Coinbase (COIN) has established the industry’s most scaled crypto trading platform with a domestic market share of around 66%, broker Benchmark said in a report Wednesday, while also initiating coverage of the stock.

Benchmark assumed coverage of Coinbase with a buy rating and a $252 price target. The shares were over 4% higher at around $198 in early trading.

The crypto exchange offers a «comprehensive suite of products and services aimed at facilitating the adoption and use of digital assets by both retail and institutional investors,» analyst Mark Palmer wrote.

The broker noted that the stock has almost halved since early December, and at current levels the share price does not reflect the soon to improve crypto environment.

Share price underperformance may be coming to an end as crypto regulatory clarity draws closer in the U.S., particularly for stablecoins, where Coinbase has skin in the game with its involvement in USD Coin (USDC), the report said.

Regulation is coming. Earlier this month, a House of Representatives committee joined Senate counterparts in advancing a bill to be considered by the overall House, bringing stablecoin regulations closer to reality.

«As these key pieces of digital assets legislation are enacted in the coming months, there could be a new wave of demand for crypto by an expanded set of institutional investors,» Palmer said.

The company’s diversified product offering is also a positive, and Coinbase’s valuation is set to benefit from its ‘faster growing non-trading subscription and services offerings,» the report added.

Read more: Stablecoin Market Could Grow to $2T by End-2028: Standard Chartered

PayPal is upping the ante in the stablecoin wars as it’s set to begin offering U.S. users 3.7% annual returns on balances of its PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin.

The yield, accrued daily and paid monthly in PYUSD, is designed to spur adoption by making the token more appealing and stand out among the competition, Bloomberg reported.

Set to launch this summer, the program will allow users to earn rewards while keeping their stablecoins in PayPal and Venmo wallets. The stablecoin can be spent via PayPal Checkout, transferred to other users, or converted to traditional dollars.

“We are halfway in a 10-year journey,” said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s head of blockchain and digital currencies. The aim, he added, is to build a new set of payment rails that reduce costs and improve speed. CEO Alex Chriss echoed the point, saying stablecoins offer a chance to reshape the economics of the payment landscape.

Launched in 2023, PYUSD is issued by Paxos Trust and backed by reserves like U.S. Treasuries. Despite PayPal’s brand recognition, PYUSD’s market share remains small — about $868 million — compared to market leader Tether’s $143 billion USDT, according to RWA.xyz data.

The move is also part of PayPal’s ongoing cryptocurrency push. Earlier this month, the firm added chainlink (LINK) and solana (SOL) to its growing list of supported cryptocurrencies.

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

For bitcoin bulls, it’s a case of «heads I win, tails you lose.»

It’s risk-on-time and boding well for BTC, which rose above $94,000 to mark a more than 50% retracement of the sell-off from record highs above $109,000 to $74,000.

The cryptocurrency has experienced a sharp rally in the past 24 hours, coinciding with President Donald Trump saying he does not intend to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell and making conciliatory remarks on trade tensions with China.

But BTC rose on Monday too. That was supposedly on haven demand as traders sold the dollar, U.S. stocks and bonds on the perceived threat to the Fed’s independence.

No wonder some analysts say the largest cryptocurrency is simultaneously a risk play due to its emerging tech appeal and a haven akin to digital gold.

The latest surge also boosted morale in the wider crypto market. SUI, BONK, ENA, NEAR and AGLO have climbed more than 20% in just 24 hours. IMX surged over 40%, while ether (ETH), the biggest altcoin, is trading about 10% higher. Bitcoin’s dominance rate dropped slightly, indicating a traders’ renewed willingness to take on risk.

In traditional markets, traders are covering their USD short positions, with some taking outright bullish bets on the dollar. This shift comes amid a decline in gold prices and a positive upswing on Wall Street.

Supporting the case for a continued move higher in BTC is the renewed optimism about institutional adoption. The FT reported that Brandon Lutnick, son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, is working with SoftBank, Tether and Bitfinex to capitalize on the crypto revival under the Trump administration.

«The $3 billion fund plans to raise an additional $350 million via convertible bonds, alongside a $200 million private equity round, with one clear directive: buy more Bitcoin, and buy it big,» according to Singapore-based QCP Capital.

The announcement comes on the heels of decisive shift in the U.S. regulatory policy. On Tuesday, the newly appointed SEC Chairman Paul Atkins reiterated that his top priority is establishing a clear regulatory framework for digital assets.

Elsewhere, DeFi Development Corp. deepened its SOL bet with a $11.5 million token purchase. A crypto whale accumulated ether, withdrawing $21.78 million worth of tokens from Binance. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • April 25, 1 p.m.: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Crypto Task Force Roundtable on «Key Considerations for Crypto Custody«.
  • April 28: Enjin Relaychain increases active validator slots to 25 from 15 to enhance decentralization.
  • April 29, 1:05 a.m.: BNB Chain (BNB) — BSC mainnet hardfork.
  • April 30, 9:30 a.m.: ProShares expects its XRP ETF, offering exposure through futures and swap agreements, to begin trading on NYSE Arca.
  • April 30, 10:03 a.m.: Gnosis Chain (GNO), an Ethereum sister chain, will activate the Pectra hard fork on its mainnet at slot 21,405,696, epoch 1,337,856.
• Macro
  • Day 3 of 6: World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington.
  • April 23, 8 a.m.: Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography releases retail sales data.
    • Retail Sales MoM Prev. 0.6%
    • Retail Sales YoY Prev. 2.7%
  • April 23, 9:45 a.m.: S&P Global releases (flash) U.S. April purchasing managers’ index (PMI) data.
    • Composite PMI Prev. 53.5
    • Manufacturing PMI Est. 49.4 vs. Prev. 50.2
    • Services PMI Est. 52.8 vs. Prev. 54.4
  • April 24, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases March manufactured durable goods orders data.
    • Durable Goods Orders MoM Est. 2% vs. Prev. 0.9%
    • Durable Goods Orders Ex Defense MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.8%
    • Durable Goods Orders Ex Transp MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 0.7%
  • April 24, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended April 19.
    • Initial Jobless Claims Est. 221K vs. Prev. 215K
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • April 29: PayPal Holdings (PYPL), pre-market
  • April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market
  • May 1: Block (XYZ), post-market
  • May 1: Reddit (RDDT), post-market
  • May 1: Riot Platforms (RIOT), post-market

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Lido DAO is voting to extend the Delegate Incentivization Program (DIP) through Q4 with a $225,000 LDO budget. Voting ends on April 28.
  • Uniswap DAO will vote on establishing a licensing and deployment framework for Uniswap v4 to accelerate its adoption across multiple chains. The proposal grants the Uniswap Foundation a blanket exemption to deploy v4 on any DAO-approved chain and gives the Uniswap Accountability Committee authority to update deployment records. Voting April 24-30.
  • April 23, 12 p.m.: IOTA to host an X Spaces session titled IOTA Rebased Townhall.
  • April 23, 9 p.m.: Manta Network to host a townhall meeting with its founders.
  • April 24, 8 a.m.: Alchemy Pay to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on its 2025 roadmap.
  • April 24, 8 a.m.: Ronin to host a townhall meeting.
  • April 30, 12 p.m.: Helium to host a community call meeting.
• Unlocks
  • April 30: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $23.82 million.
  • May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $216.81 million.
  • May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $11.54 million.
  • May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.73% of its circulating supply worth $13.97 million.
  • May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $13.82 million.
  • May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $12.28 million.
• Token Launches
  • April 23: Zora to airdrop its ZORA tokens.
  • April 24: Initia (INIT) to be listed on Binance, CoinW, WEEX, KuCoin, MEXC, and others.

Conferences:

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

• Day 2 of 3: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)
• April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)
• Day 1 of 2: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)
• Day 1 of 3: Semafor’s World Economy Summit 2025 (Washington)
• April 24: Bitwise’s Investor Day for Bitcoin Standard Corporations (New York)
• April 26: Crypto Vision Conference 2025 (Manilla)
• April 26-27: Harvard Blockchain in Action Conference (Cambridge, Mass.)
• April 27: N Crypto Conference 2025 (Kyiv)
• April 27-30: Web Summit Rio 2025
• April 28-29: Blockchain Disrupt 2025 (Dubai)
• April 28-29: Staking Summit Dubai
• April 29: El Salvador Digital Assets Summit 2025 (San Salvador, El Salvador)
• April 29: IFGS 2025 (London)
• April 30-May 1: TOKEN2049 (Dubai)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Major memecoin project Shib tokenized a shiba inu image on the trending Base ecosystem platform Zora.
• «MAKE SHIB MEME AGAIN,» Shib said in a post on X in a nod to the «Make America Great Again» slogan, aiming to revive the meme culture that propelled the token’s popularity in 2020.
• Shib said the Zora token it minted was not tied to the SHIB token’s value but focused on archiving the meme’s culture.
• «This post is live on Zora — not for speculation, not a token tied to SHIB — but to preserve this content on-chain. We’re archiving our culture. One meme at a time,» the team said.

• Zora has gained traction in the past week following heavy social media promotion by Base creator Jesse Pollak, who spearheaded a campaign to «tokenize everything,» or just about any piece on content, on the Coinbase Ventures-backed layer 2.
• Pollak’s amplifications of several Zora-created tokens drew attention to the platform, with user count and token creation setting records late last week. It attracted over 230,000 “new” traders (or wallets that interacted with the platform for the first time) on Sunday, data shows.

Derivatives Positioning

• Open interest in BTC and ETH perpetual futures listed on offshore exchanges has risen more than price, signaling an influx of money into the market, which validates price gains.
• SUI, TRX, HBAR and BCH still see negative funding rates, signaling a bias for shorts. Continued market strength may force these short position holders to square off their bets, potentially leading to a sharp price rally in the tokens.
• Gains in XLM, DOGE, TON and TRX may be fleeting: The negative cumulative volume delta for these coins points to net selling in the market.
• On Deribit, traders chased BTC calls at strikes $95,000 and $100,000. Options skews for BTC and ETH flipped bullish in favor of calls.

Market Movements:

• BTC is up 3.11% from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday at $94,258.40 (24hrs: +6.41%)
• ETH is up 5.75% at $1,795.84 (24hrs: +10.49%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 5.05% at 2,767.83 (24hrs: +8.68%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 4 bps at 3.02%
• BTC funding rate is at -0.0001% (-0.0624% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 98.88
• Gold is down 1.43% at $3,352.00/oz
• Silver is up 0.36% at $33/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +1.89% at 34,868.63
• Hang Seng closed +2.37% at 22,072.62
• FTSE is up 1.59% at 8,460.68
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 2.71% at 5,096.05
• DJIA closed on Tuesday +2.66% at 39,186.98
• S&P 500 closed +2.51% at 5,287.76
• Nasdaq closed +2.71% at 16,300.42
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.24% at 24,306.00
• S&P 40 Latin America closed +2.52% at 2,444.63
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is down 5 bps at 4.35%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 2.14% at 5,428.50
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 2.46% at 18,838.00
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 1.71% at 40,031.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 64.34 (-0.36%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01908 (1.44%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 852 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $46.4 PH/s
• Total Fees: 6.27 BTC / $563,297
• CME Futures Open Interest: 141,010 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 27.7 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.87%

Technical Analysis

• As the bitcoin price rally picks up pace, the market could soon see alternative cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash (BCH) put in bigger gains.
• The BCH-BTC ratio may break above the bear market trendline to suggest a reversal higher.
• Such a breakout may bring in even more buyers, yielding a stronger rally.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Tuesday at $343.03 (+7.95%), up 3.34% at $354.50 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $190 (+8.57%), up 4.18% at $197.95
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$18.21 (+18.4%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $14.06 (+14.4%), up 3.77% at $14.59
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.12 (+13.2%), up 3.51% at $7.37
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $6.92 (+8.29%), up 4.19% at $7.21
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.77 (+17.4%), up 3.19% at $9.04
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $13.10 (+11.58%), up 5.5% at $13.82
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $33.28 (+11.57%), up 7.27% at $35.70
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $39.19 (+7.11%), up 2.3% at $40.09

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $912.7 million
• Cumulative net flows: $36.77 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.12 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $38.8 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.28 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.31 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart compares the fully diluted valuations (FDV) of various tokens between May 2024 and April 2025.
• The average drawdown has been 50% over a one-year period, implying losses for those holding locked tokens.
• «Meaning on average, holders had the opportunity to exit locked positions at 2x current spot prices last year,» Taran Sabharwal, founder of OTC liquidity platform STIX, said on X.

While You Were Sleeping

• China, BRICS Will ‘Defend’ Global Order as Trump Withdraws, Brazil Says (Financial Times): Brazil’s chief foreign policy adviser said Trump’s retreat from multilateralism is strengthening BRICS, noting that “a world order without Washington is impossible.”
• Bitcoin Becomes Fifth-Largest Global Asset, Surpasses Google’s Market Cap (CoinDesk): Bitcoin rose past $94,000, broke through key technical levels and outperformed the Nasdaq 100 amid easing U.S.-China trade tensions and renewed strength in tech stocks.
• Cantor Nears $3B Crypto Venture With SoftBank and Tether (FT): Cantor Equity Partners, which raised $200 million in January, will help launch 21 Capital, a new firm seeded with $3 billion in BTC from Softbank, Tether and Bitfinex.
• BOJ to Raise Rates in Q3 Though Trump Tariffs Will Disrupt Policy Normalization (Reuters): 84% of economists surveyed see no BOJ rate hike before July, while expectations for a third-quarter increase fell sharply due to tariff-driven uncertainty and worsening earnings forecasts.
• Bitcoin Futures Open Interest Surge Shows Investor Confidence on Trade Deals, Powell (CoinDesk): The cumulative notional open interest, or the dollar value of the number of active bets in BTC perpetual futures, rose by 10% to $17.83 billion.
• China Has an Army of Robots on Its Side in the Tariff War (The New York Times): China’s lead in factory robotics is helping keep export prices low, giving it an edge in trade conflicts, though concerns over job losses and social impacts remain.

In the Ether