Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Dominance Nears 4-Year High as BTC Defies Global Jitters

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

BTC$86 181,56 continues to defy global economic uncertainty, inching closer to reclaiming $86,000. It is now less than 3% away from its "Liberation Day" high. To put the move into perspective, bitcoin dominance — which measures BTC’s share of the total cryptocurrency market cap — is approaching 64%, a level not seen since January 2021.

In contrast, the Nasdaq 100 is still 5% away from its own Liberation Day high, underscoring bitcoin's relative strength versus U.S. equities.

According to X account Cheddar Flow, the S&P 500 has just formed a "death cross" — a traditionally bearish signal that occurs when the 50-day moving average falls below the 200-day moving average. The last time this happened was March 15, 2022, when S&P 500 initially rose by 11% in the following week, only to be followed by a 20% decline. Bearish sentiment is also reflected in the options market, where investors are reportedly buying large volumes of NVDA puts, signaling expectations of lower prices.

In a Bloomberg interview on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirmed confidence in the U.S. bond market, dismissing concerns that foreign nations are dumping Treasuries.

"I am not seeing a dumping of U.S. Treasuries," Bessent said. "The Treasury has lots of tools, but we're a long way from needing them." He also emphasized the enduring status of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, despite the DXY index — which measures the dollar's value against a basket of major trading partners — falling below 100 and dropping over 10% in recent weeks.

Bessent also confirmed that the Trump administration is seeking a new Federal Reserve Chair to replace Jerome Powell, with interviews set to begin later in the year. He concluded the interview by suggesting that the VIX (S&P 500 volatility index) may have peaked after the largest one-day percentage drop in its history last week. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto:
  • April 15: The first SDEX$0.002500 halving means the SDEX token's distribution will be cut by 50% for the next 12 months.
  • April 16: HashKey Chain (HSK) mainnet upgrade enhances network stability and fee control capabilities.
  • April 17: EigenLayer (EIGEN) activates slashing on Ethereum mainnet, enforcing penalties for operator misconduct.
  • April 18: Pepecoin (PEP), a layer-1, proof-of-work blockchain, undergoes its second halving, reducing block rewards to 15,625 PEP per block.
  • April 20, 11 p.m.: BNB Chain (BNB) — opBNB mainnet hardfork.
  • April 21: Coinbase Derivatives will list XRP futures pending approval by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
• Macro
  • April 15, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases March consumer price inflation data.
    • Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.7%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.7%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.6% vs. Prev. 1.1%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.6%
  • April 16, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases March retail sales data.
    • Retail Sales MoM Est. 1.4% vs. Prev. 0.2%
    • Retail Sales YoY Prev. 3.1%
  • April 16, 9:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada releases its latest interest rate decision, followed by a press conference 45 minutes later.
    • Policy Interest Rate Est. 2.75% vs. Prev. 2.75%
  • April 16, 1:30 p.m.: Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will deliver an “Economic Outlook” speech. Livestream link.
  • April 17, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Census Bureau releases March new residential construction data.
    • Housing Starts Est. 1.42M vs. Prev. 1.501M
    • Housing Starts MoM Prev. 11.2%
  • April 17, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended April 12.
    • Initial Jobless Claims Est. 226K vs. Prev. 223K
  • April 17, 7:30 p.m.: Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications releases March consumer price index (CPI) data.
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.2% vs. Prev. 3%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Prev. -0.1%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.7%
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • April 22: Tesla (TSLA), post-market
  • April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Venus DAO is discussing the forced liquidation of the remaining debt owed by a BNB bridge exploiter account that “supplied extraneously minted BNB to Venus and generated an over-collateralized debt position.”
  • Aave DAO is discussing taking further steps to deprecate Synthetix's sUSD on Aave V3 Optimism over technical developments that have “compromised its ability to consistently maintain its peg.”
  • GMX DAO is discussing the establishment of a GMX reserve on Solana, which would involve bridging $500,000 in GMX to the blockchain and transfering the funds to the GMX-Solana Treasury.
  • Treasure DAO is discussing handing the core contributor team the authority to wind down and close Treasure Chain infrastructure on ZKsync and manage the primary MAGIC-ETH protocol-owned liquidity pool given the “crucial financial situation” of the protocol.
  • April 15, 10 a.m.: Injective to hold an X Spaces session with Guardian.
  • April 16, 7 a.m.: Aergo to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on the future of decentralized artificial intelligence and the project.
  • April 16, 3 p.m.: Zcash to host a Town Hall on LockBox Distribution & Governance.
• Unlocks
  • April 15: SEI$0.1268 to unlock 1.09% of its circulating supply worth $10.08 million.
  • April 16: ARB$0.1960 to unlock 2.01% of its circulating supply worth $27.17 million.
  • April 18: TRUMP$5,7353 to unlock 20.25% of its circulating supply worth $325.97 million.
  • April 18: FTN$0.8076 to unlock 4.65% of its circulating supply worth $82.60 million.
  • April 18: UXLINK$0.02052 to unlock 11.09% of its circulating supply worth $18.29 million.
  • April 18: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.37% of its circulating supply worth $10.07 million.
• Token Launches
  • April 15: WalletConnect Token (WCT) to be listed on Binance, Bitget, AscendEX, BingX, BYDFi, LBank, Coinlist and others.
  • April 16: Badger (BADGER), Balacner (BAL), Beta Finance (BETA), CTXC$0.01686, Cream Finance (CREAM), FIRO$2,1151, Kava Lend (KAVA), NULS$0.004279, PROS$0.04109, Status (SNT), TROY$0.0₄6707, UFT$0.002688, VIDT$0.0₄4270 and ELF$0.1054 to be delisted from Binance.
  • April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.

Conferences:

• Day 2 of 3: Morocco WEB3FEST GITEX Edition (Marrakech)
• April 15: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Summit (online)
• Day 1 of 2: BUIDL Asia 2025 (Seoul)
• Day 1 of 2: World Financial Innovation Series 2025 (Hanoi, Vietnam)
• Day 1 of 3: NexTech Week Tokyo
• April 22-24: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)
• April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)
• April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Story Protocol's IP tokens experienced a 20% drop and recovery within hours during an unusual trading session on Monday.
• Trading volume surged on exchanges including Binance and OKX Spot, with $138 million recorded after the price rebound.
• The sudden price movement was isolated from broader market trends, sparking speculation about insider activity or coordinated selling.
• Also on Monday, MANTRA’s OM token plummeted over 90% in hours, dropping from around $6.30 to as low as 37 cents and wiping out over $5 billion in market capitalization.
• The token has since rebounded slightly to trade around 63 cents.
• Laser Digital, a Nomura-backed investor, was initially flagged for depositing $41 million in OM to OKX, but the company denied selling, clarifying it was collateral return from a financing trade. Shorooq Investors also denied selling.

Derivatives Positioning

• BTC shorts have been liquidated on most exchanges in the past 24 hours, excluding BitMEX and Gate.io, according Coinglass. The opposite is the case in ETH.
• XRP's perpetual futures open interest has dropped from 544.7 million XRP to 480 million XRP, diverging from the price recovery seen since Monday last week.
• SUI, ONDO, ADA and APT have seen a notable increase in futures open interest in the past 24 hours. Of those, XMR is the only one with the positive OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta, representing net buying pressure.
• On Deribit, short-dated BTC and ETH options continue to show a bias for protective puts, suggesting cautious sentiment.
• Flows on OTC desk Paradigm have been mixed with both calls and puts bought in the April expiry.

Market Movements:

• BTC is up 1.19% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $85,877.18 (24hrs: +1.35%)
• ETH is up 0.59% at $1,645.30 (24hrs: -1.97%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 0.99% at 2,519.69 (24hrs: +0.19%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 18 bps at 3.18%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0184% (6.7003% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 99.70
• Gold is up 1.26% at $3,245.30/oz
• Silver is up 0.81% at $32.35/oz
• Nikkei 225 closed +0.84% at 34,267.54
• Hang Seng closed +0.23% at 21,466.27
• FTSE is up 0.92% at 8,209.04
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.82% at 4,951.51
• DJIA closed on Tuesday +0.78% at 40,524.79
• S&P 500 closed +0.79% at 5,405.97
• Nasdaq closed +0.64% at 16,831.48
• S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.18% at 23,866.50
• S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.8% at 2,340.02
• U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 1 bp at 4.39%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.12% at 5,447.25
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.26% at 18,983.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 40,750.00

Bitcoin Stats:

• BTC Dominance: 63.80 (0.16%)
• Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01913 (-0.31%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 896 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $44.1 PH/s
• Total Fees: 6.33 BTC / $536,017
• CME Futures Open Interest: 134,730
• BTC priced in gold: 26.6 oz
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.56%

Technical Analysis

• On Monday, the bitcoin cash-bitcoin (BCH/BTC) ratio failed to penetrate the trendline characterizing the 12-month bear market.
• A potential move above the trendline could see breakout traders join the market, lifting BCH higher.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $311.45 (+3.82%), up 0.62% at $313.38 in pre-market
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $176.58 (+0.62%), up 1.28% at $178.84
• Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.81 (+3.47%)
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.95 (+3.52%), up 1.24% at $13.11
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.01 (-0.71%), up 0.71% at $7.06
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.06 (-0.14%)
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.78 (+3.73%), up 1.29% at $7.88
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.70 (+1.44%), up 1.44% at $12.90
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.26 (+1.48%)
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $39.43 (-10.55%), unchanged in pre-market

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

• Daily net flow: $1.5 million
• Cumulative net flows: $35.46 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.11 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: -$6 million
• Cumulative net flows: $2.28 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~3.36 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows the demand for the Solana network has cooled significantly from the heady days of January.
• Both the DEX volumes and the average transaction fee have crashed, validating the decline in the SOL token price.

While You Were Sleeping

• Xi Jinping Urges Vietnam to Oppose Donald Trump’s Tariff ‘Bullying’ (Financial Times): In Hanoi, Xi urged Vietnam to unite against protectionism as they signed 45 cooperation deals. His tour continues to Malaysia and Cambodia.
• Japanese Bonds Stir Unease as Bitcoin Recovers From Last Week's Tariff Panic (CoinDesk): The 30-year Japanese bond yield hit a 20-year high, raising fears of capital repatriation by Japanese funds and renewed risk aversion across financial markets.
• Dogecoin Slumps 3%, Bitcoin Steady Around $85K as Traders Fear U.S. Recession (CoinDesk): DOGE fell 3% while BTC and ETH held steady as tariff concerns eased, though betting markets still see a 40% to 60% chance of a U.S. recession this year.
• DEX KiloEx Loses $7M in Apparent Oracle Manipulation Attack (CoinDesk): The decentralized exchange suspended operations after a price oracle exploit. The attacker used Tornado Cash to fund a wallet and manipulate prices across Base, BNB Chain and Taiko.
• Russia Says It Is Not Easy to Agree Ukraine Peace Deal With U.S. (Reuters): Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s demand that Ukraine renounce NATO ambitions and pull out of four regions claimed by Russia.
• Trump’s Trade War Deepens Threat to U.S. Brands in China (The Wall Street Journal): U.S. brands like Apple, Nike and Starbucks are losing ground in China as patriotic consumers shift toward domestic alternatives in sectors ranging from tech to fast food.

In the Ether