Market Insights: Apr 2025 | Week4
Wavebridge Research/
Bitcoin Spot ETFs See Strong Inflows and Institutional Accumulation
U.S. bitcoin spot ETFs saw net inflows of more than $3 billion in the past week, according to U.K.-based investment intelligence firm Farside Investor, with a particularly strong inflow into the ETFs on Friday, with $380 million coming in over the course of the day. At the same time, Coinbase saw a large Bitcoin withdrawal of more than 7,000 BTC, valued at nearly $500 million, indicating institutional investors' long-term holding intentions. John D'Agostino, Head of Institutional Strategy at Coinbase, said that during the month of April, large sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors have been buying Bitcoin in bulk, while retail investors have been selling Bitcoin through ETFs and the spot market. The total amount of bitcoins available for sale on the market is currently at 3.397 million, the lowest since October 2020, and Japan's Metaplanet has reached half of its annual goal of acquiring 10,000 BTC with its latest purchase, bringing its total holdings to more than 5,000 BTC. Bitcoin's market share reached a new cycle high of 64.34%, its highest level in more than 1,520 days and nearly three years. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin network's hashrate has decreased by approximately 52 EH/s since reaching an all-time high of 926 EH/s on April 17, while the difficulty has increased by 1.42% to reach 123.23 trillion, with block generation times averaging 10 minutes and 57 seconds.
SEC Approves ProShares XRP ETFs and Bitwise Files for NEAR ETF
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially approved the launch of ProShares' XRP ETFs, confirming April 30, 2025 as the launch date. The approval covers multiple ETF products focused on XRP, including ProShares Ultra-Short XRP ETF, Ultra XRP ETF, and Short XRP ETF, and signals the expansion of the XRP-related ETF market in the US. Meanwhile, Bitwise has also filed the first NEAR-based ETF application in the U.S., accelerating the launch of other digital asset ETF products including Dogecoin and Aptos. On May 7, Ethereum will roll out its largest-ever Pactra upgrade to the mainnet, which will significantly improve network performance and user-friendliness, including account structure changes, increased validator rewards, and support for L2 scaling. RLUSD has partnered with Aave, the world's largest liquidity protocol, to allow users to supply and borrow RLUSD on Aave's V3 Ethereum Core Market, with a lending pool limit of $50 million and a borrowing limit of $5 million. In Brazil, the world's first XRP-based ETF, XRPH11, issued by Hashdex, was listed and began trading on the B3 Stock Exchange. In other news, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson criticized the Ethereum blockchain, saying it will become obsolete in the next 10-15 years, and the stablecoin market is also seeing changes, with the largest ever burn of 12 million XRP stablecoin RLUSD. Tether's market capitalization reached an all-time high of $145.6 billion as of April 2025, and CME Group announced the launch of XRP futures next month. Major blockchain projects are simultaneously innovating and expanding their markets, with Canada's SOL Strategies issuing $500 million in convertible bonds to expand its investment in the Solana network, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposing fundamental changes to the execution system.
Coinbase Challenges State Staking Lawsuits as Crypto Regulation Evolves
Coinbase has called on five states-California, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, and Wisconsin-to drop their lawsuits over its staking program in the U.S., saying the lawsuits are still pending. Noting that these lawsuits have prevented users from accessing their staking rewards, resulting in losses of more than $90 million since June 2023, Coinbase's general counsel argued that unlike the move to clarify regulations at the federal level, state-by-state litigation limits consumer choice and creates uncertainty in the industry. Meanwhile, new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins, who will have to review more than 70 ETF applications involving cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin, Penguin, Solana, Ripple, and Melania meme coins shortly after taking office, emphasized the need for an overhaul of cryptocurrency regulation and a clear regulatory framework. In the U.S. House of Representatives, Representative Nydia Velazquez introduced the Puerto Rico Digital Assets Fair Taxation Act, which would impose federal taxes on crypto income if passed, in an effort to prevent Puerto Rico from being used as a tax haven for crypto investors. Meanwhile, US asset manager Canary Capital registered a statutory trust in Delaware to launch a Staking SEI exchange-traded fund (ETF), combining traditional finance with crypto staking. The real estate tokenization market is also booming, and is expected to reach $4 trillion by 2035, according to Deloitte. Tensions with regulators continue to be high, with crypto firm Unicoin rejecting a settlement offer from the SEC, and the SEC delaying a decision on Grayscale's application to list its polkadot spot ETF. Meanwhile, Galaxy Digital said the U.S. government is likely to add more bitcoin to its strategic reserve this year, and Coinbase said it is actively considering entering the U.S. banking industry but has not yet made a formal decision.
El Salvador Halts Public Bitcoin Purchases Amid IMF Deal; Stripe and OKX
El Salvador has halted all purchases of bitcoin using public sector funds to meet the terms of its loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the IMF's Western Hemisphere director said the government has stopped buying more bitcoin and is in compliance with the terms of the loan. However, President Bukele has continued to purchase one Bitcoin per day using other sources, such as strategic Bitcoin reserve profits and private funds, rather than public funds, and recently added 8 BTC in the past week, bringing his total holdings to 6,159 BTC. Meanwhile, payment platform Stripe is working on its own stablecoin and will begin testing soon, while OKX plans to launch a new payment wallet focused on stablecoin payments, Pay Wallet, next week. U.S. medical technology company Samler Scientific recently purchased an additional $10 million worth of Bitcoin, bringing its total holdings to 3,303 BTC, while Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms signed a $100 million loan agreement with a subsidiary of Coinbase to secure a term loan with multiple drawdowns secured by its Bitcoin holdings. In addition, the first 100 days of Trump's presidency have already seen $8.2 billion in crypto M&A, more than tripling all of last year's deals, and on pace to break 2021's record of $17 billion.