Bitcoin (BTC) is entering what former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes calls “up only mode,” as a deepening crisis in the US bond market potentially drives investors away from traditional haven assets and toward alternative stores of value.

Loss of confidence in US policy boosts Bitcoin’s upside prospects

On April 11, the benchmark US 10-year Treasury yield surged above 4.59%—its highest level in two months.

US 10-year Treasury note yields daily performance chart. Source: TradingView

The $29 trillion US Treasury market has dropped more than 2% this week — its steepest decline since September 2019, when a liquidity crunch in the repo market forced the Federal Reserve to intervene.

US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff announcements and reversals have fueled the chaos. After threatening sweeping levies on global trading partners, Trump walked back many of the measures within days for certain countries, except China.

Betting against Ether has been the best performing exchange traded fund (ETF) strategy so far in 2025, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas.

Two ETFs designed to take two-times leveraged short positions in Ether claimed (ETH) first and second place in a Bloomberg Intelligence ranking of the year’s top-performing funds, Balchunas said in a post on the X platform.  

In the year-to-date, ProShares UltraShort Ether ETF (ETHD) and T Rex 2X Inverse Ether Daily Target ETF (ETQ) are up approximately 247% and 219%, respectively, Bloomberg Intelligence data showed. 

The implications for Ether are “brutal,” Balchunas said. Ether itself is down approximately 54% year-to-date on April 11, according to Cointelegraph’s market data.

Both ETFs use financial derivatives to inversely track Ether’s performance with twice as much volatility as the underlying cryptocurrency. Leveraged ETFs do not always perfectly track their underlying assets. 

Neel Kashkari, President of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, addressed the issue of rising Treasury yields on April 11, suggesting that they might indicate a shift in investor sentiment away from United States government debt. Kashkari highlighted that the Federal Reserve has tools to provide more liquidity if necessary.

While underscoring the importance of maintaining a strong commitment to reducing inflation, Kashkari’s remarks signal a possible turning point for Bitcoin (BTC) investors amid growing economic uncertainty. 

US Treasury 10-year yields. Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph

The current 10-year US government bond yield of 4.5% is not unusual. Even if it approaches 5%, a level last seen in October 2023, this does not necessarily mean investors have lost confidence in the Treasury's ability to meet its debt obligations. For example, gold prices only surpassed $2,000 in late November 2023, after yields had already decreased to 4.5%.

Will the Fed inject liquidity, and is this positive for Bitcoin?

Rising Treasury yields often signal concerns about inflation or economic uncertainty. This is crucial for Bitcoin traders because higher yields tend to make fixed-income investments more appealing. However, if these rising yields are perceived as a sign of deeper systemic issues—such as waning confidence in government fiscal policies—investors may turn to alternative hedges like Bitcoin.

A key Bitcoin (BTC) metric signaled a potential shift in its positioning after BTC’s long-term holder realized cap (LTH Realized Cap) surpassed $18 billion for the first time since September 2024. Data from CryptoQuant indicated that this cohort has exhibited aggressive accumulation, which previously marked the BTC bottom in Q3 2024. 

The LTH realized cap measures the BTC cost basis of investors, holding their allocation for 155 days or more. A sharp increase hints that these long-term holders are in an accumulation phase, parallel with bullish behavior. 

Bitcoin LTH net position realized cap. Source: CryptoQuant

As illustrated in the chart, a spike in this metric has preceded bullish rallies in the past. Most recently, the LTH realized cap reached $18 billion on Sept. 8, 2024, after which Bitcoin registered 100% returns over the next few months. 

Another key confluence that matches the current bottom setup with September 2024 is the significant drop in open interest. BTC’s OI reached an all-time high of $39 billion in July but dropped by 25% by September. Similarly, Bitcoin’s open interest dropped 28% between Dec. 18 and April 8,

Trump kills DeFi broker rule in major crypto win: Finance Redefined, April 4–11

In a significant win for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, US President Donald Trump overturned the Internal Revenue Service’s DeFi broker rule, which would have expanded existing reporting requirements to include DeFi platforms.

Increasing US crypto regulatory clarity will attract more tech giants to the space, requiring existing crypto projects to focus on more collaborative tokenomics to survive, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.

Trump signs resolution killing IRS DeFi broker rule

Trump signed a joint congressional resolution overturning a Biden administration-era rule that would have required DeFi protocols to report transactions to the Internal Revenue Service.

Set to take effect in 2027, the IRS DeFi broker rule would have expanded the tax authority’s existing reporting requirements to include DeFi platforms, requiring them to disclose gross proceeds from crypto sales, including information regarding taxpayers involved in the transactions.

Trump formally killed the measure by signing off on the resolution on April 10, marking the first time a crypto bill has been signed into US law, Representative Mike Carey, who backed the bill, said in a statement.

Bitcoin (BTC) price has rebounded by over 11% from the April. 7 low of $74,400, and analysts believe that onchain and technical indicators point to a sustained recovery.

According to popular analyst AlphaBTC, Bitcoin will see a sustained recovery if it holds above $81,500.

Bitcoin price reclaimed the $80,000 psychological level after retesting the “weekly open and filling in some of the inefficiency left by the Trump 90-day pause pump,” the analyst said in an April 10 post.

“I really want to see it back above 81.5k soon, and we may see a bit more sustained upside as shorts get squeezed.”

BTC/USD four-hour chart. Source: AlphaBTC

Similar sentiments were shared by fellow analyst Rekt Capital, who said that Bitcoin needs to produce a weekly close above $80,500 to increase the chances of recovery.

Regulators in Pakistan have proposed a regulatory framework for digital assets that is compliance-focused, in accordance with rules laid out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the supranational organization that polices finance for money laundering, The Express Tribune reported.

According to the report, Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) introduced the regulatory framework to address terrorism financing, money laundering provisions, and Know Your Customer (KYC) controls enforced by the supranational organization. The report cited FIA Director Sumera Azam as saying:

"This is a paradigm shift in how Pakistan views digital finance. The policy proposal seeks to strike a historic balance between technological advancement and national security imperatives.”

The proposed framework is subject to legislative approval and input from digital asset firms operating in the country, with an expected multi-phased rollout beginning in 2026.

Regulators in Pakistan recently spearheaded a regulatory pivot embracing cryptocurrencies after being explicitly anti-crypto for years. The government's anti-crypto stance hit a crescendo in 2023 when Pakistani officials called for a country-wide ban on digital assets.

Appointments to the Pakistan Crypto Council. Source: Bilal Bin-Saqib. Source: Bilal Bin-Saqib

The S&P 500 Index briefly experienced Bitcoin-level volatility in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcement, underscoring the panic and fear gripping traditional markets amid the ongoing trade war. 

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas alerted his followers on X that the S&P 500’s volatility, as measured by the “SPY US Equity Hist Vol” chart, reached 74 in early April, exceeding Bitcoin’s (BTC) 71 level. 

Source: Eric Balchunas

The increase marks a significant deviation from the S&P 500’s long-term volatility average, which is below 20. 

For Bitcoin though, extreme volatility has been a feature since the asset’s inception. 

Bitcoin (BTC) is showing strength as buyers have pushed the price above $82,500, but higher levels are likely to attract solid selling from the bears. CryptoQuant analysts said in a recent market report that Bitcoin could face resistance around $84,000, but if the level is surpassed, the next stop may be $96,000.

Although trade tensions between the United States and China have flared up, institutional crypto investment firm Bitwise remains bullish on Bitcoin. Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan said in a post on X that the firm’s previously predicted year-end target of $200,000 for Bitcoin remains in play.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

However, market participants remain cautious in the near term. The US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds continued to witness outflows on April 9 and April 10, according to Farside Investors data. 

Could Bitcoin break and sustain above the overhead resistance? Will altcoins follow Bitcoin higher? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin (BTC) sought higher levels around the April 11 Wall Street open as the week’s final US inflation data gave bulls hope.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Analyst: PPI undershoot “great” for US trade war

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching highs of $83,245 as US Producer Price Index (PPI) data came in below expectations.

The Index came in at 2.7% versus the anticipated 3.3%, while the core PPI print also surprised to the downside.

An official news release from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) added:

Opinion by: Billy Campana, contract developer, Api3 

Speculation is a cornerstone of price discovery for traditional finance institutions like hedge funds and major banks and plays an essential role in their day-to-day operations. It is the mechanism by which they can establish reliable valuations for everything, ranging from simple stocks and bonds to complex derivatives and structured products. 

While decentralized finance (DeFi) is often criticized for its speculative “casino” nature, this is, in reality, one of its strengths: making practices like arbitrage more accessible to everyone and empowering individuals to participate in opportunities once out of reach

DeFi’s volatility

Critics have highlighted DeFi’s extreme volatility, a concern exemplified by Ether’s (ETH) recent 15% price drop that triggered over $100 million in long position liquidations. These dramatic market movements continually test market resilience and investor confidence in the ecosystem. 

The accusations that DeFi platforms function essentially as gambling venues persist throughout the industry. Such criticisms have gained further traction following several high-profile memecoin crashes that collectively erased over $46 billion in market value, revealing the systemic vulnerabilities that speculative activities can introduce to the broader ecosystem.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined an extensive plan to enhance the privacy of the network he helped create.

In an April 11 roadmap, Buterin argued for incorporating privacy tools into Ether (ETH) wallets and implementing privacy-enhancing norms and features in the Ethereum ecosystem and protocol. He explained that the roadmap in question is a short-term solution that requires limited changes to the base protocol along with supplemental long-term updates.

Buterin recommends adopting privacy-enhancing systems such as Railgun or Privacy Pools by existing wallets, according to the plan. When funds are sent with those wallets, he argues that users should be greeted by an option to “send from shielded balance,” which anonymizes the transaction, and should be “ideally turned on by default.” He wrote:

“Users should NOT have to download a separate ‘privacy wallet.’“

Related: Privacy Pools launch on Ethereum, with Vitalik demoing the feature

Major changes recommended for DeFi

Buterin further recommended profound changes in how decentralized finance (DeFi) and broader decentralized applications (DApp) are implemented. He argued that those systems should be limited to “one address per application.”

The year 2025 kicked off with a bang and a meme. Just weeks into the New Year, a frenzy of politically fueled memecoins sent Crypto Twitter into overdrive, while lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic turned up the heat on stablecoins, securities laws and tokenized assets, usually with different approaches.

It was a whirlwind first quarter, shaped by Bitcoin’s dominance in the crypto market and a US political climate that put digital assets back in the spotlight. Q1 delivered no shortage of storylines.

Who better to break it all down than the journalists tracking it in real time? In the latest episode of Decentralize with Cointelegraph, editorial team members sit down for an unfiltered newsroom roundtable.

Savannah Fortis, head of podcasts and EU reporter, is joined by Gareth Jenkinson, chief of multimedia; Zoltan Vardai, breaking news reporter on the EU news team; and Vince Quill, US news reporter, to reflect on Q1’s biggest stories and what they signal for the months ahead.

Memecoins, power and perception

As memecoins surged in early 2025, questions regarding their legitimacy and political entanglement intensified. For Cointelegraph’s editorial team, the frenzy wasn’t just a market quirk, it revealed deep tensions among innovation, opportunism and influence.

United States President Donald Trump’s official memecoin is set to unlock $321 million worth of vested tokens on April 18.

Token vesting tracker Tokenomist data shows that 40 million Trump tokens will be released in a cliff unlock, meaning the tokens will be available all at once. With the tokens currently trading at about $8, the unlock represents about $321 million in supply entering the market at once.

Token vesting is a common practice in the crypto space to incentivize long-term holding and prevent early investors or team members from dumping tokens during the start of the project. Instead, projects impose a vesting period that allows individuals or entities to gradually get access to the tokens. 

Trump memecoin down 89% since its peak

While the token’s creators reportedly profited by more than $350 million, retail investors have not fared as well. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that at least 813,000 wallets suffered losses totaling roughly $2 billion following the memecoin’s rapid rise and fall.

Trump’s official token has seen a sharp decrease in value since its peak. On Jan. 19, the token reached an all-time high (ATH) of $73.43. This happened a day before the then-incoming US president was inaugurated. The hype surrounding the token has died down since. Its current value of $8 represents an 89% drop since its ATH. 

Sidechain developer StarkWare and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers claim to have created a workaround for multiple Bitcoin script limitations.

According to a recent research paper, the new design claims to allow the deployment of complex smart contracts on Bitcoin in a more capital-efficient manner. The new system may also be vastly more efficient from a computing standpoint.

ColliderVM is a protocol designed to enable stateful computation on Bitcoin, allowing multi-step processes to be securely executed over multiple transactions. Traditionally, Bitcoin script output is not accessible to other scripts, making complex calculations nearly impossible.

The researchers argue that ColliderVM could allow the use of Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge (STARKs) — a type of zero-knowledge proof — on Bitcoin without requiring consensus-level changes to the network. The architecture would let Bitcoin verify complex offchain computations with minimal onchain data.

ColliderVM targets Bitcoin limitations

Each Bitcoin block can contain up to 4 million OPCodes (commands) across all transactions, and a single Bitcoin script can contain up to 1,000 stack elements (data entries). Furthermore, stateless execution means that each script executes without memory of previous state or intermediate computations from earlier transactions, making complex computations impractical.

A New York lawmaker has introduced legislation that would allow state agencies to accept cryptocurrency payments, signaling growing political momentum for digital asset integration in public services.

Assembly Bill A7788, introduced by Assemblyman Clyde Vanel, seeks to amend state financial law to allow New York state agencies to accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment.

It would permit state agencies to accept payments in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), according to the bill’s text.

Source: Nysenate.gov

According to the bill, state offices could authorize crypto payments for “fines, civil penalties, rent, rates, taxes, fees, charges, revenue, financial obligations or other amounts,” as well as penalties, special assessments and interest.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $11.6 trillion in assets under management, reported $84 billion in total net inflows in the first quarter of 2025, marking a 3% annualized growth in assets under management.

The firm’s strong performance was led by a record first quarter for iShares exchange-traded funds (ETFs) alongside continued strength in private markets and net inflows, according to BlackRock’s Q1 earnings released on April 11.

Of the $107 billion in net inflows to iShares ETFs, $3 billion, or 2.8% of the total ETF inflows, was directed to digital asset products in Q1, BlackRock said.

BlackRock’s net flow data in Q1 2025 (in billions of US dollars). Source: BlackRock

Alternative investments also played a significant role in Q1, with private market inflows totaling $9.3 billion.

An elderly crypto whale known as “HEX 19” lost nearly $4.5 million in a slow-moving hack that drained his staked HEX (HEX) over multiple years. 

At first, it looked like a HEX whale was cashing out. But it wasn’t long before the community realized he didn’t voluntarily unstake his tokens — he had become a victim of a major exploit.

The cyberattack started in November 2021, touched multiple phishing wallets, and was traced back to an online entity known as “Konpyl,” a threat actor familiar to crypto investigators.

The breach not only shook the token’s price but also exposed a web of fraudulent operations tied to Inferno Drainer and the $1.6-million fake Rabby wallet scam of February 2024.

HEX token price sinks following the HEX19 hack. Source: CoinGecko

A member of Sweden’s parliament proposed adding Bitcoin to the country’s foreign exchange reserves, suggesting increased openness to cryptocurrency adoption in Europe following recent moves by the United States.

Swedish MP Rickard Nordin issued an open letter urging Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson to consider adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as a national reserve asset.

“Sweden has a tradition of a conservative and carefully managed foreign exchange reserve, mainly consisting of foreign currencies and gold,” Nordin wrote in a letter registered on April 8, adding:

“At the same time, there is a rapid development in digital assets, and several international players regard bitcoin as a custodian and a hedge against inflation. In many parts of the world, bitcoin is used as a means of payment and as security against rising inflation.”

“It is also an important way for freedom fighters to handle payments when under the oppression of authoritarian regimes,” he added.

Open letter from MP Rickard Nordin. Source: Riksdagen.se

Key takeaways

Bear raids involve deliberate efforts by whales to drive down crypto prices using short-selling, FUD and large-scale sell-offs to trigger panic and profit from the dip.

These raids create volatility, trigger liquidations and damage retail confidence. However, they can also expose weak or fraudulent projects.

Signs include sudden price drops, high trading volume, absence of news and quick recoveries, indicating price manipulation rather than natural market trends.

Traders can guard against bear raids by using stop-loss orders, diversifying portfolios, monitoring whale activity and trading on reputable, regulated platforms.

Not all market moves are organic in the dynamic world of crypto trading; some are engineered to make quick profits. One such tactic is the bear raid, often driven by powerful market players known as whales.