![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d86e2-e6d7-7926-b9e6-3587ea8e16ed.png\")
Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public holder of Bitcoin (BTC), added a large haul of Bitcoin to its stash last week, edging toward 800,000 BTC in total holdings.
Strategy acquired 13,927 Bitcoin for $1 billion between April 6 and 12, according to an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
The purchases were made at an average price of $71,902 per coin, marking another purchase below the company’s average acquisition price of $75,577.
Strategy now holds 780,897 BTC on its balance sheet, acquired for a total cost of $59.02 billion. The company has 19,103 BTC left to reach 800,000 BTC after buying more than 107,000 BTC so far this year.
According to the filing, the $1 billion in purchases were funded via proceeds from Strategy’s perpetual preferred equity, Stretch (STRC).
The company sold 10 million STRC shares last week, generating around $1 billion in notional value and net proceeds. No shares were sold for STRF, STRK, STRD or MSTR stock during the period.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d86e2-e994-7cc1-9801-c2c0c67c8ac2.png\")
According to STRC.live, STRC recorded its second-largest weekly issuance on record last week, nearly three times the four-week average. The equity has seen record share sales in recent weeks after Strategy amended its sales rules in early March.
Strategy’s aggressive Bitcoin buying comes despite the company sitting on significant unrealized losses on its holdings. Last week, Strategy reported its unrealized losses on digital assets amounted to $14.46 billion in the first quarter of 2026.
Apart from Strategy, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have also seen significant buying last week, with spot Bitcoin ETFs seeing inflows of $786 million over the period.
Related: Strategy’s Michael Saylor signals impending Bitcoin purchase
Crypto markets rallied early last week following a US-Iran ceasefire announcement, with Bitcoin reclaiming $70,000 and briefly surging past $73,000, according to CoinGecko.
Nomura’s Laser Digital told Cointelegraph that Strategy’s buying was among the key signals supporting the move, alongside strong inflows into Bitcoin ETFs. The firm added that US equities also returned to pre-conflict levels, reinforcing broader market momentum.
“However, the weekend talks didn’t go well — no agreement was made and the latest announcement of a naval blockade from April 13 triggered a sharp pullback towards $71,000,” Laser Digital said, adding that the company expects this erratic price movement to continue until the last minute of the ceasefire deadline.
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", "description": "Strategy bought 13,927 Bitcoin for $1 billion in between April 6 and 12, funded through STRC at-the-market share sales.", "published": "2026-04-13T14:00:53+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "shares" }, { "slug": "microstrategy" }, { "slug": "michael-saylor" } ], "slug": "strategy-buys-13-927-bitcoin-1b-holdings-780-897-btc", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "261082" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "StarkWare cuts staff in push toward revenue-generating products", "leadText": "StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson said the company will split into two units as it adopts a faster and leaner “startup mode.”", "author": { "slug": "ezra-reguerra" }, "bodyText": "Zero-knowledge scaling company StarkWare is cutting jobs and restructuring its operations as it shifts from infrastructure development toward revenue-generating products.
CEO Eli Ben-Sasson said in internal remarks that the firm will split into two business units and cut headcount to move faster and operate more efficiently, with one unit focused on applications and the other on Starknet development.
Ben-Sasson said the company would adopt a “startup mode” mindset, prioritizing fewer initiatives with higher revenue potential, while warning that downsizing would affect employees across the organization. StarkWare did not disclose how many employees would be affected by the cuts.
The move reflects a wider retrenchment across crypto firms, which have been trimming headcount and narrowing priorities as they chase clearer product-market fit, stronger monetization and leaner operations. Messari, Algorand Foundation and Crypto.com all announced cuts in March.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d86c0-ea35-70a8-8193-d73202299053.jpg\")
Ben-Sasson said StarkWare’s next phase would center on turning its technology into “meaningful revenue” and “meaningful usage,” arguing that the company could no longer rely mainly on external blockchains or third-party teams to prove the value of its stack.
Ben-Sasson said the company would focus on “fewer things excellently” and prioritize products with revenue potential that can be built only on its technological stack.
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“We’re going to achieve this by innovating across not just infrastructure, as we’ve done so far, but across the whole stack of infrastructure and product,” he said.
StarkWare’s cuts follow other recent layoffs across the crypto sector as firms narrow priorities and reshape operations. On March 17, Messari announced layoffs alongside a leadership change as the company moved deeper into artificial intelligence-powered research and data tools for institutions.
On March 19, the Algorand Foundation said it would cut 25% of its employees, citing macro uncertainty and the broader crypto downturn. The organization said the move was aimed at better aligning resources with its long-term business, technology and ecosystem priorities.
On the same day, Crypto.com also announced a 12% reduction of its workforce as part of a broader push into AI. The exchange said the layoffs were tied to company-wide AI integration and a decision to prioritize resources around key growth areas.
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Stack BTC, an Aquis-listed Bitcoin treasury company chaired by former UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, purchased 2 million British pounds ($2.7 million) worth of Bitcoin on Monday, as Nigel Farage deepens his ties to the firm.
According to an April 13 filing, the company purchased 37 Bitcoin (BTC) as part of its treasury strategy at a price of roughly $72,385 per coin and now holds a total of 68.1898 BTC.
The purchase follows Farage’s previously disclosed $286,000 equity investment in the company, which has been marketing itself as a way for UK investors to gain Bitcoin exposure via public markets, and makes Farage the first UK political party leader and sitting member of parliament to publicly back Bitcoin, in what Stack BTC described as a “landmark moment for Bitcoin in British politics.”
Farage said in a video announcing the purchase that Stack could not be a Bitcoin treasury company without holding Bitcoin, while Kwarteng said the firm had made “massive progress” in recent weeks.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d865d-0e19-7261-895d-413ae124d8a2.png\")
Stack BTC’s share price (STAK) rose 7.5% on Monday, trading at $14.43 up from $13.43 at Friday’s close.
Farage’s involvement builds on an earlier investment in the company in March, when he acquired a minority 6.31% stake in the company alongside Kwarteng.
Related: UK lawmakers seek moratorium on crypto donations to political parties
Over the past year, Reform UK has emerged as the UK’s most prominent political group by crypto-linked funding, pulling in about $18 million in 2025 alone, ahead of the ruling Labour Party and the Conservatives. This development has drawn scrutiny from regulators and transparency campaigners.
In March, the UK government announced that it was advancing plans to temporarily ban crypto donations to political parties, following recommendations aimed at reducing the risk of opaque or overseas influence.
While Reform UK has leaned into its association with digital assets and positioned itself as receptive to crypto-backed support, policymakers are preparing tighter rules that could restrict one of the party’s fastest-growing funding channels.
Cointelegraph reached out to Farage and Stack BTC for comment, but had not received a response by publication.
Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation — Santiment founder
", "description": "Reform UK leader and MP Nigel Farage has backed a $2.7 million Bitcoin allocation through UK Bitcoin treasury firm Stack BTC.", "published": "2026-04-13T13:09:54+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "politics" }, { "slug": "united-kingdom" }, { "slug": "shares" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-adoption" } ], "slug": "nigel-farage-backed-stack-btc-acquires-2-7m-bitcoin", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "261062" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "South Korea says API crypto trading now makes up 30% of market: Report", "leadText": "South Korea’s FSS said API trading now makes up 30% of crypto turnover and warned it will crack down on abusive automated trading patterns, local media reported Monday.", "author": { "slug": "ezra-reguerra" }, "bodyText": "South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Monday that API-based trading now accounts for about 30% of crypto buy-and-sell turnover, warning that some traders are using automated tools to inflate volumes and manipulate prices.
According to reports from Yonhap News Agency and Maeil Business Newspaper, the regulator warned that some traders are using automated tools to inflate volumes and manipulate prices, citing cases involving repeated small trades, spoofed orders and coordinated activity across multiple accounts.
The FSS said it will launch targeted investigations into accounts suspected of using APIs for excessive or abnormal trading patterns, signaling closer scrutiny of automated trading activity in the market.
The warning follows South Korea’s broader push to curb crypto market abuse, as regulators intensify enforcement even as parts of the legal framework remain under development.
According to the reports, the FSS described several methods used in distorting prices, including repeated placement of small market buy and sell orders to create the appearance of active trading. The regulator added that traders used higher-priced limit orders to artificially inflate prices.
In one case outlined by the FSS, a trader used API-driven orders from 5,000 won (about $3) to 10,000 won (about $6) to simulate trading activity before selling into rising prices as retail investors entered the market. In another case outlined by the FSS, a trader set a target price and repeatedly submitted higher-priced buys to drive prices to that level.
Related: Bank of Korea floats crypto ‘circuit breakers’ after Bithumb blunder
The FSS warned users against indiscriminately using high-frequency trading code shared online and urged investors to avoid chasing assets that show sudden spikes in price and trading activity without clear reasons.
The warning comes as South Korean authorities have stepped up oversight of crypto exchanges following a series of operational and fraud-related incidents.
On April 7, regulators ordered exchanges to reconcile internal ledgers with actual asset holdings every five minutes after inspections found delayed balance checks and weak trade-halting systems.
South Korean authorities also moved to tighten safeguards against scams. On April 8, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said inconsistent withdrawal-delay exemption rules allowed bad actors to move funds quickly, with exempted accounts accounting for a majority of voice phishing losses.
At the same time, enforcement efforts have faced legal constraints. On April 9, a South Korean court overturned a partial suspension of Upbit operator Dunamu, citing unclear rules and highlighting gaps in the regulatory framework.
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", "description": "The FSS plans targeted probes into abnormal trading patterns as South Korea tightens oversight despite legal gaps in crypto enforcement framework.", "published": "2026-04-13T12:49:35+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "blockchain" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "south-korea" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrency-exchange" }, { "slug": "trading" } ], "slug": "south-korea-api-crypto-trading-30-percent-manipulation-risk", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "261052" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Crypto ETPs see $1.1B inflows, strongest gains since January", "leadText": "Crypto ETPs recorded $1.1 billion in inflows last week, led by Bitcoin and US spot ETFs, as easing US inflation data and geopolitical tensions supported demand.", "author": { "slug": "helen-partz" }, "bodyText": "Cryptocurrency investment products clocked significant inflows last week, marking their strongest weekly gains since January.
Global crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) logged $1.1 billion in inflows last week, with Bitcoin (BTC) leading the gains with $871 million in inflows, CoinShares reported on Monday.
The inflows marked the second-biggest weekly gains in 2026 so far, following only the $2.17 billion in weekly inflows recorded in mid-January.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d866f-8508-7f88-8a06-80655dc6d29d.png\")
CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, attributed the spike in inflows to a rebound in investor risk appetite following tentative ceasefire developments in Iran, alongside support from softer-than-expected US inflation and spending data.
The inflows came amid volatility in spot markets, with BTC reclaiming $70,000 and briefly topping $73,000 last week, even as broader market sentiment remained negative, underscoring sustained institutional demand and resilience in regulated investment products.
Ether (ETH) ETPs saw a strong rebound in sentiment with around $196.5 million in inflows, the first inflows after three consecutive weeks of outflows.
Despite the gains, Ether remains one of the only assets in a net outflow position year-to-date, at $130 million. In contrast, Bitcoin sits on the largest inflows this year so far at $1.9 billion and accounts for around 83% of the $2.3 billion in total crypto ETP inflows year-to-date.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d866f-8863-75be-9a31-e6bb068d353b.png\")
Although Bitcoin ETPs posted significant inflows, short-Bitcoin investors were also active last week, with weekly inflows totaling $20 million, their largest weekly inflows since November 2024, Butterfill noted.
Among other gains, XRP (XRP) ETPs posted inflows of around $19 million. Solana (SOL) saw minor outflows of $2.5 million.
Related: BlackRock Bitcoin ETF sees $269M inflows, best day since early March
Regionally, positive sentiment was almost entirely concentrated in the US, which saw inflows of $1 billion, accounting for 95% of net weekly inflows. The majority of Bitcoin ETP inflows were driven by US spot BTC exchange-traded funds, which posted $786.3 million in inflows last week, according to SoSoValue data.
Germany recorded inflows of $34.6 million, while Canada and Switzerland saw more modest inflows of $7.8 million and $6.9 million, respectively.
Magazine: Your guide to surviving this mini-crypto winter
", "description": "Crypto investment products recorded $1.1 billion in inflows last week, marking the largest weekly inflows since mid-January, CoinShares reported.", "published": "2026-04-13T12:06:51+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "coinshares" }, { "slug": "ethereum-etf" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-etf" }, { "slug": "etf" } ], "slug": "crypto-etp-1-1-billion-inflows-strongest-gains-january", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "261042" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Justin Sun presses WLFI to identify wallets behind freeze powers", "leadText": "Sun urged the Trump-linked WLFi platform to disclose who controls the multi-sig and smart contract behind the platform, days after its governance token hit a new low.", "author": { "slug": "zoltan-vardai" }, "bodyText": "Justin Sun, the co-founder of layer-1 blockchain network Tron, has urged the Trump-linked crypto platform World Liberty Financial to publicly disclose who controls the guardian Externally Owned Account (EOA) and multisignature wallets governing its smart contracts, after alleging the setup was used to blacklist his wallet.
Sun said a single guardian EOA tied to the WLFI multisig structure appeared to be the sole owner of a second guardian safe, giving one individual unilateral power to freeze token holders, according to a Monday X post.
WLFI has not publicly responded to the substance of Sun’s latest claims.
The dispute adds to criticism of WLFI’s governance after a March vote showed that 76% of voting power came from 10 wallets. Sun, an early investor in the project, called that an alarming sign of concentrated influence. In a Sunday X post, WLFI accused Sun of spreading baseless allegations to cover up his own misconduct and threatened legal action.
Sun’s WLFI token address was blacklisted in September 2025 after blockchain data platforms flagged it for a roughly $9 million transfer. Sun said his presale tokens were unreasonably frozen and urged the team to unlock his investment.
Cointelegraph has contacted World Liberty Financial for comment.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8649-a205-7eaf-a779-b0533475422f.png\")
Sun’s latest allegations come as WLFI is already under pressure after project-linked wallets deployed substantial token holdings as collateral on Dolomite, a decentralized lending platform linked to WLFI chief technology officer Corey Caplan.
Onchain data flagged by Arkham showed WLFI-linked wallets deposited about 5 billion WLFI tokens on Dolomite, borrowed about $75 million in USD1 and USDC (USDC), and transferred more than $40 million to Coinbase Prime.
Multiple DeFi analysts said the loan raises concerns for lenders on Dolomite if WLFI’s price falls near liquidation levels. WLFI acknowledged the lending position and assured investors that the WLFI token trades well above the liquidation threshold.
WLFI fell to a new low of about $0.077 on Saturday, extending losses as concerns around governance, collateral use and treasury transparency mounted, according to CoinGecko.
Related: Trump Organization to tokenize Maldives resort development for early investors
Other Trump-family-linked coins have also sunk to new all-time lows, including the Official Trump (TRUMP) and the Official Melania (MELANIA) memecoins.
However, some large token holders have restarted their TRUMP token accumulation ahead of the luncheon at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 25, where the top 297 token holders are invited.
Magazine: Quitting Trump’s top crypto job wasn’t easy: Bo Hines
", "description": "Sun urged the Trump-linked WLFI to disclose who controls the multi-signature wallet and smart contract behind the platform, after the WLFI governance token sank to a new low.", "published": "2026-04-13T11:52:49+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "multisignature" }, { "slug": "donald-trump" }, { "slug": "trumpcoin" }, { "slug": "justin-sun" }, { "slug": "governance-token" }, { "slug": "industry" } ], "slug": "justin-sun-urges-trump-wlfi-disclose-multi-sig", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "261037" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Hyperbridge attacker mints 1B bridged Polkadot tokens in $237K exploit", "leadText": "A Hyperbridge exploit let an attacker mint 1 billion bridged Polkadot tokens on Ethereum and cash out about $237,000, reviving debate over bridge security.", "author": { "slug": "zoltan-vardai" }, "bodyText": "A hacker exploited the Polkadot-based cross-chain interoperability protocol Hyperbridge, netting about $237,000 and raising renewed security concerns about blockchain bridge infrastructure.
An attacker minted 1 billion bridged Polkadot (DOT) tokens in a single transaction on Hyperbridge, according to blockchain data shared by cybersecurity platform CertiK. The exploit only affected DOT on Ethereum that was bridged through Hyperbridge, while native DOT tokens and the wider Polkadot ecosystem remain unaffected, Polkadot noted in a Monday X post.
CertiK said the attacker managed to mint the tokens after “slipping through a forged message to change the admin of the Polkadot token contract on Ethereum.” Limited liquidity in the bridged DOT pool capped the proceeds at 108.2 Ether (ETH), worth around $237,000.
Hyperbridge paused operations after the attack while the team worked on an upgrade, with contributor Web3 Philosopher saying the initial diagnosis pointed to a malicious proof that fooled the protocol’s Merkle tree verifier.
The exploit is notable because Hyperbridge has marketed itself as a proof-based interoperability layer built to deliver “full node security” for crosschain bridges. The incident also follows Aethir’s disclosure last week that it had contained a separate bridge exploit and kept user losses below $90,000.
Cybersecurity research company Blocksec Falcon said the likely root cause of the exploit was a Merkle Mountain Range (MMR) proof replay vulnerability caused by missing proof-to-request binding, though the final root cause has not yet been confirmed by the protocol.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85e9-a524-7eb9-b129-3ebc5189bdff.png\")
The native DOT token briefly dipped to a daily low of $1.16 on Monday, before recovering to trade above $1.19 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko.
![\"Hackers,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8617-1719-7467-865d-ca53e8f9129e.png\")
Security incidents continue to hit crypto protocols despite a sharp year-over-year drop in DeFi exploit losses.
Related: New AI cybercrime tool targets crypto, bank KYC systems via deepfakes
On Sunday, the data indexing protocol SubQuery Network was also exploited for around $130,000 due to missing access control data that exposed the code written over two years ago.
The vulnerability enabled the attacker to set their own contract as the withdrawal target for staking rewards, blockchain security auditor Pashov said in a Sunday X post.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85e9-a6f7-70f2-b166-031ce2f5f3b7.png\")
Hackers stole over $168 million from 34 decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in the first quarter of 2026, marking a significant decline from the $1.58 billion stolen in the first quarter of 2025, when the record $1.4 billion Bybit hack occurred.
Cointelegraph has contacted Hyperbridge for comment on the root cause of the exploit.
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", "description": "An attacker minted 1 billion bridged DOT tokens on Hyperbridge before selling it all for just $237,000 in Ether, igniting renewed concerns tied to cross-chain bridge security.", "published": "2026-04-13T10:19:10+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "hackers" }, { "slug": "cybercrime" }, { "slug": "cybersecurity" }, { "slug": "scams" }, { "slug": "hacks" }, { "slug": "polkadot" }, { "slug": "scams-and-cybercrime" } ], "slug": "hacker-steals-237k-1b-bridged-dot-hyperbridge", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "261012" }, { "category": { "slug": "markets" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Oil price surges 8% on Iran tensions: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week", "leadText": "Bitcoin preserved $70,000 at the weekly close as markets began reacting to a breakdown in US-Iran negotiations and blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.", "author": { "slug": "william-suberg" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin (BTC) held $70,000 at the weekly close as markets reacted to a breakdown in US-Iran negotiations and escalating tensions around the Strait of Hormuz.
A breakdown in US-Iran negotiations sends oil surging above $100 per barrel, with the Strait of Hormuz now blockaded.
US PPI inflation data is due amid signs that the oil crisis is far from the only driver of price increases.
Bitcoin manages a weekly close above $70,000, but a trader says new lows remain on the roadmap.
Profit-taking is what keeps Bitcoin unable to hold the $70,000 mark for long, analysis confirms.
Overall sell-side pressure is easing, while long-term holders boost BTC exposure on Binance.
The US-Iran war is once again the main topic of debate among market participants after the sudden breakdown in negotiations over the weekend.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced sweeping measures to blockade the Strait of Hormuz with an eye to controlling oil transport in the future.
In one of several posts on Truth Social, Trump wrote that “at some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis” on Hormuz.
“It appears that Trump's long-term plan is to blockade Hormuz, gain control, then begin letting traffic flow freely,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter commented in a response on X.
“However, if this is possible to fully obtain, it will be a long process that would further restrict the flow of traffic for at least another 2 months, according to our analysis.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c3-47f2-73cb-ad49-53f3e9e9775d.png\")
Fears immediately focused on markets’ reaction, but this ended up tempered, with S&P 500 futures losing around 0.6%. Oil, however, gained rapidly, trading near $105 per barrel after 8% daily upside.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c3-e36e-74c7-bb2c-d908dedf2a5b.png\")
Kobeissi added that in the absence of diplomacy, Hormuz now appeared to be the US’ “top priority” going forward.
“We expect a volatile week ahead,” it added.
As Cointelegraph reported, oil prices have a pronounced impact on US inflation gauges, notably the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which was released last week.
The coming days will see the March print of the Producer Price Index (PPI), this also set to reflect the start of the war.
Commenting, trading resource Mosaic Asset Company warned that recent inflation data was already pointing to catalysts beyond the conflict.
“While headlines coming out of the Middle East are capturing investor attention, a pair of consumer inflation reports released last week continues showing upward pressure on prices,” it wrote in the latest edition of its regular newsletter, “The Market Mosaic.”
Mosaic flagged both CPI and Federal Reserve’s “preferred” measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, the latest update for which was released on April 9.
PCE revealed “more recent annualized rates over the past three and six months are accelerating higher.”
“That shows inflation pressures outside of what’s expected following war in the Middle East and impact on energy prices,” Mosaic added.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c5-c137-7112-8dac-4ccaf2b34310.png\")
As a result, the Fed may end up enacting “tighter” monetary policy, keeping interest rates steady or even raising them, despite repeated demands by Trump and other officials to do the opposite.
The latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows that markets already see no rate cuts coming before the second half of 2027.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c6-3721-77bd-afc3-5e3c63acfb18.png\")
Bitcoin often exhibits volatile reactions to US inflation reports, particularly when those differ considerably from expected values.
Bitcoin managed to avoid major losses on the back of the latest geopolitical setback, wicking to near $70,500, per data from TradingView.
The weekly close at around $70,850 thus preserved key price levels in the form of the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA) trend line and the old 2021 all-time high.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c7-84bc-7820-99e3-26698c44d5a8.png\")
With the spot trading range still narrowing, trader Roman said that a true high-time frame (HTF) trend flip required another BTC price correction.
\n\n\n$BTC 1W
— Roman (@Roman_Trading) April 12, 2026
We are here - compared to 2022.
This is not the bottom. pic.twitter.com/It6OGj1BX5
“Why haven’t we bottomed yet? Because AT LEAST 1 more low would give us reversal signals on HTF,” he told X followers in a post on Sunday.
Roman has long been among those calling for deeper long-term lows for BTC/USD, with his targets circling the $50,000 mark.
One of the prerequisites for abandoning the bear market, he said, was a bullish divergence on the relative strength index (RSI) versus price.
“RSI bull divs, bear momentum loss, likely see volume start to shift, & possible reversal pattern. All things we saw at the 2022 bottom,” he added.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c8-8ec5-7796-a85e-52868c79389f.png\")
As Cointelegraph reported, RSI is already beginning to offer key bullish signals, with another trader saying that the indicator was copying the end of the 2022 bear market “nearly perfectly.”
Macro events aside, Bitcoin continues to suffer from a familiar problem on short time frames, analysis says.
In an X post at the weekend, onchain analytics platform Glassnode said that each time BTC/USD passes $70,000, the urge to take profit among traders results in the rally quickly fizzling.
“Another bounce to >$70k range was exhausted by >$20M/Hour profit realization,” it confirmed.
The phenomenon was recorded last week after Bitcoin made multiple attempts to flip the $70,000 to support.
“As price probed the $70K region, Realized Profit/hour spiked above $20M, signalling a local exhaustion,” Glassnode wrote at the time.
“A pattern consistent since February 2026: Every approach to the $70k–$80K band meets thin liquidity and profit-taking pressure, capping the bounce.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c9-3827-7024-a22e-6d2ec76260b4.png\")
Talk of Bitcoin “short squeezes” getting easier has surfaced among analysts recently amid increasing signs of seller exhaustion.
Related: Bitcoin analysis sees $55K BTC price 'iron bottom' by December 2026
In its latest commentary, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant added evidence to support the theory that bulls could retake control of the market at current levels.
“Bitcoin’s short-term holder pressure on Binance has entered a calmer phase,” contributor Amr Taha reported in one of its “Quicktake” blog posts on Monday.
Taha referred to more recent Bitcoin investor cohorts hodling coins for up to six months without selling.
“The 7-day standard deviation of realized profit/loss pressure fell to 217, marking its lowest reading since February, compared with the previous low of 277,” he reported about their profit/loss ratio.
“The move signals that short-term holders are sending coins to Binance with less aggressive profit-taking and less panic-driven loss realization, reducing near-term distribution pressure on the market.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85c9-edef-77a6-b324-1b0e9d98cbe1.png\")
A further post additionally revealed rising demand for BTC on major global exchange Binance.
“Bitcoin is showing a healthier holding structure as whale transfer pressure to Binance continues to ease while long-term holder demand strengthens,” Taha added.
The increase in long-term holders’ realized cap — the combined value of their BTC holdings when they last moved — passed the $50 billion mark for the first time in nearly a year this week.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d85ca-9d35-73ad-92a3-31c4f9ea5200.png\")
Crypto whales loaded up more of the TRUMP memecoin ahead of the luncheon at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida this month, which offers entry to the largest holders.
One whale withdrew about 105,754 OFFICIAL TRUMP (TRUMP) from Binance on Saturday to add to its stash of 1.13 million TRUMP, worth about $3.2 million, according to an X post from blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain on Sunday.
Two days earlier, another whale withdrew 850,488 TRUMP from the crypto exchange Bybit.
On Monday, another holder increased their TRUMP stash to more than 368,000 tokens after withdrawing from BitMart, and a fourth whale boosted their stash to over one million tokens after withdrawing from Bybit, according to blockchain explorer Solscan.
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers, have accused Trump of using his position for personal financial gain through the project and have introduced legislation aimed at limiting such activity.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d857c-fc8d-7e6f-a5b2-0804d6f9d3a3.png\")
The top 297 token holders are invited to a luncheon on April 25 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, with the president expected to speak. The top 29 holders are also offered a private reception, despite the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, DC, falling on the same day.
Trump’s announcement of the luncheon in March saw TRUMP spike to $4.35. However, the memecoin has since dropped by over 33% to trade at $2.80 as of Monday, according to CoinGecko.
Dominick John, an analyst at Zeus Research, told Cointelegraph the price is likely being pushed lower as retail-driven market selling overwhelms already thin liquidity, forcing continuous repricing.
“At the same time, insider supply overhang means even small distributions from concentrated wallets can absorb whale bids, limiting any meaningful upside follow-through,” he added.
Crypto data analytics platform CoinCarp lists 642,882 TRUMP holders, with over 91% of the supply concentrated among the top 10 wallets and over 97% among the top 100 wallets.
Trump held his first “crypto gala” dinner in May 2025, a few months after his Jan. 20 inauguration as US president, which also drew concern from critics who accused him of using his position for personal financial gain.
Related: Bessent ramps up pressure on Congress to pass CLARITY Act
The token peaked at $15.59 about a month before the event, but fell as the event drew closer, and fell to around $8.90 a month after the event.
John said this time around, the token could stage a recovery, with the 2026 midterms acting as a potential sentiment multiplier and other positive announcements. Catalysts and early signs of institutional accumulation could help establish a floor and trigger reflexive upside, he said.
“One catalyst to watch is the potential for event-driven launches like the Trump Billionaire Game, which could generate the social buzz needed to drive short-term upside momentum,” John added.
Magazine: Bitcoin quantum-safe without upgrade? CZ’s 2031 crypto vision: Hodler’s Digest, April 5 – 11
", "description": "Crypto whales have been accumulating more TRUMP tokens ahead of the luncheon at US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida later this month, which promises entry to large holders.", "published": "2026-04-13T07:37:03+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "altcoin" }, { "slug": "adoption" }, { "slug": "united-states" }, { "slug": "donald-trump" }, { "slug": "memecoin" } ], "slug": "whales-accumulating-trump-coin-ahead-of-luncheon", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260987" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bank of Korea floats crypto ‘circuit breakers’ after Bithumb blunder", "leadText": "Bithumb accidentally sent customers 620,000 Bitcoin instead of 620,000 Korean won in February. The Bank of Korea wants lawmakers to make it so it doesn't happen again.", "author": { "slug": "jesse-coghlan" }, "bodyText": "South Korea’s central bank says crypto exchanges should have their own “circuit breakers” that halt trading to prevent a repeat of the market fallout after Bithumb mistakenly sent more than $40 billion in Bitcoin to its customers in February.
The Bank of Korea said in a payments report on Monday that lawmakers should consider introducing mechanisms similar to the Korea Exchange’s trading curbs to suspend trading if crypto prices suddenly fluctuate.
“Currently, the virtual asset industry lacks internal control mechanisms and faces lower regulatory intensity compared to established financial institutions,” the bank said.
“Consequently, as similar incidents could occur at other virtual asset exchanges, it is necessary to strengthen relevant regulations to prevent them in advance,” the report added.
It comes as South Korean lawmakers are currently looking to pass laws to further regulate crypto, which the Bank of Korea said should include its suggested measures “to enhance the safety and transparency of virtual asset exchange operations.”
In early February, Bithumb erroneously sent customers 620,000 Bitcoin (BTC), worth around $42 billion at the time, instead of 620,000 Korean won, worth $400.
The price of Bitcoin on Bithumb fell as users rushed to sell, causing others to panic-sell and further driving down its price, according to the bank’s report.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8573-e9e0-7652-9e14-cd5cc8ecc528.png\")
Bithumb halted trading and reversed its Bitcoin sends within minutes, but the exchange said that 1,788 BTC, worth around $125 million, had been sold before it could act, and it covered the shortfall using company reserves.
Related: South Korea tightens crypto withdrawal-delay exemptions after scam losses
The Bank of Korea suggested that crypto exchanges should be required to have systems capable of detecting and preventing “erroneous payments caused by human error.”
It added that exchanges should also have systems to automatically verify a platform’s internal assets compared to those on the blockchain to flag discrepancies.
Magazine: South Korea gets rich from crypto… North Korea gets weapons
", "description": "The Bank of Korea has suggested that lawmakers craft rules for crypto exchanges to implement trading curbs to prevent the market fallout that came after Bithumb’s $40 billion Bitcoin mistake.", "published": "2026-04-13T07:21:05+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "south-korea" }, { "slug": "bithumb" }, { "slug": "regulation" } ], "slug": "bank-of-korea-floats-crypto-circuit-breakers-after-bithumb-blunder", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260982" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Institutions are in a crypto bull market as retail sits out: Exodus CEO", "leadText": "Almost everyone has a hard time paying their bills every month, said crypto YouTuber Michaël van de Poppe, on why retail may be absent this cycle.", "author": { "slug": "martin-young" }, "bodyText": "Financial institutions have “accelerated” their participation in crypto markets this year, while retail investors have pulled out, said Exodus CEO JP Richardson on Sunday.
“This might be the first cycle in crypto history where institutions are in a bull market, and retail doesn’t even know it,” the crypto executive said.
Richardson cited a few examples, such as the stablecoin market capitalization all-time high this year, Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin (BTC) ETF launch, Schwab starting a waitlist for spot Bitcoin trading, Franklin Templeton announcing a crypto division and Fannie Mae accepting Bitcoin-backed mortgages.
“In 2018 and 2022, institutions pulled out with retail. This time, they accelerated,” he said.
This shift could signal that crypto has evolved from volatile, retail-driven hype cycles to a more mature, institution-led market with steadier accumulation, deeper liquidity and reduced reliance on emotional spikes or panic selling.
MN Fund founder and crypto YouTuber Michaël van de Poppe echoed the sentiment in an X post on Sunday, stating, “It’s super clear that retail isn’t interested in crypto.”
“Almost everyone has a hard time paying their bills on a monthly basis,” he added, referring to the escalating cost-of-living crisis and inflationary pressures.
“That’s why this cycle won’t be the retail cycle. It’s the institutional cycle and will take longer.”
Related: Bitcoin price falls under $71K as US-Iran war tensions spark sell-off
CryptoQuant analyst “Darkfost” noted that retail activity hit a nine-year low earlier this month, reporting that inflows from small accounts with less than 1 BTC reached a record low on Binance.
“Retail investors are clearly absent from the market,” he said.
The analyst added that some retail investors may have recently left the crypto market to move into equities and commodities, which have also delivered strong performances.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d856a-9b44-7469-b6e7-84452b068619.jpg\")
CoinEx exchange chief analyst Jeff Ko told Cointelegraph on Monday that near-term sentiment “remains fragile and heavily macro-driven, especially by oil, the dollar, and inflation expectations.”
“At this stage, the move still looks more like a macro risk premium overwhelming the near-term bid than a genuine deterioration in crypto appetite.”
He said he was more confident over the medium term, adding, “I do not expect oil prices to remain elevated given the underlying supply-demand fundamentals.”
Magazine: Bitcoin quantum-safe without upgrade? CZ’s 2031 crypto vision: Hodler’s Digest
", "description": "Institutions are driving crypto’s bull run while retail activity hits a nine-year low on Binance amid cost-of-living pressures and macro uncertainty.", "published": "2026-04-13T07:02:22+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "retail" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "investments" }, { "slug": "markets" }, { "slug": "institutions" } ], "slug": "institutions-are-in-a-bull-market-and-retail-hasn-t-even-noticed-yet-exec", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260972" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Musician loses $420K Bitcoin ‘retirement fund’ via fake Ledger app", "leadText": "Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT said Garrett Dutton’s 5.9 Bitcoin has already been sent to deposit addresses associated with KuCoin.", "author": { "slug": "brayden-lindrea" }, "bodyText": "Garrett Dutton, an American musician better known as “G. Love,” said he lost $420,000 worth of Bitcoin after installing a malicious app impersonating the self-custody crypto app Ledger Live from Apple’s App Store and entering his seed phrase.
“I had a really tough day,” Dutton told his 67,500 followers in a post on X on Saturday, adding that he lost his 5.9 Bitcoin (BTC) stash “in an instant” after spending about 10 years accumulating the coins to secure his retirement.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8556-f42b-7648-9d23-15597af7c671.png\")
In a follow-up post, crypto sleuth ZachXBT said that Dutton’s Bitcoin has been sent to deposit addresses linked to the crypto exchange KuCoin across nine transactions. KuCoin replied to the post with a statement typically addressed to customers.
The incident highlights a continued problem that bad actors have posed in the crypto industry. On Tuesday, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that Americans lost over $11 billion from crypto-related incidents in 2025, up from the $9 billion recorded the previous year.
Related: Hong Kong retiree loses $840K in triple ‘crypto expert’ scam
Dutton said he was tricked into sharing his seed phrase after downloading the malicious software on his new Apple MacBook Neo but didn’t share which link he used.
“I been in the crypto circus since 2017. Today they caught me off guard. It was my own damn fault for not being more diligent. But let it serve as a warning. There's so many scams,” he added.
Cointelegraph was unable to find the fake Ledger app on Apple's App Store at the time of writing. Cointelegraph reached out to Apple for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Scammers have been adopting this fake Ledger app strategy since at least 2023.
That year, almost $600,000 worth of Bitcoin was stolen from several users who downloaded a fake Ledger Live application from Microsoft’s app store.
Microsoft admitted that the malicious app had bypassed its review process and took it down shortly after.
Magazine: Asia Express: Phantom Bitcoin checks, China tracks tax on blockchain
", "description": "American musician Garrett Dutton said he lost his $420,000 Bitcoin “retirement fund” after downloading a fake Ledger app from Apple’s App Store and giving his seed phrase away.", "published": "2026-04-13T06:56:49+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "apple" }, { "slug": "software" }, { "slug": "ledger" }, { "slug": "hackers" }, { "slug": "self-custody" } ], "slug": "musician-loses-420k-bitcoin-retirement-fund-after-installing-fake-ledger-app", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260967" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin mining, AI may diverge on centralization, researcher says", "leadText": "Bitcoin mining is becoming more centralized while AI may move the opposite way, driven by edge computing and open-source models.", "author": { "slug": "martin-young" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin mining runs the risk of becoming more centralized as time goes on, while artificial intelligence may be moving in the opposite direction, according to Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn.
Thorn said that while Bitcoin mining began decentralized, with users mining Bitcoin on their personal computers, it has since become far more centralized, requiring ASIC miners or industrial-scale farms.
“AI may follow the opposite path,” Thorn said, explaining that AI began in centralized clusters but could decentralize as open-source models close the gap.
“If local models keep getting smaller, cheaper, and more efficient, AI may become increasingly personal and on-device.”
The divergence strikes at the heart of crypto’s core promise: decentralization. If Bitcoin mining were to continue down a path of centralization, it may begin to raise concerns about the network’s long-term resilience.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8525-a1b3-79b8-b0f2-19883376eae8.jpg\")
Edge AI computing refers to the deployment and running of AI models directly on local devices or “at the edge” of the network, rather than sending all data to centralized cloud servers or massive data centers for processing.
The global AI edge market is anticipated to grow from about $25 billion in 2025 to a projected $119 billion by 2033, according to Grand View Research.
Related: Researchers discover malicious AI agent routers that can steal crypto
The edge market is experiencing significant growth driven by the “rapid expansion of IoT (Internet of Things) and connected devices,” stated GVR.
This increases the demand for real-time and low-latency data processing, growing the adoption of AI-enabled automation across industries, and “rising focus on data privacy and localized intelligence at the network edge,” GVR added.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8525-a4d8-711c-b366-955ffda0a523.jpg\")
Crypto exchange KuCoin reported on Friday that Bitcoin mining has become increasingly unviable in the United States as the cost to mine a single BTC has surpassed $100,000 in some regions due to surging energy costs.
This is resulting in a geographic migration with hash rate actively moving toward the “Global South,” with Paraguay and Ethiopia emerging as the leading destinations due to surplus hydroelectric power.
This could help to decentralize mining, at least from a geographical perspective.
“This decentralization of mining power across different continents enhances the security of the network by making it less vulnerable to any single country’s political or environmental shocks,” it stated.
Magazine: Bitcoin quantum-safe without upgrade? CZ’s 2031 crypto vision: Hodler’s Digest
", "description": "Bitcoin mining is much more centralized than how it began, while AI may decentralize via edge computing, per Galaxy Research and Grand View Research data.", "published": "2026-04-13T05:56:47+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "decentralization" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-mining" }, { "slug": "ai" }, { "slug": "data-center" }, { "slug": "ai-and-hi-tech" } ], "slug": "edge-computing-decentralize-ai-bitcoin-mining-centralizes", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260962" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Aave DAO approves $25M funding grant, token allocation for Aave Labs", "leadText": "The vote passed with nearly 75% in favor. Other elements of the framework, including the growth and development grants, will have separate governance proposals.", "author": { "slug": "stephen-katte" }, "bodyText": "Aave Labs, the core development team behind Aave, has been granted $25 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE tokens by the protocol’s DAO under the “Aave Will Win” framework.
The vote passed Saturday with nearly 75% in favor. The stablecoin allocation will be paid in installments over 12 months, while the 75,000 AAVE tokens will vest linearly over four years, according to the governance dashboard.
The Aave Will Win framework aims to accelerate the protocol’s growth, with the DAO funding development and Aave Labs focusing on building and scaling. The stablecoins directly fund Aave Labs' operations, while the token allocation serves as an incentive for developers to help grow the protocol.
Other elements of the framework, including the growth and development grants tied to specific product launches and milestones, will have separate governance proposals.
Aave is one of the largest DeFi protocols in the industry, with its total value locked exceeding $25 billion, DefiLlama data shows. The framework marks a major shift in funding allocation.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d84ea-d462-76f6-b0ed-b9a418fd9a87.png\")
Following the vote, Aave founder Stani Kulechov said in an X post Saturday that Aave Will Win is the “most important proposal in Aave's history” and it “just passed with a landslide.”
“If you own AAVE, you own not just the economic rights of the protocol, but the brand, the users, and the integrations, he added. “This is the direction we are committing to, a multi-year journey. The foundation is set. Now it's time to build. Aave will win.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d84ea-dbe1-7ed3-ac90-4b36b6ea41c9.png\")
Under the framework, which passed on April 5, Aave Labs would shift to a DAO-funded operating model, with revenue generated by Aave products, such as Aave Pro, flowing to the DAO treasury rather than being retained by Aave Labs.
The proposal also sought ratification of Aave V4 as the protocol’s long-term technical foundation and outlined plans for a new foundation to steward the Aave brand. Aave Labs would also focus only on Aave-related products, with the goal of streamlining operations, accelerating development and building more competitive offerings.
“Fintechs are entering DeFi, institutions are coming on-chain, and regulatory clarity is emerging in certain markets that allows us to go directly to consumers,” Aave Labs said.
“The protocols that win the next decade will be those that move fast, build great tools and products and capture new markets before competitors,” it added.
Some community members have previously raised concerns about the size of the funding package and the inclusion of 75,000 AAVE tokens, which carry voting power, and the definition of what counts as revenue.
Related: Chaos Labs taps out as Aave's risk provider, decision ‘not made in haste’
The Aave Will Win framework passed a temperature check on March 1, and soon after, a major governance delegate, the Aave Chan Initiative, announced it would wind down its involvement with the DAO due to concerns about governance standards and voting dynamics during the proposal process.
In January, another proposal to transfer control of Aave’s brand assets and intellectual property to its DAO failed, prompting debate within the Aave community over the protocol’s long-term direction and governance structure.
Magazine: Bitcoin quantum-safe without upgrade? CZ’s 2031 crypto vision: Hodler’s Digest, April 5 – 11
", "description": "The Aave DAO has approved a $25 million funding package for Aave Labs under the Aave Will Win framework, with other elements of the framework also subject to separate governance proposals.", "published": "2026-04-13T05:17:36+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "business" }, { "slug": "technology" }, { "slug": "aave" }, { "slug": "governance-token" }, { "slug": "industry" } ], "slug": "aave-dao-approves-25m-funding-aave-labs-aave-will-win-framework", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260957" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "EU central bank backs plan for crypto supervision under EU markets watchdog", "leadText": "The European Central Bank has boosted a proposal to take away EU member states' regulatory oversight of crypto and hand it to the European Union’s market regulator.", "author": { "slug": "jesse-coghlan" }, "bodyText": "The European Central Bank has supported the European Commission’s plan to bring the supervision of major crypto companies under the EU’s financial markets regulator.
The ECB said in an opinion published on Friday that it fully supports bringing oversight of systemically important cross-border capital market companies, such as large trading platforms and crypto companies, under the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
The central bank said the proposals “constitute an ambitious step towards deeper integration of capital markets and financial market supervision within the Union.”
The opinion is nonbinding, but it will still be a major boost to the plan, which is set to be the most significant overhaul of how the EU will regulate crypto companies since the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) laws started to come into force in mid-2023.
Under MiCA, crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs, are allowed to operate under the supervision of an EU member country’s regulator to serve the entire bloc, with ESMA setting some standards and guidelines.
That has allowed crypto companies to pick favorable jurisdictions to get licensed, with Kraken setting up its EU arm in Ireland, while Coinbase and Bitstamp chose Luxembourg. Bitpanda set up in Austria, while its EU asset management arm chose to be licensed in Germany.
Some countries, including the popular MiCA licensing hub of Malta, have pushed back against the plan, calling it premature, arguing that the MiCA laws for CASPs only came into force in December 2024.
Related: Centralizing crypto: Why Malta’s clash with ESMA is about more than one small state
The ECB said that “transferring authorisation, monitoring and enforcement powers for all CASPs” from national regulators to ESMA would “ensure supervisory convergence, reduce fragmentation and mitigate cross-border risks in crypto-asset markets, thereby supporting financial stability and the integrity of the single market.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d84d5-46de-7138-81ff-38e0dc281201.png\")
It noted that banks are increasingly linking with crypto companies by offering crypto services to customers or by servicing crypto companies, which it argued could transmit “shocks into the financial system” from crypto.
The ECB added that the trend underscored “the need for a centralised Union supervisory regime for CASPs, capable of addressing the systemic risks posed by CASPs with significant activities, preventing risk migration into the banking system and safeguarding financial stability.”
The central bank said that ESMA would need to be given sufficient funding and staff if it were to take on the responsibility of directly policing crypto companies.
The plan is likely still months away from becoming law, as EU lawmakers and governments will negotiate the proposal before the European Parliament takes further action.
Magazine: South Korea gets rich from crypto… North Korea gets weapons
", "description": "The European Central Bank is backing a plan to supervise crypto companies under the European Securities and Markets Authority, a proposal resisted by popular EU crypto licensing hubs.", "published": "2026-04-13T04:25:42+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "europe" }, { "slug": "european-union" }, { "slug": "regulation" } ], "slug": "ecb-backs-plan-esma-crypto-supervision", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260952" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Researchers discover malicious AI agent routers that can steal crypto", "leadText": "Some LLM routers are “secretly injecting malicious tool calls and stealing creds,” warns researcher Chaofan Shou.", "author": { "slug": "martin-young" }, "bodyText": "University of California researchers have discovered that some third-party AI large language model (LLM) routers can pose security vulnerabilities that can lead to crypto theft.
A paper measuring malicious intermediary attacks on the LLM supply chain, published on Thursday by the researchers, revealed four attack vectors, including malicious code injection and extraction of credentials.
“26 LLM routers are secretly injecting malicious tool calls and stealing creds,” said the paper’s co-author, Chaofan Shou, on X.
LLM agents increasingly route requests through third-party API intermediaries or routers that aggregate access to providers like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. However, these routers terminate Internet TLS (Transport Layer Security) connections and have full plaintext access to every message.
This means that developers using AI coding agents such as Claude Code to work on smart contracts or wallets could be passing private keys, seed phrases and sensitive data through router infrastructure that has not been screened or secured.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d84b0-4e07-7684-b0a5-c2e807f46235.jpg\")
The researchers tested 28 paid routers and 400 free routers collected from public communities.
Their findings were startling, with nine routers actively injecting malicious code, two deploying adaptive evasion triggers, 17 accessing researcher-owned Amazon Web Services credentials, and one draining Ether (ETH) from a researcher-owned private key.
Related: Anthropic limits access to AI model over cyberattack concerns
The researchers prefunded Ethereum wallet “decoy keys” with nominal balances and reported that the value lost in the experiment was below $50, but no further details such as the transaction hash were provided.
The authors also ran two “poisoning studies” showing that even benign routers become dangerous once they reuse leaked credentials through weak relays.
The researchers said it was not easy to detect when a router was malicious.
“The boundary between ‘credential handling’ and ‘credential theft’ is invisible to the client because routers already read secrets in plaintext as part of normal forwarding.”
Another unsettling find was what the researchers called “YOLO mode.” This is a setting in many AI agent frameworks where the agent executes commands automatically without asking the user to confirm each one.
Previously legitimate routers can be silently weaponized without the operator even knowing, while free routers may be stealing credentials while offering cheap API access as the lure, the researchers found.
“LLM API routers sit on a critical trust boundary that the ecosystem currently treats as transparent transport.”
The researchers recommended that developers using AI agents to code should bolster client-side defenses, suggesting never letting private keys or seed phrases transit an AI agent session.
The long-term fix is for AI companies to cryptographically sign their responses so the instructions an agent executes can be mathematically verified as coming from the actual model.
Magazine: Nobody knows if quantum secure cryptography will even work
", "description": "Some AI API routers can steal crypto private keys and inject malicious code, researchers warned in a new security study.", "published": "2026-04-13T03:47:11+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "ethereum" }, { "slug": "ai" }, { "slug": "cybercrime" }, { "slug": "cybersecurity" }, { "slug": "ai-and-hi-tech" } ], "slug": "researchers-discover-malicious-ai-agent-routers-that-can-steal-crypto", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260947" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin dips to $70.6K, oil rises after US announces Hormuz blockade", "leadText": "US President Donald Trump said Iran did not want to compromise its nuclear weapons program, stating it was the only issue that “really mattered.”", "author": { "slug": "brayden-lindrea" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin fell as low as $70,623 on Sunday after the US announced a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz following failed peace talks with Iran.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) initially fell 1.9% to $71,686 after US President Donald Trump confirmed the blockade in a post to Truth Social on Sunday, adding that peace talks collapsed because Iran refused to end its nuclear program — the only issue that “really mattered.”
Bitcoin dipped further to $70,623 as the US futures markets opened late on Sunday, with oil shooting up 9.5% to $105 per barrel within half an hour of the market open, with Bitcoin down 2.7% over the day at the time of writing.
The US-Iran dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz — which handles one-fifth of global oil trade — has caused significant disruption in the financial markets over the past six weeks, particularly in oil markets, which have experienced their highest volatility since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d847f-8cf4-71b7-b0cb-5d849fdd6ad1.png\")
In addition to the ceasefire announced on Tuesday, Iran wanted the US to pay for war reparations and to unfreeze blocked Iranian financial assets.
Trump didn’t directly address those requests in the Truth Social post, instead blaming the fallout on Iran’s reluctance to end its nuclear weapons program.
Related: Paying Iran in crypto could put shippers at sanctions risk: Chainalysis
He also labeled Iran’s use of mines on the waterway and demands for tolls as “world extortion,” ordering the US Navy to block any vessels that paid Iran and to destroy the mines.
Despite the conflict, Bitcoin has risen about 7.4% to $71,194 since the US-Iran conflict started on Feb. 28, when a US airstrike killed Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Bitcoin has still managed to outperform the S&P 500 and gold since the US-Iran war started, though, clawing back some lost ground from October when Bitcoin hit a high of $126,080.
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
Today in crypto, Aave Labs has been granted $25 million in stablecoins, alongside a token allocation of 75,000 AAVE by its DAO. Coin Bureau analyst Nic Puckrin says the week-old Bitcoin recovery is fragile and stablecoin adoption in Europe is shifting from strategy to execution.
Aave Labs, the core development team behind the Aave protocol, has been granted $25 million in stablecoins, alongside a token allocation of 75,000 AAVE by its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) as part of the “Aave Will Win” framework.
The vote passed Saturday with nearly 75% in favor. The stablecoin allocation will be paid in installments over 12 months, while the 75,000 AAVE tokens will vest linearly over four years, according to the governance dashboard.
The Aave Will Win framework aims to accelerate the protocol’s growth, with the DAO funding development and Aave Labs focusing on building and scaling. The stablecoins directly fund Aave Labs' operations, while the token allocation serves as an incentive for developers to help grow the protocol.
Other elements of the framework, including the growth and development grants tied to specific product launches and milestones, will have separate governance proposals.
Aave is one of the largest DeFi protocols in the industry, with its total value locked exceeding $25 billion, DeFiLlama data shows. The framework marks a major shift in funding allocation.
Now almost a week old, the Bitcoin (BTC) recovery is “fragile” as the crypto market faces geopolitical and macroeconomic headwinds from the ongoing war in the Middle East, according to Nic Puckrin, a crypto market analyst and founder of the Coin Bureau media outlet.
“Even if the war ends now, its repercussions will likely be the story of 2026, and certainly the dominant narrative for Q2. I don’t expect to see a rate cut until late Q3 or Q4, if at all,” Puckrin told Cointelegraph.
If Bitcoin closes the week above $71,000, it could signal continued upside for BTC, with resistance forming around the $74,000 level, he said.
The ongoing conflict hascaused an inflationary spike, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index report, published on Friday, chilling hopes of further interest rate cuts in 2026. Rate cuts or credit easing tend to stimulate asset prices.
![\"Hong](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8389-4759-74a3-8cda-f91821a0656b.png\")
Banks and corporates across Europe are moving beyond exploration and are now actively selecting infrastructure partners to support stablecoin adoption, according to Lamine Brahimi, co-founder and managing partner at crypto custody technology provider Taurus.
Brahimi told Cointelegraph that eighteen months ago, most conversations were still educational, focused on understanding stablecoins and their risks. Today, firms with board-level approval are preparing to go live. He said the introduction of Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) has accelerated that transition by replacing fragmented national rules with a single regulatory regime.
“In the past twelve months alone some of Europe's most stringent financial institutions are all arriving at the same conclusion, digital assets, including stablecoins, belong inside the existing banking stack, not beside it,” he said.
![\"Hong](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d81b4-1072-7a0c-90ec-2c4777578f9c.png\")
Corporate treasury teams are driving much of the demand. Initially focused on payments and settlement, companies are looking to use stablecoins to move funds faster, reduce costs and operate outside traditional banking hours, Brahimi said.
", "description": "Today in crypto, Aave Labs granted $25 million in stablecoins. CoinBureau's Nic Puckrin sees a fragile BTC recovery and stablecoin adoption in Europe is shifting from strategy to execution.", "published": "2026-04-12T22:50:34+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "europe" }, { "slug": "middle-east" }, { "slug": "inflation" }, { "slug": "stablecoin" }, { "slug": "aave" }, { "slug": "money-laundering" }, { "slug": "governance-token" }, { "slug": "industry" } ], "slug": "what-happened-in-crypto-today", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "110589" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "BTC recovery fragile, Iran war fallout to ‘dominate’ markets in 2026: Analyst", "leadText": "Fallout from the Iran war will likely weigh on markets for much of 2026, dashing hopes of rate cuts until Q3 by the earliest, the Coin Bureau's Nic Puckrin said.", "author": { "slug": "vince-quill" }, "bodyText": "Now almost a week old, the Bitcoin (BTC) recovery is “fragile” as the crypto market faces geopolitical and macroeconomic headwinds from the ongoing war in the Middle East, according to Nic Puckrin, a crypto market analyst and founder of the Coin Bureau media outlet.
“Even if the war ends now, its repercussions will likely be the story of 2026, and certainly the dominant narrative for Q2. I don’t expect to see a rate cut until late Q3 or Q4, if at all,” Puckrin told Cointelegraph. He said that he sees:
“For a push toward $90,000, we would need to see a combination of factors: a ceasefire that results in the end of geopolitical tensions, a sustained drop in oil prices toward $80, and ideally also softer-than-expected economic data that calms stagflation fears.”
If Bitcoin closes the week above $71,000, it could signal continued upside for BTC, with resistance forming around the $74,000 level, he said. At last look, it was trading at about $71,276, according to TradingView data.
The ongoing conflict has caused an inflationary spike, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Price Index report, published on Friday, chilling hopes of further interest rate cuts in 2026. Rate cuts or credit easing tend to stimulate asset prices.
Related: Bitcoin, Ether near levels that could signal trend reversal: Analyst
Bitcoin surged by about 5.8% beginning on April 6, reaching above $73,000, before retracing to about $71,000 on Saturday, following news of failed negotiations between the US and Iran, according to the Kobeissi Letter.
“Peace talks appear to have come to a screeching halt,” Kobeissi Letter said, adding, “the outcome of talks was arguably the worst-case scenario.”
Following the failed peace talks, US President Donald Trump said he directed the US military to form a naval blockade around the Strait of Hormuz.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” Trump said on Saturday.
![\"Bitcoin](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d838a-77c2-7a8e-9481-4bf46bb03d84.png\")
Members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which decides interest rate policy in the US, remain divided on further interest rate cuts in 2026, citing inflation concerns from the war.
The FOMC did not rule out an interest rate hike in 2026 if inflation remains elevated above its 2% target, according to the meeting minutes from the March FOMC meeting.
According to the CME Fedwatch tool, there is more than a 98% probability of the FOMC maintaining the current target rate range of 350-375 basis points at the next two meetings, on April 29 and June 17. Chances drop to about 65% for the July 29 meeting, with a 33.6% probability of a 25-bps cut.
Magazine: Big Questions: Can Bitcoin save you from the dreaded Cantillon Effect?
", "description": "The fallout from the war in Iran will take months to fix, and the impact will likely be felt by the crypto market for the rest of 2026, analyst Nic Puckrin says.", "published": "2026-04-12T22:37:06+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" } ], "slug": "btc-fragile-iran-fallout-dominate-markets-2026", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260927" }, { "category": { "slug": "markets" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin price falls under $71K as US-Iran war tensions spark sell-off", "leadText": "Bitcoin price sold off as negotiations to end the US-Iran war broke down and the Strait of Hormuz returned to the spotlight.", "author": { "slug": "william-suberg" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin (BTC) fell 3% to trade below $71,000 into Sunday’s weekly close after negotiations to end the US-Iran war broke down.
Key points:
Bitcoin shed its gains as negotiations between the US and Iran broke down.
The Strait of Hormuz becomes a flashpoint again as US President Donald Trump demanded that it be reopened.
BTC price downside punishes late long positions.
Data from TradingView showed BTC price action dipping below $71,000 after news of a sudden breakdown in negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8225-b174-75ff-935c-3a6f387db0ef.png\")
A failure to reach an agreement on the issue of nuclear weapons resulted in both delegations leaving talks unfinished. Later, US President Donald Trump said that the US would blockade the Strait of Hormuz and “interdict” vessels paying Iran for safe passage.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
A follow-up post repeated demands that Iran make Hormuz, a major oil transit route, fully operational.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8220-8d4e-72d4-be38-bcdf70b18e45.png\")
Ahead of futures markets opening, reactions to the latest events spelled out the risks for the wider economy.
“If the path forward is continued war, escalation, and a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, then the Iran War has just entered a new era,” The Kobeissi Letter wrote in its latest analysis on X.
“US CPI inflation just jumped from 2.4% to 3.3% and further escalation of the Iran War would lead to 4.0%+ inflation, according to our models.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-03/019cdd5e-3eb0-74e1-b089-91616407915d.png\")
Kobeissi referred to the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation, a gauge particularly sensitive to oil prices. Earlier this week, the March CPI print came in slightly below expectations, despite the highest jump in its oil-price component in 60 years.
“There are currently no plans for additional talks, according to Iranian media,” Kobeissi added.
“So, will Trump choose to push harder for diplomacy or double down on military action? Today, we find out.”
As the only 24-hour-traded asset class, Bitcoin and crypto were the only ones reacting to the chaos in real time.
Related: Bitcoin analysis sees $55K BTC price 'iron bottom' by December 2026
Data from CoinGlass showed BTC/USD slicing through long liquidations, with the liquidation total for the past 24 hours nearing $350 million.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8223-131e-71aa-b1de-6cece079b159.png\")
“Volatility remains high and it's clear that there won't be a path forward where risk-on assets will do well if this continues to be the consensus,” trader Michaël van de Poppe wrote in an X response.
Van de Poppe suggested that the economic weakness as a result of the returning war could force the Federal Reserve to inject liquidity despite rising inflation.
“On a larger scale, I think that we're currently in a sufficiently weak economy and the FED has no other option than to start printing again to positively influence the economy,” he argued.
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on rising odds of the US entering a recession in 2026.
Next week will bring more inflation cues from the March Producer Price Index (PPI) print, while multiple senior Fed officials will speak on the economy.
Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron layer-1 blockchain network, criticized World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a decentralized finance platform co-founded by US President Donald Trump’s sons, over lengthy lock-up periods for the platform's governance token.
Sun said that he invested “significant capital” in WLFI as an early investor and also said that a March WLFI governance proposal to determine token lock-up periods, in which more than 76% of the voting tokens came from 10 wallets, lacked transparency. In a Sunday post on X, Sun wrote (in translation):
“The governance votes cited to justify the above actions were not conducted through fair or transparent procedures. Key information was withheld from voters, meaningful participation was restricted, and outcomes were predetermined.”
“Justin’s favorite move is playing the victim while making baseless allegations to cover up his own misconduct,” World Liberty Financial said in response, threatening legal action against Sun over his claims.
![\"DeFi\"](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d82dc-7dd1-792f-ac6b-e927b7430e36.png\")
The incident came amid community pushback against WLFI and confirmation that the platform was using its own governance tokens as loan collateral, causing the price of WLFI to sink to an all-time low and renewed backlash against Trump for his crypto activities.
Cointelegraph reached out to World Liberty Financial but did not obtain a response by the time of publication.
Related: World Liberty signals phased WLFI unlock vote after early holder backlash
The WLFI token hit a new all-time low on Saturday, falling to just $0.07 following news of the platform using WLFI tokens as collateral to borrow stablecoins.
Wallets linked to World Liberty Financial used WLFI tokens as collateral on Dolomite, a DeFi platform co-founded by the project’s chief technology officer, Corey Caplan, to take out the stablecoin loan.
![\"DeFi\"](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d82de-cc04-7861-a89e-e3ddd6498009.png\")
WLFI confirmed that it acts as an “anchor” borrower, which generates yield for the platform and value for token holders, adding that it is “one of the largest suppliers and borrowers” in the WLFI ecosystem.
“Treating the crypto community as a personal ATM is unjust and has never been authorized through any fair, transparent, good-faith community governance process,” Sun said.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
", "description": "Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun criticizes the World Liberty Financial decentralized finance platform amid growing backlash from early token holders.", "published": "2026-04-12T19:33:15+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "altcoin" }, { "slug": "donald-trump" }, { "slug": "justin-sun" }, { "slug": "defi" } ], "slug": "justin-sun-wlfi-platform-lawsuit", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260902" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Strategy’s Michael Saylor signals impending Bitcoin purchase", "leadText": "The company has completed 105 Bitcoin transactions since 2020 and is playing contrarian as it continues accumulating BTC via corporate debt and equity financing", "author": { "slug": "vince-quill" }, "bodyText": "Michael Saylor, the co-founder of Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company Strategy, signaled that the company is acquiring more BTC, as the price retreated from the local high of over $73,000 reached this week.
“Think bigger,” Saylor said on Sunday, while sharing the chart of Strategy’s BTC purchase history that has become synonymous with imminent BTC acquisitions.
Strategy’s most recent BTC purchase was April 6, when it bought 4,871 coins for more than $329.8 million, bringing its total holdings to 766,970 BTC, valued at about $54.5 billion using market prices at the time of publication, according to the company.
The Tysons Corners, Virginia-based company continues accumulating BTC, even amid a bear market that pushed Bitcoin’s price down to two-year lows, putting Strategy’s BTC treasury underwater.
![\"Bitcoin](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d826d-ab74-7aca-ba02-199180f8aa67.png\")
Related: Strategy set to resume buying Bitcoin via STRC: Will BTC price hit $80K?
Strategy’s average cost of acquisition per BTC is $75,644, nearly $5,000 less than the market price at the time of this writing.
The company reported a loss of nearly $14.5 billion on its BTC holdings for the first quarter of 2026, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Despite the unrealized losses, Strategy continues to accumulate BTC at a faster rate than miners can produce new coins, leading some analysts to forecast a potential BTC supply squeeze.
Miners produced about 16,200 BTC in March, while Strategy accumulated 46,233 BTC during that same period, nearly three times the newly mined supply.
![\"Bitcoin](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d826f-e48c-7fa6-ae8a-a85e75181209.png\")
“The global consensus is that BTC is digital capital. The four-year cycle is dead. Price is now driven by capital flows. Bank and digital credit will determine Bitcoin’s growth trajectory,” Saylor said in April.
Strategy’s 766,970 BTC reserve makes it the biggest BTC treasury company by holdings, according to BitcoinTreasuries. The next largest is held by Twenty One Capital, which holds 43,514 BTC.
Strategy has bucked the trend during the ongoing bear market by continuing accumulation as other BTC treasury companies show signs of capitulation amid a challenging business environment. MARA Holdings sold 15,133 Bitcoin in March for roughly $1.1 billion to buy back $1 billion of zero-coupon convertible notes at a discount.
Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel commented that the transaction enhanced the company’s “financial flexibility” and increased its “strategic optionality” as MARA expands “beyond pure-play Bitcoin mining into digital energy and AI/HPC infrastructure.”
Magazine: Scottie Pippen says Michael Saylor warned him about Satoshi chatter
", "description": "The co-founder of Strategy, the biggest Bitcoin treasury company in the world, signaled that the company is about to buy more of the digital currency on Monday.", "published": "2026-04-12T17:35:17+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "microstrategy" }, { "slug": "michael-saylor" } ], "slug": "strategy-saylor-signal-bitcoin-purchase", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260897" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin miners face a tougher road to the 2028 halving", "leadText": "Bitcoin miners are heading toward the 2028 halving with thinner margins, tighter power markets and a growing need for capital discipline.", "author": { "slug": "christina-comben" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin’s fifth halving is roughly two years away, and the mining sector is heading into it with far less margin for error than in 2024, as higher costs, tighter energy markets and clearer regulation reshape the industry.
At the last halving in April 2024, Bitcoin (BTC) traded at around $63,000 as rewards fell from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block, according to Coingecko. In April 2028, at the next halving, miners face higher input costs for half the new coins, as rewards drop to 1.5625 BTC. That looks tougher in a world of record hashrate, higher energy prices and more selective capital.
Energy security has also become a strategic concern after geopolitical shocks jolted fuel and power markets, while regulators from Washington to Europe move from ad-hoc guidance to formal regimes for custody and licensed institutional platforms.
Those pressures are forcing miners to behave less like pure Bitcoin proxies and more like energy and infrastructure companies, monetizing reserves, cutting costs and rethinking capital allocation ahead of the April 2028 Halving.
The shift is also changing how investors assess the sector, with capital increasingly flowing toward operators that can secure long-term power and build infrastructure that extends beyond mining alone.
Miners are already adjusting. MARA Holdings sold more than 15,000 Bitcoin in March to reduce leverage, Riot Platforms sold over 3,700 BTC in the first quarter, Cango sold 2,000 BTC to pay down Bitcoin-backed debt, and Bitdeer said its Bitcoin holdings had fallen to zero as of Feb. 20.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d76c1-26d1-76bc-9fa9-bc46a6cf10ff.png\")
Behind those sales is a broader reset in how miners think about hardware, power and capital. The 2028 halving arrives in “an environment that looks almost nothing like 2024,” Juliet Ye, head of communications at Cango, told Cointelegraph.
She pointed to a widening efficiency gap that is “forcing real decisions around fleet upgrades” and a shift toward long-term energy contracts across multiple regions rather than chasing cheaper tariffs.
“There is less room in the middle now,” she said. “Operators with scale and diversification will be fine. Those without will find the next halving very difficult.”
GoMining struck a similar note. CEO Mark Zalan told Cointelegraph that “capital discipline now matters more than hashrate maximalism” and that new deployments now have to clear tougher return thresholds.
Related: Mining companies move deeper into AI, HPC as MARA may sell Bitcoin
From a mining pool’s perspective, some of the underlying dynamics remain familiar even as the pressure grows. “There is actually very little fundamental difference between this mining cycle and previous ones,” Alejandro de la Torre, co-founder and CEO of Stratum V2 pool DMND, told Cointelegraph. “The same dynamics repeat.”
He expects mining hotspots to reach their peak, then realign, as “no region keeps dominance for long,” opening the door for more decentralization as mid-size miners expand into new energy partnerships.
Related: Genius Group liquidates Bitcoin treasury to pay $8.5M of debt
The economics around the next halving are also shifting away from pure block rewards, which is a “thinner business than it used to be,” Zalan said. He predicted stronger operators will look closer to power and data center businesses, and earn additional revenue through curtailment, grid services and heat reuse.
Cango is already building toward that model. “The facilities that will matter in five years are the ones that can do more than one thing,” Ye said, using mining to fill capacity while positioning sites to toggle between AI workloads and hashpower.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d76c3-abc6-73e1-a3d0-9cee0c814a92.png\")
Regulation, once viewed mainly as an overhang, is increasingly part of the investment case. Zalan pointed to more specific rules on custody and banking access in the United States, alongside the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regime and new exchange-traded funds (ETFs), derivatives and settlement rails out of Hong Kong, arguing “capital moves faster when those rules are clear and usable.”
Zalan said that backdrop is shaping both how miners finance themselves and how institutions position for the next issuance cut. He said he does not believe the market has “fully priced the next halving,” arguing that scarcity will meet a “much stronger ecosystem around Bitcoin by the time 2028 arrives.”
Ye sees investors already re-rating miners that lock in high-performance compute contracts, with those operators trading at “more than double the revenue multiple of pure-play miners,” while de la Torre believes supporting large established operators is “no longer the only logical path.”
If the 2024 cycle rewarded miners that rode Bitcoin’s price strength, the run into 2028 may favor operators that can manage debt, lock in power and build infrastructure that earns beyond block subsidies.
Magazine: AI agents will kill the web as we know it: Animoca’s Yat Siu
", "description": "Bitcoin’s fifth halving is two years out, as miners sell coins, cut costs and build AI and power infrastructure to survive record hashrate and tighter regulation.", "published": "2026-04-12T15:00:00+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-mining" }, { "slug": "ai" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-halving" } ], "slug": "bitcoin-2028-halving-hits-the-halfway-point", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260657" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Banks, corporates in Europe ‘actively selecting partners’ for stablecoin push", "leadText": "Stablecoin adoption in Europe is shifting from strategy to execution, with demand increasingly driven by real-world needs.", "author": { "slug": "amin-haqshanas" }, "bodyText": "Banks and corporates across Europe are moving beyond exploration and are now actively selecting infrastructure partners to support stablecoin adoption, according to Lamine Brahimi, co-founder and managing partner at crypto custody technology provider Taurus.
Brahimi told Cointelegraph that 18 months ago, most conversations were still educational, focused on understanding stablecoins and their risks. Today, firms with board-level approval are preparing to go live. He said the introduction of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) has accelerated that transition by replacing fragmented national rules with a single bloc-wide regulatory regime.
“In the past 12 months alone some of Europe's most stringent financial institutions are all arriving at the same conclusion, digital assets, including stablecoins, belong inside the existing banking stack, not beside it,” he said.
Corporate treasury teams are driving much of the demand. Initially focused on payments and settlement, companies are looking to use stablecoins to move funds faster, reduce costs and operate outside traditional banking hours, Brahimi said.
Related: Bank of France calls for tougher MiCA limits on stablecoin payments
Brahimi said adoption is increasingly driven by practical needs rather than long-term strategy. “Once clients start asking for better settlement, more flexibility, or more efficient cross-border movement of value, the conversation becomes much more immediate and much more practical,” he added.
On Thursday, ClearBank Europe announced that it has become the first Dutch credit institution to secure approval under MiCA to operate as a crypto asset service provider. A consortium of major European banks, including ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank and BBVA, is now pursuing Qivalis, a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin initiative designed to enable regulated onchain payments and settlement across Europe.
European banks are also moving ahead with their own stablecoin initiatives. Paris-based Societe Generale has positioned its stablecoins around cross-border payments, onchain settlement, FX and cash management, while another Paris-based bank, Oddo BHF, has launched a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin.
A consortium of banks, including ING, UniCredit and BNP Paribas is preparing a Swiss-franc stablecoin for the second half of 2026.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d81b5-9402-707c-a160-70991bfdcf57.PNG\")
Konstantin Vasilenko, co-founder and chief business development officer at Paybis, said the platform has seen rising demand for compatible stablecoins in Europe. Between October 2025 and March 2026, USDC (USDC) volume on Paybis in the EU climbed about 109%, while its share of total stablecoin activity increased from roughly 13% to 32%.
Vasilenko added that in the EU, Paybis stablecoin buyer volume remained roughly five to six times higher than seller volume between October 2025 and March 2026. He also noted that average stablecoin transaction sizes were about 15% to 35% larger than typical Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH) trades. “That usually points to working capital, settlement use and more deliberate business flows,” he said.
Related: Hong Kong grants first stablecoin licenses to Anchorpoint and HSBC
A new report from Chainalysis projects that stablecoin transaction volumes could grow dramatically over the next decade, reaching as high as $719 trillion by 2035 under organic growth scenarios, up from about $28 trillion in 2025.
In a more aggressive scenario, volumes could climb to $1.5 quadrillion if stablecoins become a dominant payment infrastructure and wealth transfer from baby boomers to younger, more crypto-native generations accelerates adoption.
Will Harborne, CEO of stablecoin infrastructure provider Rhino.fi, said that stablecoins will become increasingly important for corporate treasury, cross-border settlement, and FX between euro and dollar stablecoins over the next few years.
“I think every business will eventually start accepting and using stablecoins in some form, and the companies that prepare early will be in the best position when that shift becomes mainstream,” he said.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
", "description": "Banks and corporates across Europe are no longer exploring stablecoins in theory and are now actively choosing infrastructure partners for stablecoin push.", "published": "2026-04-12T13:46:49+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "altcoin" }, { "slug": "europe" }, { "slug": "adoption" }, { "slug": "stablecoin" }, { "slug": "mica" } ], "slug": "banks-corporates-europe-actively-selecting-partners-stablecoin-push", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260887" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "US down to ‘last chance’ to pass CLARITY Act before 2030: Lummis", "leadText": "Crypto advocate Senator Cynthia Lummis said the country should not risk its financial future by further delaying the CLARITY Act.", "author": { "slug": "ciaran-lyons" }, "bodyText": "Crypto advocate US Senator Cynthia Lummis has urged her colleagues to pass the CLARITY Act soon or risk waiting almost another four years to move the industry forward.
“This is our last chance to pass the Clarity Act until at least 2030,” the Wyoming Republican said in an X post on Friday. “We can’t afford to surrender America’s financial future,” she added.
Her comments come as crypto industry participants begin to worry that the bill’s chances of passing this year are narrowing, with US midterm elections in November potentially changing congressional priorities and slowing momentum on the highly anticipated crypto legislation.
The former White House AI and crypto czar, David Sacks, also chimed in on Thursday with a similar view to that of Lummis.
“The time to act is now. Senate Banking, and then the full Senate, should pass market structure. I’m confident that they will. And then President Trump will sign this landmark bill into law,” Sacks said.
Many industry participants have argued that the passage of legislation aimed at clarifying which regulators oversee parts of the crypto industry could lead to greater innovation in the US and increase demand for crypto assets among retail investors.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d80f9-8c53-70ac-8731-4829f9bfe661.png\")
A16z Crypto managing partner Chris Dixon reiterated that view in an X post, saying that “when rules are defined, both consumers and entrepreneurs win.”
A wide range of sectors in the crypto industry expect the move to be positive.
Web3 gaming giant Immutable founder Robbie Ferguson said just days before, on April 3, that “the CLARITY Act will make the last decade of growth in gaming look like a joke.”
On Friday, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who withdrew the crypto exchange’s support for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in January, said “it’s time” for the legislation to pass after months of delays.
Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal said on April 2 that the CLARITY Act could be nearing a markup hearing in the US Senate Banking Committee. However, he noted that progress hinges on resolving disagreements over stablecoin yield.
Related: CFTC unveils innovation task force members in crypto clarity push
Regulators are also voicing their support for the legislation.
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins said in a post on the same day that, “It's time for Congress to future-proof against rogue regulators & advance comprehensive market structure legislation to President Trump's desk.”
Magazine: Bitcoin quantum-safe without upgrade? CZ’s 2031 crypto vision: Hodler’s Digest, April 5 – 11
", "description": "US Senator Cynthia Lummis said this may be the final effort to pass the CLARITY Act and warned that if it fails, the measure could be delayed until “at least 2030.”", "published": "2026-04-12T10:44:46+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "adoption" }, { "slug": "united-states" }, { "slug": "regulation" } ], "slug": "us-clarity-act-crypto-regulations-cynthia-lummis-senator", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260867" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Polymarket bets removed from Google News after brief appearance: Report", "leadText": "Polymarket links briefly appeared under mainstream outlets in Google News results for event-driven queries but were later removed.", "author": { "slug": "amin-haqshanas" }, "bodyText": "Polymarket betting markets reportedly appeared inside Google News results alongside established news publishers before disappearing.
A Google spokesperson told The Verge that the platform’s appearance in News was an error. “This site briefly appeared in Google News in error, and it is no longer surfacing in News,” spokesperson Ned Adriance reportedly said.
Before removal, Polymarket links were shown directly beneath mainstream outlets when users searched event-driven queries. In one example cited by website Futurism, a search for “will ships transit the strait” related to the Strait of Hormuz returned a Polymarket market predicting outcomes on vessel passage alongside reporting from Reuters and The Guardian.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d80f9-a29b-7f58-8703-705b2b256b58.jpg\")
In a Sunday search conducted by Cointelegraph, the same query did not surface any Polymarket results.
Related: Three Polymarket traders made timely bets on US-Iran ceasefire
Last year, Google partnered with both Polymarket and rival Kalshi to integrate their data into Google Finance.
In June, Elon Musk’s X also announced a partnership with Polymarket, naming it as its official prediction market partner. The deal aimed to integrate the betting-based forecasting service into the social media platform.
In October, MetaMask said it would integrate Polymarket as part of its push to expand beyond a crypto wallet into a broader “democratized finance” gateway. That same month, World App, the digital wallet and identity platform from Sam Altman’s World project, also added the Polymarket app.
Related: Prediction market users await Artemis II mission splashdown
As Cointelegraph has reported, only a tiny fraction of Polymarket traders manage to generate consistent high monthly income, according to new data shared by crypto analyst Andrey Sergeenkov. While around 1% of traders have crossed $5,000 in profits in a single month, only 0.015% were able to sustain that level for four consecutive months.
The findings also show that just 0.033% of wallets have exceeded $100,000 in total profits, with some of these likely belonging to professional traders rather than retail users. Despite growing hype around prediction markets as a fast-rising crypto use case, the data suggests most participants struggle to maintain consistent profitability over time.
Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation — Santiment founder
", "description": "Polymarket prediction markets briefly surfaced in Google News alongside major publishers before disappearing, with Google saying the inclusion was an error.", "published": "2026-04-12T10:26:41+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "blockchain" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "google" }, { "slug": "polymarket" }, { "slug": "kalshi" }, { "slug": "prediction-markets" } ], "slug": "polymarket-google-news-removed-error-report", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260862" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Ether Machine scraps SPAC merger with Dynamix, citing market conditions", "leadText": "The Ethereum treasury company had aimed to launch a $1.5 billion yield-bearing ETH fund, but will not following a mutual decision to end the deal.", "author": { "slug": "amin-haqshanas" }, "bodyText": "Ether Machine has called off its planned public debut after the Ethereum treasury-focused company and Dynamix Corporation agreed to terminate their merger, citing deteriorating market conditions.
In a Saturday post on X, Ether Machine said the decision to end the deal was mutual and effective immediately. The transaction had aimed to take the firm public through a merger with the Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), alongside involvement from The Ether Reserve LLC.
“The Ether Reserve LLC, together with certain other parties thereto, announced today that they have mutually agreed to terminate their previously announced Business Combination Agreement, effective immediately, as a result of unfavorable market conditions,” the firm wrote.
According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, an unnamed “Payor,” identified in Annex A of the agreement but not disclosed publicly, must pay $50 million to Dynamix within 15 days of the termination taking effect.
Related: Bitmine uplists to NYSE as share buyback is increased to $4B
Ether Machine first announced plans to launch what it described as the largest yield-bearing Ether (ETH) fund aimed at institutional investors in July last year. At the time, the company, co-founded by former Consensys executives Andrew Keys and David Merin, said it would list on Nasdaq under the ticker “ETHM,” launching with more than 400,000 ETH, worth more than $1.5 billion at the time, under management.
In September, Ether Machine secured $654 million in a private financing round, including 150,000 ETH from Ethereum advocate Jeffrey Berns, who also joined the company’s board. The raise was part of its broader plan to build a large Ether treasury ahead of the planned Nasdaq debut, which has now been canceled.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d8094-ee86-7270-9424-2613a28373ce.PNG\")
Meanwhile, Dynamix retains a limited window to secure a new deal. The company has until Nov. 22, 2026, to complete another business combination. If it fails to do so, it will be required to liquidate and return funds held in trust to shareholders, in line with its corporate charter.
Related: Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund dumps ETHZilla stake as ETH treasuries face pressure
Ether funds are exiting amid mounting pressure on Ethereum treasury strategies. Trend Research has fully unwound its Ethereum position, selling 651,757 ETH, worth about $1.34 billion while locking in an estimated $747 million loss.
Separately, ETHZilla, formerly a biotech firm that pivoted into an Ethereum treasury strategy during the 2025 hype, has also moved away from Ether accumulation, updating its corporate name and brand to Forum Markets.
Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation — Santiment founder
", "description": "Ether Machine has abandoned its planned Nasdaq debut after terminating its SPAC merger with Dynamix Corp, citing unfavorable market conditions.", "published": "2026-04-12T08:37:14+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "altcoin" }, { "slug": "ethereum" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrency-investment" }, { "slug": "spac" } ], "slug": "ether-machine-spac-ethm-cancelled-dynamix-merger", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260847" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin, Ether near levels that could signal trend reversal: Analyst", "leadText": "Bitcoin and Ether are each less than 10% away from price levels that could signal a reversal in the crypto market, according to a macro analyst.", "author": { "slug": "ciaran-lyons" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin and Ether are approaching levels that might indicate a trend reversal this year, despite increasing agreement that the industry is heading into a bear market, says macro analyst Jordi Visser.
“If we trade above $76,000 and at the same time we see Ethereum above $2,400, I believe that is the beginning of a move that will be sustainable this year because I don't think we're going to have a recession,” Visser said on the Anthony Pompliano podcast published on YouTube on Friday.
A move to $76,000 would represent an increase of 6.1% from Bitcoin’s (BTC) price of $71,646 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data. Ether’s (ETH) move to $2,400 would represent an increase of around 8%.
Traders on the Kalshi prediction market are leaning toward a macro outlook similar to Visser’s, pricing a 24% chance of a recession in 2026, down 10 percentage points over the past 30 days.
“I think inflation is going to stay elevated, and I think people are going to need to find something that is making money in a world where the S&P [500] is not moving anywhere,” Visser said.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d801d-8b58-7e23-9a85-a19700438e7f.png\")
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed in a report published on Friday that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in March rose 3.3% year-over-year.
Visser’s recent comments challenge the growing view across the crypto industry that 2026 still has more downside ahead, with some even calling for a move below the Feb. 6 yearly low of $60,000.
On March 31, veteran trader Peter Brandt said that this may not be the lowest level for 2026, forecasting that Bitcoin could retest or even move “slightly lower” than the price level in September or October this year.
“That would then be the bear cycle low,” Brandt said.
Related: Bitcoin charts point to $80K in April: Here’s how it may happen
Visser explained that he has never been a “big fan” of labeling Bitcoin price trends as bull or bear markets.
“Especially when we're at all-time highs. Like, at some point in there, it just seems like okay, they go up and then the normal course is at some point people don't invest as much as they have,” he said.
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets
", "description": "Macro investor Jordi Visser told Anthony Pompliano that the crypto market could be in for a “sustainable” year if Bitcoin holds above $76,000 and Ether holds above $2,400.", "published": "2026-04-12T06:26:55+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "adoption" } ], "slug": "bitcoin-ether-crypto-market-trend-reversal-macro-investor", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260837" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Trump faces renewed backlash as Trump-linked crypto tokens hit lows", "leadText": "Lawmakers and investors criticized Trump-linked crypto projects as prices fell, raising concerns about conflicts of interest and market risks.", "author": { "slug": "vince-quill" }, "bodyText": "United States President Donald Trump is facing renewed scrutiny as crypto tokens and projects he’s touted crash to all-time lows or sit near record low levels.
The Official Trump token (TRUMP), a memecoin pushed by Trump, hit an all-time low of about $2.73 in March 2026 and is currently trading at about $2.86, according to data from CoinGecko.
![\"Donald](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7e72-f576-70ad-876f-13746cd77e1b.png\")
The governance token issued by World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform co-founded by Trump’s sons, sank to an all-time low of just $0.07 on Saturday.
WLFI is down by nearly 75% from its all-time high of about $0.31 reached in September 2025, while the TRUMP memecoin is down by about 90% since its all-time high of over $73 reached in January 2025.
![\"Donald](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7e75-4207-74d1-aa9d-491b2ed11172.png\")
“We thought Sam Bankman-Fried or Gary Gensler were the worst things to happen to the crypto industry, and they were horrible,” Professor Tonya Evans said in response to the plummeting token prices. Evans, a board member at Grayscale parent DCG, added:
“But, turns out, it was the guy who surrounds himself with sycophants, siphons every bit of value he can for himself, and then expeditiously bankrupts companies and casinos without consequence.”
President Trump also announced another gala for token holders, scheduled to take place on April 25, fueling renewed scrutiny from US Democratic lawmakers, who have accused Trump of influence peddling by giving token holders presidential access.
Related: Trump memecoin whales pile in ahead of Mar-a-Lago gala
Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Adam Schiff have asked Bill Zanker, the individual who launched the Trump memecoin, for details on the purpose of the planned Trump memecoin gala in April.
The organizers of the event are “dangling access” to Trump, the lawmakers said, according to Politico, which obtained a copy of the letter.
Trump and his family members stand to benefit from increased sales of the Trump memecoin; attendees are required to hold TRUMP tokens to gain access to the event, the senators said.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
", "description": "Democratic lawmakers and members of the crypto community accused Trump of grifting as Trump-linked crypto tokens sit at or near record lows.", "published": "2026-04-11T22:40:02+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "altcoin" }, { "slug": "donald-trump" }, { "slug": "trumpcoin" }, { "slug": "memecoin" } ], "slug": "trump-backlash-crypto-tokens-crash", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260822" }, { "category": { "slug": "market-analysis" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Crypto crashed six months ago: Have markets improved, or are bears still in charge?", "leadText": "The October 2025 Bitcoin and altcoin crash may have ended the bull market, but its long-term impact on market health may have been overstated.", "author": { "slug": "marcel-pechman" }, "bodyText": "Key takeaways:
Bitcoin orderbook depth has plummeted by 50% since September 2025, signaling a substantial decline in overall market liquidity.
Indicators suggest that the current market fragility stems more from recent 2026 trends than from the 2025 flash crash itself.
Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets took a massive hit on Oct. 10, 2025, precisely 6 months ago. That devastating flash crash wiped out a record-breaking $19 billion in leveraged positions while some altcoins collapsed 40% to 80%. Many traders speculated that multiple market makers had been wiped out, while others accused the Binance exchange of blatant manipulation.
Was the crypto market structure actually altered after the October 2025 crash, and what has changed in liquidity, derivatives markets, and institutional metrics?
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d6e-788e-7cd8-9e54-fd6d9b54f417.png\")
Bitcoin’s aggregate orderbook depth, ranging from +1% to -1%, typically oscillated between $180 million and $260 million in September 2025. On most days, there would be a healthy $90 million in bids, but that was not the case on Oct. 10, 2025. A mix of technical issues at Binance and auto-deleveraging on decentralized exchanges caused a temporary liquidity lapse.
During the flash crash, Bitcoin’s orderbook depth entered a downward spiral, stabilizing near $150 million by mid-November 2025. Currently, Bitcoin’s order book depth seldom exceeds $130 million, down 50% from levels seen in September 2025.
The already fragile market conditions deteriorated further in February 2026. Bitcoin’s orderbook depth plunged below $60 million for nearly 10 days as the price struggled to hold the $65,000 level. Cryptocurrency market volumes declined considerably, especially in the derivatives markets.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d6e-7c50-7560-9ad0-36c2bd6e4fe8.png\")
Cryptocurrency derivatives volumes oscillated between $40 billion and $130 billion over the past 30 days, falling short of the $200 billion mark commonly seen in September 2025. Still, the reduced appetite for futures contracts is not necessarily a bearish indicator as longs (buyers) and shorts (sellers) are evenly matched at all times.
The Bitcoin perpetual futures funding rate can be used to assess traders’ risk appetite.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d6e-80cd-721c-a6e9-30baf6a70226.png\")
Under normal conditions, the indicator should range between 6% to 12% to compensate for the cost of capital. Excessive demand for bearish leverage can push the indicator below 0%, meaning shorts are the ones paying to keep their positions open. Data indicate stable conditions throughout November 2025, followed by a sharp decline in February 2026.
Curiously, volumes of US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were not impacted by the Oct. 10, 2025 flash crash. In fact, by late November, activity in those instruments jumped to their highest levels in 20 months at $11.5 billion per day.
Related: Binance adds spot trading guardrails to limit abnormal executions
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d6e-84ba-7b36-b514-5593e6369a81.png\")
Bitcoin ETFs regularly traded at volumes above $4 billion per day between January and March 2026, but eventually fell below $3.3 billion by the first week of April. Similarly, US-listed Ether (ETH) ETFs average daily volume dropped to $1 billion, down from $2 billion in September 2025.
Orderbook depth, funding rate, derivatives and ETF volumes all point to a much less healthy cryptocurrency market in April 2026 relative to 6 months prior. However, given that the market structure held relatively firm through February 2026, the relevance of the Oct. 10, 2025 flash crash seems much less than previously imagined.
", "description": "Data shows a slowly recovering crypto market, but the October 2025 flash crash had a smaller impact on its long-term health.", "published": "2026-04-11T20:33:32+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "markets" }, { "slug": "leverage" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-futures" }, { "slug": "binance" }, { "slug": "price-analysis" }, { "slug": "market-analysis" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-etf" } ], "slug": "crypto-crashed-six-months-ago-have-markets-improved-or-are-bears-still-in-charge", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "Market Update" } ] }, "id": "260817" }, { "category": { "slug": "markets" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin price analysis sees new short squeeze as open interest nears $25B", "leadText": "Bitcoin open interest hit five-week highs while funding rates mimicked the BTC price collapse below $60,000, leading analysis to predict a new short squeeze.", "author": { "slug": "william-suberg" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin (BTC) is due a classic “short squeeze” as open interest hits five-week highs, says new analysis.
Key points:
Bitcoin is seeing a combination of rising open interest and negative funding rates.
The result could punish short positions, with funding rates at the most negative since early February.
Large-scale Bitcoin speculators are net long BTC again.
In one of its “Quicktake” blog posts on Saturday, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant said that Bitcoin was “crowded” with short positions.
“BTC is flowing out of exchanges while funding rates remain strongly negative, creating an increasingly crowded short positioning environment where the potential for a short squeeze is building,” contributor CoinNiel summarized.
After BTC/USD passed $73,000 on Friday, traders appeared to be positioning against the rally, increasing the risk of shorts being squeezed if price continues higher. Funding rates stayed negative on exchanges, while open interest grew to $24.2 billion — its highest since early March.
“Since March, negative funding has become more frequent, and throughout April it has remained in negative territory without flipping positive,” the post continued.
“This indicates that short positions dominate the market, with shorts paying longs, and such extreme positioning can act as a trigger for a reversal through forced liquidations.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d54-28ab-7ecc-ae6f-9bc4ab1652bc.png\")
CoinNiel said that the combination of rising open interest and negative funding rates “suggests that leveraged short positions have been rapidly accumulating.”
“The slight decrease does not yet indicate a meaningful deleveraging phase,” he acknowledged.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d55-6bd5-7a1e-8612-bf45fd56827c.png\")
Fellow contributor Gaah agreed, noting that funding rates had hit their deepest negative value since Bitcoin’s dip to multiyear lows at the start of February.
“Caution is needed when establishing positions in current range, since it represents an area of buying demand,” he wrote in a further Quicktake post.
“Bears trapped? Likelihood of a short squeeze is increasing.”
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on short liquidations staying modest despite the BTC price upside.
Related: Bitcoin analysis sees $55K BTC price 'iron bottom' by December 2026
Data from CoinGlass showed that over the 24 hours to the time of writing, cross-crypto liquidations totaled less than $100 million.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d52-279e-7c16-a0fe-b4c03cb7618d.png\")
Sentiment among market participants, meanwhile, has gradually begun to favor fresh upside, with targets including $80,000 and higher.
On Saturday, crypto trader Michaël Van de Poppe eyed increasing belief in a BTC price rebound among large-volume speculators.
“Speculators are net long on Bitcoin. Very similar to previous cases where we've seen the same before a big breakout in 2023,” he wrote in a post on X.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7d52-9b51-7c89-8e70-bf82e9be62b7.jpeg\")
Pavel Durov, co-founder of the Telegram messaging application, said that push notifications may create a persistent, critical vulnerability to user privacy, allowing data retrieval even after messages and messaging applications that allow push notification data storage have been deleted from a device.
Durov cited a recent report, originally published by 404 Media, that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was able to retrieve deleted messages from a Signal user by accessing device notification logs on an Apple iPhone, Durov said on Friday:
“Turning off notification previews won’t make you safe if you use those applications, because you never know whether the people you message have done the same.”
![\"Decentralization,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7da8-3f77-7288-8251-6089d4edb057.png\")
Cointelegraph reached out to Signal about the FBI’s data retrieval but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The reports suggest investigators can retrieve message content from locally stored notification data and metadata, rather than breaking end-to-end encryption itself, raising broader privacy concerns.
Related: Telegram founder Pavel Durov says Iranian government's ban backfired
Decentralized messaging applications and social media platforms experienced a surge in user interest since 2025, amid geopolitical tensions, nationwide communication blackouts and civil unrest.
![\"Decentralization,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7da9-f7ce-712d-a0d5-0341d8e4d266.png\")
Bitchat, a decentralized peer-to-peer messaging application that uses Bluetooth mesh networks to relay information between mobile devices, allows users to circumvent the internet and centralized communication networks entirely.
More than 48,000 users in Nepal downloaded the Bitchat application amid a nationwide social media ban in September 2025.
Individuals are also finding ways to circumvent national firewalls and bans on privacy-preserving applications by using virtual private networks (VPNs) and other tools that mask or obscure IP addresses and geolocation, according to Durov.
Government bans on Telegram have backfired, as users circumvent state-imposed restrictions through VPNs, allowing them to access and download banned platforms, Durov said.
“The government hoped for mass adoption of its surveillance messaging apps, but got mass adoption of VPNs instead,” he continued, adding that over 50 million users in Iran have downloaded the Telegram application, despite a years-long government ban.
Magazine: EU’s privacy-killing Chat Control bill delayed — but fight isn’t over
", "description": "Data generated by push notifications and stored on user devices allows deleted messages and communication to be recovered, despite end-to-end encryption.", "published": "2026-04-11T18:57:57+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "decentralization" }, { "slug": "privacy" }, { "slug": "telegram" }, { "slug": "pavel-durov" }, { "slug": "ai-and-hi-tech" } ], "slug": "messaging-notifications-privacy-attack-durov", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260807" }, { "category": { "slug": "features" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Reality of AI’s impact on employment clashes with C-suite optimism", "leadText": "While some proponents believe AI will bring about an employment boom, so far its effect has been to dampen entry-level hiring while delivering mixed results on productivity.", "author": { "slug": "aaron-wood" }, "bodyText": "In March, the US jobs market recorded 178,000 new jobs, marking little change from the month before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The anemic growth in job listings comes amid volatile policy swings from the White House, increased energy prices due to the US and Israel’s war with Iran and, according to recent research, AI disruptions to the labor market.
Proponents of AI and large language models have claimed that the tech will bring about an economic boom, thanks to the promise of efficiency breakthroughs.
But as AI becomes more integrated into daily business operations, there is a widening gulf between that promise of growth and efficiency, and what is actually happening.
On March 6, venture capitalist and Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen said on X that fears about AI job displacement were overblown.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d71a1-fe78-7e88-b0b4-1cfc93ae6057.png\")
He also posted an article from Business Insider stating that, at least in tech, job openings are on the rise. Citing data from TrueUp, a tech jobs tracker, Business Insider said that job openings at tech companies have doubled to 67,000 since 2023.
But openings don’t necessarily translate to hiring. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most employment growth in March did not happen in the tech industry. Of the 178,000 new jobs added in March, healthcare employed 76,000, construction grew by 26,000, transportation and warehousing added 21,000 and employment in social assistance increased by 14,000.
While the report doesn’t have a single section tracking the tech industry, related services like computing infrastructure providers and web search portals saw a 1,500 job decrease, or almost no change, respectively. Computer systems design and related services lost 13,000 jobs.
Related: Jack Dorsey’s Block to cut 4,000 jobs in AI-driven restructuring
AI has actually axed 16,000 jobs per month over the past year, according to a recent report from Goldman Sachs, as cited by Fortune. In particular, AI has led to a collapse in hiring for entry-level roles. A 2025 study from SignalFire found that new grad hiring had dropped 50% compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d719e-cb37-7ac4-a71b-b99ea2771c41.png\")
“The door to tech once swung wide open for new grads. Today, it’s barely cracked. The industry's obsession with hiring bright-eyed grads right out of college is colliding with new realities: smaller funding rounds, shrinking teams, fewer new grad programs, and the rise of AI,” the SignalFire study stated.
This disruption could create ripples far into the future. According to Goldman Sachs, “AI-driven displacement could impose lasting costs on affected workers, worsening labor market outcomes for several years.”
“A key mechanism behind these worse outcomes is occupational downgrading. Workers displaced by technology are more likely to move into more routine occupations requiring fewer analytical and interpersonal skills, likely because the same technological shifts that eliminated their positions also eroded the value of their existing skills,” they continued.
These job losses are justified by the theory that AI will, at the very least, make workplaces more productive. But even that isn’t a given.
Executives are still overwhelmingly supportive of AI. According to Harvard Business Review, 80% of leaders report weekly use of AI, with 74% reporting positive returns on early deployments.
But workers don’t feel the same. A study from HR consulting firm Mercer found that, for 43% of workers, their job is more frustrating.
One major issue is the number of mistakes churned out by generative AI. “For every 10 hours of efficiency gained through AI, nearly four hours are lost to fixing its output,” a Workday report stated.
AI can also be used to offload labor onto coworkers in what researchers at the Harvard Business Review have called “workslop” i.e., “content that appears polished but lacks real substance, offloading cognitive labor onto coworkers.”
They said that “41% of workers have encountered such AI-generated output, costing nearly two hours of rework per instance and creating downstream productivity, trust, and collaboration issues.”
According to Workday, only 14% of respondents to their survey said they “consistently achieve net-positive outcomes from AI use.”
Part of the gulf between executives' understanding of AI and the reality at the productive level may be explained by the technology itself.
Per the Harvard Business Review, “Senior leaders tend to use AI for high-level synthesis, strategic drafting, and decision support, tasks where the technology performs well, so the current capabilities tend to benefit their work.”
For messier day-to-day operations like “workflows built over years, teams with uneven technical comfort, output that has to be consistently right, not just fast,” it doesn’t work so well.
“When the tool works, both groups understand and reap the benefits. When it fails, typically only one of them has to cope with the aftermath.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d71b0-4401-751b-a591-6c84bc5d5536.png\")
Brian Solis, the head of global innovation at enterprise AI firm ServiceNow, said that this divide has created an “AI tax,” i.e., “More checking. More rework. More anxiety. Faster pace. AI slop. Less trust.”
Andreessen may not believe that the AI job-cut narratives are real, but OpenAI does. The AI company has acknowledged the impact the technology has on employment, and has even released a series of policy proposals to address it.
The list contains ideas that are “intentionally early and exploratory” that serve as a “a starting point for discussion that we invite others to build on.” It includes proposals to expand healthcare coverage, retirement savings and setting a new industrial policy agenda.
Far from Andreessen’s optimism, OpenAI’s proposal included a warning: “Unless policy keeps pace with technological change, the institutions and safety nets needed to navigate this transition could fall behind.”
Magazine: Asia Express: Phantom Bitcoin checks, China tracks tax on blockchain
Shipping firms that turn to cryptocurrency to pay potential transit fees to Iran could face significant sanctions exposure, according to Kaitlin Martin, senior intelligence analyst at Chainalysis.
Martin told Cointelegraph that under the current sanctions framework, any payments made to the Iranian regime, including those tied to passage through key waterways, could be interpreted as “material support,” putting companies at risk of violating US and international restrictions.
“Doing so could carry significant sanctions violation risk, as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is sanctioned by multiple jurisdictions and Iran is subject to comprehensive sanctions by the United States,” she said.
The warning comes amid reports that Iran may seek to collect transit fees in cryptocurrency. While there has been no official confirmation, US President Donald Trump has said he would not accept any attempt by Tehran to impose tolls on shipping through the vital waterway.
Related: White House warns staff as Iran bets add to growing insider trading concerns
Tehran has already expanded its use of digital assets, particularly stablecoins, to facilitate trade in oil, weapons and commodities, based on publicly available data, Martin said.
However, she noted that cryptocurrency is not a foolproof workaround for sanctions. While it enables cross-border transfers outside the conventional financial system, blockchain transactions are inherently transparent and leave a permanent record.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7c7b-6966-7b22-aaa1-4f95684d9309.PNG\")
“In many ways, cryptocurrency is actually easier to trace than traditional methods of sanctions evasion,” she said, pointing to the ability of investigators to follow funds to cash-out points where assets can be frozen or seized.
Other sanctioned states have also explored similar approaches. Russia, for instance, has used digital tokens such as A7A5 to facilitate cross-border trade following sanctions imposed after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Related: Bitcoin community weighs in on reports of Iran's crypto toll for oil ships
As Cointelegraph reported, Iran’s Bitcoin (BTC) mining power has dropped significantly over the past quarter, losing around 7 exahashes per second and falling to roughly 2 EH/s, amid escalating tensions with the United States and Israel.
Despite the regional disruption, the global Bitcoin network remains stable, with total hashrate holding near 1,000 EH/s. Notably, the impact has been contained within Iran, with neighboring countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Oman unaffected.
Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author
", "description": "Shipping firms using crypto to pay potential Iran transit fees could face sanctions violations, as blockchain traceability undercuts evasion efforts, a Chainalysis analyst warns.", "published": "2026-04-11T13:25:56+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "iran" }, { "slug": "united-states" }, { "slug": "donald-trump" } ], "slug": "paying-iran-crypto-shippers-sanctions-risk-chainalysis", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260792" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Trump-linked WLFI hits new low as token-backed loan triggers concern", "leadText": "WLFI fell to a record low after it was revealed that the project used billions of its own tokens as collateral to borrow $75 million in stablecoins.", "author": { "slug": "amin-haqshanas" }, "bodyText": "WLFI, the native token of the Donald Trump–backed World Liberty Financial platform, sank to an all-time low on Saturday as crypto users expressed concerns after revelations that the project used a large amount of its own tokens to take out loans.
The token hit a new low of around $0.07714 on Saturday, down 83% from its peak of $0.46 reached last September, according to data from CoinMarketCap. WLFI is currently at $0.07879, down by 4.66% over the past day.
The downturn came after it was revealed that wallets linked to World Liberty Financial deployed substantial WLFI holdings as collateral on Dolomite, a decentralized lending platform co-founded by the project’s chief technology officer, Corey Caplan.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7bd5-c68e-7b70-abfd-8ecb893cbe66.PNG\")
Onchain data from Arkham shows that a wallet linked to World Liberty Financial deposited around 5 billion WLFI tokens on Dolomite. The wallet then used the tokens as collateral to borrow $75 million in USD1 and USDC (USDC) stablecoins, later transferring more than $40 million to Coinbase Prime.
Related: CFTC unveils innovation task force members in crypto clarity push
The large collateral position has raised concerns among DeFi analysts, who warn it could create risks for lenders on Dolomite if WLFI’s price falls and approaches liquidation levels.
“WLFI has almost a $10 billion FDV, but it is not an extremely liquid asset,” one user wrote on X. “So imagine what would happen if 5% of WLFI's total supply would suddenly need to be sold to liquidate the position,” he added.
Another X user argued that the setup resembles creating artificial “chips” and borrowing against them. “It’s the financial equivalent of printing casino chips, borrowing cash against them, and telling everyone else not to panic because the house still believes in the chips,” they claimed.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7bd7-3fc7-7a89-8c11-7870ab7a8d0d.PNG\")
Dolomite has a relatively small footprint in decentralized finance, ranking 19th among lending platforms by total value locked, according to DefiLlama.
Related: White House warns staff as Iran bets add to growing insider trading concerns
World Liberty Financial acknowledged the lending activity on social media, but sought to calm markets, stating that its positions remain well above liquidation thresholds. The project described itself as an “anchor borrower” for WLFI and argued that the strategy helps generate yield.
“Everyday users are earning outsized stablecoin yields right now — at a time when traditional markets are offering very little. That's the whole point,” the project wrote on X.
On Friday, World Liberty said it will soon introduce a governance proposal to create a phased unlock schedule for WLFI tokens held by early retail buyers, replacing immediate access with a long-term vesting plan subject to community vote.
Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author
", "description": "WLFI plunges to a new all-time low after onchain data shows a large token-backed loan, raising fears over liquidation risk, liquidity pressure, and the project’s lending strategy.", "published": "2026-04-11T10:30:48+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "altcoin" }, { "slug": "united-states" }, { "slug": "donald-trump" }, { "slug": "trumpcoin" } ], "slug": "trump-linked-wlfi-hits-new-low-token-backed-loan-concerns", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260782" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Federal court blocks Arizona crackdown on Kalshi’s event contracts", "leadText": "A federal judge in Arizona has temporarily barred state officials from enforcing gambling laws against Kalshi, siding with the CFTC.", "author": { "slug": "amin-haqshanas" }, "bodyText": "A federal judge in Arizona has temporarily barred state officials from enforcing gambling laws against Kalshi, siding with US regulators in a growing dispute over how event-based trading products should be classified.
In an order issued on Friday, Judge Michael Liburdi of the US District Court for the District of Arizona granted a request from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the federal government to halt any state-level action targeting contracts listed on CFTC-regulated markets .
The ruling centers on whether Kalshi’s “event contracts” fall under federal derivatives law or state gambling statutes. Last month, Arizona authorities sought to pursue enforcement against Kalshi under local gambling rules, but the CFTC sought a court order on Wednesday to stop the action.
The court said that the CFTC is likely to succeed in arguing that such contracts qualify as “swaps” under the Commodity Exchange Act, placing them within federal jurisdiction. The law grants the agency exclusive authority over swaps traded on designated contract markets.
Related: US appeals court upholds preventing New Jersey enforcement against Kalshi
As part of the decision, Arizona officials are temporarily prohibited from initiating or continuing civil or criminal enforcement tied to Kalshi’s event contracts on regulated exchanges .
The restraining order will remain in effect until April 24, while the court considers whether to issue a longer-term preliminary injunction.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7b4e-a483-747b-b613-542d5e935439.PNG\")
The case adds to a broader debate over prediction markets in the United States, particularly as regulators and states clash over whether such products resemble financial instruments or online betting. Last month, Utah lawmakers also passed a bill targeting Kalshi and Polymarket that classifies proposition-style bets on in-game events as gambling, aiming to block such offerings in the state.
Last week, a Nevada judge extended a ban preventing Kalshi from offering event-based contracts in the state, siding with regulators who argue the products amount to unlicensed gambling.
The court found that the platform’s offerings closely resemble traditional sports betting. The judge said there is no meaningful distinction between placing a wager through a sportsbook and buying a contract tied to an event outcome, concluding that such activity falls under Nevada’s gaming laws.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
", "description": "An Arizona federal court has paused state gambling enforcement against Kalshi, with judges signaling that event contracts likely fall under federal derivatives regulation.", "published": "2026-04-11T08:07:37+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "arizona" }, { "slug": "regulation" }, { "slug": "kalshi" }, { "slug": "prediction-markets" } ], "slug": "arizona-court-kalshi-gambling-enforcement-block", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260767" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitwise edges closer to Hyperliquid ETF launch with second amended filing", "leadText": "Bitwise added the ticker $BHYP and a 0.67% management fee in its latest filing, signaling a potential launch soon, according to Bloomberg's senior ETF analyst.", "author": { "slug": "brian-quarmby" }, "bodyText": "Bitwise Asset Management has taken a key step toward launching its proposed spot Hyperliquid exchange-traded fund, filing a second amended registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a post on X on Friday, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said that Bitwise had updated its Hyperliquid ETF to include the ticker $BHYP and had also set a management fee of 0.67%.
According to Balchunas, the filing of these details typically indicates that the product will \"launch soon.\"
\"HYPE is up 200% in the past year,\" he said, adding that the firm was likely trying to “strike“ while the iron is hot.
The filing comes as other asset managers are also trying to launch the first spot ETF tied to Hyperliquid in the US, with Grayscale and 21Shares also pushing for similar products of their own.
Bitwise was the first to submit a Hyperliquid ETF filing with the SEC in September. 21Shares followed a month later with its own, while Grayscale submitted its filing in late March.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7b00-251a-7e59-b676-361ff1f68a01.png\")
If approved, Bitwise's ETF will trade on the NYSE Arca exchange and offer investors exposure to the spot price of Hyperliquid.
In the firm's first amended registration statement in December, Bitwise also indicated that the fund would seek to generate additional returns from HYPE staking — something Grayscale and 21Shares haven't explicitly said their funds would do.
According to data from CoinGecko, the price of HYPE is up 65% since the start of 2026 to around $41.96 at the time of writing, despite a tough start to the year for the broader crypto market. Over 12 months, the price of HYPE has also increased by about 182%.
Related: BlackRock Bitcoin ETF sees $269M inflows, best day since early March
Alongside a strong token performance, blockchain analytics platform CoinGlass reported in early April that Hyperliquid had broken into the top 10 crypto derivatives platforms by volume, joining the likes of Binance, OKX and Bybit.
During Q1, Hyperliquid generated $492.7 billion in trading volume, putting it shy of Coinbase by about $90 billion.
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
", "description": "Bitwise has moved closer to launching a spot Hyperliquid ETF after updating its SEC filing with a ticker and fee.", "published": "2026-04-11T06:31:21+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bloomberg" }, { "slug": "derivatives" }, { "slug": "futures" }, { "slug": "etf" }, { "slug": "industry" } ], "slug": "bitwise-edges-closes-to-hyperliquid-etf-launch-with-second-amended-filing", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260762" }, { "category": { "slug": "market-analysis" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "XRP price bottom signals emerge after the altcoin holds key support level", "leadText": "Technical and onchain indicators hint at a possible trend reversal in XRP price as traders watch to see if a key support level holds.", "author": { "slug": "nancy-lubale" }, "bodyText": "XRP (XRP) has been in an eight-month downtrend, with momentum and onchain indicators at levels that previously coincided with macro bottoms.
Data from TradingView reveals that the relative strength index (RSI) of the XRP/BTC ratio is at 24, the most oversold level since October 2025.
Such low levels in the daily RSI have marked market bottoms for the ratio, ultimately leading to 65% to 345% XRP price breakouts against Bitcoin as seen late 2024 and 2025.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d78c4-954a-781c-8590-d3834fbe6598.png\")
The chart above also shows that the XRP/BTC pair is trading within a long consolidation range, which has previously acted as a strong launching pad for the ratio.
The last time XRP bottomed against Bitcoin around this zone was in June 2025. It marked the beginning of a 61% increase in the XRP/BTC ratio, accompanying a 92% XRP price rally to a multi-year high of $3.66.
Other instances shown by the yellow bars in the chart reinforce the reliability of this level in marking macro bottoms for XRP/BTC.
XRP’s MVRV Z-score is hovering near zero, a level that historically aligns with accumulation zones and market bottoms.
This indicates that most holders are close to breakeven, reducing sell pressure and signalling potential downside exhaustion. Similar patterns appeared in 2021, 2022 and 2024 before major rallies.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d78c4-a0ca-7395-bbe8-822637694aeb.png\")
Note that the last time XRP’s MVRV Z-score fell to similar levels in late 2024 coincided with a macro market bottom at $0.30 and preceded a multi-month rally, with the XRP/USD pair rising 500% to a multi-year high above $3.
Meanwhile, the 0.80 MVRV pricing band, which has historically marked cycle bottoms, is currently at $1.14, coinciding with a 15-month low reached on Feb. 6.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d78c4-abcf-7b76-9173-1e990fd88729.png\")
These onchain metrics suggest that XRP is undervalued and may continue the ongoing recovery, potentially rising toward $1.70 or higher.
Meanwhile, XRP/USD remains cautiously bullish as long as it holds the $1.25-$1.30 support zone.
“$XRP is sustaining the major support zone between $1.30-$1.25 levels since early Feb'26,” trader ChiefraT said in an X post on Friday, adding:
“If this zone continues to hold, then a short-term bounce towards $1.45 can't be ruled out.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d78c4-b747-77c0-bf4e-71e197b0d18d.png\")
The importance of this support level is reinforced by cost basis distribution. The heatmap below shows that nearly 1.73 billion XRP were acquired around this price.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d78c4-c469-71d0-acb0-ea5b66f5173c.png\")
Below that, the next line of defence is the $1.15 demand zone, where the 200-week simple moving average is.
If XRP/USD drops below this level, it would be in a free-fall toward the measured target of the bear flag at $0.80, or 41% below the current price.
As Cointelegraph reported, holding $1.27-$1.30 would be a sign of strength among the bulls who must push the XRP/USD pair toward the $1.61 range high to regain control.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has unveiled the first members of its new Innovation Task Force as the agency continues its push to provide greater clarity for the crypto market.
The Innovation Task Force was launched by CFTC Chairman Mike Selig on March 24, who appointed Michael Passalacqua as the leader of the group. Passalacqua is currently the senior advisor to Selig at the CFTC.
In an announcement on Friday, the CFTC said that Passalacqua will be joined by five initial members, including Hank Balaban, a former Latham & Watkins crypto lawyer; Sam Canavos, a former Patomak crypto and prediction markets adviser; Mark Fajfar, a CFTC legal veteran; Eugene Gonzalez IV, a former Sidley blockchain lawyer and Dina Moussa, a CFTC Market Participants Division special counsel.
“The Innovation Task Force brings together a leading team that exhibits deep expertise and an enthusiastic commitment to deliver clear rules of the road for American innovators,” Selig said.
The move is part of a broader push from both the CFTC and US Securities and Exchange Commission to provide regulatory clarity for the digital asset sector.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7a80-02cb-756f-9090-51c2378bb494.png\")
On Friday, Selig also announced the CFTC's “innovation tracker,” which highlights the work done under Selig to help “advance regulatory clarity, market integrity, and responsible technological progress.”
The website lists three key innovation areas the agency is focused on, including crypto and blockchain, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, contracts and prediction markets.
Related: Prediction market users await Artemis II mission splashdown
The CFTC could become the main overseer of the industry, with the SEC proposing in mid-March that the agency does not see most crypto assets falling under its jurisdiction as securities.
However, the certainty of both agencies’ roles is still largely dependent on whether the CLARITY Act passes through Congress and becomes enshrined as law — something SEC Chair Paul Atkins called for via X on Thursday.
The SEC and CFTC are “ready to implement the CLARITY Act,” he said, adding: “It's time for Congress to future-proof against rogue regulators and advance comprehensive market structure legislation to President Trump's desk.”
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
", "description": "The CFTC's new Innovation Task Force will focus on crypto, blockchain, AI and prediction markets as the agency awaits the CLARITY Act's potential passage.", "published": "2026-04-11T04:13:56+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "sec" }, { "slug": "cftc" }, { "slug": "us-government" }, { "slug": "donald-trump" }, { "slug": "regulation" } ], "slug": "cftc-unveils-members-of-innovation-task-force", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260752" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin community weighs in on reports of Iran’s crypto toll for oil ships", "leadText": "Alex Thorn, an executive at crypto investment firm Galaxy, said it is monitoring onchain activity for signs of an oil tanker fee paid in BTC.", "author": { "slug": "vince-quill" }, "bodyText": "The Bitcoin (BTC) community is discussing the feasibility and implications of the Iranian government accepting BTC for tolls paid by oil tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane through which about 20% of the global oil supply passes.
The reactions were sparked by a Financial Times report, published on Wednesday, which said that the Iranian government was considering BTC payments for oil tolls to avoid sanctions imposed by the United States.
Several conflicting reports have been published since the Financial Times article, which suggest that the tolls are payable in stablecoins or Chinese yuan, according to Alex Thorn, the head of firmwide research at crypto investment firm Galaxy.
![\"Dollar,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d794a-5369-73df-acdb-4c110a2eacc7.png\")
BTC advocate Justin Bechler said that stablecoins can be frozen by the issuer and cited the compliance controls introduced in the GENIUS stablecoin regulatory framework as reasons why the Iranian government would not collect tolls in US-dollar stablecoins. He said:
“USDT and USDC include built-in blacklist functions at the smart contract level. When an address is flagged, the issuer can freeze the tokens, rendering them completely illiquid. The law's enforcement depends entirely on the compliance of issuers.
Bitcoin has no issuer, no compliance officer to pressure, and no freeze function. Iran's pivot toward Bitcoin follows directly from this structural reality,” he added.
If the Iranian government begins accepting BTC for oil tanker payments, it would boost Bitcoin’s credibility as a neutral settlement layer for international transactions, advocates say.
![\"Dollar,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d794b-ab32-7ab2-9aba-a376d9c00243.png\")
Related: Crypto Biz: Will Bitcoin secure safe passage through the Hormuz Strait?
Thorn estimated that each oil tanker would need to pay between $200,000 and $2 million in tolls to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
The initial reporting from the Financial Times cited a spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, who said that ships would have a “few seconds” to complete payment in BTC.
This suggests that ships would pay via the Lightning Network, a layer-2 payment solution for BTC that allows parties to send transactions in seconds, rather than waiting for the 10-minute block confirmation.
However, the largest known transaction over the Lightning network to date has been for $1 million, Thorn said.
“More likely, the Iranian authorities would provide a QR code or alphanumeric Bitcoin address to the ships upon approval of their requests to pass through the Strait,” he added.
Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum: BIP-360 co-author
", "description": "The Bitcoin community reacts to reports that the Iranian government is now accepting Bitcoin for tolls from oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.", "published": "2026-04-10T22:42:24+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "dollar" }, { "slug": "iran" }, { "slug": "stablecoin" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-adoption" } ], "slug": "bitcoin-community-iran-crypto-toll-oil", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260732" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Prediction market users await Artemis II mission splashdown", "leadText": "The 10-day lunar flyby mission is expected to end in a splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean on Friday evening.", "author": { "slug": "turner-wright" }, "bodyText": "Users on prediction market platform Kalshi are trading event contracts tied to NASA’s Artemis II mission, including bets on what officials will say after the spacecraft’s splashdown.
As of Friday, several event contracts related to a Moon landing were available on the Kalshi and Polymarket platforms, but many users were taking positions on what would be said at NASA’s news conference following the splashdown.
With just over $4,000 in volume on the event contracts, Kalshi users anticipate that NASA officials will mention the words “president” or “prime minister,” “radiation,” and “damage” in connection with the Moon mission.
![\"NASA,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7909-2cf3-70f6-a6b9-4bfcc4663250.png\")
The Orion spacecraft from the Artemis II mission is expected to return to Earth at about 12:07 am UTC on Saturday, having launched from Florida on April 1 and completed a flyby of the Moon with a crew of four people. The NASA mission followed its Artemis I in 2022, which orbited the Moon with an unmanned vessel, and preceded its plans to land on the lunar surface in 2028.
Using positions in event contracts on prediction markets has drawn controversy because platforms like Polymarket allow users to bet on the outcomes of events related to the US-Israeli war against Iran. Some of the bets, which some lawmakers have described as suspicious due to their timing, have prompted calls for legislation to address potential insider trading on prediction markets.
Related: MoonPay releases open-source wallet standard for AI agents
Kalshi offered an event contract for a manned Moon landing by NASA, with a 63% chance before 2030 and a 41% chance before 2029.
In March, an Nvidia-backed orbital data center company called Starcloud announced plans to mine Bitcoin (BTC) from space following the launch of a spacecraft into Earth orbit. Its CEO, Philip Johnston, said in an interview that the plans would utilize solar panels and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners in its orbital data centers.
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction
", "description": "To the Moon and back again: Kalshi users are taking positions on what NASA will say at a press conference following the splashdown of Orion spacecraft from the Artemis II mission.", "published": "2026-04-10T21:52:05+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "nasa" }, { "slug": "space" }, { "slug": "to-the-moon" }, { "slug": "industry" }, { "slug": "polymarket" }, { "slug": "kalshi" }, { "slug": "prediction-markets" } ], "slug": "prediction-market-bets-artemis-moon-mission", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260717" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "CoreWeave lands multi-year agreement with Anthropic to run AI workloads", "leadText": "CoreWeave said the agreement means it now serves nine of the 10 major developers of large language models for artificial intelligence.", "author": { "slug": "vince-quill" }, "bodyText": "CoreWeave, a publicly traded AI cloud infrastructure company, announced on Friday a “multi-year” agreement with AI developer Anthropic, which will use CoreWeave’s cloud computing data centers for its Claude AI model workloads.
The agreement will be rolled out in phases, with the “potential to expand over time,” according to CoreWeave’s announcement.
Shares of CoreWeave surged more than 12% on Friday and are trading at $102.73 at the time of writing.
![\"Mining,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d78d9-9cdb-7575-a371-5b7c61343db1.png\")
The agreement follows CoreWeave’s recent $8.5 billion capital raise, led by tech giant Meta Platforms.
The financing was collateralized against CoreWeave’s deployed computing capacity, which is tied to predictable cash flows, rather than its graphics processing unit hardware, marking a notable departure from traditional crypto mining financing structures.
CoreWeave pivoted away from crypto mining and rebranded as an AI infrastructure company in 2019, as the mining sector faced prolonged economic pressure following the 2018 crypto market downturn.
Related: Core Scientific secures up to $1B credit from Morgan Stanley for data centers
Bitcoin (BTC) miners are struggling with rising energy costs, reduced rewards and declining crypto asset prices, leading many to repurpose their mining hardware for AI processing.
Up to 20% of Bitcoin miners are unprofitable in the current economic environment, according to asset manager CoinShares’ latest mining report.
![\"Mining,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d78db-d1f2-734f-9157-be06e831aa77.png\")
Crypto miners must generate yield on their assets by deploying their crypto on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to shore up declining revenues, according to market maker Wintermute.
The mining industry’s economic challenges worsened after the October 2025 market crash, which took BTC down from a high of about $126,000 to the low $60,000 range. Prices have since stabilized around $73,000.
The high costs of mining and shrinking profit margins threaten the viability of Bitcoin mining, with AI workloads becoming much more attractive in this environment, according to market analyst Ran Neuner.
“Both industries compete for the same thing: electricity, and right now, AI is willing to pay much more for it,” he said.
Magazine: AI has dramatically accelerated the quantum threat to Bitcoin: AI Eye
", "description": "AI developer Anthropic entered into an agreement with AI cloud infrastructure provider CoreWeave to use CoreWeave's computing power over several years.", "published": "2026-04-10T20:45:05+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "mining" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-mining" }, { "slug": "ai" }, { "slug": "data-center" }, { "slug": "companies" }, { "slug": "ai-and-hi-tech" } ], "slug": "coreweave-agreement-anthropic-ai", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260712" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Crypto Biz: Will Bitcoin secure safe passage through the Hormuz Strait?", "leadText": "Iran may require oil tankers to pay BTC tolls through the Strait of Hormuz, signaling a new use case for crypto as geopolitical tensions reshape global trade routes.", "author": { "slug": "sam-bourgi" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin is emerging as a potential component in the fragile ceasefire that is taking shape between the United States and Iran after a 39-day conflict disrupted the region and forced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran is unlikely to relinquish its grip on the narrow trade artery that handles roughly 20% of global crude oil flows. Instead, it plans to manage transit alongside Oman, collecting tolls from vessels seeking safe passage.
And that’s where Bitcoin (BTC) comes into play. Those payments may not be limited to traditional currencies. Hamid Hosseini, a spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, told the Financial Times that certain ships could be required to pay in BTC for safe passage of their oil cargo.
“Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels are given a few seconds to pay in Bitcoin, ensuring they can’t be traced or confiscated due to sanctions,” said Hosseini.
If implemented, the move would mark a notable shift for Iran, which has previously said it would only accept the Chinese yuan as toll payment for the strait.
This week’s Crypto Biz looks at Iran’s reported crypto gambit, Jamie Dimon’s latest comments on blockchain and competition and the White House’s stance on stablecoin yields.
Ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz are increasingly being asked to pay transit fees in cryptocurrency, as Iran tightens control over one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, according to the Financial Times.
Reports indicate that vessels, particularly oil tankers, are being charged fees that can reach into the millions per trip, with payments made in crypto or alternative currencies. The system is being enforced by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has restricted access to the waterway and allowed only approved ships to pass.
The development comes amid ongoing conflict and a fragile ceasefire, with Iran using its position over the strait as leverage. With roughly a fifth of global oil flows moving through the route, the use of crypto payments underscores both the geopolitical stakes and how digital assets are being used to bypass traditional financial channels.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that a new wave of technology-driven competitors is putting pressure on traditional banking, highlighting both artificial intelligence and emerging financial infrastructure.
In his annual shareholder letter, Dimon pointed to fintech companies and nonbank players adopting blockchain and other technologies to build faster, lower-cost systems. He also hinted that stablecoins should be viewed as part of the broader shift underway in financial services.
America’s biggest bank, as measured by assets, is already investing heavily in its own blockchain infrastructure, including its Kinexys platform, as it looks to compete in areas such as payments and tokenization where new entrants are gaining ground on traditional players.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7810-6ce6-705c-96fe-4384de980174.png\")
Analysts at Bernstein say Figure Technologies’ rapid loan growth highlights the potential of blockchain-based lending, suggesting the company’s stock is significantly undervalued at current levels.
In a recent note, Bernstein said Figure surpassed $1 billion in monthly originations, signaling growing traction. It assigned the stock an “Outperform” rating and a $67 price target, roughly double current levels.
Figure’s lending platform runs on the Provenance blockchain, which is designed to reduce costs and speed up loan processing. Bernstein analysts said this structure could improve margins compared to traditional lenders, particularly as volumes increase.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7810-7024-73e0-8cbb-e138655fade7.png\")
Economists at the White House said restricting yield-bearing stablecoins would have a negligible impact on bank lending, challenging claims that such products pose a meaningful threat to deposits.
According to analysis by the Council of Economic Advisers, a ban on stablecoin yields is estimated to increase bank lending by just 0.02%, suggesting only limited spillover into the traditional financial system. The analysis comes as yield-bearing stablecoins remain a key sticking point in market structure legislation talks.
The report also pointed to potential downsides. Limiting yields could reduce consumer benefits by cutting off access to higher returns, highlighting a trade-off for policymakers weighing tighter regulation of the sector.
Crypto Biz is your weekly pulse on the business behind blockchain and crypto, delivered directly to your inbox every Thursday.
", "description": "Iran is reportedly exploring Bitcoin tolls for ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting crypto’s growing role in sanctions evasion and global trade.", "published": "2026-04-10T20:11:57+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "business" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "iran" }, { "slug": "jamie-dimon" }, { "slug": "stablecoin" }, { "slug": "jpmorgan-chase" }, { "slug": "tokenization" }, { "slug": "industry" } ], "slug": "iran-bitcoin-strait-of-hormuz-oil-tolls", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260707" }, { "category": { "slug": "market-analysis" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin charts point to $80K in April: Here’s how it may happen", "leadText": "Technical analysis, overhead supply awaiting absorption, and a shift in investor sentiment have increased the likelihood of Bitcoin reaching $80,000 in April.", "author": { "slug": "nancy-lubale" }, "bodyText": "Bitcoin (BTC) extended its bullish run into the Wall Street open on Friday, rallying above $73,000. Traders now eye a move back toward $80,000 by the end of April, as several indicators point to bulls retaking control of the crypto market.
On Tuesday, Bitcoin invalidated what initially appeared to be a bear pennant on the daily chart.
Related: Old Bitcoin whales sold $271M in BTC: Is crypto rally at stake?
The BTC/USD pair pierced through the pennant’s upper trend line at $70,000, jumping as much as 7% to a six-week high of $73,300 on Friday. Its breakout came alongside a rise in trading volume, implying stronger conviction behind the rally.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7811-0d15-7f0e-8b04-d5f2f1c12ec3.png\")
The price also reclaimed key support lines, including the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA, blue line), the 20-day EMA (red wave), and the 50-day EMA (orange wave) at $68,350, $69,520, and $70,580, respectively.
That simultaneously increased the odds of a symmetrical-triangle bullish reversal.
A symmetrical triangle forms when price makes lower highs and higher lows, compressing into a tightening range. It resolves when the price breaks either of the trendlines and moves by as much as the pattern’s maximum height.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7811-1702-7180-b70c-0c7456542b45.png\")
In Bitcoin’s case, the measured move above the upper trend line points to $87,000, about 20% above the current price.
The bullish divergence from the relative strength index (RSI) suggests that the bullish momentum has been steadily building up over the last two months, reinforcing BTC’s upside potential.
Bitcoin’s next hurdle is the 100-day EMA (blue) near $75,400.
As Cointelegraph reported, a rejection there would weaken the breakout and raise the odds of a pullback.
Data from TradingView shows that Bitcoin has spent more than six weeks consolidating within a $60,000–$70,000 range, with multiple failed attempts to sustain a strong footing above $72,000.
Glassnode’s risk indicator reveals a major resistance between the true market mean at $78,000 and the short-term holder cost basis level around $80,000.
“This is a particularly meaningful threshold,” Glassnode said in its latest Week Onchain newsletter, adding:
“Any rally into this zone is likely to encounter meaningful distribution pressure from recent buyers seeking to exit at or near breakeven.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7811-2175-797d-8e39-b125f150c012.png\")
The chart above reinforces the view that any recovery attempt could be halted near the true market mean and the STH realized price, as seen in 2023.
Glassnode’s Entity-Adjusted UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD), which shows at which prices the current set of BTC UTXOs was created, also revealed that BTC price has entered a relatively open zone between $72,000 and $82,000, where there’s less resistance.
This means BTC may move more freely in the short term within this range, if the momentum holds, with the upside possibly capped at $82,000-$85,000. This is where investors acquired more than 1.3 million BTC.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7811-2a10-7955-b3e7-9fd1c10db695.png\")
Meanwhile, BTC’s cost-basis distribution heatmap shows a pronounced accumulation between $78,000 and $84,000, suggesting a potential short-term pathway toward this level.
Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market where users trade contracts on real-world outcomes, is showing a clear bullish shift for Bitcoin in April.
Traders now assign 26% chances that BTC/USD reaches $80,000 in April, a 5% increase over the last 24 hours. The $75,000 target carries even stronger convictions at 76%.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7811-30b9-7dcf-810d-4c426d3c2b78.png\")
At the same time, the odds of the BTC price reaching $65,000 in April are priced lower than before, suggesting the crowd is trimming its downside expectations.
Brian Armstrong, the Coinbase CEO who withdrew the crypto exchange’s support for the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act in January, said “it’s time” for the legislation to pass after months of delays.
In a Thursday X post, Armstrong said that Coinbase agreed with comments from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, in which he urged Congress to act on the crypto bill soon. According to the CEO, the current version of the legislation, after months of negotiations between lawmakers and representatives from the crypto and banking industries, was a “strong bill.”
“It's time to pass the Clarity Act,” said Armstrong.
![\"Coinbase,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d785f-9b0e-71a7-89f8-780521620efe.png\")
Armstrong’s endorsement of the bill came about three months after the CEO said that the company could not support the legislation “as written,” leading to lawmakers in the Senate Banking Committee postponing a markup on CLARITY necessary for its approval.
At the time, Armstrong said that he expected the bill to pass “in a few weeks,” but concerns over ethics, tokenized equities, stablecoin yield and other crypto-related issues have stalled progress since January.
Related: Coinbase CEO denies White House clash, says negotiations are ongoing
A markup for the bill in the Senate Banking Committee has not yet been scheduled as of Friday. The process follows earlier approval by the Senate Agriculture Committee in January, with both panels responsible for addressing different aspects of securities and commodities regulation before a potential full Senate vote.
Coinbase legal chief Paul Grewal said last week that lawmakers were “very close to a deal” on the bill.
Since before the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, many experts have questioned the influence of the crypto industry on elections, lawmakers’ decisions and White House policies.
Executives at Coinbase and Ripple Labs have been parties to the discussions with administration officials on the CLARITY Act, and Armstrong reportedly met with the president before Trump posted a social media message calling for immediate action on crypto market structure.
The relationships may have benefited Coinbase and other companies seeking crypto-friendly laws and regulations under Trump. Last week, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved Coinbase’s application for a national bank trust charter, following December approvals for Paxos, Ripple Labs, BitGo, Circle and Fidelity Digital Assets.
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
", "description": "Brian Armstrong push to pass crypto market structure legislation came about three months after he said Coinbase could not support the then version of the bill.", "published": "2026-04-10T19:11:16+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "coinbase" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "law" }, { "slug": "politics" }, { "slug": "congress" }, { "slug": "regulation" } ], "slug": "coinbase-ceo-treasury-secretary-clarity-act", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "News" } ] }, "id": "260687" }, { "category": { "slug": "top-10-cryptocurrencies" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Price predictions 4/10: BTC, ETH, XRP, BNB, SOL, DOGE, HYPE, ADA, BCH, LINK", "leadText": "Bitcoin bulls spent the week stampeding toward a critical overhead resistance level, which, if breached, could restart the bull market in BTC and altcoins.", "author": { "slug": "rakesh-upadhyay" }, "bodyText": "Key points:
Buyers are attempting to push Bitcoin toward the $76,000 level but are facing significant selling from the bears.
Several major altcoins are likely to pick up momentum if they break above their overhead resistance levels.
Buyers are attempting to sustain Bitcoin (BTC) above the $72,500 level but are expected to face significant resistance from the bears. US spot BTC exchange-traded funds have witnessed a mixed week, with two days of inflows and two days of outflows, according to Farside Investors data. However, a positive sign is that the inflows have been larger than the outflows, resulting in weekly net inflows of $576.5 million.
Although there are signs of recovery, Glassnode said in its latest Week Onchain newsletter that BTC will have to cross the True Market Mean at $78,000 and the Short-Term Holder Cost Basis at $81,600 to transition into a sustainable recovery regime. Until then, the “mid to long-term bias remains tilted to the downside” as any rally into the zone is expected to encounter selling pressure from recent buyers who may want to exit their positions at or near breakeven.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-9dd4-7937-b282-486210cf2520.png\")
Along with BTC, Ether (ETH) may also be bottoming out. The Capriole Macro Index Oscillator recorded a reading of -2.42, signaling undervaluation. In 2022, ETH had bottomed out in the $1,000 to $1,200 range when the indicator fell to -2.2. That suggests limited downside risk and greater upside potential.
Could BTC and select major altcoins continue their relief rally? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
BTC rose above $73,000, but the bulls could not sustain the higher levels. That suggests the bears are attempting to retain the price below the $72,000 level.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-a172-7816-9ef4-89124708e5ed.png\")
A positive in favor of the bulls is that the 20-day exponential moving average ($69,587) has started to turn up, and the relative strength index (RSI) has risen into the positive territory. That increases the possibility of a rally to the $76,000 resistance.
Sellers are expected to defend the $76,000 level with all their might, as a close above it completes a bullish ascending triangle pattern. The BTC/USDT pair may then ascend to $84,000.
The bears will have to swiftly pull the BTC price below the support line to signal a comeback. If they do that, the pair risks dropping to the crucial $62,500 to $60,000 support zone.
ETH’s pullback is finding support at $2,200, signaling that the bulls are attempting to flip the level into support.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-a43c-778c-9095-3ec578807d31.png\")
If the ETH price turns up from the current level and breaks above $2,274, it improves the prospects of a rally above the $2,400 resistance. If that happens, the ETH/USDT pair may surge to $2,800.
This bullish view will be invalidated in the near term if the price turns down and breaks below the moving averages. That suggests the higher levels are attracting sellers. The pair may then slump to the solid support at $1,916.
Buyers have failed to push XRP (XRP) above the 50-day simple moving average ($1.38), indicating that the bears are aggressively defending the level.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-a747-754f-8a90-3bff05a42de5.png\")
Both moving averages are flattening out, and the RSI is just below the midpoint, indicating a slight edge to the bears. A break and close below the $1.27 level signals the resumption of the downtrend to $1.11 and later to the support line of the descending channel pattern near $0.9.
On the other hand, a break above the 50-day SMA tilts the short-term advantage in favor of the buyers. The XRP/USDT pair may then rally to the downtrend line, where the bears are expected to pose a strong challenge.
BNB (BNB) has failed to rise above the 50-day SMA ($626), indicating that the bears are selling on minor rallies.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-aa06-7eb4-8e4b-efb9ede379b6.png\")
Sellers will attempt to strengthen their position by pulling the BNB price below the $570 level. If they succeed, the BNB/USDT pair may resume its downtrend to the next strong support at $500.
Conversely, a close above the moving averages signals that the pair may extend its stay within the range for some time. Buyers will be back in the driver’s seat on a close above the $687 level. That clears the path for a rally to $730 and subsequently to $790.
Solana (SOL) has been consolidating inside the $76 to $98 range, signaling buying on dips and selling on rallies.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-acdd-75a2-81a2-e42c2245b641.png\")
If buyers drive the SOL price above the moving averages, the recovery may reach the $98 level. Sellers are expected to fiercely defend the $98 level, attempting to keep the SOL/USDT pair inside the range.
The next trending move is expected to begin above the $98 resistance or below the $76 support. If bulls propel the price above the $98 level, the pair may surge to $117. Alternatively, a break below the $76 level may sink the pair to $67.
Dogecoin (DOGE) failed to rise above the downtrend line, indicating that the bears continue to exert pressure.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-b328-7feb-a1e2-0e39f590c014.png\")
Sellers will have to quickly pull the DOGE price below the $0.09 support to complete the bearish descending triangle pattern. If they do that, the DOGE/USDT pair may plunge to $0.08 and later to the pattern target of $0.06.
Instead, if the price turns up and breaks above the downtrend line, it suggests that the bulls are aggressively defending the $0.09 level. The failure of a bearish setup is a positive sign as it is likely to attract buyers. The pair may then start its climb toward the $0.11 resistance.
Hyperliquid (HYPE) has been gradually moving higher toward the $41.59 to $43.76 resistance zone, signaling solid demand from the bulls.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-b663-711a-b021-becdf18b598e.png\")
The 20-day EMA ($37.91) has started to turn up, and the RSI is in the positive zone, indicating that the bulls are in command. A close above the overhead resistance zone opens the gates for a rally to $50.
Sellers will have to swiftly yank the HYPE price below the 50-day SMA ($35.27) to signal a comeback. If they do that, the HYPE/USDT pair may plummet to the $29.42 level.
Related: Bitcoin analysis sees $55K BTC price 'iron bottom' by December 2026
Sellers are defending the 50-day SMA ($0.26) in Cardano (ADA), but the bulls have not allowed the price to dip back below the $0.25 support.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-b927-7384-8e0e-6bad22354045.png\")
The first sign of strength will be a close above the 50-day SMA, as it opens the doors for a rally to the downtrend line. Sellers are expected to fiercely protect the downtrend line, as a close above it signals a potential short-term trend change.
On the contrary, a drop below the $0.23 level indicates that the bears have overpowered the bulls. That may sink the ADA/USDT pair to $0.22 and later to the support line near the $0.16 level.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is facing resistance at the 20-day EMA ($451), but the bulls have not given up much ground to the bears.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-bc02-7406-a57e-7630413aa900.png\")
That increases the likelihood of a break above the 20-day EMA. If that happens, the BCH/USDT pair may climb to the 50-day SMA ($465) and subsequently to the $486 resistance. A close above the $486 level suggests that the market has rejected the break below the $443 support.
Sellers are likely to have other plans. They will attempt to defend the moving averages and pull the BCH price below the $420 level. If they do that, the pair may plummet to $375.
Chainlink (LINK) has been stuck between the $8 and $10 level for several days, indicating a balance between supply and demand.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d782d-becc-794b-bc9b-82e475304ae4.png\")
The longer the price remains within a range, the stronger the eventual breakout. The flattish moving averages and the RSI near the midpoint do not give either bulls or bears a clear advantage.
If the LINK price turns up from its current level and breaks above the $10 resistance, it suggests the start of a new uptrend. The LINK/USDT pair may then reach $11.61. Conversely, a close below the $8 support may resume the downtrend toward the $6 level.
", "description": "Bitcoin and altcoins are on the verge of eliminating their long-term overhead resistance levels. Will the bull market resume if the bulls succeed?", "published": "2026-04-10T18:50:52+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "dogecoin" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "xrp" }, { "slug": "markets" }, { "slug": "united-states" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrency-exchange" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-cash" }, { "slug": "cardano" }, { "slug": "price-analysis" }, { "slug": "chainlink" }, { "slug": "market-analysis" }, { "slug": "solana" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-etf" }, { "slug": "etf" }, { "slug": "bnb" } ], "slug": "price-predictions-4-10-btc-eth-xrp-bnb-sol-doge-hype-ada-bch-link", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "Price Analysis" } ] }, "id": "260682" }, { "category": { "slug": "market-analysis" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bitcoin traders set $88K target as market bias finally tilts toward bulls", "leadText": "Bitcoin holding above $72,000, along with a sharp uptick in whale activity, suggests traders may target the supply zone at $88,000.", "author": { "slug": "biraajmaan-tamuly" }, "bodyText": "Mirroring a breakout setup from Q2 2025, Bitcoin (BTC) is now eyeing a possible rally toward the $86,000–$90,000 range over the next few weeks.
The bullish view is supported by robust Bitcoin whale activity and large BTC inflows to exchanges, which have dropped by $5 billion over the past two months.
Bitcoin reached a weekly high of $73,255 on Friday after testing the $72,000 level earlier in the week, with the price compressing between $70,000 and $72,000 over the past four days. The higher price range is showing more stability for BTC than in March, when BTC quickly corrected after reaching the key level.
![\"Cryptocurrencies,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d77f6-3abc-7c0b-ab59-aa0254c7842a.png\")
The 30-day rolling volume-weighted average price (VWAP), which indicates where most recent trading activity has occurred, and the 50-day moving average have converged below the price, forming a dynamic support base.
Currently, the $76,000 level marks the upper boundary of a 64-day sideways phase. A push above this level aligns with the descending trendline formed after the October highs near $126,000.
A breakout from this trend may signal a major shift and remove the psychological barrier that capped rallies over the past few months.
In Q2 2025, a similar setup formed after a prolonged compression below the moving averages. Once the price cleared the descending trendline, it expanded quickly into the next supply zone.
![\"Cryptocurrencies,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d77f3-a0c8-7cf8-88a5-fc8366500fb4.png\")
The current structure mirrors that sequence, with liquidity stacked between $86,000 and $90,000. This indicates a clean path for price expansion once the bearish trendline gives way.
Related: Bitcoin can be made quantum-safe without protocol upgrade: Researcher
Crypto analyst Amr Taha noted that the 30-day Bitcoin inflows to exchanges from whales dropped to $2.96 billion, the first sub-$3 billion reading since June 2025.
The lower inflows reduce immediate sell-side pressure on exchanges. For context, the whale inflows to exchanges were as high as $8 billion in February.
![\"Cryptocurrencies,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d780d-4994-7dd8-a200-3724b13a9659.png\")
At the same time, the long-term holder realized cap change reached $49 billion on April 9, marking renewed accumulation.
Taha noted a transfer of supply from weaker to stronger hands across these metrics. The divergence highlights steady absorption rather than aggressive selling.
![\"Cryptocurrencies,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d780e-55fc-78c1-839d-aa665df8d8da.jpg\")
Additionally, whale-sized orders of $1 million to $10 million pushed the spot cumulative volume delta (CVD) above $600 million on April 9, while market analyst CW pointed to renewed buying from other whale cohorts as well.
This activity coincides with price stabilization above $70,000. The $76,000 level now acts as a trigger zone, with the $86,000 to $90,000 range holding a visible, concentrated liquidity zone.
![\"Cryptocurrencies,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7813-d08a-7f7b-ba3f-495f07dada58.jpg\")
Related: Bitcoin hits $73K as cool US CPI data shows 60-year record gas price hike
", "description": "Bitcoin’s price action tilts back toward the bulls, and data suggests that a rally to $88,000 is coming into focus.", "published": "2026-04-10T17:47:01+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "bitcoin" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrencies" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-price" }, { "slug": "bitcoin-analysis" }, { "slug": "markets" }, { "slug": "cryptocurrency-exchange" }, { "slug": "derivatives" }, { "slug": "market-analysis" } ], "slug": "bitcoin-traders-set-dollar88k-target-as-market-bias-finally-tilts-toward-bulls", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "Price Analysis" } ] }, "id": "260667" }, { "category": { "slug": "latest-news" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "US CPI comes in lower than expected, but April rate cut still unlikely", "leadText": "Although US inflation was weaker than expected in March, the ongoing war between the United States, Iran and Israel has fueled macroeconomic uncertainty.", "author": { "slug": "vince-quill" }, "bodyText": "The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for March, showing a 0.9% month-over-month rise in headline CPI inflation.
CPI inflation is up 3.3% year-over-year, according to the BLS report published Friday. Although inflation came in slightly lower than analyst expectations, inflation remains elevated above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
A surge in energy prices from the Iran war drove March’s inflation figures, with the energy index rising by nearly 11%, led by a 21.2% rise in gasoline prices, the BLS report said.
![\"Federal](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7818-a140-77cf-b8eb-e6f36399ff93.png\")
Managing inflation is part of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment, which influences its decision-making on interest rates and broader monetary policy.
Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency prices are significantly impacted by interest rate policy, with lower interest rates stimulating asset prices by expanding credit that flows into financial markets and higher rates restricting capital flows and asset prices.
Related: Bitcoin steadies after PCE inflation data, $80K target remains
Investors forecast a 0% chance of an interest rate cut at the April Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
The odds that the FOMC will keep rates on hold are 98.4%. Rate cut odds increase only incrementally throughout the year.
![\"Federal](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d781b-df3e-7029-af5b-0495379e7947.png\")
FOMC members are divided on further rate cuts in 2026, due to inflationary pressures from the ongoing war, and rate hikes have not been ruled out.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose by over 1.5% on Friday, briefly tapping the $73,000 level following the latest CPI print.
“The $73,000–$75,000 zone is our next major target,” said Matt Mena, senior crypto research strategist at crypto exchange-traded product provider 21shares.
“If BTC clears this, expect a brief period of sideways consolidation before a test of $80,000. Should the Clarity Act pass, the stage is set for $100,000 BTC and a $3 trillion–$3.2 trillion total crypto market cap by the end of Q2,” he added.
Magazine: Big Questions: Can Bitcoin save you from the dreaded Cantillon Effect?
Disclaimer. This content is part of a paid partnership. The text below is a sponsored article that is not part of Cointelegraph.com editorial content. The material is written by our advertorial team and has undergone editorial review to ensure clarity and relevance, it may not reflect the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.com. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company. Disclosure.
![\"Business,](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7731-cfa2-7aa0-af1c-1010e5933890.jpg\")
Whether a token is a security or not has been a hot debate in the crypto space for years. Many tokens and cryptocurrencies were treated as securities in the past due to inaccurate classification, structuring and misalignment between regulators and projects.
A security is traditionally defined as capital invested with the expectation of profit, which is derived from the effort of others. Jurisdictions across the world reach a similar conclusion through different analysis. For example, in the EU, securities are defined under the MiFID framework, while in the United States, assets are assessed under the Howey test.
Though the form of analysis varies, triggers are common:
profit participation
dividends or yield
interest payments
pooled investment structures
expectation of capital appreciation
active management by an issuer or manager
An asset that does not meet these criteria may fall outside securities regulation.
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is often associated with securities. The categorization is valid for many RWAs, as they usually represent equity, debt or investment interests.
However, not all RWAs meet the aforementioned criteria, and they may potentially avoid securities classification.
For example, commodity tokens — tokens that represent ownership or claim to physical commodities like gold, silver and oil — are not investment instruments; they rather function as a digital warehouse receipt. As the RWA holder only owns the asset and does not rely on an issuer to generate profits, these tokens may be considered as non-securities by regulators.
Similarly, asset-backed payment tokens backed by gold reserves, or even government bonds, may escape security classification. These tokens are primarily used for settlements, and they do not provide profit participation, dividends or interest. Such RWAs can be treated under payment, e-money or commodity frameworks instead.
Real estate RWAs are usually associated with securities. However, RWAs that represent direct ownership of a real asset recorded in an official registry rather than shares in a company that owns the asset may fall outside of security categorization. Such a model is explored and recognized in several jurisdictions, like Dubai. The model offers fractional property ownership that is actually linked to the official land registry, placing it outside the scope of securities laws.
RWAs that represent mere ownership of certain assets may also be considered non-securities, such as collectibles, art and carbon credits. The crucial condition is the absence of capital pooling or promise of financial returns.
Yet, understanding the regulations is just the first step for RWA projects. Determining whether an RWA token is a security and structuring the legal foundation accordingly is hugely important for compliance with regulations.
Legal Nodes, a legaltech company, helps RWA projects stay on a compliant track. The company assists projects in turning a real-world asset into a legally workable token structure.
The work starts with deciding what sits behind the token. The same asset can be structured through different legal instruments, and that choice can change the nature of the product altogether. A token may represent equity, debt, a commodity claim or a hybrid arrangement. Each route affects what the holder actually receives, what obligations attach to the issuer and how regulators are likely to view the offering. Legal Nodes helps projects make that choice deliberately, with the regulatory outcome in mind.
The company then structures the legal wrapper around the tokenized asset. This is the framework that links the offchain asset to the digital token and defines how the arrangement works in legal terms. It sets out where the asset sits, what kind of claim or ownership the token conveys, which entity issues or holds the relevant rights and how those rights are passed to the tokenholder.
Legal Nodes also helps establish SPVs and other legal vehicles suited to the asset class, giving the token a legal foundation that matches the nature of the underlying asset.
That structure then has to be tested against the rules of the markets the project wants to serve. Legal Nodes maps the project across jurisdictions and evaluates how regulators are likely to classify the token, as that classification determines which compliance route the issuer may face. A structure intended to sit outside securities laws in one market may be treated differently in another. This makes jurisdictional analysis a necessary part of the setup.
Once the structure is defined, the company helps shape the rest of the compliance framework around it. That includes licensing and authorization analysis, offering and distribution design, cross-border considerations and investor-facing documentation. It also works on identifying legal risks before launch and addressing them through the setup itself.
The process carries into implementation as well. Legal Nodes works with product and development teams so that the rights described in legal documents are reflected in smart contract logic and platform design. After issuance, it also supports ongoing compliance and corporate governance.
RWA issuance raises legal questions that go beyond the token itself. Legal Nodes’ work focuses on the legal structure that supports the issuance, as that structure can shape both the regulatory treatment of the token and how the project functions after launch. That can make the difference between a token that holds up and one that breaks under regulatory scrutiny.
", "description": "An RWA reaches the market only after its legal basis is worked out. That is where a legaltech firm enters the picture and helps translate the asset into a compliant token model", "published": "2026-04-10T17:00:00+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "blockchain" }, { "slug": "business" }, { "slug": "tokens" }, { "slug": "rwa" }, { "slug": "tokenization" }, { "slug": "rwa-tokenization" } ], "slug": "rwa-tokenization-starts-with-a-legal-exercise-here-s-why", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "Use Case" } ] }, "id": "260597" }, { "category": { "slug": "market-analysis" }, "postTranslate": { "title": "Bittensor's TAO risks 45% dip amid ‘decentralization theater’ accusation", "leadText": "TAO drops 30% from its weekly high, confirming fractal setups that projected deeper downside targets for the token in the past.", "author": { "slug": "yashu-gola" }, "bodyText": "Bittensor’s TAO token may drop by up to 45% in the coming weeks as Covenant AI, one of its top subnet operators, publicly announced its full exit from the ecosystem.
Key takeaways:
Covenant AI accused Bittensor of being centralized, leading to a 30% drop in TAO prices.
Fractals indicate that the token may drop another 25%–45% in the coming weeks.
TAO’s price dropped by roughly 30% from its weekly high to around $249. A huge part of that downside came after Covenant AI accused Bittensor of running a “decentralized theater.”
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7747-2240-75b1-af31-5c5e518ea34c.png\")
In a Friday post, the team behind the subnet argued that Bittensor may not be as decentralized as it looks. That went against Bittensor’s whole pitch, built around the idea of an open AI network where different subnets can compete fairly.
Once that claim hit the market, traders started to worry that the project’s main story was weakening. If builders begin to lose confidence and leave, traders may fear reduced activity on the network, weaker demand for TAO and slower long-term growth.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7762-488c-7e08-bcd7-f88041814e72.png\")
The Friday selloff was accompanied by a roughly 250% rise in trading volume, indicating that most traders backed the downside outlook.
In the futures market, around $11.83 million in positions were liquidated, of which $9.71 million were long. That suggests many bullish traders were caught offside, adding forced selling pressure to TAO’s drop.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7762-fe1c-74cd-9921-f6bfc62b20d7.png\")
As Cointelegraph covered earlier, TAO’s price structure suggested a potential 40% downside move, despite a recent golden cross — typically a bullish signal.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7772-aa73-7eb8-89f0-8eb6dfad56b3.png\")
By Friday, the Bittensor token was moving toward that bearish setup’s projected target near $200, implying roughly 25% more downside from current levels.
Another fractal structure supports the downside case.
TAO is currently consolidating inside the 0.382–0.5 Fibonacci retracement range, a zone that has historically acted as a short-term consolidation area during TAO’s broader macro-top corrections.
![](\"https://s3.cointelegraph.com/uploads/2026-04/019d7768-979d-7e1d-ad2e-5f7a69c3adf3.png\")
For instance, in November 2025, a breakdown from this same range triggered a drop of over 30% toward the 1.0 Fib level and lower, thus marking a full retracement of the prior rally.
A similar setup emerged in June 2025, when TAO broke below the same Fibonacci range but managed to stabilize near the 0.618 Fib level before rebounding.
Related: Onchain real-world perps surge, while altcoin rout drags on: Report
TAO could first decline toward its 0.618 Fib support near $230 if the pattern repeats.
Prevailing bearish fundamentals may push TAO lower toward the 1.0 Fib retracement near $144, down about 45% from current levels.
", "description": "TAO’s short-term downside could include another double-digit drop as technical data and souring investor sentiment take their toll on the altcoin’s price.", "published": "2026-04-10T16:30:00+01:00" }, "tags": [ { "slug": "altcoin" }, { "slug": "markets" }, { "slug": "ai" }, { "slug": "price-analysis" }, { "slug": "tech-analysis" }, { "slug": "market-analysis" }, { "slug": "altcoin-watch" } ], "slug": "bittensor-s-tao-risks-45percent-dip-amid-decentralization-theater-accusation", "postBadge": { "postBadgeTranslates": [ { "title": "Altcoin Watch" } ] }, "id": "260652" } ] } } }, "extensions": { "state": "[{\"name\":\"top_promo_post_rotation_state\",\"value\":{\"selectedTopPromoPostId\":null},\"expiresAt\":1776172581}]" } }