Bitcoin Breakout Lifts AI, Memecoins, Underscores Hedge Value

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin’s censorship-resistant, decentralized setup empowers individuals by facilitating peer-to-peer transactions without government interference or corporate control.

You’ve probably heard that from a Bitcoin maxi many times.

It’s an idea that resonates even more strongly today in light of reports that President Donald Trump is exploring ways to remove Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, which is the world’s most powerful central bank.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett talked about Trump’s intentions Friday and markets responded early Monday by selling the dollar and the U.S. stock futures. The Dollar Index, which tracks the currency’s exchange rate against major fiat currencies, slipped to a three-year low of 98.00 while gold touched new highs above $3,400 per ounce.

Bitcoin rose past $87,000, confirming a bullish breakout from its recent sideways trading between $83,000 and $86,000 to suggest more gains ahead. The uptick saw gaming, AI and memecoins outshine other sectors of the crypto market, with smaller tokens like ENJ and MAGIC chalking out gains in excess of 50% in 24 hours. MANTRA still tanked 15%.

“A weaker dollar could draw renewed attention from American investors, highlighting bitcoin’s potential as a hedge against declining dollar value,” said Matrixport, a crypto financial services platform.

On-chain data warned of heightened volatility as prices potentially near the $90,000 mark. “Cost‑basis clusters show little overhead supply below that range, implying the market could advance quickly before a larger tranche of holders reaches break‑even and begins taking profit,” analytics firm IntoTheBlock said in a Telegram post.

In other news, Charles Shwab CEO Rick Wurster said the financial services firm is “hopeful and likely to be able” to support spot crypto trading within the next year. Wurster said that more and more clients are seeking information about crypto.

Slovenia’s Finance Ministry proposed a 25% tax on capital gains on profits from selling cryptocurrencies for fiat or spending tokens for goods and services. The tax is proposed to go into effect from 2026.

Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, proposed replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with RISC-V, an open-source instruction set architecture used to develop custom processors for a variety of applications. Buterin said the proposal address one of Ethereum’s key scaling bottlenecks by dramatically improving the efficiency and simplicity of smart contract execution.

Speaking of Ethereum, it briefly fell behind its chief rival, Solana network in terms of the total staked value of their respective native tokens, ETH and SOL. Uniswap founder Hayden Adam warned that Ethereum could fall behind Solana if it goes back to relying on the layer 1 bockchain instead of the layer-2 scaling products.

In macro news, China said it will retaliate against countries that work with U.S. to isolate Beijing in the trade war started by Trump. Stay alert!

Governance votes & calls

Unlocks

April 22: Metars Genesis (MRS) to unlock 11.87% of its circulating supply worth $127.9 million.

April 30: Optimism (OP) to unlock 1.89% of its circulating supply worth $22.78 million.

May 1: Sui (SUI) to unlock 2.28% of its circulating supply worth $167.97 million.

May 1: ZetaChain (ZETA) to unlock 5.67% of its circulating supply worth $10.57 million.

May 2: Ethena (ENA) to unlock 0.73% of its circulating supply worth $12.12 million.

Token Launches

April 21: Balance (EPT) to be listed on Bitget Bybit, KuCoin, Gate.io, LBank, MEXC, BingX.

April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.

April 22: BNB to be listed on Kraken.

By Shaurya Malwa

Bitget, a centralized crypto exchange, will reverse trades and compensate users due to “abnormal trading” in its perpetual futures market for VOXEL, a token linked to the Polygon-based RPG game Voxie Tactics.

Early Sunday, VOXEL’s trading volume surged past bitcoin’s 24-hour volume — with the token’s value surging over 300% in a week — despite being only the 723rd-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

An X user claimed six-figure profits from a sub-$100 investment, attributing the surge to a potential bug in Bitget’s market-making robot,. The trade rollback will likely erase these gains.

Bitget’s investigation revealed possible market manipulation by certain accounts, prompting the exchange to activate its risk-control system and plan a trade rollback within 24 hours.

Affected users who incurred losses will receive compensation, and Bitget is continuing its investigation.

The market-wide futures open interest has climbed to $37.22 billion, the highest since March 24, according to Velo Data. The figure represents open interest in all coins listed on Binance, Bybit, OKX, Deribit and Hyperliquid.

ETH is the best performing major token in terms of futures open interest growth, followed by BTC and LINK.

Speaking of OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta, ETH also leads the pack with the highest positive reading, implying an influx of buying pressure in the market.

On Deribit, BTC and ETH risk reversals for short- and near-dated expiries have flattened out, recovering from the recent persistent negative prints that represented bias for protective put options.

BTC is up 3.19% from 4 p.m. ET Sunday at $87,270.44 (24hrs: +3.63%)

ETH is up 2.54% at $1,631.90 (24hrs: +3.17%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 0.8% at 2,268.01 (24hrs: +3.77%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 47 bps at 2.47%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0044% (4.776% annualized) on Binance

DXY is down 1.11% at 98.26

Gold is up 2.04% at $3,395.65/oz

Silver is up 1.12% at $32.89/oz

Nikkei 225 closed -1.3% at 34,279.92

Hang Seng closed +1.61% at 21,395.14

FTSE is closed at 8,275.66

Euro Stoxx 50 is closed at 4,935.34

DJIA closed on Thursday -1.33% at 39,142.23

S&P 500 closed +0.13% at 5,282.70

Nasdaq closed -0.13% at 16,286.45

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.36% at 24,192.81

S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.64% at 2,383.75

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is unchanged at 4.33%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 1.04% at 5,275.00

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 1.16% at 18,168.25

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are down 0.92% at 38,969

BTC Dominance: 64% (0.23%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.1873 (0.54%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 858 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $45.22

Total Fees: 5.48 BTC / $479,045

CME Futures Open Interest: 141,280 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 25.7 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 7.2%

Bitcoin’s breakout has set the stage for a continued move higher to $90,000.

However, trading volume has dipped, suggesting low participation in the price recovery.

A low-volume rally often ends up being short-lived.

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Thursday at $317.20 (1.78%), up 3.13% at $327.12 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $175.03 (1.64%) up 1.4% at $177.49

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.36 (-1.41%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.66 (2.76%), up 2.69% at $13.00

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $6.46 (1.57%), up 2.63% at $6.63

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $6.63 (0.61%), down 0.45% at $6.60

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.51 (3.16%), up 1.86% at $7.65

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.04 (1.09%), up 2.41% at $12.33

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $32.49 (4.79%)

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $36.58 (-1.64%), up 2.1% at $37.35

U.S. equity markets were closed on Friday.

XRP’s short- and near-dated risk reversals continue to be priced negative, a sign of persistent demand for put options, which offer downside protection.

Pope Francis, Voice for the Poor Who Transformed the Catholic Church, Dies at 88 (CNN): The first Latin American pope died weeks after returning to public life following a life-threatening case of pneumonia.

China Vows Retaliation Against Countries That Follow U.S. Calls to Isolate Beijing (CNBC): China said it will respond to U.S. tariff deals that undermine its interests, accusing Washington of “unilateral bullying” and warning it risks returning global trade to “law of the jungle.”

BNB, SOL, XRP Spike Higher as Bitcoin ‘Digital Gold’ Narrative Makes a Comeback (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s correlation with U.S. equities appears to be weakening as its price increasingly tracks gold, which has held firm while stocks decline, according to LVRG Research’s Nick Ruck.

Stablecoin Giant Circle Is Launching a New Payments and Remittance Network (CoinDesk): The fintech firm will unveil a new payments and cross-border remittance product on Tuesday.

Over $380M Worth of Crypto Stolen During Bybit’s $1.4B Hack Has Gone Dark (CoinDesk): The exchange’s CEO said that 27.6% of the funds stolen by the North Korean Lazarus Group “flowed into mixers then through bridges to P2P and OTC platforms.”

Bitcoin’s Breakout Signals BTC Potentially Rallying to $90K-$92K: Technical Analysis (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s price surged past $87,000, breaking out of a week-long consolidation between $83,000 and $86,000. The target range previously served as a strong support zone.