Bitcoin Flexes Dominance as Traditional Markets Stumble—Gold’s Shiny Distraction Hits All-Time High

While Wall Street frets over bond yields and equities dip, Bitcoin stages a quiet takeover—proving, yet again, that crypto laughs last when fiat currencies sweat. Meanwhile, gold soars to record highs, because nothing says ’stable store of value’ like a 5,000-year-old shiny rock. (Bonus jab: Traders still hedging with gold? How quaint—like using a fax machine in a Zoom world.)

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • April 22: The Lyora upgrade goes live on the Injective (INJ) mainnet.
  • 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 2 of 6: World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring meetings in Washington.
  • April 22, 8:30 p.m.: Statistics Canada releases March producer price inflation data.
    • PPI MoM Est. 0.3% vs. Prev. 0.4%
    • PPI YoY Prev. 4.9%
  • April 22, 6 p.m.: Fed Governor Adriana D. Kugler will deliver a speech titled "Transmission of Monetary Policy."
  • 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
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • April 22: Tesla (TSLA), post-market
  • April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market
  • May 1: Block (XYZ), post-market

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Aave DAO is discussing partnering with Ether.fi to create a custom Aave market on EVM layer 2 to “facilitate on-chain credit for everyday payments through the Ether.fi Cash credit card program.”
  • 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 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 $21.83 million.
  • May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $170.93 million.
  • May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $10.46 million.
  • May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.73% of its circulating supply worth $11.92 million.
  • May 7: Kaspa (KAS) to unlock 0.56% of its circulating supply worth $13 million.
  • May 9: Movement (MOVA) to unlock 2.04% of its circulating supply worth $11.23 million.
• Token Launches
  • April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.
  • April 22: BNB to be listed on Kraken.
  • 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 1 of 3: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)
• April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)
• April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)
• 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)
• April 29: IFGS 2025 (London)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Pope Francis’ death on Easter Monday triggered significant activity in crypto markets and prediction platforms as traders aimed to capitalize on the news.
• LUCE, a Solana-based memecoin tied to the Vatican’s Holy Year 2025 mascot, surged 45% in value, reaching $0.013, according to CoinGecko data.
• Daily trading volume in the token skyrocketed to $60.27 million from $5 million the previous day, despite the price being down 95% from its November peak of 30 cents.
• Although unaffiliated with the Vatican, LUCE has attracted around 44,800 holders.
• Meanwhile, a Polymarket bet on who will be the next pope has attracted over $3.5 million in volumes since going live on Dec. 31, with over 18 candidates in the mix.
• As of Tuesday morning, Pietro Parolin leads odds at 37%, followed by Luis Antonio Tagle at 23% and Matteo Zuppi at 11%.

Derivatives Positioning

• HBAR, XLM and TRX have seen the most growth in perpetual futures open interest among major tokens in the past 24 hours. However, only TRX has seen a positive cumulative volume delta, implying an influx of new money predominantly on the bullish side.
• BTC’s open interest in has increased to 695K BTC, the most since March 25. ETH’s open interest held shy of the recent record above 11.9 million ETH.
• Perpetual funding rates for most major tokens remain marginally positive in a sign of cautiously bullish sentiment.
• On Deribit, BTC’s short and near-dated calls are now trading at par or a slight premium to puts, another sign of renewed bullishness. ETH puts, however, continue to trade at a premium to calls.
• Block options flows have been muted on Paradigm, with calendar spreads and April put spreads lifted in BTC and ETH.

Market Movements:

• BTC is up 1.45% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $88,539.04 (24hrs: +1.16%)
• ETH is up 3.43% at $1,628.60 (24hrs: -0.84%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 1.49% at 2,544.64 (24hrs: -0.3%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 3 bps at 2.98%
• BTC funding rate is at -0.0058% (-2.1353% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is up 0.1% at 98.38
• Gold is up 4.28% at $3,456.97/oz
• Silver is up 0.5% at $32.57/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed -0.17% at 34,220.60
• Hang Seng closed +0.78% at 21,562.32
• FTSE is up 0.49% at 8,315.81
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.28% at 4,922.48
• DJIA closed on Monday -2.48% at 38,170.41
• S&P 500 closed -2.36% at 5,158.20
• Nasdaq closed -2.55% at 15,870.90
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed -0.76% at 24,008.86
• S&P 40 Latin America closed unchanged at 2,384.47
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is unchanged at 4.42%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.98% at 5,235.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 1.02% at 18,105.00
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 0.87% at 38,660.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 64.39% (-0.09%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01839 (1.88%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 840 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $45.0 PH/s
• Total Fees: 6.56BTC / $572,645
• CME Futures Open Interest: 139,765 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 25.5 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.22%

Technical Analysis

• If you feel gold’s rally is overstretched or overdone, think again.
• The ratio between gold’s spot price and its 200-day simple moving average, currently 1.3, is well below highs seen in 2011-2012 when the yellow metal rose to its then-record price of $2,000.
• The ratio went as high as 5.80 in the 1980.
• Bitcoin tends to follow gold with a lag of couple of months.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $317.76 +0.18%), up 2.02% at $324.19 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $175 (-0.02%), up 1% at $176.75
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.38 (+0.13%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.29 (-2.92%), up 2.36% at $12.59
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $6.29 (-2.63%), up 2.07% at $6.42
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $6.39 (-3.62%)
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.47 (-0.53%), up 2.68% at $7.67
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $11.74 (-2.49%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $29.83 (-8.17%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $36.59 (+0.03%), unchanged in pre-market

ETF Flows

• Daily net flow: $381.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $35.86 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~ 1.11 million

• Daily net flow: -$25.4 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.24 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 3.30 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows the price of eggs in the U.S. has increased by over 200% since 2024, outperforming BTC’s 100% surge. Gold and the S&P 500 have gained 46% and 21%, respectively, over the same period.
• In other words, asset price growth has failed to compensate holders for the inflation on Main Street.

While You Were Sleeping

• Bitcoin, Euro Options Signal Bullishness Against Dollar Amid Equity and Bond Market Downturns (CoinDesk): Preference for BTC and euro call options over dollar exposure suggests investors are rotating out of U.S. assets and into bitcoin, the euro and gold.
• Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932 as Investors Send ‘No Confidence’ Signal (The Wall Street Journal): Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, said the Trump administration’s policies have made the U.S. economy increasingly unstable and difficult to gauge, deterring investment.
• Bitcoin Runs Into Resistance Cluster Above $88K. What Next? (CoinDesk): Behavioral aspects of trading could influence whether bitcoin rallies further or faces a new downturn from the resistance zone.
• Bearish Dollar Bets Move Toward Levels That Raise Risk of Recoil (Bloomberg): Despite widespread bets against the dollar, steady demand for Treasuries and technical signals suggest a rebound is likely, though gains may be limited or short-lived if negative news continues.
• Japanese Investors Sold $20B of Foreign Debt as Trump Tariffs Shook Markets (Financial Times): Much of Japan’s selling likely involves U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the U.S. government, said Tomoaki Shishido, senior rates strategist at Nomura.
• Bitcoin, Stablecoins Command Over 70% of Crypto Market as BTC Pushes Higher (CoinDesk): Bitcoin dominance rose to 64.6%, the highest since January 2021, as ether slumped and the ETH-to-BTC ratio fell to a five-year low of 0.01765.

In the Ether