Crypto World
Bank of Korea nominee backs CBDC-led system with limited stablecoin role
Shin Hyun-song, the nominee to lead the Bank of Korea, said a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and bank-issued deposit tokens should form the core of South Korea’s digital money system, with stablecoins playing a secondary role.
“I expect that central bank digital currencies and deposit tokens will be able to coexist with stablecoins in a manner that is supplementary and competitive to each other,” he said, Yonhap reported, citing the Bank of Korea.
In written remarks submitted to parliament ahead of his confirmation hearing on April 15, Shin said he supports introducing a won-based stablecoin, but stressed that trust in the currency must come first, according to Yonhap.
He framed stablecoins as useful tools for trading tokenized assets and enabling programmable payments, not as a replacement for state-backed money.
His proposal aligns with the central bank’s existing position that stablecoin issuance should begin with regulated banks. Shin pointed to compliance demands such as anti-money laundering and customer checks as reasons to start with established lenders, which already meet these standards.
He also questioned claims that blockchain-based coins would improve foreign exchange efficiency, pointing to uncertainty around regulatory compliance and added costs.
Of cryptocurrencies more broadly, Shin said digital assets fall short of money’s core roles as a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value.
The Bank of Korea has warned that privately issued tokens could pose risks to monetary policy and financial stability, and has called for strict oversight including anti-money laundering and customer verification rules.
Shin’s remarks come as policymakers debate how far to open the market. While regulators have pushed for bank-led models, lawmakers have proposed broader frameworks that would allow non-bank issuers under new legislation.
The country’s first fully regulated stablecoin, KRW1, debuted in February through a partnership between crypto custody service provider BDACS and Woori Bank.
XRP is pushing higher again, with volume confirming the move, but it still has to prove this is more than a short-term breakout. The rally is holding for now, and the addition of real-world usage through Rakuten gives it a stronger narrative than recent moves.
News Background
• Japan’s e-commerce giant Rakuten is integrating XRP into its payments app, allowing 44 million users to spend it across more than 5 million merchants. Users can also buy XRP using loyalty points and hold it within Rakuten Wallet, embedding the token into a major consumer ecosystem.
• The move ties XRP into one of Japan’s largest rewards systems, where over $23 billion worth of points are in circulation. Ripple called it one of the most significant milestones for XRP adoption, reinforcing its push into Asia alongside long-standing partnerships like SBI Ripple Asia.
Price Action Summary
• XRP moved from $1.32 to $1.38, breaking out of the $1.325-$1.33 resistance zone on strong volume.
• The rally built gradually with sustained buying rather than a single spike, indicating accumulation.
• Price is now consolidating just below $1.38, holding gains but not yet extending into a fresh leg higher.
Technical Analysis
• The breakout stands out because of volume. The move was backed by clear participation, not thin liquidity.
• Whale accumulation and rising open interest show positioning is building behind the move.
• Despite this, XRP is still trading within a broader downtrend channel, so the structure has not fully flipped bullish.
• ETF outflows and continued realized losses suggest longer-term conviction remains mixed even as short-term momentum improves.
What traders should watch
• $1.37 is now the key pivot. Holding above it keeps the breakout intact and supports continuation.
• $1.40 to $1.42 remains the real test. A clean break here would shift momentum more meaningfully.
• A move back below $1.32 to $1.30 would invalidate the breakout and return XRP to its prior range.
Crypto exchange Kraken has hinted it is still going ahead with an initial public offering despite reports suggesting the plan was put on hold last month due to market conditions.
Kraken filed for a confidential IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in November, but an unconfirmed report in March suggested that the plan may have been frozen.
Speaking at the Semafor World Economy 2026 conference on Tuesday, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi didn’t address the pause but confirmed the company had “confidentially filed” for an IPO when asked by Semafor reporter Rohan Goswami whether “there are plans to take Kraken public soon.”
“Is that news?” Goswami asked, to which Sethi responded: “I believe that’s news.”
@arjunsethi CEO, @krakenfx reveals that the company has privately filed to become public.
“Are there plans to take Kraken public soon?
Uh, we confidentially filed.
Oh, is that news?
I believe that’s news.” pic.twitter.com/QJRH8YStMA
— Semafor (@semafor) April 14, 2026
Cointelegraph reached out to Kraken to confirm whether Kraken is actively pursuing the IPO or has pushed back the timeline, but did not receive an immediate response.
Sethi’s comments come as German financial markets platform Deutsche Börse Group invested $200 million in Kraken’s parent firm, Payward, in exchange for a 1.5% fully diluted stake on Tuesday.
The deal placed Kraken’s valuation at $13.3 billion, down from $20 billion in November.
Kraken told Cointelegraph that the Deutsche Börse Group investment seeks to bring crypto and TradFi closer together as a “single, cohesive infrastructure for institutional clients” rather than parallel systems.
Kraken’s IPO plans through a long-term lens
Speaking more broadly about going public at the Semafor conference, Sethi dismissed the idea that Kraken’s IPO may have been driven, or stalled by, policy developments in Washington.
Related: Bitget rolls out SpaceX-linked pre-IPO proxy with Republic
“If you live day by day, quarter by quarter, these things are meaningful,” Sethi said. But “if you’re thinking about your company three, five, 10 or 20 years out, none of this is meaningful. It just doesn’t matter.”
Sethi also suggested that Kraken isn’t merely going public to gain more access to capital, stating that it depends on the specific market and how much trust there is with regulators.
Magazine: Singapore is no ‘crypto hub’ — but it is serious about stablecoins: StraitX CEO
Bitcoin’s addressable market has the potential to surpass the $34 trillion gold market if it is eventually widely used as both a currency and a store of value, according to Bitwise’s chief investment officer Matt Hougan.
Hougan said on Tuesday that while Bitcoin (BTC) has been seen as a contender to gold, the war in Iran has shown that Bitcoin can also serve in a “currency-like manner,”, referring to Iran’s proposed plan to charge a toll that can be paid in crypto for ships to navigate the Strait of Hormuz.
“In a world where countries have weaponized their financial rails, Bitcoin is emerging as an apolitical alternative,” Hougan said.
“It tells you that Bitcoin’s total addressable market is probably a lot bigger than the… gold market alone.”
Hougan previously predicted that if Bitcoin captures even 17% of the store-of-value market over the next decade, it could reach $1 million a coin. Taking a role as an international currency would likely see it go much higher.
“If Bitcoin starts to take on a dual role as both a store of value, like gold, and an actual currency, like the dollar, we may need to revise our targets higher.”
Bitcoin is trading around $74,500 with a market capitalization of roughly $1.4 trillion, according to CoinGecko. Gold is trading for $4,854 an ounce, and its market cap is estimated to be more than $33.7 trillion as of Wednesday.
Related: Bitcoin bounces to $72.5K as markets react to US Strait of Hormuz blockade
Bitcoin is already functioning as a store of value for people in high-inflation economies.
Citizens of Argentina, Turkey, and Venezuela have experienced persistent inflation and currency collapses, prompting many to switch to Bitcoin and protect their wealth.
A January Coinbase survey found that 87% of Argentinians flagged crypto and blockchain technology as a way to enhance their financial independence, while nearly three in four respondents saw crypto as a solution to challenges like inflation.
Bitcoin has also seen adoption by corporates looking to bolster their balance sheets.
Private and public companies tracked by BitBo collectively hold more than 1.5 million Bitcoin valued at more than $116 billion.
However, Bitcoin has also grown as a payment method, with academic publishing company Springer Nature identifying about 11,000 merchants globally using BTC Map data that currently accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.
Magazine: Bitcoin quantum-safe without upgrade? CZ’s 2031 crypto vision: Hodler’s Digest
The Ethereum Foundation announced a joint initiative with audit providers to subsidize security audit costs for Ethereum builders.
The Ethereum Foundation announced an audit subsidy program on Tuesday designed to reduce the cost of security audits for Ethereum builders. The joint initiative with audit providers aims to make security audits more accessible to projects within the ecosystem while strengthening overall security standards.
Security audits are considered a best practice in the Ethereum ecosystem but remain expensive, creating a barrier for many builders. The subsidy program directly addresses this friction point by making professional security reviews more affordable for developers building on Ethereum.
Sources: Ethereum Foundation
This article was generated automatically by The Defiant’s AI news system from publicly available sources.
Cypherpunk Jameson Lopp and five co-authors from the Bitcoin quantum security space have proposed freezing quantum-vulnerable coins on the Bitcoin network, including Satoshi’s $74 billion stash, to prevent them from being stolen once quantum computers become available.
The move is the second part of a three-stage proposal under BIP-361 called the “Post Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Sunset,” which was posted as a draft to GitHub on Tuesday.
It addresses a major risk to Bitcoin — the potential use of quantum computers to steal roughly 1.7 million BTC locked in early P2PK addresses, including Satoshi’s stash, which are not quantum-proof.
In the wrong hands, these coins could significantly undermine the value of the network.
Three phases to quantum security
BIP-361 builds on BIP-360, released in February, which proposed a soft fork for a new output type called pay-to-Merkle-root (P2MR). It works similarly to Bitcoin’s existing Taproot (P2TR) addresses but with the quantum-vulnerable key path removed.
While BIP-360 protects new coins going forward, it does not address the roughly 34% of the supply that remains vulnerable unless it is transferred to new addresses.
BIP-361 proposes that three years after activation, phase A of the proposal would prevent any new BTC from being sent to old-style addresses, with all users on quantum-resistant address types.
The second phase (B) would invalidate old-style signatures and any Bitcoin still sitting in vulnerable addresses becomes effectively frozen five years after activation.
Related: Bitcoin can be made quantum-safe without protocol upgrade: Researcher
Phase C provides a potential rescue mechanism using zero-knowledge proofs, allowing people who missed the deadline but still have their seed phrase to recover frozen funds.
The authors described it as a “private incentive to upgrade” because lost or frozen coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more, whereas quantum-recovered coins make everyone else’s worth less.
“This is not an offensive attack, rather, it is defensive: our thesis is that the Bitcoin ecosystem wishes to defend itself and its interests against those who would prefer to do nothing and allow a malicious actor to destroy both value and trust.”
Bitcoin community pushes back
However, the proposal would render some existing UTXOs unspendable by their owners if they fail to upgrade, which some have seen as a significant philosophical departure from Bitcoin’s ethos.
Bitcoin protocol developer and researcher Mark Erhardt, who shared BIP-361 on X on Tuesday, was met with community pushback and comments such as “this quantum proposal is highly authoritarian and confiscatory … there is no good rationale for forcing the upgrade and rendering old spends invalid.”
Bitcoin Magazine editor Brian Trollz rejected the proposal outright, TFTC founder Marty Bent called it “laughable,” and Phil Geiger, head of business development at Metaplanet, quipped, “We have to steal people’s money to prevent their money from being stolen.”
Cointelegraph reached out to Lopp for comments, but did not get an immediate response.
Magazine: Nobody knows if quantum-secure cryptography will even work
A high-stakes negotiation over stablecoin yields is shaping the path forward for the Senate’s crypto market structure bill, with lawmakers racing to clear a stalemate that has stretched since the House passed the CLARITY Act in July. Senator Thom Tillis signaled he would release a draft agreement this week aimed at resolving a central dispute: whether third parties, including crypto exchanges, should be allowed to pay stablecoin yields to users. The draft’s reception by both banks and the crypto industry will likely determine whether a broader compromise can finally move the legislation toward floor consideration.
The draft has already been circulated to banking and crypto representatives, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Politico. Initial reactions included pushback from the banking side, which worries that full text is needed to gauge the practical consequences of any yield-related prohibitions. Tillis acknowledged that the document is still evolving and stressed that the group is negotiating against a backdrop of concerns about deposit flight tied to yield programs. “Directionally, it has been instructed by what we consider to be the legitimate issues that we have around deposit flight when we’re talking about yield,” Tillis told Politico.
Key takeaways
- Sen. Thom Tillis intends to publicly release a draft agreement this week that addresses the Senate’s crypto market structure bill and a contentious ban on third-party stablecoin yield payments.
- Banking and crypto groups have expressed concerns about the proposed language, and a full text release is seen as essential for meaningful negotiations.
- The talks have been mediated by the White House, with at least three meetings held to bridge gaps between the sectors.
- Stablecoin yields remain a practical and revenue-critical component for many crypto platforms, complicating policy choices about how yield payments should be treated under banking and securities laws.
- If consensus remains elusive, Tillis says another round of negotiations could occur, potentially marking the fourth government-led mediation effort on the issue.
Draft could unlock a long-standing impasse on yields
The Senate’s crypto market structure bill is designed to outline how the nation’s primary financial regulators—namely the two major federal watchdogs—would oversee the crypto sector. Its chances of advancement depend in part on resolving a central dispute: whether third parties, including exchanges, may offer yield payments on stablecoins or whether such activity should be curtailed or banned altogether. The prospect of a prohibition has been a sticking point since early conversations intensified earlier in the year.
Advocates for a broader, clearer regulatory framework argue that stablecoins — and the incentives around their yields — intersect with traditional banking and savings behavior in ways that could affect deposit stability and consumer protection. Banks and financial incumbents fear yield programs could intensify deposit flight, potentially destabilizing bank balance sheets and prompting risk management concerns. In contrast, crypto industry participants have pushed for clearer guardrails that would allow legitimate yield activities to continue under a predictable regulatory regime, rather than a blanket restriction that could push operations overseas or into a more uncertain gray area.
Tillis’s comments underscore a willingness to adjust the draft as negotiations proceed. He noted progress on anti-evasion provisions but indicated that enforcement language remains a work in progress. With the White House having hosted multiple meetings between the groups, the process has been shaped not only by lawmakers but by executive-branch engagement intended to surface workable compromises rather than political theatrics. The goal, as described by Tillis, is to land on a “mark” — a final set of provisions that both sides can accept and that lawmakers can advance to a vote.
Industry tensions: what’s in play and why it matters
Stablecoin yields are a practical business line for crypto platforms, representing a channel through which users earn returns on their digital dollars. Banks view such yield payments through the lens of traditional financial stability and supervision, arguing that third-party yield offerings can complicate customer behavior around savings, liquidity, and the movement of deposits. The core concern is depositor discipline and the potential for destabilizing flows that could spill over into the broader regulated banking system.
Crypto industry participants counter that clear, enforceable rules are preferable to opaque or ad hoc prohibitions. They argue that a well-defined framework could bring stablecoins and their yield mechanisms under accountability without forcing projects to relocate out of the United States or shutter legitimate financial services. The ongoing dialogue, including White House mediation, reflects a broader policy question: how to balance rapid financial innovation with prudent oversight. The outcome could influence how exchanges and other service providers structure stablecoin programs for the foreseeable future.
The evolving draft has already drawn scrutiny from observers who remind markets that the bill’s trajectory could affect more than the yield debate. A stable regulatory environment that clarifies which actors can provide yield and under what conditions can reduce uncertainty for issuers, users, and institutional participants. Conversely, a restrictive stance may curb experimentation and push some yield initiatives underground, creating potential compliance challenges.
Next steps: where the process goes from here
With Tillis indicating openness to further changes, the immediate question is whether the forthcoming draft will present a sufficiently narrow and precise set of rules to garner bipartisan support. If banking and crypto groups still diverge after a full text becomes public, Tillis said he would consider convening another negotiation session that could bring in additional participants or proposals. He described the process as potentially continuing through a fourth round of government-facilitated talks if needed to finish the “final pieces” and reach a mark that lawmakers can advance.
The momentum depends on how convincingly the draft reconciles two core concerns: protecting the stability of the banking system and enabling legitimate, compliant crypto yield offerings. The White House-mediated meetings signal a heightened emphasis on achieving a balanced outcome that can withstand political scrutiny while delivering a practical regulatory framework for markets. Investors, traders, and builders in the crypto space will be watching closely for the exact language on enforcement, anti-evasion measures, and the precise scope of any ban on third-party yield payments.
Broader implications for policy, markets, and adoption
Beyond the immediate legislative maneuvering, the outcome of the yield provisions could shape the tempo of stablecoin adoption and the maturation of the crypto economy in the United States. A well-structured agreement that provides clarity without stifling innovation could reassure issuers and users that stablecoins will operate under predictable rules. It could also influence how exchanges, custodians, and on/off-ramp providers design their product offerings to align with future compliance expectations. For policymakers, the challenge remains to strike a balance between consumer protection, financial stability, and the competitive advantage that clear rules can offer to domestic innovators.
As the draft is unveiled and debated in the weeks ahead, market participants should monitor not only the yield provisions themselves but also the broader framework for how the bill would allocate regulatory authority between the nation’s principal watchdogs. The ultimate shape of the text will influence not just the economics of stablecoins but the regulatory posture that defines the U.S. stance toward crypto markets in the coming years.
Thus, the key questions for readers and market participants are straightforward: Will the forthcoming draft provide a credible path to de-risk yield programs while preserving financial stability? How decisive will the enforcement language be, and what guardrails will govern anti-evasion measures? And finally, when can market participants expect a final mark that the Senate can move through committee and toward a vote?
Keep watching regulatory filings and official statements for the full draft text and any subsequent revisions. The next few weeks are likely to define whether the United States can strike a middle ground that both protects consumers and supports responsible financial innovation in stablecoins.
Onchain investigator ZachXBT said a fake Ledger Live app listed on Apple’s App Store was tied to about $9.5 million in crypto stolen from more than 50 suspected victims between April 7 and 13.
In a Tuesday Telegram post, ZachXBT said the alleged thefts affected users across Bitcoin, Solana, Tron, XRP Ledger and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible networks. He claimed the stolen funds were laundered through over 150 KuCoin deposit addresses allegedly tied to AudiA6, which he described as a centralized mixing service.
ZachXBT said the fake app was removed by Apple on April 13 and identified three seven-figure losses among the largest known cases. He said one victim lost about $1.95 million in Bitcoin (BTC), staked Ether (stETH) and Ether (ETH), another lost $3.23 million in USDt (USDT) on April 9, and a third victim lost about $2 million in USDC (USDC) on April 11.
ZachXBT said Kucoin had seen an increase in illicit activity recently, and pointed out that the company had been banned from onboarding new European Union users in February, shortly after receiving its Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) license. He also questioned whether the incident presented grounds for a class action against Apple.
Related: Counterhacker exposes DPRK unit that made $1M a month working IT jobs
Key details, including the total losses, victim count and laundering route, remain based on ZachXBT’s findings and had not been confirmed by Apple or KuCoin at publication. Cointelegraph asked both companies for comment but had not received a response by publication.
Ledger warns users never to enter seed phrase into apps
Ledger chief technology officer Charles Guillemet said in a statement to Cointelegraph that the company never asks users for their 24-word recovery phrase and warned that official-looking software environments should not be treated as inherently safe.
“You cannot trust the software environment around you – not your browser, not your app store, not your desktop,” Guillemet said, adding that attackers “operate wherever the opportunity exists,” including official distribution platforms.
Related: Web3 hacks cost $482M in Q1 as phishing drives majority of losses: Hacken
The latest incident follows a smaller but similar case reported on Monday. Musician Garrett Dutton, also known as “G. Love,” said he lost about $420,000 in BTC after downloading a malicious app impersonating Ledger Live from Apple’s App Store and entering his seed phrase. ZachXBT said the stolen assets were sent to deposit addresses associated with KuCoin.
Magazine: How AI just dramatically sped up the quantum risk for Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) reached monthly highs above $76,000 on Tuesday as US inflation data continued to buoy risk assets.
Key points:
-
Bitcoin upside continues as bulls target $76,000 — the highest price since early February.
-
US PPI inflation remains below market expectations despite the war in Iran having no end in sight.
-
Bitcoin traders stay risk-off on overall market strength.
Bitcoin tops $76,000 amid fears that “inflation is back”
Data from TradingView showed new local highs of $76,038 on Bitstamp — Bitcoin’s best performance since mid-March and on track to hit a two-month record.
The March print of the Producer Price Index (PPI) came in below expectations despite the US-Iran war.
“On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand rose 4.0 percent for the 12 months ended in March, the largest 12-month advance since increasing 4.7 percent in February 2023,” an official statement from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) noted.
“The March rise in final demand prices can be attributed to a 1.6-percent advance in the index for final demand goods. Prices for final demand services were unchanged.”
Markets had expected a 4.7% year-on-year increase, with a 1.1% month-on-month jump — but it ultimately came in at 0.5%.
Despite this, reactions were hawkish, noting that inflation was showing a clear uptrend overall.
“We are now officially seeing inflation metrics in the US that are at 4% or higher,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter responded on X.
“Inflation is back.”
Correspondingly, markets kept bets of interest-rate cuts from the Federal Reserve firmly at the end of next year, per data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
Bitcoin’s 21-week trend line is a line in the sand
Among traders, BTC price action continued to cause suspicion.
Related: Oil price surges 8% on Iran tensions: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week
CryptoReviewing, the pseudonymous cofounder of the trading community Wealth Capital, noted that the move to $75,000 had triggered a wave of short liquidations.
$BTC $73,500 – $76,500 liquidity sweep complete ✅$BTC precisely wiped out the largest liquidation cluster zone at $73.5k – $76.5k within hours from this post.
More liquidity updates coming soon ✍️ https://t.co/b4vFL4X5Oi pic.twitter.com/sSCO42NaXV
— CryptoReviewing (@CryptoReviewing) April 14, 2026
As Cointelegraph reported, market participants had already been gearing up for a short squeeze, with its price still stuck in its local range.
“Bitcoin’s recent PA hasn’t deviated much from what we saw in 2022,” Keith Alan, cofounder of trading resource Material Indicators, argued on the day.
“Nothing says that $BTC has to continue to mimic history, but if it does we should see price flirt with the 21-Week Moving Average ~$78.3k.”
Alan said that the trend line would “not be an easy level to break.”
“A rejection from that level would send the Weekly RSI back below the R/S flip line at 41, and send BTC to the next leg down,” he warned, referring to the relative strength index (RSI) indicator.
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on early RSI signals regarding a bear-market trend reversal.
The US passage of the CLARITY Act and the end of the war in Iran, on the other hand, could send Bitcoin back toward its yearly open price of $87,500.
This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research before making any decisions. Cointelegraph makes no guarantees regarding the accuracy or completeness of the information presented, including forward-looking statements, and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from reliance on this content.
Bank and crypto lobbyists have both relayed concerns over the latest proposal to end the stalemate on stablecoin yields in the Senate’s crypto market structure bill, legislation that has been in limbo since the House passed the CLARITY Act in July.
Senator Thom Tillis told Politico on Monday that he plans to publicly release a draft agreement this week that aims to end a fight over a provision in the Senate’s crypto policing bill that would ban third parties, such as crypto exchanges, from offering stablecoin yield payments.
The draft had already been seen by banking and crypto representatives earlier this month, with Politico reporting that it drew pushback from the banks, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
“I think that people are apprehensive because they haven’t seen the full text,” Tillis said. “Directionally, it has been instructed by what we consider to be the legitimate issues that we have around deposit flight when we’re talking about yield.”
The Senate’s crypto market structure bill would outline how the country’s two major market watchdogs would regulate the sector, legislation that the crypto industry has widely pushed for with the Trump administration.
However, the bill’s progress has been stalled as banking and crypto groups have been at odds over language banning stablecoin yields, despite three White House-mediated meetings between the groups to find a middle ground.
Stablecoin yields are a major business for crypto platforms, but the bank lobby wants to outlaw third-party stablecoin yield payments, arguing it is a risk to the banking system, as customers may pull deposits out of savings accounts.
Tillis said he was open to making changes to the proposal and was aware of the pushback on the agreement. “That’s why we need to get down to a mark that we’re negotiating,” he said.
He added the group had “made progress” on anti-evasion provisions, but was “still working on” language around enforcement.
Related: Banks challenge White House report on stablecoin yields
Tillis said he would look to broker another meeting with the bank and crypto groups if they still can’t agree on a way forward, which would mark the fourth time the government has mediated the two sides.
“If we’ve still got a disagreement from either banking or crypto — and there’s some concern out of crypto, too — then we’re going to get the people in the room and call balls and strikes on the final pieces and see if we can get a mark done,” he said.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
Bitcoin held above $74,000 on Wednesday as a wave of risk appetite swept through global markets, with Asian equities joining Wall Street benchmarks in fully recouping losses sustained since the US-Iran conflict began in late February.
Ether gained 4% on the week to trade near $2,325, outpacing bitcoin’s 3.9% move. Solana dropped 1.5% to $83, Cardano’s ADA fell 1%, while dogecoin fell 1.3% to $0.093. Tron bucked the trend with a 3% weekly gain.
China’s CSI 300 became the latest gauge to fully erase war-related declines, joining Taiwan and Singapore. The S&P 500 is closing in on its record high from late January.
Optimism that the US and Iran will enter a second round of talks in the coming days has kept crude oil below $100 a barrel, easing the inflationary overhang that weighed on markets through March.
The current bitcoin price sits near the estimated average entry price for holders of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, a level that could act as a floor rather than a ceiling. Investors who held through the drawdown below $60,000 have little incentive to sell at breakeven, removing a layer of potential overhead supply.
U.S. spot ETFs posted $471 million in net inflows on April 6, their strongest single-day intake since February, pushing cumulative inflows past $56 billion since the products launched in January 2024 – a move some watchers say is reflective of bullish market structure.
“This is bullish for adoption even though it’s no self-custody,” said Vikrant Sharma, founder of CakeWallet.
“Institutions pouring in $471 million in a single day and pushing past $56 billion cumulative means bitcoin is getting a whole new class of long-term holders. Self-custody wallets selling off is just natural profit-taking, but the fact that it’s not leading to price collapse is a very bullish sign,” he added.
Market participants are also pricing in the possibility of Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year, a development that would channel additional liquidity into risk assets after months of range-bound trading.
Bridgerton and White Lotus stars Nicola Coughlan and Aimee Lou Wood next SNL UK hosts
Finbar completes Leederville deal
What next for Ripple-linked token after Rakuten begins payments
-
Politics4 days agoUS brings back mandatory military draft registration
-
Sports4 days agoMan United discover Nico Schlotterbeck transfer fee as defender reaches Dortmund agreement
-
Fashion4 days agoWeekend Open Thread: Veronica Beard
-
Politics5 days agoMalcolm In The Middle OG Turned Down ‘Buckets Of Money’ To Appear In Reboot
-
Politics3 days agoWorld Cup exit makes Italy enter crisis mode
-
Crypto World6 days agoCanary Capital Files SEC Registration for PEPE ETF
-
Business4 days agoTesla Model Y Tops China Auto Sales in March 2026 With 39,827 Registrations, Beating Cheaper EVs and Gas Cars
-
Crypto World1 day agoThe SEC Conditionalises DeFi Platforms to Be Avoided for Broker Registration
-
Crypto World1 day agoSEC Signals Exemption for Crypto Interfaces From Broker Registration
-
Crypto World7 days agoBitcoin recovers as US and Iran Agree a Ceasefire Deal
-
NewsBeat2 days agoPep Guardiola and Gary Neville agree over Arsenal title problem that benefits Man City
-
Business5 days agoOpenAI Halts Stargate UK Data Centre Project Over Energy Costs and Copyright Row
-
Business4 days agoIreland Fuel Protests Enter Day 5 as Blockades Spark Shortages and Government Prepares Support Package
-
Politics5 days agoLBC Presenter Mocks Trump Over Iran War Failures
-
Crypto World4 days agoFederal judge blocks Arizona from bringing criminal charges against Kalshi
-
NewsBeat3 days agoJD Vance announces ‘no agreement’ with Iran over nuclear weapons fear
-
Tech5 days agoA version of Windows 10 released a decade ago is now eligible for additional security patches
-
Crypto World24 hours agoSEC Proposes Certain Crypto Interfaces Don’t Need to Register as Brokers
-
Business4 days agoIMF retains floor for precautionary balances at SDR 20 billion
-
NewsBeat20 hours agoTrump and Pope Leo: Behind their disagreement over Iran war
You must be logged in to post a comment Login