Market Highlights
- Bitcoin dominance reached its highest level since January 2021, at 64.9%.
- An elderly U.S. person lost US$330 million worth of BTC in a social engineering attack.
- Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed Arizona’s bitcoin reserve bill SB1025.
- Senate Majority Leader moved to fast-track Senate stablecoin bill vote on the GENIUS Act.
- U.S. DoJ is seeking a 20-year sentence for Alex Mashinsky, Founder of Celsius Network.
Markets Overview
Macro Market Updates:
TradFi markets gained further upward momentum this week despite a -0.3% gross domestic product (GDP) reading for the quarter ending 30 March 2025. On Friday, 2 May, Markets were buoyed by the higher-than-forecast non-farm employment change for April, which came in at 177,000. This job growth, coupled with the recent recovery as President Trump negotiates with U.S. trading partners, signals that investor sentiment in TradFi markets may be strengthening after the uncertainty throughout April. Also this week, the Bank of Japan left rates on hold at <0.50% on Thursday, 1 May. It brought relief to investors as the Yen appreciated throughout April, weakening yen-funded carry trades. The US dollar gained 1.7% against the Yen on 1 May. At the close of the trading week, the S&P 500 was up almost 3%, the Nasdaq finished up 2.6%, and the Dow Jones closed up 2.8%.
This week, traders and investors will be watching for the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) rate decision on Wednesday, 7 May, where it's expected to leave rates on hold at 4.5%. The Bank of England also delivers its next rate decision on Thursday, 8 May, where it's expected to cut its official bank rate by 25 basis points to 4.25%.
Crypto Market Sector Performance
Most crypto sectors saw losses this week, with the exception of privacy coins, which saw minor gains. The biggest declines were seen across data availability and bridging services. The gain in privacy coins was due to Monero’s (XMR) rally as some of the US$330 million of BTC stolen in a social engineering attack were quickly swapped to XMR (more on that below).
Dymension (DYM) saw the biggest losses in data availability with a decline of 24% on the week. The layer-1 blockchain has seen significant declines since December 2024, though its “Beyond” upgrade, which aims to make its rollups solution fully interoperable, could pique investor interest in the network. Also in data availability, Celestia (TIA) declined by 19.1% on the week. The modular blockchain has been in a downtrend since December, though VanEck’s recent introduction of a TIA exchange-traded product indicates institutional interest in the cryptocurrency remains strong.
LayerZero (ZRO) was the biggest loser within bridging services, declining by 17.5% on the week. The losses are presumably due to wider market stagnation throughout the week and resistance around US$3.10, which ZRO hasn’t broken convincingly to the upside since March.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin saw its highest price since 21 February this week, when it reached US$97,948 on Friday, 2 May, presumably due to the higher-than-forecast U.S. non-farm employment change for April. Opening the week at US$93,780, bitcoin gained to the Friday high before retracing over the weekend. This week’s flat trading may be due to investors awaiting the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rate decision. It’s a contrast to TradFi markets, which still made gains, albeit small, signalling the recent divergence of price action between TradFi and crypto markets. Bitcoin is currently trading at US$94,770, an increase of 0.3% on the week.
Bitcoin dominance reached 64.9% on Friday, 2 May — the highest level since January 2021. Calculated as its market cap as a percentage of the entire crypto market’s capitalisation, BTC’s market dominance has increased from 57.9% at the start of the year, further signalling its strength despite recent macroeconomic uncertainty.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed Arizona’s bitcoin reserve bill SB1025, stating that it’s too “untested” to be part of the state’s pension fund despite holding shares in MicroStrategy (MSTR), largely seen as a BTC proxy. If enacted, the bill would have allowed public officials to allocate up to 10% of state funds to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. SB1373, Arizona’s bill to use digital assets acquired through forfeiture or seizure in criminal proceedings, is still with Governor Hobbs for consideration. Also this week, North Carolina’s digital assets bill passed the House, while SB 327, its bitcoin reserve bill, was filed in the House on March 19. There are now 39 state-level strategic bitcoin reserve bills live across 20 U.S. states.
Brown University has gained exposure to bitcoin through buying 105,000 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT). A new 13-HR filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed the holdings, currently valued at around US$5.8 million.
Strategy unveiled its 42-42 Capital Plan, which aims to raise US$42 billion in equity and fixed income by the end of 2027 to fund the purchase of more bitcoin. It follows the company buying 15,355 BTC, worth US$1.4 billion, last week and a further 1,895 BTC to start the new week. In other fundraising news, Metaplanet is aiming to raise US$250 million as it prepares to launch its Florida subsidiary. Finally, Semler Scientific bought another 165 BTC, valued at US$15.7 million.
Bitcoin asset investment products saw inflows of US$1.8 billion this week. The recent turnaround in ETF inflows saw bitcoin funds flip gold ETFs for inflows last week. Bitcoin ETFs saw inflows of US$3 billion over the five trading days to 29 April, while gold ETFs saw US$1 billion inflows. The recent change is presumably due to investor demand for BTC as it’s a stronger hedge against capital reallocation in the U.S.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum saw minor gains this week. Opening the week at US$1,791, Ethereum gained to a weekly high of US$1,874 before moving back to around US$1,800.
This week, the long-awaited Pectra upgrade goes live on the Ethereum mainnet on Thursday, 7 May. The upgrade aims to improve staking efficiency, network scalability through layer-2 networks, and user experience. One notable improvement with the upgrade is EIP-7702, which allows user wallets to act like smart contracts. This would allow users to sponsor fees and make gas payments in cryptocurrencies other than Ether.
Developers are working on two complementary standards that aim to help users clearly point to addresses on different blockchains. ERC-7828 makes wallet addresses easily readable instead of a chain of letters and numbers, while ERC-7930 would give a standardised format for identifying a computer’s network.
Ethereum asset investment products saw inflows of US$149 million this week.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Altcoins
In the cloud
- Pundi X (PUNDIX) gained 77.6%, taking its market cap to US$136 million. The AI-powered crypto payments network saw a rally of over 73% on Tuesday, 29 April, when Binance launched futures trading for PUNDIX, and it was listed on LBank.
- Arcblock (ABT) gained almost 21%. This takes its market cap to US$104.4 million. The network, which is designed to simplify dApp development, saw a rally of over 55% on Sunday, 4 May, before retracing. The gains are presumably due to the announcement of its new AI-native decentralised web browser and the launch of its performance-based reward pool.
DeFi gains
- Kamino (KMNO) gained 27.9%, which takes its market cap to US$108.4 million. This week, it was announced that Chainlink has successfully integrated with Kamino Finance to provide verifiable price data. KMNO gained over 11% on the news before retracing.
Smart contract declines
- MANTRA (OM) declined by 24.3%, taking its market cap to US$385.6 million. The layer-1 network for real-world assets (RWA) is still experiencing declines after OM lost over 90% of its value on 13 April when a large holder liquidated their OM tokens.
- Loom Network (NEW) lost 24%. This takes its market cap to US$22.3 million. The layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum presumably saw losses as Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin, said this week that Layer-Zero updates are the best way to improve the network’s scalability.
DeFi decline
- LeverFi (LEVER) declined by 23.8%, taking its market cap to US$19.3 million. The decentralised leveraged trading platform may have seen declines this week due to wider market stagnation and lowered investor appetite for leveraged positions.
Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
In Other News
Digital asset investment products saw another week of inflows, with US$2 billion flowing into funds. In a significant shift in consumer sentiment following nine weeks of outflows amid macroeconomic uncertainty, the last three weeks of inflows total US$5.5 billion. Total assets under management are now US$156 billion — the highest since February.
In altcoins, Solana saw small inflows of US$6 million, while XRP and Tezos saw inflows of US$10.5 million and US$8.2 million, respectively. Blockchain equities saw inflows of US$15.9 million.
Other crypto news
- President Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, is considering launching a crypto token and wallet, as outlined in a shareholder letter this week. Upon launch, the token would be part of a rewards program and be used for Truth+ subscriptions and for other “Truth ecosphere” products in the future. The President’s TRUMP memecoin fell 3% in the hour after the shareholder letter was published.
- An elderly U.S. person has reportedly lost US$330 million to a social engineering hack, which enabled the attacker to gain access to the victim’s wallet. On April 28, an X account noted that a suspicious transfer of 3,520 BTC occurred. Following the transfer, the funds were quickly swapped for privacy-focused Monero (XMR) via multiple exchanges. The identity of the hacker is currently unknown.
- Libre and TON launched a US$500 million tokenised fund to bring Telegram bonds on-chain. The Telegram Bond Fund gives institutional and accredited investors the ability to gain exposure to the company’s US$2.4 billion in corporate debt. It will also participate in future bond offerings and serve as collateral for borrowing and yield generation within TON’s ecosystem.
- This week in ETFs, Canary Capital sought SEC approval for the first Sei (SEI) ETF with staking. 21Shares applied for a Sui (SUI) ETF and a Dogecoin ETF this week, with SUI gaining 9% on the news. VanEck filed an application with the SEC for a Binance Coin (BNB) ETF. Also this week, the SEC has delayed its decision on whether to approve Dogecoin and XRP ETFs until mid-June.
Regulatory
- The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) is seeking a 20-year sentence for Alex Mashinsky, Founder of Celsius Network. Investors lost funds when the crypto lender collapsed in June 2022. The DoJ’s sentencing memo states that Mashinsky should be punished for his “campaign of lies” and the significant losses it caused. It also asserts that the Founder misrepresented how customer deposits would be handled.
- Several stablecoin developments happened this week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) started proceedings on Wednesday, 30 April, to expedite a vote on the GENIUS Act, the bill to regulate dollar-backed stablecoins. Critics from within the banking and finance sector argue that the legislation, if passed, could enable nonbank stablecoin issuers to compete with FDIC-insured banks. On the same day, the U.S. SEC dropped its probe into PayPal’s PYUSD. Also this week, Visa announced it's going to pilot stablecoin-linked cards in Latin America, while Mastercard is partnering with crypto exchange OKX to allow stablecoin payments at point of sales.
- The UK Government released draft legislation aiming to provide regulatory clarity for the crypto sector while protecting consumers. The document includes new definitions of assets such as stablecoins and brings crypto exchanges, dealers and agents under the Financial Services and Markets Act.
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Disclaimer: This assessment does not consider your personal circumstances, and should not be construed as financial, legal or investment advice. These thoughts are ours only and should only be taken as educational by the reader. Under no circumstances do we make recommendation or assurance towards the views expressed in the blog-post. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. The Company disclaims all duties and liabilities, including liability for negligence, for any loss or damage which is suffered or incurred by any person acting on any information provided.
from Caleb & Brown Cryptocurrency Brokerage.
