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A crypto investment executive said the biggest problem with digital asset markets is price manipulation, claiming that collusion between market makers and exchanges distorts token prices. 

Arthur Cheong, founder of crypto investment firm DeFiance Capital, said in an X post that market makers and crypto projects work together to create artificial prices that can be sustained for long periods. Cheong wrote: 

“You don’t know whether the price is a result of organic demand & supply or simply due to projects and market makers colluding to fix the price to achieve other objectives.”

He added that if the industry’s players don’t step up and improve the situation, a big part of the crypto market will remain “uninvestable for the foreseeable future.”

Centralized exchanges turning a “blind eye” 

Cheong said it was strange that centralized exchanges (CEXs) are “turning an absolute blind eye” to the issue. He described the altcoin market as a “lemon’s market,” a term in economics that describes a market where low-quality products drive out the good due to information asymmetry.

In addition, Cheong described most token generation event pricing in 2025 as an “absolute joke” where the assets’ prices went down by 70% to 90% a few months after listing. “Anyone that bought is down massively,” Cheong added. 

XRP (XRP) price is up 15% over the past seven days from a low of $1.61. According to several technical analysts, a sustained recovery daily close above $2.20 will signal a strong trend reversal that could put double digits within reach.

XRP/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

XRP price must reclaim $2.20

After the cryptocurrency market experienced a relief rally due to US President Donald Trump’s announcement of tariff exemptions for a range of tech products, traders are optimistic about the possibility of XRP price breaking into double digits.

Analyst DOM said XRP’s recent retest of the support at $1.96 saw it regain a key “value area” above $2.00, established in December 2024. 

“$2.20 is now the only objective here,” the analyst said in an April 13 post on X, adding that a decisive move above this level would lead to a rise toward $2.50.

Only 20 of the 181 Bitcoin service providers registered with El Salvador’s central bank are operational, with the rest failing to meet the country’s requirements under its Bitcoin Law. 

Local media outlet El Mundo cited data from the Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador, showing that 11% of the service providers are operational. According to the central bank’s database, the rest of the providers are classified as non-operational. 

The data showed that at least 22 non-operational providers have failed to meet most of the country’s Bitcoin Law requirements, which mandate that providers implement stringent supervision of their financial systems. 

Most of El Salvador’s Bitcoin service providers are non-operational

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law requires providers to maintain an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program, keep records that accurately reflect the company’s assets, liabilities and equity and have a tailored cybersecurity program depending on the nature of its services. 

The data showed that 89% of the registered providers have failed to meet some of these obligations to be classified as operational. 

Bitcoin is showing growing resilience to macroeconomic headwinds compared with traditional financial markets, according to an April 14 report from crypto market maker Wintermute.

The report noted that Bitcoin (BTC) has held up relatively well during the ongoing market downturn, even as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped to their lowest levels in a year and bond yields surged to highs that had not been seen since 2007.

“Bitcoin’s decline was comparatively modest, revisiting price levels from around the US election period,“ Wintermute wrote.

According to Wintermute, “This marks a notable shift from its historical behavior in crisis situations.” In the past, Bitcoin’s losses were considerably greater than those of traditional finance indexes. The shift highlights Bitcoin’s “apparent growing resilience amid macroeconomic turbulence.“

Founder of Obchakevich Research, Alex Obchakevich, told Cointelegraph that he expects this to be a temporary trend:

Bitcoin (BTC) demands a breakout as a key leading indicator reaches its highest levels since January.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows the relative strength index (RSI) hinting at more BTC price gains next.

Bitcoin RSI breakout has days to “full confirmation”

Bitcoin bull runs traditionally begin with telltale RSI signals, and on daily timeframes, conditions are ripe for a classic BTC price rebound.

As BTC/USD made lower lows over the past month, RSI began trending in the opposite direction, setting higher lows and attempting a type of bullish divergence.

More recently, the daily RSI broke above the 50 midpoint, only to successfully retest it as support from above before making new multimonth highs.

Update April 15, 9:17 am in UTC: This article has been updated with information throughout.

Binance, KuCoin, MEXC and other exchanges and wallet providers have been experiencing service issues due to a significant network interruption by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEXs) were hit by an AWS data center outage, which reported “connectivity issues” that affected at least 12 of its services on April 15.

AWS Service health. Source: Health.aws.amazon

“We are seeing initial signs of recovery but continue to monitor and work toward full recovery. Other AWS services are also impacted by this issue, and are also observing recovery. We will provide another update within the next 30-60 minutes,” AWS said in an April 15 update.

There is a “huge opportunity” for Ethereum to become a decentralized partner in solving current problems with artificial intelligence platforms, according to a former core Ethereum developer. 

Ethereum’s “biggest mainstream moment is waiting in the wings with AI,” said Eric Connor on X on April 15. 

While AI is on a fast track to reshape almost every aspect of our lives, it is “plagued by black-box models, centralized data silos, and privacy pitfalls,” Connor continued. However, these problems create an opportunity for Ethereum to shine, he said.

Ethereum offers transparency through verifiable smart contracts, decentralization against big tech monopolies, aligned incentives via token economies, and built-in micropayment infrastructure, he added. 

Smart contracts can provide transparent records of AI model training processes and data sources, addressing the “black box” problem.

The governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, a small Pacific US territory just north of Guam, has killed the legislation that would have allowed one of the territory’s local governments to launch a fully backed US dollar-pegged stablecoin.

In an April 11 letter seen by Cointelegraph, Northern Mariana Islands Governor Arnold Palacios said he vetoed the bill as it “presents several legal issues and may be unconstitutional.”

Palacios’ letter said the bill, which largely dealt with issuing licenses to internet casinos, would regulate an activity that could not “be clearly restricted” to Tinian, a small island forming part of the territory that was hoping to launch a stablecoin.

Tinian, which has just over 2,000 residents and a largely tourism-based economy, is governed by the local government, the Municipality of Tinian and Aguiguan, one of four municipalities in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

In February, Republican Northern Marianas Senator Jude Hofschneider led the introduction of the bill to amend a local Tinian law to allow internet-only casino licenses, which tacked on a provision allowing the Tinian treasurer to issue, manage and redeem a “Tinian Stable Token.” 

Tech giant Meta has been given the green light from the European Union’s data regulator to train its artificial intelligence models using publicly shared content across its social media platforms.

Posts and comments from adult users across Meta’s stable of platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, along with questions and queries to the company’s AI assistant, will now be used to improve its AI models, Meta said in an April 14 blog post.

The company said it’s “important for our generative AI models to be trained on a variety of data so they can understand the incredible and diverse nuances and complexities that make up European communities.”

Meta has a green light from data regulators in the EU to train its AI models using publicly shared content on social media. Source: Meta

“That means everything from dialects and colloquialisms, to hyper-local knowledge and the distinct ways different countries use humor and sarcasm on our products,” it added.

The US is exploring many ways to increase its Bitcoin reserve without taxpayer dollars, including through tariff revenue and revaluing the government’s gold certificates, according to the executive director of the Trump administration’s crypto council.

“We're looking at many creative ways, whether it be from tariffs, there’s literally countless ways in which you can do this,” Bo Hines of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets said in a recent interview with Professional Capital Management CEO Anthony Pompliano.

Hines said the Treasury could revalue its gold certificates, valued at $43 per ounce, to the current market price of $3,200 per ounce, creating a paper surplus to fund Bitcoin purchases without selling gold.

“Everything is on the table, and like we've said, we want as much as we can get, so we’re going to make sure that no stone is unturned,” Hines said in the interview, which aired on April 14.

🇺🇸 LATEST: Executive Director of Digital Assets Bo Hines said the US government may buy Bitcoin using tariff revenue. pic.twitter.com/Gfc2HiEJoL

The chief executive of non-fungible token platform Emblem Vault is warning X users to be wary of the video meeting app Zoom after a nefarious threat actor known as “ELUSIVE COMET” recently stole over $100,000 of his personal assets. 

On April 11, Emblem Vault CEO, podcaster and NFT collector Jake Gallen said on X that he had been battling a “complete computer compromise” that ended up with a loss of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) assets from different wallets. “Unfortunately, this led to $100k+ in purchased digital assets being lost,” he said. 

Days later, Gallen said he had been working with cybersecurity firm The Security Alliance (SEAL) to track an ongoing campaign against crypto users by a threat actor identified as “ELUSIVE COMET.”

Gallen said the scam was facilitated over the video conference platform Zoom, which resulted in his crypto wallet being drained. 

“We were able to retrieve a malware file that was installed on my computer during a Zoom call with a YouTube personality of over 90k subs,” said Gallen on April 14. 

Gibraltar-based Xapo Bank, a private bank and Bitcoin custodian, reported a surge in Bitcoin trading volumes in the first quarter as its high-net-worth members scooped up Bitcoin amid market turbulence. 

Xapo Bank said that Q1 trading volume grew 14.2% compared to Q4 2024, as the Bitcoin (BTC) price drop helped drive trading volume growth on its platform. It said that during the decline, its high net-worth members “actively bought the dip,” reflecting these members’ “commitment to the long-term potential of Bitcoin.”

In the first quarter of 2025, Bitcoin had its worst start to a year since 2018, closing the quarter down 13%. 

The crypto-friendly bank became the first licensed bank to launch interest-bearing Bitcoin and fiat banking accounts in the UK in 2025 and launched Bitcoin-backed USD loans of up to $1 million in March 2025.

Xapo Bank’s self-selected poll on X showed respondents favored using Bitcoin for savings and investment. Source: Xapo Bank

The amount of Bitcoin held on the books of publicly traded companies rose by 16.1% in the first quarter of 2025, according to crypto fund issuer Bitwise.

Total company Bitcoin (BTC) holdings rose to around 688,000 BTC by the end of Q1, with firms adding 95,431 BTC over the quarter, Bitwise reported in an April 14 X post.

The value of the combined Bitcoin stacks rose around 2.2%, reaching a total combined value of $56.7 billion with a price per BTC of $82,445, the firm added.

Source: Bitwise

Bitwise noted that the number of public companies holding Bitcoin rose to 79, with 12 firms buying the cryptocurrency for the first time in Q1.

Decentralized exchange KiloEX has confirmed it has suspended usage of its platform and is tracing stolen funds after suffering a $7.5 million exploit. 

The exploit has been contained, with use of the platform suspended and an investigation underway, the KiloEX team said in an April 14 statement to X.

“The team has immediately suspended platform usage and is working with security partners to trace the flow of funds,” KiloEX said. 

“We are analyzing the attack vector and affected assets. We are collaborating with ecosystem partners to trace and recover funds where possible.” 

Source: KiloEX

Stablecoin issuer Tether has announced it intends to deploy its existing and future Bitcoin hashrate to Ocean’s Bitcoin mining pool in an effort to strengthen the network’s decentralization.

“Deploying hashrate to OCEAN aligns with both our mining investments and our broader mission to fortify Bitcoin against centralizing forces,” Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino said in an April 15 statement.

Source: OCEAN Mining

While Bitcoin hashrate is decentralized, the block-building process conducted by mining pools is mostly centralized by a few dominant actors — most notably Foundry USA, AntPool and ViaBTC.

The Ocean protocol attempts to decentralize this process by empowering miners to build their own block templates using their open-source Datum protocol, reducing dependency on centralized intermediaries and enhancing censorship resistance, Tether said.

US President Donald Trump hosted El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14, with talks centered on trade and immigration, excluding Bitcoin from the public agenda.

Pressing issues of migration and bilateral security cooperation set the tone of Bukele's first official meeting at the White House during Trump's second term. 

According to a livestream shared by Bukele’s office on X, Trump raised the possibility of transferring US citizens convicted of crimes to prisons in El Salvador, urging Bukele to expand the country’s prison system to house more prisoners. “I said homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places.” 

Source: Nayib Bukele

Since taking office, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of alleged foreign criminal individuals to El Salvador under a $6 million deal between the countries.

Escalating trade wars are rattling cryptocurrency markets — but they are also creating new use cases for blockchain networks, Truebit executives told Cointelegraph. 

On April 2, President Donald Trump announced plans to charge sweeping tariffs on US imports, prompting other nations to threaten retaliatory measures. Trump later paused the tariff rollout for certain countries — but the possibility of a global trade war still looms, especially after Trump reiterated his commitment to taxing Chinese goods.

If high tariffs materialize, blockchain technology can play an important role in ensuring governments apply them fairly, according to the executives. Blockchain can “really help you prove provenance [...] proving the chain of custody,” Federico Kattan, Truebit’s chief technology officer, told Cointelegraph. 

Trump’s proposed tariffs would transform global trade. Source: Statista

For example, a company might “assemble or do some packaging in a low-tariff country and then import into the US at 10% instead of 58%... [but] blockchain can help establish where the product actually came from,” Kattan said.

South Korea is expanding a ban on digital asset firms’ applications servicing its citizens. On April 11, the country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced that 14 crypto exchanges were blocked on the Apple store. Among the affected exchanges are KuCoin and MEXC.

The report, which was made public on April 14, says the banned exchanges were allegedly operating as unregistered overseas virtual asset operators. The report also states that the Financial Information Analysis Institution (FIU) will continue to promote the blocking of the apps and internet sites of such operators to prevent money laundering and user damage.

The request to block applications on the Apple Store comes after Google Play blocked access to several unregistered exchanges on March 26. KuCoin and MEXC were also targeted during the blocking of the Google Play apps. The FSC published a list of 22 unregistered platforms operating in the country, with 17 of them already blocked on Google's marketplace.

The 17 crypto exchanges blocked on Google Play. Source: FSC

According to the FSC report, users will not be able to download the apps on the Apple Store, while existing users will not be able to update the apps. The FSC notes that “unreported business activities are criminal punishment matters” with penalties of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 50 million won ($35,200).

Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed the $84,500 level on April 14, and the recovery appears partially fueled by the announcement of partial import tariff relief by US President Donald Trump. However, traders’ optimism faded on April 13 when it became apparent that the relaxation was temporary and that tariffs on the electronics supply chain could be revisited.

Uncertainty surrounding the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China impacted Bitcoin markets, causing traders to lose some of their regained confidence. This explains why Bitcoin’s price failed to break above $86,000 and why BTC derivatives showed limited short-term potential, potentially setting the tone for the next few days.

Bitcoin 2-month futures annualized premium. Source: Laevitas.ch

The premium on Bitcoin monthly futures contracts peaked at 6.5% on April 11 but has since dropped to 5%, which is near a neutral to bearish threshold. Sellers typically require a 5% to 10% annualized premium for longer settlement periods, so anything below this range indicates reduced interest from leveraged buyers.

Bitcoin sentiment dims as stock market ties dent bullish momentum

Traders’ brief excitement can be linked to President Trump’s April 13 announcement that tariffs on imported semiconductors would be reviewed during the week. This suggests that exemptions for smartphones and computers are not final, according to Yahoo Finance. Trump reportedly said: “We want to make our chips and semiconductors and other things in our country.”

Update (April 14 at 9:12 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a comment from the Ontario Securities Commission.

Spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are set to launch in Canada on April 16, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas. 

In an X post on April 14, the analyst shared a private client note from TD Bank, a Canadian financial institution, claiming the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) greenlighted asset managers Purpose, Evolve, CI and 3iQ to issue ETFs holding Solana (SOL).

Canada does not have a federal securities agency, with its territories and provinces applying their own securities laws. Toronto’s securities exchange is regulated by Ontario’s OSC.

The ETFs are permitted to stake a portion of the SOL holdings for added yield, Balchunas said, adding that the upcoming listings are “our first look at the alt coin race.”