By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin (BTC) continues to defy global economic uncertainty, inching closer to reclaiming $86,000. It is now less than 3% away from its «Liberation Day» high. To put the move into perspective, bitcoin dominance — which measures BTC’s share of the total cryptocurrency market cap — is approaching 64%, a level not seen since January 2021.

In contrast, the Nasdaq 100 is still 5% away from its own Liberation Day high, underscoring bitcoin’s relative strength versus U.S. equities.

According to X account Cheddar Flow, the S&P 500 has just formed a «death cross» — a traditionally bearish signal that occurs when the 50-day moving average falls below the 200-day moving average. The last time this happened was March 15, 2022, when S&P 500 initially rose by 11% in the following week, only to be followed by a 20% decline. Bearish sentiment is also reflected in the options market, where investors are reportedly buying large volumes of NVDA puts, signaling expectations of lower prices.

In a Bloomberg interview on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirmed confidence in the U.S. bond market, dismissing concerns that foreign nations are dumping Treasuries.

«I am not seeing a dumping of U.S. Treasuries,» Bessent said. «The Treasury has lots of tools, but we’re a long way from needing them.» He also emphasized the enduring status of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, despite the DXY index — which measures the dollar’s value against a basket of major trading partners — falling below 100 and dropping over 10% in recent weeks.

Bessent also confirmed that the Trump administration is seeking a new Federal Reserve Chair to replace Jerome Powell, with interviews set to begin later in the year. He concluded the interview by suggesting that the VIX (S&P 500 volatility index) may have peaked after the largest one-day percentage drop in its history last week. Stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:

April 15: The first SmarDEX (SDEX) halving means the SDEX token’s distribution will be cut by 50% for the next 12 months.

April 16: HashKey Chain (HSK) mainnet upgrade enhances network stability and fee control capabilities.

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

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

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

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

Macro

April 15, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases March consumer price inflation data.

Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.7%

Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.7%

Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.6% vs. Prev. 1.1%

Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.6%

April 16, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases March retail sales data.

Retail Sales MoM Est. 1.4% vs. Prev. 0.2%

Retail Sales YoY Prev. 3.1%

April 16, 9:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada releases its latest interest rate decision, followed by a press conference 45 minutes later.

Policy Interest Rate Est. 2.75% vs. Prev. 2.75%

April 16, 1:30 p.m.: Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will deliver an “Economic Outlook” speech. Livestream link.

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

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

Housing Starts MoM Prev. 11.2%

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

Initial Jobless Claims Est. 226K vs. Prev. 223K

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

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

Inflation Rate MoM Prev. -0.1%

Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.7%

Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)

April 22: Tesla (TSLA), post-market

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

Token Events

Governance votes & calls

Venus DAO is discussing the forced liquidation of the remaining debt owed by a BNB bridge exploiter account that “supplied extraneously minted BNB to Venus and generated an over-collateralized debt position.”

Aave DAO is discussing taking further steps to deprecate Synthetix’s sUSD on Aave V3 Optimism over technical developments that have “compromised its ability to consistently maintain its peg.”

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

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

April 15, 10 a.m.: Injective to hold an X Spaces session with Guardian.

April 16, 7 a.m.: Aergo to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on the future of decentralized artificial intelligence and the project.

April 16, 3 p.m.: Zcash to host a Town Hall on LockBox Distribution & Governance.

Unlocks

April 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.09% of its circulating supply worth $10.08 million.

April 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.01% of its circulating supply worth $27.17 million.

April 18: Official Trump (TRUMP) to unlock 20.25% of its circulating supply worth $325.97 million.

April 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.65% of its circulating supply worth $82.60 million.

April 18: UXLINK (UXLINK) to unlock 11.09% of its circulating supply worth $18.29 million.

April 18: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.37% of its circulating supply worth $10.07 million.

Token Launches

April 15: WalletConnect Token (WCT) to be listed on Binance, Bitget, AscendEX, BingX, BYDFi, LBank, Coinlist and others.

April 16: Badger (BADGER), Balacner (BAL), Beta Finance (BETA), Cortex (CTXC), Cream Finance (CREAM), Firo (FIRO), Kava Lend (KAVA), NULS (NULS), Prosper (PROS), Status (SNT), TROY (TROY), UniLend Finance (UFT), VIDT DAO (VIDT) and aelf (ELF) to be delisted from Binance.

April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.

Conferences:

Day 2 of 3: Morocco WEB3FEST GITEX Edition (Marrakech)

April 15: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Summit (online)

Day 1 of 2: BUIDL Asia 2025 (Seoul)

Day 1 of 2: World Financial Innovation Series 2025 (Hanoi, Vietnam)

Day 1 of 3: NexTech Week Tokyo

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

April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)

April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Story Protocol’s IP tokens experienced a 20% drop and recovery within hours during an unusual trading session on Monday.

Trading volume surged on exchanges including Binance and OKX Spot, with $138 million recorded after the price rebound.

The sudden price movement was isolated from broader market trends, sparking speculation about insider activity or coordinated selling.

Also on Monday, MANTRA’s OM token plummeted over 90% in hours, dropping from around $6.30 to as low as 37 cents and wiping out over $5 billion in market capitalization.

The token has since rebounded slightly to trade around 63 cents.

Laser Digital, a Nomura-backed investor, was initially flagged for depositing $41 million in OM to OKX, but the company denied selling, clarifying it was collateral return from a financing trade. Shorooq Investors also denied selling.

Derivatives Positioning

BTC shorts have been liquidated on most exchanges in the past 24 hours, excluding BitMEX and Gate.io, according Coinglass. The opposite is the case in ETH.

XRP’s perpetual futures open interest has dropped from 544.7 million XRP to 480 million XRP, diverging from the price recovery seen since Monday last week.

SUI, ONDO, ADA and APT have seen a notable increase in futures open interest in the past 24 hours. Of those, XMR is the only one with the positive OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta, representing net buying pressure.

On Deribit, short-dated BTC and ETH options continue to show a bias for protective puts, suggesting cautious sentiment.

Flows on OTC desk Paradigm have been mixed with both calls and puts bought in the April expiry.

Market Movements:

BTC is up 1.19% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $85,877.18 (24hrs: +1.35%)

ETH is up 0.59% at $1,645.30 (24hrs: -1.97%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 0.99% at 2,519.69 (24hrs: +0.19%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 18 bps at 3.18%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0184% (6.7003% annualized) on Binance

DXY is unchanged at 99.70

Gold is up 1.26% at $3,245.30/oz

Silver is up 0.81% at $32.35/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +0.84% at 34,267.54

Hang Seng closed +0.23% at 21,466.27

FTSE is up 0.92% at 8,209.04

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.82% at 4,951.51

DJIA closed on Tuesday +0.78% at 40,524.79

S&P 500 closed +0.79% at 5,405.97

Nasdaq closed +0.64% at 16,831.48

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.18% at 23,866.50

S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.8% at 2,340.02

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 1 bp at 4.39%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.12% at 5,447.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.26% at 18,983.25

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 40,750.00

Bitcoin Stats:

BTC Dominance: 63.80 (0.16%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01913 (-0.31%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 896 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $44.1 PH/s

Total Fees: 6.33 BTC / $536,017

CME Futures Open Interest: 134,730

BTC priced in gold: 26.6 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 7.56%

Technical Analysis

On Monday, the bitcoin cash-bitcoin (BCH/BTC) ratio failed to penetrate the trendline characterizing the 12-month bear market.

A potential move above the trendline could see breakout traders join the market, lifting BCH higher.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $311.45 (+3.82%), up 0.62% at $313.38 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $176.58 (+0.62%), up 1.28% at $178.84

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.81 (+3.47%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.95 (+3.52%), up 1.24% at $13.11

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.01 (-0.71%), up 0.71% at $7.06

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.06 (-0.14%)

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.78 (+3.73%), up 1.29% at $7.88

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.70 (+1.44%), up 1.44% at $12.90

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.26 (+1.48%)

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $39.43 (-10.55%), unchanged in pre-market

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flow: $1.5 million

Cumulative net flows: $35.46 billion

Total BTC holdings ~1.11 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flow: -$6 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.28 billion

Total ETH holdings ~3.36 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

The chart shows the demand for the Solana network has cooled significantly from the heady days of January.

Both the DEX volumes and the average transaction fee have crashed, validating the decline in the SOL token price.

While You Were Sleeping

Xi Jinping Urges Vietnam to Oppose Donald Trump’s Tariff ‘Bullying’ (Financial Times): In Hanoi, Xi urged Vietnam to unite against protectionism as they signed 45 cooperation deals. His tour continues to Malaysia and Cambodia.

Japanese Bonds Stir Unease as Bitcoin Recovers From Last Week’s Tariff Panic (CoinDesk): The 30-year Japanese bond yield hit a 20-year high, raising fears of capital repatriation by Japanese funds and renewed risk aversion across financial markets.

Dogecoin Slumps 3%, Bitcoin Steady Around $85K as Traders Fear U.S. Recession (CoinDesk): DOGE fell 3% while BTC and ETH held steady as tariff concerns eased, though betting markets still see a 40% to 60% chance of a U.S. recession this year.

DEX KiloEx Loses $7M in Apparent Oracle Manipulation Attack (CoinDesk): The decentralized exchange suspended operations after a price oracle exploit. The attacker used Tornado Cash to fund a wallet and manipulate prices across Base, BNB Chain and Taiko.

Russia Says It Is Not Easy to Agree Ukraine Peace Deal With U.S. (Reuters): Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s demand that Ukraine renounce NATO ambitions and pull out of four regions claimed by Russia.

Trump’s Trade War Deepens Threat to U.S. Brands in China (The Wall Street Journal): U.S. brands like Apple, Nike and Starbucks are losing ground in China as patriotic consumers shift toward domestic alternatives in sectors ranging from tech to fast food.

In the Ether