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Crypto Daybook Americas: Trump Trade Tease Lifts Market While Movement’s Fees Evaporate
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.
- 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.
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
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
A senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, Jamie Raskin, joined his name to lawmakers seeking answers about President Donald Trump’s recent dinner for top investors in his memecoin, sending questions directly to Trump.
Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has been a vocal critic of the president and becomes the latest of many from his party to probe details about the event, which they’ve called out as evidence of White House corruption. Because Raskin is in the minority party, his demands are unlikely to lead to further congressional action unless they regain the House or Senate in next year’s elections.
«I write today to demand that you release the names of all the attendees at this dinner and provide information about the source of the money they each used to buy $TRUMP coins, so that we can prevent illegal foreign government emoluments from being pocketed without congressional consent,» Raskin wrote this week to the president, joining many counterparts in the Senate in seeking the information, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal.
«We deserve to know who is paying for access to our president, and what steps you took to ensure that the funds you receive are legitimate and legal, rather than the proceeds from foreign states or monarchs or illegal activities,» Rasking said, specifically highlighting Tron founder Justin Sun, a guest who was a major early investor in Trump’s family crypto operations.
Read More: Democrats Threaten Lawsuits, Join Protests Ahead of Trump Memecoin Dinner
The FTX Recovery Trust will begin distributing over $5 billion in cash and stablecoins to creditors starting on Friday, with funds expected to land in accounts within the next three business days via BitGo and Kraken.
And there’s a chance this wave of repayments will help lift the crypto market, analysts at Coinbase wrote in a report on Friday.
It’s the second major round of repayments following the exchange’s collapse. The first, which began on Feb. 18, returned roughly $7 billion to creditors with claims under $50,000. That did little to lift broader crypto markets at the time, which remained under pressure from macro headwinds.
This latest wave of distributions comes as investor sentiment has shifted, the analysts said. Payments will arrive in stablecoins, offering recipients immediate on-chain liquidity, instead of cash and crypto. That could influence whether the funds are reinvested.
There’s also a broader sense of optimism in crypto markets, thanks in part to a rally in major assets and increased political clarity around regulation. Institutional players, in particular, may feel more comfortable acting on incoming funds, especially as Congress moves closer to passing legislation that would define the roles of U.S. regulators overseeing digital assets.
The federal judge overseeing Roman Storm’s prosecution declined to order the Department of Justice to review its records for any materials it might have missed that would help the Tornado Cash developer at the end of a 30-minute hearing Friday morning, though she told the government it should not have any disclosure issues.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla also ruled that there were no Brady violation concerns with the Department of Justice’s conversations with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) about whether mixers needed to register as money transmitters — the conversation that prosecutors pursuing Samourai Wallet developers had with FinCEN officials, but not the prosecutors on Storm’s case — one of the DOJ representatives said in the phone conference on Friday.
If the judge had found that prosecutors had withheld information, it could affect the case moving forward.
«I’m not going to require a further review based on the representations made that there’s no additional material of this type, and based on my views that I don’t believe the material was exculpatory,» she said.
«There’s a difference between ‘this is something I’d like to know’ and ‘this is a Brady violation,'» the judge said, referring to a Supreme Court precedent that requires prosecutors to share any and all information that might help a defendant with the defendant’s team.
Storm’s defense attorneys argued during the hearing that they needed to know when the prosecutors in their case learned about the FinCEN conversation.
«They do plan to say they’re charging a conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter,» said defense attorney Brian Klein. «My question is who are they supposed to be licensed with? … this is all in the same issue. They’ve only dropped one subpart … but they’re still going to say they’re charging an unlicensed money business.»
Thane Rehn, a prosecutor who worked on the DOJ case against Sam Bankman-Fried, said that his team wouldn’t argue that Tornado Cash needed to secure a license.
«The word ‘license’ doesn’t apply here and the jury won’t be instructed on licensing issues … what we intend to prove at trial is the defendant knew they were transmitting funds derived from criminals,» he said.
The judge did at multiple points ask the prosecutors if they planned to change any other theories or charges in the weeks leading up to the trial, saying doing so might be unfair to the defense. The trial is supposed to kick off in less than two months.
Read more: DOJ Will Still Pursue Roman Storm Case Despite Blanche Memo, Prosecutors Say
Trump’s Memecoin Dinner Questioned by Top Democrat on House Judiciary Committee
FTX Repayments May Have Positive Market Impact: Coinbase
Judge Declines to Order DOJ to Review Records in Roman Storm Case
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