The ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio has reached an “extremely undervalued” zone in a move that flashes a historically bullish signal — but traders betting on a sharp ether (ETH) recovery may want to pause.

According to data from on-chain data firm CryptoQuant, the ETH/BTC market value to realized value (MVRV) ratio has dropped to multi-year lows to reach levels that have previously marked periods of ETH outperformance against BTC.

The exchange rate for the two tokens, conventionally called a ratio, peaked above 0.08 in late 2021. The ETH/BTC ratio was 0.019 at press time, down more than 75% from record highs.

MVRV is a metric that compares a token’s current market cap to its realized capitalization, or the value of each coin based on the price it was last moved on the blockchain. This effectively reflects the average cost basis of all coins in circulation.

But the setup may not be as straightforward this time. Network activity remains flat and core usage metrics like transaction count and active addresses have seen little momentum since the last bull run, CryptoQuant said.

The increase in ether total supply is directly tied to the sharp decline in fees burned, as shown in the above chart, showing burn activity falling to near zero. The reason behind this shift is the Dencun upgrade, implemented in March 2024, which significantly reduces transaction fees across the network, the firm said.

Ethereum’s network activity has remained largely flat since 2021, with no sustained growth in usage over the past three years. This stagnation is echoed across key metrics such as transaction volume and active addresses, indicating that Ethereum’s base layer has not experienced meaningful expansion in on-chain activity.

Meanwhile, the growth of Layer 2 solutions such as Arbitrum and Base has come at the cost of mainnet activity. This cannibalization dynamic reduces base layer fees and weakens ETH’s value accrual narrative.

Institutional demand is also cooling: “Investor demand for ETH as a yield and institutional asset is weakening, as evidenced by declining staked ETH and lower balances held by ETFs and other investment vehicles,” CryptoQuant wrote.

“The total value staked has fallen from its all-time high, while fund holdings continue to trend downward, indicating reduced confidence from crypto-native participants and traditional investors,” it added.

The amount of ETH staked has declined notably from it’s all-time high of 35.02 million ETH in November 2024 to around 34.4 million ETH, suggesting that investors may be reallocating capital or seeking more liquid positions amid a less favorable market environment.

Additionally, ETH balances in investment products have fallen by about 400,000 ETH since early February, highlighting a broader decline in institutional demand.

Meanwhile, bitcoin has continued to rise despite a macroeconomic environment, touching nearly $100,000 earlier on Thursday as its appeal as a safe-haven asset grows among investors.

A Sei Network developer proposed to depreciate the blockchain’s Cosmos support on Wednesday in a bid to remove “unnecessary” complexity for users.

The proposal, if successful, will make it so Sei users will only be able to send and receive transactions that are compatible with Ethereum.

Cutting Cosmos support will significantly simplify the blockchain, reduce infrastructure overhead, and position Sei more strongly within the broader Ethereum ecosystem, Philip Su, Sei Labs’ Engineering Lead, said in the proposal.

“This transition will lead to greater adoption, improved developer experience, and a more cohesive community,” he said.

The move comes as blockchain infrastructure builders compete to draw in developers and expand their orbits.

Ethereum-based infrastructure, which runs on software called the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM, is what the majority of decentralized finance apps run on. Ethereum, as well as other big blockchains like Coinbase’s Base and the Binance-affiliated BNB Chain, all use the EVM.

But there are challengers. Solana uses its own software called the Solana Virtual Machine, or SVM, while Cosmos has pioneered software called CosmWasm.

Sei currently supports both EVM and CosmWasm. “While this dual architecture has provided flexibility, it also introduces significant complexity and friction for both users and developers,” Su said.

If Sei pivots away from CosmWasm it could be a significant blow for the software’s adoption.

The Sei Network has grown steadily since its 2023 launch. Deposits to DeFi apps on the network are at an all-time high of $1 billion, according to DefiLlama data, making it the 15th largest blockchain by total value locked.

Cosmos Hub, the leading development platform for Cosmos, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Unnecessary overhead

When Sei launched it didn’t support the EVM and adoption was slow.

Over the blockchain’s first year it only attracted some $50 million of deposits to its DeFi apps, a paltry sum compared to other blockchains that launched around the same time, such as Sui, which soared above $600 million in deposits during its first year.

But that changed in July 2024 when Sei launched its second version, which let users create DeFi apps using either CosmWasm or the EVM.

Activity exploded as developers and investors flocked to the blockchain. Among DeFi developers, the EVM is the most well-known software. So by introducing EVM support, Sei was able to tap into a much larger pool of developers.

New Sei users are now predominantly choosing to use the EVM instead of CosmWasm, data compiled by Sei Labs on data platform Dune Analytics shows.

What’s more, the current cross-compatibility comes at a cost, Su said. It introduces “unnecessary overhead in the codebase and complicates debugging and testing,” he said.

Still, there’s no guarantee others in the Sei community will feel the same way.

Build with Sei, a group managed by the nonprofit Sei Foundation, will host a call on May 14 to discuss the proposal in detail and give opportunities for developers and the community to ask questions and give feedback.

Read more: Trump-Linked Crypto Project Buys $775K Worth of SEI as Altcoin Accumulation Continues

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market is a sea of green as traders look past the stagflation specter raised by the Fed on Wednesday and cheer President Donald Trump’s hint of a big trade-deal announcement with a major trading partner.

Bitcoin jumped 2.6%, nearing $100,000, even with the WSJ reporting that the announcement could be more of a framework for talks than actual confirmation of an agreement. The wider market put in bigger gains, with XRP, ETH, ADA, DOGE and several other coins rising 4% to 6%. Tokens associated with memecoin projects, layer 1s and DeFi are leading the market higher.

In key news, cumulative inflows into the U.S.-listed spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have hit an all-time high of $40.62 billion, signaling continued institutional adoption. (Check Chart of the Day.)

On Thursday, Arizona became the second U.S. state to pass a bitcoin reserve bill. The regulation allows the state to take ownership of abandoned coins in the event that the owner ignores messages sent within three years. It also lets the state make BTC investments.

An ether whale ICO participant sold 5,200 ETH at $9.54 million, extending a series of recent liquidations. The whale still holds 8,300 ETH ($15.28 million).

Decentralized layer-1 blockchain Avalanche’s C-Chain registered the highest amount of transactions in two years, with the median gas cost of just $0.00078. The AVAX token traded 7% higher at $21 at press time.

Stripe unveiled a new feature called Stablecoin Financial Accounts, powered by Bridge, unlocking access to dollar-denominated services in over 100 countries.

On the macro front, the first quarter U.S. unit labor cost data will be watched by traders for signs of sticky wage price inflation that could potentially delay the Fed rate cuts. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • May 8: Judge John G. Koeltl will sentence Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the now-defunct crypto lending firm Celsius Network, at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
  • May 12, 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.: A U.S. SEC Crypto Task Force Roundtable on «Tokenization: Moving Assets Onchain: Where TradFi and DeFi Meet» will be held at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington.
• Macro
  • May 8, 7 a.m.: The Bank of England announces its interest-rate decision. The Monetary Policy Report Press Conference is livestreamed 30 minutes later.
    • Bank Rate Est. 4.25% vs. Prev. 4.5%
  • May 8, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended May 3.
    • Initial Jobless Claims Est. 230K vs. Prev. 241K
  • May 8, 10 a.m.: President Donald Trump will reportedly unveil the framework of a trade deal with the U.K. at a White House press conference.
  • May 9-12: Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will hold trade talks with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during his visit to Switzerland.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • May 8: CleanSpark (CLSK), post-market, $-0.11
  • May 8: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $1.88
  • May 8: Hut 8 (HUT), pre-market, $-0.10
  • May 8: MARA Holdings (MARA), post-market, $-0.52
  • May 13: Semler Scientific (SMLR), post-market

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting on whether to put the last $10.7 million from its 35 million ARB diversification plan into three low‑risk, dollar‑based funds from WisdomTree, Spiko and Franklin Templeton. Voting ends on May 8.
  • Compound DAO is voting on which new collateral type to prioritize on Compound V3. Voting ends May 8.
  • May 8, 10 a.m.: Balancer and Euler to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session.
  • May 15, 10 a.m.: Moca Network to host a Discord townhall session discussing network updates.
• Unlocks
  • May 9: Movement (MOVE) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $8.08 million.
  • May 11: Solayer (LAYER) to unlock 12.87% of its circulating supply worth $35.66 million.
  • May 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.82% of its circulating supply worth $57.45 million.
  • May 13: WhiteBIT Coin (WBT) to unlock 27.41% of its circulating supply worth $1.14 billion.
  • May 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 4.09% of its circulating supply worth $17.7 million.
• Token Launches
  • May 8: AIXBT to be listed on Binance.US.
  • May 8: Space and Time (SXT) to be listed on Binance, MEXC, BingX, KuCoin, Bitget and others.
  • May 16: Galxe (GAL), Litentry (LIT), Mines of Dalarnia (DAR), Orion Protocol (ORN), and PARSIQ (PRQ) to be delisted from Coinbase.

Conferences

CoinDesk’s Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

• Day 3 of 3: Stripe Sessions (San Francisco)
• Day 2 of 3: SALT’s Bermuda Digital Finance Forum 2025 (Hamilton, Bermuda)
• May 9-10: Stanford Blockchain Governance Summit (San Francisco)
• May 11-17: Canada Crypto Week (Toronto)
• May 12-13: Dubai FinTech Summit
• May 12-13: Filecoin (FIL) Developer Summit (Toronto)
• May 12-13: Latest in DeFi Research (TLDR) Conference (New York)
• May 12-14: ACI’s 9th Annual Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance Forum on Fintech & Emerging Payment Systems (New York)
• May 13: Blockchain Futurist Conference (Toronto)
• May 13: ETHWomen (Toronto)
• May 14-16: CoinDesk’s Consensus 2025 (Toronto)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• $3, just $3.
• That’s all Movement network earned in fees over the past 24 hours, DeFiLlama data shows, the lowest in a week for the embattled chain once valued at $1 billion.
• Daily DEX volumes have cratered below $500K, a dramatic fall from earlier exuberance that saw the network process more than $2 million a day.
• The slide comes days after CoinDesk reported irregularities with how the MOVE token was distributed and supplied to trading firms.
• Ironically, the MOVE token launched before the chain existed, raising millions via private sales while the actual blockchain infrastructure lagged far behind.
• The project handed out 66 million MOVE tokens (5% of supply) to a market-making firm called Rentech, which dumped nearly all of it for $38 million.
• Founder Rushi Manche was terminated on May 7, just days after being suspended. He admitted to “zero oversight” and blamed bad-faith advisers for the project’s collapse in X posts following the CoinDesk report.
• MOVE has fallen over 85% from its peak of $1.45 in December 2024 to just 15 cents.
• With no trust, no traction and, now, almost no fees, Movement has turned into the cautionary tale of 2025 — a billion-dollar paper promise with a $3 reality.

Derivatives Positioning

• BTC and ETH perpetual funding rates rose close to an annualized 10%, signaling a strengthening bullish mood in the market.
• BTC, ETH futures premium on the CME still remain under 10%.
• On Deribit, bitcoin and ether options risk reversals show a bullish bias for calls across multiple time frames.
• Notable block trades include a short position in the $85K BTC put expiring in June and a calendar spread involving calls at strikes $140K and $170K, expiring on Sept. 26 and Dec. 26, respectively.

Market Movements:

• BTC is up 3.49% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $99,620.26 (24hrs: +2.77%)
• ETH is up 7.76% at $1,939.15 (24hrs: +5.11%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 5.75% at 2,854.54 (24hrs: +3.81%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 6 bps at 2.894%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0048% (5.2242% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is up 0.48% at 100.09
• Gold is down 1.25% at $3,343.61/oz
• Silver is down 0.25% at $32.40/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +0.41% at 36,928.63
• Hang Seng closed +0.37% at 22,775.92
• FTSE is up 0.39% at 8,592.98
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.21% at 5,293.07
• DJIA closed on Wednesday +0.7% at 41,113.97
• S&P 500 closed +0.43% at 5,631.28
• Nasdaq closed +0.27% at 17,738.16
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.75% at 25,161.18
• S&P 40 Latin America closed -0.2% at 2,512.07
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 5 bps at 4.315%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 1.03% at 5,170.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.4% at 20,240.00
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.82% at 41,552.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 65.08 (-0.44%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01942 (4.02%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 909 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $53.34
• Total Fees: 6.64 BTC / $661,908.40
• CME Futures Open Interest: 142,255 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 29.5 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 8.37%

Technical Analysis

• The XRP-ETH ratio has dived out of the year-to-date ascending trendline.
• The breakdown suggests ether outperformance relative to XRP in the days ahead.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $392.48 (+1.78%), up 5.35% at $413.49 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $196.56 (-0.17%), up 4.77% at $205.94
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$26.49 (+2.28%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $13.33 (+1.37%), up 5.55% at $14.07
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.84 (-0.25%), up 5.1% at $8.24
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $8.90 (-1%), up 5.28% at $9.37
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.03 (-0.74%), up 5.23% at $8.45
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $14.59 (+0.34%), up 5.89% at $15.45
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $33.05 (-0.12%), up 4.99% at $34.70
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $40.01 (+1.34%), up 0.25% at $40.11

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $142.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $40.68 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.17 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$21.8 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.48 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.45 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart shared by pseudonymous analyst Checkmate shows the cumulative inflows into the U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs have hit a record high above $40 billion.
• Early this week, BlackRock’s IBIT surpassed the SPDR gold ETF in year-to-date inflows.

While You Were Sleeping

• Trump to Announce Trade-Deal Framework With Britain (The Wall Street Journal): The U.K. is seeking relief from steep U.S. tariffs on steel and autos in exchange for curbing a tax on digital services, according to people familiar with the talks.
• India and Pakistan May Have an Off-Ramp After Their Clash. Will They Take It? (New York Times): India and Pakistan signaled room for de-escalation after Indian strikes killed over 20 in Pakistan, with both sides portraying their responses as limited and back-channel talks reportedly underway.
• Binance Founder CZ Confirms He Has Applied for Trump Pardon After Prison Term (CoinDesk): CZ said his lawyers had applied for a presidential pardon after media reports in March wrongly claimed he had already done so.
• Arthur Hayes Says Bitcoin Will Hit $1M by 2028 as U.S.-China Craft Hollow Trade Deal (CoinDesk): The former BitMEX CEO predicted bitcoin will hit $1 million by 2028, citing Treasury-driven liquidity and geopolitical shifts while dismissing U.S.-China trade deals as largely symbolic.
• The EU Wants to End All Russian Gas Imports. Moscow’s Friends in the Bloc Say It’s a ‘Serious Mistake’ (CNBC): The European Commission’s plan to end all energy imports from Russia by 2027 was condemned by Hungary and Slovakia.
• Bankers Are Bouncing Back to Life as Hunger for Junk Debt Soars (Bloomberg): Some U.S. investors are moving into European junk bonds to diversify amid tariff-related uncertainty, drawn by expectations of faster rate cuts and demand for companies insulated from trade risks.

In the Ether