Key takeaways:
XRP ETF approval odds rise to 85% following a SEC leadership change.
Analysts predict XRP could rise to new all-time highs again in 2025.
XRP price dropped by 5% over the past 24 hours as US GDP data showed a shrinking economy.
However, a strengthening market structure and investors’ growing hope for a spot XRP ETF approval in the United States suggest that the altcoin might revisit its April peak at $2.36 in the short term.
Trading platform Robinhood has still managed to beat Wall Street estimates as its first-quarter revenues fell and its crypto trading volume cooled from a record high in Q4.
Robinhood’s Q1 results shared on April 30 show revenues fell 8.6% from the previous quarter to $927 million, topping Zacks analyst estimates by 3.16%.
The company’s crypto revenue plummeted nearly 30% quarter-on-quarter to $252 million from the firm’s record-setting Q4 2024.
The drop could be partly attributed to the Trump administration’s tariffs, which triggered an 18% fall in the crypto market cap over the quarter.
Crypto trading volume on Robinhood also fell 35% over Q1 compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, which the firm attributed to a 10% drop in customer trades placed and a 27% fall in average notional volume per trade.
Key points:
Solana held the $140 support level for a week, a first in more than two months, highlighting traders’ growing confidence.
SOL futures open interest hit $5.75 billion on April 30, showing strong institutional interest.
With rising DEX volumes and a $9.5 billion TVL, SOL could rally to $200 before a potential spot ETF approval on Oct. 10.
Solana’s native token, SOL (SOL), fell 4% between April 29 and April 30 after failing to sustain the $150 level. Despite this short-term decline, traders seem more confident as the $140 support remained intact for a whole week, an outcome that hadn’t happened in over two months.
Key takeaways:
Traders remain cautious about ETH’s price action, but optimistic sentiment is beginning to return.
The May 7, Ethereum Pectra upgrade could boost investor sentiment, but ETH’s price action shows investors are still hesitant to open new positions.
Ether (ETH) has been trading below $1,900 since March, leading investors to question whether the failed attempt to reclaim $4,000 in December 2024 signaled the end of an era for the leading altcoin. Concerns continue to mount as derivatives market data shows that professional traders remain cautious about ETH’s price outlook.
ETH monthly futures should trade at a premium of 5% or more compared to spot markets to compensate for the longer settlement period, but this indicator has held below the neutral threshold.
The crypto industry has seen a significant shift toward regulatory compliance since its early days, according to James Smith, co-founder of Elliptic, a crypto compliance firm established in 2013.
“In the early days, only a few companies approached compliance in a serious way,” Smith told Cointelegraph at the Token2049 event. “Coinbase was our first customer — they knew from the start that they wanted to build their business that way. But for most others, it just wasn’t a major priority.”Elliptic co-founder James Smith at Token2049. Source: Cointelegraph
That began to shift as regulators, including those in New York State, took a more active interest in the crypto industry. The involvement of traditional financial institutions like Fidelity and DBS Bank also contributed, as they entered the space with established compliance expectations from traditional finance services.
Fidelity, for instance, offered its first crypto service for customers in 2019, while the Asian giant DBS created a digital exchange for accredited and institutional investors in 2020.
“We've seen a big change in the last couple of years. Exchanges on the global map all care about compliance now, because they want to be part of a global ecosystem,” Smith said.
Related: DeFi security and compliance must be improved to attract institutions
Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao took the stage at Token2049 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he told the audience that his investment in social media platform X was aimed at protecting freedom of speech.
The former Binance executive joined a fireside panel with macroeconomic analyst Raoul Pal to discuss the rationale behind his 2022 investment in X and artificial intelligence. Zhao said:
"I think freedom of money is important, but to have freedom of money, you have to have freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is kind of the bottom line. If you don't have that, nothing — no other freedom — works.""So, when we invested in Twitter back then, it was based on that philosophy," Zhao continued.
The former Binance CEO also criticized Europe's crypto policies, characterizing them as dead in the water compared to more pro-business jurisdictions like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as he advocated for greater financial autonomy and personal liberties.
Macroeconomic analyst Raoul Pal and Changpeng Zhao at the Token2049 event. Source: CointelegraphRelated: CZ aims to teach 1 billion kids through Giggle Academy — Token2049
Key takeaways:
Bitcoin bulls are attacking the $95,000 level again after today’s brief US GDP-induced sell-off.
Traders are semi-agnostic to negative US economic data as they expect the Federal Reserve to resume easing and rate cuts at some point in the future.
Bitcoin (BTC) price knocks on the door of $95,000 after starting the NY trading session with a slight sell-off to $92,910 following alarm-raising US GDP data, which showed the economy shrank in Q1 2025. The move mirrors a similar recovery seen in the DOW and S&P 500, which bounced 0.35% and 0.15% respectively at the closing bell.
The quick recovery in Bitcoin price highlights the strong bid by a variety of market participants, and it lines up with the view that the April 30 GDP data could be a one-off event resulting from businesses ramping up their imports ahead of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on about 90 countries.
Bloomberg Intelligence has boosted its estimated odds of US regulators approving a Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF) in 2025 to 90%, according to an April 30 post on the X platform.
The company also set more favorable chances of approval for other altcoin ETFs, including proposed funds holding XRP (XRP) and Dogecoin (DOGE), Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas said in an X post.
The estimates reflect an improved outlook from Bloomberg analysts. In a February analysis, Bloomberg pegged the odds of a Solana (SOL) ETF approval at only 70%. They ascribed a 65% and 75% chance of approval to funds holding XRP and DOGE, respectively.
As of April 30, six asset managers — including Grayscale, VanEck and 21Shares — are awaiting clearance from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list ETFs holding the Solana blockchain network’s native cryptocurrency.
The same number of issuers are waiting on approval for XRP ETFs, and three are seeking approval for DOGE funds, according to Bloomberg data. The SEC has until October to review and potentially approve the proposed funds.
US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has filed an amicus brief in the country’s Supreme Court in support of a taxpayer fighting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) gaining access to his data from a digital asset platform.
In an April 30 filing in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), lawyers for Coinbase argued that a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision set a “dangerous precedent” for crypto users, potentially allowing the government to “trace users’ every crypto transaction in the past and monitor every crypto transaction in the future.” The appeal to the Supreme Court stemmed from petitioner James Harper, a Coinbase user, who took legal action against the IRS after the crypto exchange was forced to turn over transaction data to the government using a sweeping “John Doe” summons in 2017.
“This case directly affects Coinbase’s interest in protecting the privacy rights of its users and in the correct application of this Court’s doctrine on constitutional guarantees against warrantless government demands for third-party service providers to surrender users’ personal information,” the brief reads.
“If the First Circuit’s ruling is allowed to stand, the Fourth Amendment will give no protection to millions of law-abiding Americans who routinely share intimate personal information with the third parties that ubiquitously store, transmit, or provide services based on that data,” it added.
April 30 Coinbase amicus brief. Source: US Supreme CourtAn amicus brief is a filing in support of a plaintiff by an entity that is not directly involved. The case before the court has the potential to set significant precedents for digital privacy rights for crypto users and how the IRS will be allowed to gather data on taxpayers. Both the US District Court for the District of New Hampshire and the First Circuit have ruled against Harper’s petition, leaving the Supreme Court as his last option for an appeal.
US Dollar-pegged stablecoins are on track to reach an aggregate market capitalization of approximately $2 trillion by 2028, according to the United States Department of the Treasury’s Q1 2025 report.
Stablecoins’ cumulative market cap currently stands at roughly $230 billion, but “[e]volving market dynamics [have] the potential to accelerate stablecoins’ trajectory to reach ~$2tn in market cap by 2028,” the Treasury said in the April 30 report.
A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to a traditional asset like the US dollar. According to the report, such tokens are already “ubiquitously utilized as ‘cash on-chain,’ effectively serving as a new payment mechanism.”
Additionally, the emergence of “tokenized [money market funds] has recently created an alternative option to stablecoins, primarily given their yield-bearing feature,” the report reads.
Treasury on stablecoins’ impact. Source: US TreasuryRelated: Stablecoins boosting demand for US T-bills: Treasury Dept
Key takeaways:
Ether price printed a rare monthly Dragonfly doji candlestick, which is often seen before major ETH bull market cycles.
ETH is retesting its long-term parabolic support zone that preceded its historic 2017 rally.
The MVRV Z-Score has entered the accumulation zone, signaling undervaluation.
Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), is flashing a combination of technical and onchain signals once seen in the early stages of its 2017 bull run, a cycle that produced over 25,000% gains.
Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao wants to provide free education for up to a billion children worldwide with his Giggle Academy venture, he told an audience at Token2049 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
"In a few years, I think, I want to teach 100 million or 1 billion kids for free,” Zhao told the audience. Giggle is a free online platform that provides elementary education through gamified lessons.
"With the technologies we have today, it's not that hard to make an app that will stick, that's educational, but also glues the kids to the device," the crypto entrepreneur said.
Raoul Pal pictured (left) and Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (right) at the Token2049 conference in Dubai. Source: CointelegraphGiggle's concept paper outlines the project's goal of providing K-12 education globally for free by offering non-traditional educational courses in topics such as negotiations, finance, entrepreneurship, sales, legal, accounting, blockchain, and AI in phases.
In April 2024, the Binance co-founder announced he was stepping away from the company and focusing on educational initiatives as he prepared to serve a four-month prison sentence for violating US money laundering laws, which he completed in September 2024.
Key takeaways:
Bitcoin’s price increased by sixfold each time its age increased by 40%.
If the pattern holds, Bitcoin could rally to $351,046 in 2025.
New data highlights a historical pattern that results in Bitcoin (BTC) price increasing by sixfold. Using a logarithmic chart to illustrate the trend from 2011, the model projects BTC price to hit $351,046 in 2025.
According to 21st Capital co-founder Sina, the study plots Bitcoin’s price on a log-log graph, showing a linear relationship that reflects predictable long-term growth driven by network dynamics, a behavior characteristic associated with BTC’s limited supply.
Tether plans to launch a stablecoin product in the United States as soon as this year, the stablecoin issuer’s CEO, Paul Ardoino, said in an April 30 CNBC interview.
Tether’s flagship stablecoin, USDT (USDT), is already the US dollar’s top “exporter,” Ardoino told CNBC. It has a market capitalization of nearly $150 billion, according to data from CoinGecko.
Now, Tether is preparing to expand into the US market “by the end of this year or early next year, at the fastest,” Ardoino said, adding that the timing depends on US lawmakers’ progress on stablecoin legislation.
The stablecoin issuer is working to woo US regulators by proactively collaborating with law enforcement and highlighting USDT’s benefits for the US economy.
"We are just exporters of what we believe to be the best product the United States ever created — that is, the US dollar,” the CEO said.
After months of volatility and extreme fear, crypto markets turned a positive corner in the second half of April, highlighting the industry’s big sentiment shift.
For venture capital, it was business as usual, with investors continuing to pour money into promising startups across layer-1 blockchains, infrastructure, real-world asset tokenization (RWA), and Web3 social media.
This edition of VC Roundup highlights six notable funding deals from April.
Blockchain R&D company Unto Labs raised $14.4 million to continue developing its scalable layer-1 network called Thru. The pre-seed and seed funding was led by venture firms Electric Capital and Framework, with support from angel investors in the Solana engineering community.
The company is led by former Solana contributor Liam Heeger, who argues that “blockchains painted themselves into a corner by inventing custom Virtual Machines (VMs),” which he believes has prevented mainstream adoption.
Key takeaways:
ETH price has underperformed its peers during the current bull market, but gas sponsorship could lure developers and traders back to the network.
Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade promises to improve staking efficiency, potentially increasing demand for ETH.
Data suggests ETH price bottomed. Will the Pectra narrative reignite bullish momentum?
Since 2024, ETH (ETH) has been more of a meme than a market mover. Unlike most of its rivals, ETH still hasn’t reclaimed its all-time high of $4,870 from November 2021, and it regularly underperforms even in the weak altcoin market. Currently, ETH trades at $1,813, down 56% from its local peak in December 2024.
Blockchain payments firm Ripple has reportedly bid up to $5 billion in an effort to acquire stablecoin issuer Circle, but the offer was rejected.
According to an April 30 Bloomberg report, Ripple put in a bid of $4 billion to $5 billion as part of an attempted takeover of Circle, which was rejected as being too low. Ripple hasn’t considered whether to make another bid to purchase the stablecoin issuer.
The reported acquisition attempt came less than 30 days after Circle applied for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US. Cointelegraph reached out to representatives of Circle and Ripple for comment, but had not received a response from either at the time of publication.
Related: Ripple acquisition of Hidden Road a ‘defining moment’ for XRPL — Ripple CTO
Ripple reportedly had an $11 billion valuation in 2024, an estimate CEO Brad Garlinghouse called “outdated” as of January. The blockchain company purchased prime broker Hidden Road for roughly $1.2 billion in April, claiming the move would help scale activity for XRP and XRP Ledger.
Key points:
Bitcoin’s 7-day volatility is the lowest in 563 days, signaling an impending range expansion.
Bitcoin’s breakout above $95,000 could swiftly take it to $100,000 and above.
Although the probability is low, traders should remain cautious about a pullback in the near term.
Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a tight consolidation near the $95,000 level for several days. K33 Research head of research Vetle Lunde said in a post on X that Bitcoin’s 7-day volatility has hit a 563-day low.
Governments outside the US, including Singapore, are increasingly interested in stablecoins not tied to the US dollar, despite their currently limited liquidity, Fireblocks director of policy Dea Markova told Cointelegraph at Token2049.
In an exclusive interview, Markova described the competition with dollar-pegged stablecoins as “all about sovereignty.” She compared the situation to earlier tensions between governments and US payment giants like Visa and Mastercard. “Now we’re seeing the same dynamic with stablecoins — on a smaller scale for now — but they’re definitely emerging as a new arena for sovereign concerns,” she said.
According to Markova, dollar-pegged stablecoins operating in the European Union are already "having a massive headache," particularly from central banks. "Even though they're compliant and regulated, they're having a fixed push back.”
Dea Markova at Token2049. Source: CointelegraphThe European Central Bank is increasing pressure to accelerate the development of a digital euro, citing concerns over the systemic impact of dollar-linked stablecoins within the eurozone.
On April 29, the Bank of Italy released a report saying dollar-pegged stablecoins’ reliance on US Treasury bonds could increase systemic risk vulnerabilities.
Key Takeaways:
US GDP shrank -0.3% in Q1, far below +0.3% forecasts, sparking recession fears.
Bitcoin faces selling pressure with its spot volume delta dropping $300 million in 3 days.
Whales are accumulating BTC, but smaller holders are selling, hinting at profit-taking.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) price dropped under $93,000 on April 30, after the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data revealed a -0.3% contraction in Q1. While the GDP missed expectations of +0.3%, the GDP Price Index soared to 3.7%—the highest since August 2023. Polymarket odds of a recession in 2025 hit 67%, with consumer confidence at its lowest since May 2020.
