Decentral Block Post

Key takeaways:

Heavy liquidations played a role in Bitcoin’s return to $95,000.

Bitcoin’s weakening correlation with stocks highlights its growing independence as an asset.

Bullish institutional investor positioning contrasts with retail traders’ caution, supporting a rally above $100,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) gained 11% between April 20 and April 26, demonstrating resilience by holding near its two-month high around $94,000. This relief rally followed signals from the Trump administration about easing import tariffs, as well as strong corporate earnings reports.

Key takeaways:

Norges Bank lost $40 billion in Q1 2025 as US tech stocks fell, exposing the risk of concentrated positions.

The bank’s indirect Bitcoin exposure via stocks reached $356 million, raising sell pressure risk amid a global trade war and recession concerns.

Abu Dhabi’s $437 million spot Bitcoin ETF stake shows sovereign wealth funds see Bitcoin as a hedge.

Norges Bank, Norway’s $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund, reported a $40 billion loss in the first quarter of 2025, with most of the decline caused by a drop in the value of US-listed technology companies. Norges Bank also indirectly owned 3,821 BTC through its stock market investments by the end of 2024, presenting a potential sell pressure risk to Bitcoin, especially when considering the socio-political uncertainty and the risk of an economic recession caused by the global trade war.

Key points:

Bitcoin booked a 10% gain in the past week and technical indicators remain bullish going into a new week.

Analysts expect Bitcoin to gain an additional 40% by the end of the year

Select altcoins are showing a positive bias on improving crypto sentiment.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose more than 10% this week as buyers made a strong comeback, pushing the price to the overhead resistance at $95,000. Although buyers are struggling to clear the overhead hurdle, a positive sign is that they have not given up much ground to the bears.

Michael Saylor's Strategy is "synthetically halving Bitcoin" (BTC) by purchasing half or more of the newly minted supply from miners every single month, according to Adam Livingston, a BTC analyst and author of "The Bitcoin Age and The Great Harvest."

Livingston said miners currently produce around 450 BTC per day or approximately 13,500 BTC per month, but Strategy acquired 379,800 BTC in the last six months. This translates to the firm purchasing roughly 2,087 BTC per day — far in excess of daily miner output. The author added:

"When Bitcoin becomes this scarce, access to Bitcoin will require paying a premium. Lending against Bitcoin will cost more. Borrowing Bitcoin will become a luxury business reserved for nation-states and corporate whales, and Strategy will control the bottleneck."

"BTC's global cost of capital will no longer be set by 'the market.' It will be set by the gravitational policies of the first Bitcoin superpower: Strategy," Livingston continued.

The author's prediction of a Bitcoin supply crunch translates into much higher BTC prices if Strategy can continue its pace of BTC acquisitions while market demand for the supply-capped digital asset grows among institutional and retail investors.

The Bitcoin miner reserve, a metric tracking the total amount of BTC held in miner wallets, continues to decline. Source: CryptoQuant

Related: Michael Saylor hints at Bitcoin purchase as whales stack aggressively

Two Ethereum community members, Kevin Owocki and Devansh Mehta, proposed a dynamic fee structure for the Ethereum application layer to strike a balance between revenue generation for app builders and fairness in fee extraction.

The April 27 proposal outlined a simple equation that uses a square root function that proportionally lowers the percentage of fees as the funding capital allocated to a particular project grows. Owocki and Mehta explained:

"For smaller funding amounts, the fee follows a square root function (sqrt(1000 x N)), providing proportionally higher returns to make building mechanisms for smaller pools worthwhile. For example, if the funding pool is $170,000, then the root of 1000 x 170,000 equals $13,038.4 or 7% is taken as overhead."

The authors of the proposal added that fees would be capped at 1% once a particular application's funding pool crossed the $10 million level, ensuring that small app builders can develop decentralized applications without excess fees while also encouraging project and funding growth by capping fees as developers scale their applications.

A visualization of the proposed fee structure tapering off at higher project funding levels. Source: Ethereum Research

Owocki and Mehta's proposal to balance revenue generation and profitability among Ethereum's app builders reflects the growing calls to reform fee structures and value accrual mechanisms to maintain Ethereum's economic viability against competing networks.

Related: Ethereum's L2 approach equals many high-throughput chains — Avail exec

United States President Donald Trump recently said that federal income taxes would be "substantially reduced" or potentially eliminated once the tariff regime fully sets in.

In an April 27 Truth Social post, Trump added that the focus of the purported tax cuts would be on individuals making less than $200,000 per year.

The US President also said that the "External Revenue Service" — a reference to funding the federal government exclusively through import tariffs instead of the current model of collecting taxes through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — is materializing.

Eliminating the federal income tax would likely be a positive catalyst for asset prices, including cryptocurrencies, as the increase in disposable income should partially flow back into productive investments. However, this stimulative effect is not guaranteed.

Source: Donald Trump

Related: If Trump fired Powell, what would happen to crypto?

Opinion by: Hedi Navazan, chief compliance officer at 1inch

Web3 needs a clear regulatory system that addresses innovation bottlenecks and user safety in decentralized finance (DeFi). A one-size-fits-all approach cannot be achieved to regulate DeFi. The industry needs custom, risk-based approaches that balance innovation, security and compliance.

DeFi’s challenges and rules

A common critique is that regulatory scrutiny leads to the death of innovation, tracing this situation back to the Biden administration. In 2022, uncertainty for crypto businesses increased following lawsuits against Coinbase, Binance and OpenSea for alleged violations of securities laws.

Under the US administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to dismiss the lawsuit against Coinbase, as the agency reversed the crypto stance, hinting at a path toward regulation with clear boundaries.

Many would argue that the same risk is the same rule. Imposing traditional finance requirements on DeFi simply will not work from many aspects but the most technical challenges.

Whales and large institutions continue their aggressive Bitcoin accumulation, with Strategy hinting at another Bitcoin investment that may be announced on Monday.

Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor hinted at another imminent Bitcoin (BTC) investment on April 27, a week after the firm acquired $555 million worth of Bitcoin at an average price of $84,785 per coin.

“Stay Humble. Stack Sats,” Saylor wrote, spurring investor speculation of the size of the firm’s next Bitcoin investment.

Source: Michael Saylor

“1.4-1.6b range imo,” wrote popular blockchain analyst RunnerXBT in anticipation of Saylor’s announcement, which would make it three times as large as Strategy’s previous investment.

Related: Bitcoin treasury firms driving $200T hyperbitcoinization — Adam Back

El Salvador, the world’s first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, is still acquiring Bitcoin despite comments from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) appearing to claim the opposite.

The treasury of El Salvador acquired 7 Bitcoin (BTC) worth over $650,000 in the seven days leading up to April 27, blockchain data from El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office shows.

When asked about the country’s Bitcoin investments, Rodrigo Valdes, director of the Western Hemisphere Department at the IMF, said that the country continues to comply with its agreement to halt government Bitcoin accumulation.

El Salvador Bitcoin holdings. Source: El Salvador Bitcoin Office

“In terms of El Salvador, let me say that I can confirm that they continue to comply with their commitment of non-accumulation of Bitcoin by the overall fiscal sector, which is the performance criteria that we have,” said Valdes during an April 26 press briefing.

Related: Crypto sentiment recovers, but weekend liquidity risks remain

Investment firms with Bitcoin-focused treasuries are front-running global Bitcoin adoption, which may see the world’s first cryptocurrency soar to a $200 trillion market capitalization in the coming decade.

Institutions and governments worldwide are starting to recognize the unique monetary properties of Bitcoin (BTC), according to Adam Back, co-founder and CEO of Blockstream and the inventor of Hashcash.

“$MSTR and other treasury companies are an arbitrage of the dislocation between the bitcoin future and todays fiat world,” Back wrote in an April 26 X post.

“A sustainable and scalable $100-$200 trillion trade front-running hyperbitcoinization. scalable enough for most big listed companies to move to btc treasury,” he added.

Hyperbitcoinization refers to the theoretical future where Bitcoin soars to become the largest global currency, replacing fiat money due to its inflationary economics and growing distrust in the legacy financial system.

Comedian and actor TJ Miller says it only takes a little over two full days to get the average person up to speed on Bitcoin. However, when asked why more celebrities aren’t Bitcoiners, he says most people simply refuse to ever sit down and study again.

“It is really hard to get people to study after they graduate, from any level,” Miller told Natalie Brunell on the April 23 episode of Coin Stories. Miller claimed it takes “about 50 hours of study” to understand Bitcoin (BTC).

Hollywood rewards those who “do not think differently”

“So to say to somebody it is going to take 50 hours for you to understand this, they are like, ah, I don’t want to,” he said. “They can’t even watch a Netflix series; they can’t even watch White Lotus because it takes seven hours,” he said.

Comedian and actor TJ Miller spoke to Bitcoiner Natalie Brunell on the Coin Stories podcast. Source: Natalie Brunell

Miller said it takes “such a paradigm shift” to embrace Bitcoin, not just in money or the internet, but in life — and that’s also why you don’t see more Hollywood celebrities becoming Bitcoin maxis:

“Hollywood rewards people that do not think differently.”

During a Bitcoin lunch hosted by crypto entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano, Miller introduced himself that, to his knowledge, he is “the only celebrity that is a Bitcoiner.”

Key takeaways:

Data suggests that Bitcoin currently trades at a 40% discount.

Over 36,000 Bitcoin were withdrawn from Coinbase and Binance on April 25.

Bitcoin’s fractal pattern from Q4 2024 could propel prices above $100,000 in April.

Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at a 40% discount to its intrinsic value, according to Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards.

Key takeaways:

Based on power curve trends, Bitcoin may hit $200,000 in Q4 2025.

Bitcoin follows gold’s price trend with a 100-150 day lag.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price has rallied 11% this week, its best weekly return in 2025 and its highest seven-day growth since early November 2024. Bitcoin also reached $95,000 on April 25 for the first time since Feb. 24. 

Bitcoin 1-week chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

21st Capital co-founder Sina mentioned that Bitcoin reclaimed the power-law price. The power law's predictive accuracy stems from Bitcoin's network growth following Metcalfe's Law, where value scales with the square of users. 

SEC Commissioner and head of the crypto task force, Hester Peirce, says US financial firms are navigating crypto in a way that’s similar to playing the children’s game “the floor is lava,” but in the dark.

“It is time that we find a way to end this game. We need to turn on the lights and build some walkways over the lava pit,” Peirce said at the SEC “Know Your Custodian” roundtable event on April 25.

The lava is crypto, says Peirce

Peirce explained that SEC registrants are forced to approach crypto-related activities like “the floor is lava,” where the aim is to jump from one piece of furniture to the next without touching the ground, except here, touching crypto directly is the lava. “A D.C. version of this game is our regulatory approach to crypto assets, and crypto asset custody in particular,” she said.

Peirce said that, much like in the game, firms wanting to engage with crypto must avoid directly holding it due to unclear regulatory rules. “To engage in crypto-related activities, SEC-registrants have had to hop from one poorly illuminated regulatory space to the next, all while ensuring that they never touch any crypto asset,” Peirce said.

Source: US Securities and Exchange Commission

Peirce said that investment advisers are often unsure which crypto assets qualify as securities, what entities count as qualified custodians, and whether “exercising staking or voting rights” could trigger custody violations.

Update (April 26 at 8:57 PM UTC): This article has been updated to include updates from Loopscale.

Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Loopscale temporarily halted its lending markets after suffering an approximately $5.8 million exploit. 

On April 26, a hacker siphoned approximately 5.7 million USDC (USDC) and 1200 Solana (SOL) from the lending protocol after taking out a “series of undercollateralized loans”, Loopscale co-founder Mary Gooneratne said in an X post. 

Loopscale has since “re-enabled loan repayments, top-ups, and loop closing”, but “[a]ll other app functions (including Vault withdrawals) are still temporarily restricted while we investigate and ensure mitigation of this exploit,” Loopscale said in an April 26 X post.

The exploit only impacted Loopscale’s USDC and SOL vaults and the losses represent around 12% of Loopscale’s total value locked (TVL), Gooneratne added. 

United States Senator Jon Ossoff expressed support for impeaching President Donald Trump during an April 25 town hall, citing the President’s plan to host a private dinner for top Official Trump memecoin holders. 

“I mean, I saw just 48 hours ago, he is granting audiences to people who buy his meme coin,” said Ossoff, a Democrat, according to a report by NBC News. 

“When the sitting president of the United States is selling access for what are effectively payments directly to him. There is no question that that rises to the level of an impeachable offense.”

Senator Ossoff said he “strongly” supports impeachment proceedings during a town hall in the state of Georgia, where he is running for reelection to the Senate.

The Senator added that an impeachment is unlikely unless the Democratic Party gains control of Congress during the US midterm elections in 2026. Trump’s own Republican Party currently has a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. 

Opinion by: Raullen Chai, co-founder and CEO of IoTeX

The United States and other superpowers are on the brink of a financial evolution. With President Donald Trump’s recent executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) and a US Digital Asset Stockpile (DAS), the conversation around digital assets in government reserves is gaining momentum.

Countries like Czechia have also followed suit with their sovereign digital asset reserve plans. While Bitcoin (BTC) and select altcoins are being considered, the discussion remains incomplete without including decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) tokens.

DePIN represents a new paradigm in infrastructure development, where communities, not corporations, build and operate essential networks like telecommunications that self-govern and distribute rewards to their individual contributors. 

If it were to include DePIN tokens in its DAS, the US could use blockchain technology to create a self-sustaining infrastructure economy that strengthens technological leadership.

Crypto investor sentiment has seen a significant recovery from global tariff concerns, but analysts warn that the market’s structural weaknesses may still result in downside momentum during periods of weekend illiquidity.

Risk appetite appeared to return among crypto investors this week after US President Donald Trump adopted a softer tone, saying that import tariffs on Chinese goods may “come down substantially.”

However, the improved investor sentiment “does not guarantee that Bitcoin will avoid volatility over the weekend,” analysts from Bitfinex exchange told Cointelegraph:

“Sentiment improvements reduce fragility, but they do not eliminate structural risks like thin weekend liquidity.” 

“Historically, weekends remain vulnerable to sharp moves — especially when open interest is high and market depth is low,” the analysts said, adding that unexpected macroeconomic news can still increase volatility during low liquidity periods.

Related: Trump fought the bond market, the bond market won: Saifedean Ammous

DeFi Development Corp (formerly Janover) aims to raise over $1 billion worth of capital to invest in Solana, the industry’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

The Nasdaq-listed firm, previously a real estate financing platform connecting commercial property lenders and buyers, announced its plans in a Form S-3 registration statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 25.

The filing states that the funds will be used for general corporate purposes, including Solana (SOL) token acquisitions.

DeFi Development Corp S-3 filing. Source: SEC

According to the filing, the company may use proceeds from the offering to purchase more Solana, noting:

“Solana does not pay interest, but staking rewards can be earned on Solana. The ability to generate a return on investment from the net proceeds from this offering will depend on whether there is appreciation in the value of Solana following our purchases of Solana with the net proceeds from this offering.”

The company also warned that fluctuations in Solana’s price could lead to it converting the tokens into cash at a value “substantially below” the net proceeds raised.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto firm associated with the family of US President Donald Trump, made waves when it debuted late last year.

WLFI caused a stir when it launched ahead of the president’s inauguration. Observers have accused the project of front-running important crypto-related events, like the White House Crypto summit, and presenting a conflict of interest.

Trump is in a unique position to influence outcomes that would affect his portfolio, but WLFI is not insulated from the broader market trends, which have seen crypto and stock prices drop amid significant macroeconomic concerns.

The Trump administration will soon mark 100 days in office. Here’s what WLFI has been up to, and how the president’s crypto investments are shaking out.

The “gold paper” for WLFI features flattering Trump imagery. Source: WLFI

Over $4 trillion worth of real estate could be tokenized on blockchain networks during the next decade, potentially offering investors greater access to property ownership opportunities, according to a new report.

The Deloitte Center for Financial Services predicts that over $4 trillion worth of real estate may be tokenized by 2035, up from less than $300 billion in 2024. The report, published April 24, estimates a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 27%.

The $4 trillion of tokenized property is predicted to stem from the benefits of blockchain-based assets, as well as a structural shift across real estate and property ownership.

Global tokenized real estate value, growth predictions. Source: Deloitte

“Real estate itself is undergoing transformation. Post-pandemic work-from-home trends, climate risk, and digitization have reshaped property fundamentals,” according to Chris Yin, co-founder of Plume Network, a blockchain built for real-world assets (RWAs).

“Office buildings are being repurposed into AI data centers, logistics hubs and energy-efficient residential communities,” Yin told Cointelegraph.

United States Senator Cynthia Lummis suggests the crypto industry may be celebrating too soon over the US Federal Reserve softening its crypto guidance for banks.

“The Fed withdrawing crypto guidance is just noise, not real progress,” Lummis said in an April 25 X post. Lummis called the Fed’s April 24 announcement — withdrawing its 2022 supervisory letter that had discouraged banks from engaging with crypto and stablecoin activities — “just lip service.”

Lummis is “not fooled”

Lummis, a pro-crypto advocate known for introducing the Bitcoin (BTC) Strategic Reserve Bill in July 2024, pointed out several flaws in the Fed’s announcement, even as Strategy founder Michael Saylor and crypto entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano suggested it was a step forward for banks and crypto.

Source: Anthony Pompliano

She argued that the Fed continues to “illegally flout the law on master accounts” and still relies on reputational risk in its bank supervision practices. It comes as the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation (FDIC) is working on a rule to stop examiners from considering reputational risk when reviewing a bank’s operations, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

Lummis also highlighted the Fed’s policy statement in Section 9(13), which hasn’t been withdrawn, stating that Bitcoin and digital assets are considered “unsafe and unsound.”

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) in the United States saw over $3 billion in inflows this week, marking the first full week of consecutive inflows in five weeks.

On April 25, the 11 spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs saw $380 million in inflows, bringing the total for the week to around $3.06 billion over five consecutive inflow days, according to Farside data. The last time spot Bitcoin ETFs had a full week of inflow days was the trading week ending March 21.

Strong inflow week turns April into positive month

ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said in an April 24 X post that “ETFs are on a Bitcoin bender.”

“What’s really notable here is just HOW FAST the flows can go from 1st gear to 5th gear,” Balchunas said, forecasting that some of those flows may be due to the “basis trade back in effect.”

Source: Satoshi Stacker

Amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, spot Bitcoin ETFs have experienced a volatile April, with nine out of the 18 trading days so far being outflow days. 

Strike CEO Jack Mallers said his new role as CEO of Bitcoin treasury firm Twenty One Capital won’t distract him from heading Strike, revealing the platform processed over $6 billion in volume in 2024.

“This is not a shift in my commitment; it’s an extension of it,” Mallers said in an April 25 letter to Strike investors.

Every decision based on if it is “good for Bitcoin”

“If Bitcoin wins, humanity wins. Every business decision I make starts with one question: Is this good for Bitcoin? Twenty One exists because I believe it is good for Bitcoin and, therefore, good for the world,” Mallers said.

Mallers explained that Strike, a Bitcoin payments platform, and Twenty One Capital have different goals. He said Strike focuses on making “Bitcoin accessible globally,” while Twenty One aims to increase “Bitcoin ownership per share (BPS) and pioneer Bitcoin-native financial tools.”

“These are separate companies, but they share the same ethos: Bitcoin wins, we win,” he said.

Key points:

Bitcoin price pushed above $95,000, increasing the chance of a rally to $100,000.

Institutional investor demand is back, suggesting that the bearish trend could be over.

Select altcoins could break above their respective overhead resistance levels if Bitcoin remains strong

Bitcoin (BTC) bulls are trying to sustain the price above $95,000, but they are likely to face significant resistance from the bears. Will buyers succeed in pushing the price toward the psychologically important level of $100,000, or is a pullback around the corner? That is the big question on the traders’ minds.

Though the identities of many of the top holders of US President Donald Trump’s memecoin were still unknown, blockchain data showed significant outflows over the past seven days — during which time he announced a dinner and White House tour for certain tokenholders. 

According to data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen as of April 25, the TRUMP memecoin had seen more than $869 million in outflows in the last seven days compared to roughly $96 million in inflows among the top 500 changes. Some of the changes followed Trump announcing that the top 220 TRUMP holders could apply to meet him at a golf club dinner in Washington, DC, with fewer opportunities for a White House tour.

“It’s clear that more people took the opportunity to offload their Trump tokens than new buyers came in,” said Nansen. “There still appears to be some interest — either A) to secure the dinner ticket, or B) to capitalize on price volatility. As a result, a few new wallets have entered the top 250 holders, while some previous holders seem to have taken the opportunity to exit their positions.”

Top TRUMP memecoin holders as of April 25. Source: TRUMP token

Launched in January before Trump took office, his memecoin, and that of his wife, Melania, have seen criticism from US lawmakers and leaders in the crypto industry for potential conflicts of interest. At the time of publication, the identity of many of the top tokenholders and those who might apply to attend the dinner were unknown.

Who is investing in Trump’s memecoin?

As of April 25, the top tokenholder had 1,176,803 TRUMP memecoins worth roughly $16 million at the time of publication. The wallet holder, under the username “Sun,” had led to speculation that Tron founder Justin Sun — a Trump supporter and investor in the Trump family-backed crypto firm World Liberty Financial — could be among the dinner attendees. Cointelegraph reached out to Sun’s team for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Stripe, a global payments platform, is building a new US dollar stablecoin product for companies based outside the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe in a move that may further expand the footprint of the dollar around the world.

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison confirmed the product on X, posting an invitation for companies interested in testing the solution. The move gained traction after Stripe recently received regulatory approval to acquire the stablecoin payments network Bridge.

Bridge's network competes with banks and companies that use the SWIFT system, a global financial messaging network that facilitates international wire transfers. Two former Coinbase executives, Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, co-founded the company in 2022.

Source: Patrick Collison

Related: Former Square, Coinbase execs raise $58M for Bridge stablecoin network

Stablecoin adoption grows in 2025

Stripe has a long-standing history with crypto, becoming the first major payments processor to integrate Bitcoin (BTC) in 2014. However, it discontinued support due to Bitcoin’s long transfer times and high transaction fees. The company began rebuilding its crypto team in 2021 as part of a renewed push into the space.

Stripe has recently accelerated that push. In October 2024, the company introduced a stablecoin payment option, which users adopted in over 70 countries on the first rollout day. In June that year, Stripe partnered with Coinbase to offer fiat-to-crypto conversions. Collison noted on X that Stripe's latest crypto initiative is something the company has "wanted to build for around a decade."

Semler Scientific has bought approximately $10 million worth of Bitcoin since Feb. 14, the healthcare technology company said in an April 25 statement. 

The company purchased 111 Bitcoin (BTC) for $10 million at an average price of roughly $90,000 per coin, Semler said. It holds a total of more than 3,300 Bitcoin worth approximately $300 million in aggregate. 

Semler said its Bitcoin purchases have earned stockholders a Bitcoin yield of 23.5% in the year to date. Bitcoin yield measures the ratio of BTC holdings to outstanding shares, reflecting growing exposure per share for investors.

“Semler Scientific uses BTC Yield as a [key performance indicator] to help assess the performance of its strategy of acquiring bitcoin in a manner Semler Scientific believes is accretive to stockholders,” it said. 

Semler bought 111 BTC since Feb. 14. Source: Eric Semler

The company said it acquired its Bitcoin treasury for an average price of nearly $89,000. As of April 25, Bitcoin trades at approximately $95,000 per coin, according to data from Cointelegraph.