Kannan, since there are still systems in place to ensure the cost of attacking a system increases with the total value of the pool of restaked assets.

Lombard Finance, a Bitcoin infrastructure developer, has launched a software development kit (SDK) that allows wallets, exchanges, and other platforms to offer one-click bitcoin (BTC) staking.

The release aims to further bring BTC into the decentralized finance (DeFi) economy by tapping into the estimated $154 billion in bitcoin estimated to be sitting idle on centralized exchanges.

The new toolkit allows users to stake BTC to mint a liquid staking token called LBTC, which can be automatically deposited into Lombard’s DeFi Vault for a current annual yield of 3%, according to the protocol.

“Once viewed solely as a store of value, Bitcoin is now increasingly being integrated into DeFi, unlocking new earning opportunities for BTC holders,” said Lombard Finance co-founder Jacob Phillips, who added that the SDK removes “the complexity for both platforms and users.”

Leading cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Bybit have already integrated the SDK, with additional wallet integrations—including xVerse, Metamask, and Trust Wallet—also being supported. For these platforms, the integration offers new revenue streams and a way to keep users engaged through a new DeFi offering, Lombard says.

Bitcoin staking through Lombard’s system began seven months ago and has grown into a $4 billion market. Lombard’s DeFi Vault, powered by smart contract provider Veda, currently holds more than $200 million in total value locked.

The protocol expanded last month with the launch of its liquid-staking bitcoin token, LBTC, on the Sui blockchain.

XRP might be the next cryptocurrency to get a spot ETF listing in the U.S. after bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), analysts argued this week. However, the Deribit-listed options market,doesn’t share this optimism.

As of the time of writing, Deribit’s put options tied to XRP were pricier than calls across several timeframes, according to data source Amberdata. That’s a sign of persistent downside fears.

A put option provides insurance against price drops, and traders purchase the same when looking to hedge or profit from an expected price drop.

The bias for puts was evident from negative skews across the timeframes. Options skew measures the implied volatility premium (demand) for calls relative to puts.

XRP dived out of an ascending wedge early Wednesday, signaling a possible re-test of recent lows at around $1.6.

Earlier this week, analysts said that XRP has a relatively better order book depth, implying ease in trading large orders at stable prices, compared to Solana’s SOL and other tokens. This meant that the payments-focused coin used by Ripple to facilitate cross-border transactions could be the next digital asset to get a spot ETF approval in the U.S.

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” announcement earlier this month drove the economic trade policy uncertainty index to a record high and sent investors away from risk assets, which include bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell fanned the flames late Wednesday, saying the central bank sees unemployment rising with the economy likely to slow and inflation likely to go up as “some part of those tariffs come to be paid by the public.”

His comments weighed further on risk assets, bringing the Nasdaq down 1.17% and the S&P 500 dropping 2.24% before the closing bell. Still, bitcoin is up more than 1% in the last 24 hours, while the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, which captures the broader market, added 1.8%, even though crypto is seen more as gauge of risk than a safe haven.

To Michael Brown, an analyst at Pepperstone, demand for “assets which provide shelter from political incoherence and trade uncertainty” is likely to keep growing, The Telegraph reported.

While bitcoin has outperformed the stock market — up 1% in the past month compared with the Nasdaq’s near 8% drop — institutional investors are piling into gold, the battle-tested safe haven.

The precious metal is up 11% over the last month and 27% this year to around $3,340 a troy ounce. Bank of America’s Global Fund Manager Survey shows that 49% of fund managers see “long gold” as Wall Street’s most crowded trade, with 42% of fund managers forecasting it to be the best-performing asset of the year.

UBS analysts wrote in a note that the “case for adding gold allocations has become more compelling than ever in this environment of escalating tariff uncertainty, weaker growth, higher inflation, geopolitical risks & diversification away from US assets & the US$,” Investopedia reported.

Gold fund flows have hit $80 billion so far this year, while SoSoValue data shows spot bitcoin ETFs saw $5.25 billion net inflows in January and net outflows since the uncertainty started. Month-to-date, over $900 million left these funds, after February and March saw $3.56 billion and $767 billion of net outflows, respectively. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

April 17: EigenLayer (EIGEN) activates slashing on Ethereum mainnet, enforcing penalties for operator misconduct.

April 18: Pepecoin (PEP), a layer-1, proof-of-work blockchain, undergoes its second halving, reducing block rewards to 15,625 PEP per block.

April 20, 11 p.m.: BNB Chain (BNB) — opBNB mainnet hardfork.

April 21: Coinbase Derivatives will list XRP futures pending approval by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

April 25, 1:00 p.m.: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Crypto Task Force Roundtable on “Key Considerations for Crypto Custody“.

Macro

April 17, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Census Bureau releases March new residential construction data.

Housing Starts Est. 1.42M vs. Prev. 1.501M

Housing Starts MoM Prev. 11.2%

April 17, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended April 12.

Initial Jobless Claims Est. 225K vs. Prev. 223K

April 17, 7:30 p.m.: Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications releases March consumer price index (CPI) data.

Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.2% vs. Prev. 3%

Inflation Rate MoM Prev. -0.1%

Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.7%

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

April 22: Tesla (TSLA), post-market

April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

GMX DAO is discussing the establishment of a GMX Reserve on Solana, which would involve bridging $500,000 in GMX to the Solana network and transfering the funds to the GMX-Solana Treasury.

Treasure DAO is discussing handing authority to the core contributor team to wind down and shutter Treasure Chain infrastructure on ZKsync and manage the primary MAGIC-ETH protocol-owned liquidity pool given the “crucial financial situation” of the protocol.

April 17, 11 a.m.: Starknet to host a governance call to discuss how to improve Cairo and the “overall dev experience.”

Unlocks

April 18: Official Trump (TRUMP) to unlock 20.25% of its circulating supply worth $314.23 million.

April 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.65% of its circulating supply worth $84.4 million.

April 18: Official Melania Meme (MELANIA) to unlock 6.73% of its circulating supply worth $10.72 million.

April 18: UXLINK (UXLINK) to unlock 11.09% of its circulating supply worth $16.52 million.

April 18: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.37% of its circulating supply worth $10.03 million.

April 22: Metars Genesis (MRS) to unlock 11.87% of its circulating supply worth $126.7 million.

Token Launches

April 17: VeThor (VTHO) to be listed on Bybit.

April 17: Babylon (BABY), AI Rig Complex (ARC), and Alchemist AI (ALCHI) to be listed on Kraken.

April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.

Conferences:

CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Day 3 of 3: NexTech Week Tokyo

April 22-24: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)

April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)

April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)

April 24: Bitwise’s Investor Day for Bitcoin Standard Corporations (New York)

April 26: Crypto Vision Conference 2025 (Manilla)

April 26-27: Harvard Blockchain in Action Conference (Cambridge, Mass.)

April 27: N Crypto Conference 2025 (Kyiv)

April 27-30: Web Summit Rio 2025

April 28-29: Blockchain Disrupt 2025 (Dubai)

April 28-29: Staking Summit Dubai

April 29: El Salvador Digital Assets Summit 2025 (San Salvador, El Salvador)

April 29: IFGS 2025 (London)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Raydium’s platform for introducing tokens, LaunchLab, went live late Wednesday.

It directly competes with Pump.fun, which recently pivoted away from Raydium and started its own exchange, PumpSwap, prompting Raydium to introduce a perceived competing platform.

The Solana ecosystem saw a surge in activity with LaunchLab’s debut, creating over 1,750 tokens shortly after it started up. The price of Raydium’s RAY token rose as much as 10% in the hours afterwards.

LaunchLab’s dynamic joint curve system offers linear, exponential and logarithmic curves — three types of pricing mechanisms that influence how token values change based on user trading — a shift from the fixed-slope pricing models used in memecoin launch platforms.

Integration with major Solana trading apps like Axiom, BullX and JupiterExchange enhances LaunchLab’s visibility, potentially driving broader adoption across the ecosystem.

Derivatives Positioning

Open interest in bitcoin futures on the CME reached 138,235 BTC, the highest level the month, as traders re-enter the basis trade. The annualized basis on the CME has climbed to 8%.

With just over a week remaining until the April options expiry on Deribit, the $100,000 strike remains the most dominant, holding over $315 million in notional open interest.

The futures perpetual funding rate turned negative again on Wednesday during Fed Chair Powell’s speech. Throughout the week, funding rates have oscillated between positive and negative, highlighting continued short-term uncertainty around bitcoin’s direction.

Market Movements:

BTC is unchanged from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $84,312 (24hrs: +0.4%)

ETH is up 1.26% at $1,593.44 (24hrs: +0.91%)

CoinDesk 20 is unchanged at 2,459.45 (24hrs: +1.36%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 1bp bps at 3%

BTC funding rate is at 0.012% (4.3866% annualized) on Binance

DXY is up 0.11% at 99.49

Gold is up 0.35% at $3,338.30/oz

Silver is down 1.49% at $32.44/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +1.35% at 34,377.60

Hang Seng closed +1.61% at 21,395.14

FTSE is down 0.82% at 8,207.47

Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.56% at 4,938.69

DJIA closed on Wednesday -1.73% at 39,669.39

S&P 500 closed -2.24% at 5,275.70

Nasdaq closed -3.07% at 16,307.16

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.16% at 24,106.80

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.32% at 2,345.32

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 3 bps at 4.31%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.9% at 5,353.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.02% at 18,573.25

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.81% at 40,175.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 63.89 (-0.07%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01889 (0.64%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 905 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $43.9

Total Fees: 5.78 BTC / $482,907

CME Futures Open Interest: 138,235 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 25.4 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 7.15%

Technical Analysis

Bitcoin has bounced cleanly off the golden pocket zone, with the 0.618 and 0.65 Fibonacci levels at $74,995 and $73,213 holding as support.

This area marked the first real retracement from the $109,396 high and has shown strong buyer interest.

The bounce also coincided with a breakout from the daily downtrend that has been in place since February — a key shift in structure worth noting.

BTC is now sitting just below the daily 50 and 200 exponential moving averages, which have begun to converge.

These levels often act as decision points, and with the price pressing right up against them, the next move should offer clearer direction. A clean break and hold above would give bulls more control, while a rejection could see prices head back toward the golden pocket.

The weekly 50 EMA — currently $78,071 — is also in play and adds to the confluence just below. As long as BTC holds above the broken trendline and continues to defend this cluster of support, short-term momentum remains constructive.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Wednesday at $311.66 (+0.3%), up 0.98% at $314.70 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $172.21 (-1.91%), up 0.87% at $173.70

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.58 (+0.84%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.32 (-2.07%), up 0.81% at $12.42

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $6.36 (-2.9%), up 0.31% at $6.38

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $6.59 (-3.8%), up 1.67% at $6.70

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.28 (+0.0%), up 0.27% at $7.30

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $11.91 (-0.58%)

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $31 (-9.88%)

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $37.19 (-2.16%), up 2.18% at $38

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: -$171.1 million

Cumulative net flows: $35.36 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.10 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$12.1 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.26 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.30 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

Yesterday, the SOL/ETH ratio surged to a record high, closing at 0.0833 and highlighting sol’s continued strength relative to ether.

Ether’s weakness also showed in the the ETH/BTC ratio, which slipped to 0.0187, its lowest level since Jan. 6, 2020.

While You Were Sleeping

SOL Jumps 6%, Bitcoin Clings to $84K on Dampened Rate Cut Hopes (CoinDesk): Bitcoin will likely stay between $80,000 and $90,000 as traders await clarity on tariff talks and delayed Fed rate cuts, said BTSE COO Jeff Mei.

Meloni, Europe’s Trump Whisperer, to Try Her Hand on Tariffs (The Wall Street Journal): Italy’s prime minister is expected to press Trump today on the EU’s “zero-for-zero” proposal, which would eliminate tariffs on industrial goods if both sides agree.

Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang Flies Into Beijing for Talks (Financial Times): The visit follows a U.S. decision requiring a license to export Nvidia’s H20 chip to China, prompting the company to warn of a $5.5 billion earnings hit.

China Stocks Face Risk of $800 Billion U.S. Outflows, Goldman Says (Bloomberg): In a full financial decoupling, U.S. investors could dump $800 billion of Chinese stocks while Chinese investors might offload $370 billion of U.S. equities and $1.3 trillion in bonds.

Bitcoin, the Haven Crypto Bulls Hoped for, Is More a Barometer of Risk: Godbole (CoinDesk): Bitcoin, rather than behaving as a digital gold, has solidified as a proxy for risk, validating FX market participants who track it as a gauge of speculative sentiment.

Quantum Computing Group Offers 1 BTC to Whoever Breaks Bitcoin’s Cryptographic Key (CoinDesk): A competition is offering one bitcoin to the first person or team to break elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) using Shor’s algorithm on a quantum computer.

In the Ether

The “Minsky Moment” is here, according to Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, in a recent interview on CNBC. Novogratz noted that tariffs are playing a key role in reshaping the global security apparatus, while President Trump’s return to the political scene is introducing fresh uncertainty into the markets.

Although equities are down roughly 10% year-to-date, Novogratz believes that’s insufficient given the scale of the global economic shifts underway. “We’re clearly in a risk-off environment,” Novogratz said.

Novogratz explained that bitcoin (BTC) typically performs well amid macroeconomic uncertainty unless risk appetite completely evaporates. He outlined two major narratives driving bitcoin: the macro story, reflected in gold’s recent rally, capital flowing out of the U.S. dollar into perceived safe havens; and the adoption story, which remains in its early stages. While institutional and retail adoption is still developing, Novogratz observed that bitcoin is beginning to trade more independently of U.S. equities.

Novogratz also warned that the U.S. is starting to behave like an emerging market, a shift not seen in decades. Interest rates are rising while the U.S. dollar weakens an unusual and concerning combination. While, bitcoin and gold are report cards on financial stewardship, Novogratz remarked.

Novogratz referenced economist Hyman Minsky and said the U.S. could be approaching a “Minsky Moment,” where deficits and debt levels finally matter. While sovereign nations have long been able to run large deficits without market backlash, that grace period may be ending.

According to Novogratz, markets are signaling that the Trump-led policy push is too aggressive and unsustainable. Novogratz pointed to the enormous impact of even modest treasury yield increases on the $35 trillion national debt—saying that a 25 or 50 basis point hike has massive implications, potentially costing more on an annualized basis than major savings programs like the Department of Government Efficiency.

Disclaimer: This article, or parts of it, was generated with 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.

Auradine, a maker of computing equipment for bitcoin (BTC) mining and AI applications, said it raised $153 million in a Series C funding round.

The Silicon Valley, California-based company also formed a new business group, AuraLinks AI, focused on open-standards to address cooling requirements of next-generation AI data centers.

AI data centers and BTC mining share similarities in their operational requirements. Given the proliferation of AI in mainstream use in recent years, the subject of data centers is now commonplace in public discourse. This is significant for the cryptocurrency industry because most things that relate to AI data centers could also be applied to bitcoin mining.

“Our dual focus on Bitcoin and AI infrastructure places Auradine at the intersection of pivotal technologies that will reshape computing and energy utilization for decades to come,” CEO Rajiv Khemani said in a statement.

The funding round, which took Auradine’s total backing to $300 million, was led by StepStone Group and included another contribution from bitcoin miner MARA, as well as Maverick Silicon, Samsung Catalyst Fund and Qualcomm Ventures, among others.