Goldman Sachs has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the Goldman Sachs Bitcoin Premium Income ETF, marking the Wall Street giant’s first foray into issuing its own crypto fund.

The preliminary prospectus, filed with the SEC today April 14, states that the fund will invest at least 80% of net assets in BTC-exposed instruments, primarily shares of existing spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products, while layering an options strategy on top to generate income.

The “premium” in the name refers to cash collected by selling call options on those spot Bitcoin ETFs. Per the filing, Goldman plans to sell call options covering between 40% and 100% of the fund’s Bitcoin exposure, collecting upfront fees, aka premiums, from buyers.

The move is a notable shift for Goldman, which has spent the past two years buying other firms’ Bitcoin ETFs rather than launching its own. According to Fortune, the bank held about $2.05 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs as of end of 2024, with its largest positions in BlackRock’s and Fidelity’s funds — a stake it has continued to build.

The filing comes on the heels of Morgan Stanley’s spot Bitcoin ETF debut, which launched with $30 million in inflows on its first day. If approved, it would mark another major Wall Street bank bringing a crypto-linked fund to market.

A ticker and exchange listing have not yet been finalized, per the SEC filing.

Bitcoin is up 4% on the day, trading near $74,800, per data from The Defiant’s price tracker.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

The stablecoin news out of JPMorgan’s Q1 2026 earnings call Tuesday landed directly in the middle of the CLARITY Act negotiations when CFO Jeremy Barnum warned that yield-bearing stablecoins risk becoming a tool for regulatory arbitrage unless they are held to the same strict oversight and consumer protection standards as traditional bank deposits.

Fast Company reported in March that JPMorgan has previously warned stablecoins paying interest could put up to $6.6 trillion in bank deposits at risk, a figure Treasury has also cited in its own analysis. Barnum on Tuesday framed the same concern in regulatory terms, calling the gap between what stablecoins offer consumers and what regulations currently require of them the core problem. “How does this actually make the consumer experience better?” he said, arguing that the answer needs to involve equivalent safeguards rather than just technological novelty. His comments add institutional banking weight to the argument that the CLARITY Act’s stablecoin yield provisions, which banks have successfully lobbied to tighten, are necessary rather than anti-competitive.

Barnum’s use of the term “regulatory arbitrage” is precise. When a crypto platform pays 5 percent yield on a stablecoin holding and a bank pays 4.5 percent on a savings account, the difference is not innovation, it is the absence of the capital requirements, deposit insurance, anti-money laundering compliance, and liquidity obligations that the bank must maintain. Consumers see equivalent products. They are not equivalent risks. That gap is what Barnum is calling arbitrage: earning competitive returns on a product that bypasses the costs of the regulatory framework that makes traditional deposits safe.

Why This Matters for the CLARITY Act This Week

The CLARITY Act’s stablecoin yield provision was the central dispute that stalled the bill since January. Coinbase pulled support twice over language that would eliminate its $800 million in estimated annual stablecoin revenue. Banks, led publicly by JPMorgan, have consistently argued that any form of yield on stablecoins requires bank-level oversight. Barnum’s Tuesday remarks reinforce the banking industry’s legislative position at exactly the moment the Senate Banking Committee is deciding whether to schedule a markup. They are a signal that the compromise on yield language needs to close the arbitrage gap rather than just split it.

What the Crypto Industry Says in Response

Coinbase and other crypto firms have argued that the White House’s own CEA report proves the banking industry’s deposit flight fears are overstated, with a full yield ban boosting bank lending by just 0.02 percent. The debate ultimately comes down to whether stablecoin yield is a consumer benefit that regulators should protect or a regulatory gap that they should close. As the markup window opens this week, Barnum’s framing gives Senate Banking Committee members an institutional banking perspective to weigh against the crypto industry’s consumer benefit argument.

Bitcoin pushed to its highest level in a month on Tuesday as risk appetite returned to crypto markets after President Trump signaled his openness to renewed talks with Tehran even as the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz remains in place.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is trading at $75,420, up 5% over the past 24 hours and 10.5% on the week. Ethereum (ETH) is the standout among majors, gaining more than 7% to $2,360, up 14% on the week.

Total crypto market capitalization rose to $2.63 trillion, with Bitcoin dominance hovering near 60%.

Shorts Routed

Data from CoinGlass shows that more than $525 million of leveraged short positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, and roughly $200 million more would be liquidated if BTC pushes above $75,500, a dynamic that could add fuel to the rally.

Bitcoin accounted for $282 million in total liquidations, and Ether followed at $187 million.

Macro Backdrop

The S&P 500 has now erased all losses triggered by the Iran conflict. Brent crude fell below $100 as markets priced in the possibility of fresh talks before the April 7 ceasefire expires next week.

Markets continue to price in a near-certainty that the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady at its April 28-29 meeting. The Fed Funds rate sits at 3.5% to 3.75%, with one quarter-point cut penciled in for 2026.

Altcoin Movers

Solana’s SOL climbed 4% to $86, up 9.3% for the week. BNB gained 3.3% to $625, XRP rose 3.6% to $1.38, and Dogecoin added 5%. Every non-stable asset in the top 10 is green on both the daily and weekly timeframes.

Meanwhile, Bittensor (TAO) is today’s only loser in the Top 100 as it continues to grapple with the exit of one of its most prominent subnet projects.

A closely watched gauge of ether’s relative strength against bitcoin has climbed to a three month high, backed by surging network activity and record stablecoin inflows on Ethereum.

The ether-bitcoin ratio traded near 0.0313 on Wednesday, up from a 2026 low around 0.028 in February but still well below the January 18 high near 0.038. Ether gained 4% over the past seven days to trade near $2,325, outpacing bitcoin’s 3.9% move over the same period.

The ETH/BTC ratio tracks the relative price of ether against bitcoin on crypto exchanges and is one of the most widely followed gauges of risk appetite across the digital asset market.

A rising ratio signals that capital is flowing into ether and, by extension, riskier parts of the crypto ecosystem. A falling ratio points to a preference for bitcoin’s relative safety.

The pair peaked above 0.08 in late 2021 before entering a prolonged decline that accelerated through 2024 and into 2025, dragged lower by bitcoin ETF-driven demand, weakened fee revenue on Ethereum’s base layer following the Dencun upgrade, and a broader rotation away from altcoins.

When ether outperforms bitcoin on risk-on days rather than simply tagging along, it historically suggests capital is beginning to rotate rather than chase the same trade. The signal strengthens if ether holds up better than bitcoin during the next pullback.

Part of the case for a sustained move rests on Ethereum’s on-chain fundamentals, which have been diverging from the token’s depressed valuation.

New users on the network surged 82% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 to 284,000, according to data from Artemis, while total transactions hit a record 200.4 million for the quarter, a 43% increase from the prior period.

Stablecoin supply on Ethereum also reached an all-time high of $180 billion, up 150% over the past three years, per Token Terminal. The network holds roughly 60% of the global stablecoin market, reinforcing its dominance as the primary settlement layer for tokenized dollars and suggesting a long-term demand anchor for ETH even as short-term price action lags.

However, ether is still more than 50% below its 52-week high of $4,831, and the ratio would need to reclaim the 0.035 zone on a weekly close to provide evidence that the recovery has legs beyond a short-squeeze bounce.

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

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— 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