Decentral Block Post

Key takeawaysCrypto-backed mortgages let you use assets like Bitcoin or Ether as collateral to secure a loan without selling your holdings.The process involves choosing a lender, securing your crypto in custody, appraising the property and finalizing loan terms.These mortgages offer tax advantages, streamlined approvals and the ability to retain crypto investment value while accessing liquidity.Platforms like Nexo provide tailored solutions, but thorough research is essential to ensure security and regulatory compliance.

Crypto-backed mortgages are a watershed moment in real estate financing because they let you use digital assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH) as collateral for a home loan.

Instead of selling your cryptocurrency, you pledge it to secure funds for buying property. This approach has been gaining traction as more people explore alternatives to traditional financing.

Furthermore, as the adoption of cryptocurrencies grows, crypto-backed mortgages are positioning themselves as a bridge between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional property markets, offering a unique solution for crypto holders looking to diversify their investments without forfeiting their digital wealth.

What are crypto-backed mortgages?

Crypto-backed mortgages are home loans where digital assets are used as collateral instead of cash or traditional assets. 

Surprisingly, the process is straightforward: You transfer your cryptocurrency to a lender, who locks it up as collateral. In return, they provide a loan, often in fiat currency, to finance your property purchase. As long as you make timely payments, your crypto stays intact. 

Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, has criticized the US Federal Reserve for quietly maintaining a key anti-crypto policy that favors big-bank-issued stablecoins, despite relaxing crypto partnership rules for banks.

In an April 27 thread on X, Long explained that while the Fed recently rescinded four prior crypto guidelines, it left intact a Jan. 27, 2023, statement issued in coordination with the Biden administration.

The guidance, according to Long, blocks banks from engaging directly with crypto assets and prohibits them from issuing stablecoins on permissionless blockchains.

“THE FED HAS MAINTAINED A REGULATORY PREFERENCE FOR PERMISSIONED STABLECOINS (ie, big-bank versions),” Long stated.

She warned that this move gives traditional financial institutions a “head start” in launching private stablecoins while the broader market waits for stablecoin legislation to pass through Congress.

Key points:

High Bitcoin ETF inflows don't always signal a price top as historical data is mixed.

Spot Bitcoin inflows often precede short-term price rises, not reversals.

Bitcoin may hit $100K but faces resistance.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price recovery may be stalled at $100,000 as questions emerge whether high ETF inflows have always marked the local top for the asset.

Opinion by: Ross Shemeliak, co-founder and chief operating officer of Stobox

The Trump administration is pushing a much-revived policy trajectory, marked by tariffs and sanctions that aim to reshore production. Despite exemptions favorable to technology, this dramatic turnaround may seem like a case of the White House treating global trade as its playground. The president’s tariff agenda is fracturing supply chains overnight and disregarding long-standing economic rules.

This latent, chaotic agenda also sees the quiet emergence of a new infrastructure in which blockchain is taking on a fresh role. Insofar as it is not purely focused on decentralization, the technology is geopolitically resilient. With global businesses, especially small and medium enterprises, increasingly pushed toward blockchain, we are witnessing a global economic map redrawing into one centered on Real-World Assets tokenization and stablecoins.

Secondary markets for tokenized trade assets

There are few winners in a trade war. Sanctions and restrictions disrupt international economic rules, and liquidity is one of the first victims. Companies struggle to finance their operations, while risk management models force banks to step back. With the fragmented economic order, a new era in which secondary markets for tokenized trade assets are prevalent is being ushered in. 

These tokenized real-world assets — receivables, commodities or shopping slots, for example — can be fractionalized and sold in global permissioned marketplaces. The resulting access to capital outside of sanctioned corridors grants companies liquidity. As sanctions reduce liquidity, tokenization creates it. Within the economic disruption from the US, there is a moment of opportunity for tokenization.

Cryptocurrency services platform Nexo announced that it is reentering the US market after facing previous regulatory challenges.

According to an April 28 announcement, Nexo’s reentry event featured Donald Trump Jr., who said that he thinks “crypto is the future of finance,” adding:

“We see the opportunity for the financial sector and want to ensure we bring that back to the US.”

Trump Jr. also emphasized the need for a regulatory environment that supports the cryptocurrency industry. He said that “the key to everything crypto is going to be the regulatory framework.”

Source: Nexo

Related: Coinbase presses to axe rule banning SEC staff from holding crypto

Nexo is back to fight where it lost

Nexo left the US at the end of 2022, citing a lack of regulatory clarity as the reason behind the decision. At the beginning of 2023, the firm agreed to pay a $45 million settlement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its failure to register the offer and sale of securities of its interest-earning product.

The team behind the Official Melania Meme (MELANIA) token sold more than $1.5 million of tokens over the past three days, suggesting a programmatic selling strategy that may add downside pressure to the token.

The team behind the Melania memecoin sold another $930,000 worth of tokens on April 28, two days after selling $630,000, according to blockchain data.

The selling patterns point to dollar-cost averaging (DCA), an investment strategy used to buy or sell a predetermined amount of an asset at fixed times, according to crypto intelligence platform Lookonchain. It flagged the activity in an April 28 post on X, writing:

“The #Melania team didn’t just add or remove liquidity to sell $MELANIA, they also employed a DCA strategy for direct sales!”Source: Lookonchain

Related: Libra, Melania creator’s ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ memecoin crashes 99%

The DCA strategy involves investing a certain amount of funds in an asset at regular intervals, often employed by investors to manage emotional decision-making.

Bitcoin (BTC) is bracing for a major US macro data week as crypto market participants warn of serious volatility next.

Bitcoin retests $92,000 after a promising weekly close, but traders still see a deeper BTC price correction to come.

A bumper week of US macro data comes with the Federal Reserve under pressure on multiple fronts.

The Fed has its hands tied, analysis argues, predicting interest rates coming down, liquidity booming and BTC/USD reaching $180,000 within eighteen months.

Bitcoin short-term holders are back in the black, making current price levels especially pertinent for speculative investors.

Coinbase has urged the US Office of Government Ethics to remove a rule banning Securities and Exchange Commission staff from holding crypto.

SEC staff need to use crypto to better understand how it works and the best way to regulate it, Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal argued in open letters sent to OGE acting director Jamieson Greer and newly sworn-in SEC Chair Paul Atkins, which he shared to X on April 25.

“To regulate technology, you need to understand it. To understand technology, you need to use it,” Grewal said in the letter to Greer.

“Permitting commission staff to hold crypto is essential to them developing the knowledge necessary to propose and adopt workable regulatory frameworks for digital securities activity,” he added.

Source: Paul Grewal

Legal Advisory 22-04, issued on July 4, 2022, by the OGE, prohibits SEC staff from buying, selling, or otherwise using crypto and stablecoins because they are not “publicly traded securities” and don’t qualify for an exception, unlike stocks.

The Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial has signed a Letter of Intent with the Pakistan Crypto Council to accelerate crypto adoption in the South Asian country and one of the industry’s fastest-growing markets.

Under the partnership, World Liberty will help the Council launch regulatory sandboxes to test blockchain-based products, expand stablecoin applications for remittances and trade, explore real-world asset tokenization, and assist with the growth of decentralized finance protocols, local news outlet Business Recorder reported on April 27.

World Liberty founders Zach Witkoff, Zak Folkman and Chase Herro signed the letter in a recent meeting with the Council’s CEO Bilal bin Saqib, with Pakistan’s central bank governor, finance minister and IT secretary among those in attendance.

Source: Pakistan Crypto Council

Trump and his family backed World Liberty at the crypto lending and borrowing platform’s launch last year and they receive a cut of its profits.

The Pakistan Crypto Council is a government-backed body that oversees crypto regulation and related initiatives aimed at driving adoption and attracting more foreign investment.

Chinese tech giant Huawei has reportedly developed a powerful artificial intelligence chip that could rival high-end processors from US chip maker Nvidia.

The Shenzhen-based Huawei is poised to start testing a new AI chip called the Ascend 910D, and has approached local tech firms, which are slated to receive the first batch of sample chips by late May, The Wall Street Journal reported on April 27, citing people familiar with the matter.

The development is still at an early stage, and a series of tests will be needed to assess the chip’s performance and get it ready for customers.

Huawei is pinning hopes on its latest Ascend AI processor being more powerful than Nvidia’s H100 chip, which was used for AI training in 2022.

Huawei is also poised to ship more than 800,000 earlier model Ascend 910B and 910C chips to customers, including state-owned telecoms operators and private AI developers such as TikTok parent ByteDance.

Crypto exchange Bitget says it is sending letters from its lawyers to account holders it alleges were involved in manipulating the price of perpetual futures contracts tied to the VOXEL token.

Eight account holders that the exchange accuses of being involved in the April 20 incident and who allegedly pocketed $20 million between them will receive a letter from the exchange's lawyers in “quick succession,” Xie Jiayin, Bitget’s head of Chinese operations, said in an April 27 X post.

“These eight accounts are the main instigators of the VOXEL incident and have improperly gained more than 20 million US dollars from it,” she said, according to a translation of the post.

“Except for these eight accounts, all other users who participated in VOXEL trading on April 20 and have withdrawn funds do not need to worry,” she added. “The accounts have been restored to normal and no responsibility will be pursued in the future.”

Source: Xie Jiayin

On April 20, Bitget said it discovered “abnormal trading activity” on its VOXEL/USDT perpetual futures contract and paused accounts it suspected of market manipulation.

Bitcoin is starting to act as a store of value during times of “US-risk-off” sentiment, marking a potential shift in its relationship with traditional assets, according to the New York Digital Investment Group.

Bitcoin (BTC) felt “noticeably different” over the trading week ended April 25, NYDIG’s global head of research Greg Cipolaro said in an April 25 market note. 

“We’ve been observing subtle shifts in its behavior over the past few weeks,” he added. “The decoupling from traditional risk assets is still very early and fragile, but for those watching crypto markets 24/7, the shift is palpable.”

“Bitcoin has acted less like a liquid levered version of levered US equity beta and more like the non-sovereign issued store of value that it is.”

Cipolaro noted that Bitcoin has gained more than 13% since the beginning of April, while US markets such as the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq have declined amid escalating global trade tensions due to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

He added that the US dollar and long-term US Treasurys have also underperformed since the election and Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, which lumped every country with various rates, the minimum being 10%.

Nike has been hit with a class-action lawsuit that accuses the sportswear giant of operating a rug pull for shuttering its non-fungible token (NFT) platform RTFKT in January. 

A group of RTFKT users led by Jagdeep Cheema claimed in the proposed class suit filed in a Brooklyn federal court on April 25 that they suffered “significant damages” as a result of Nike touting its sneaker-themed NFTs to gain investors, then shuttering the platform.

The suit claimed the NFTs were unregistered securities, as Nike sold them without registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It accused the company of using “its iconic brand and marketing prowess to hype, promote, and prop up the unregistered securities that RTFKT sold.”

“Because the Nike NFTs derived their value from the success of a given promoter and project — here, Nike and its marketing efforts — investors purchased this digital asset with the hope that its value would increase in the future as the project grows in popularity based on the Nike brand,” the lawsuit argued.

The class suit claimed investors suffered damages due to Nike shutting its NFT platform. Source: CourtListener

The lawsuit asks for $5 million in damages, claiming Nike broke consumer protection laws and violated various state unfair trade and competition laws.

The Ethereum mainnet’s gas limit could theoretically grow 100-fold and reach 2,000 transactions per second under a new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) put forward by Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist.

Feist, who had the blockchain’s “danksharding” data storage solution named after him, put forward EIP-9698 on April 27, which would introduce a “deterministic gas limit growth schedule” starting at epoch 369017, or around June 1.

The proposal would gradually increase the gas limit by a factor of 10 for roughly two years, or 164,250 epochs, when one final tenfold increase would occur.

Ethereum clients would need to vote on the proposal for it to take effect, Feist said.

“By introducing a predictable exponential growth pattern as a client default, this EIP encourages a sustainable and transparent gas limit trajectory, aligned with expected advancements in hardware and protocol efficiency,” he added.

Key takeaways:

Heavy liquidations played a role in Bitcoin’s return to $95,000.

Bitcoin’s weakening correlation with stocks highlights its growing independence as an asset.

Bullish institutional investor positioning contrasts with retail traders’ caution, supporting a rally above $100,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) gained 11% between April 20 and April 26, demonstrating resilience by holding near its two-month high around $94,000. This relief rally followed signals from the Trump administration about easing import tariffs, as well as strong corporate earnings reports.

Key takeaways:

Norges Bank lost $40 billion in Q1 2025 as US tech stocks fell, exposing the risk of concentrated positions.

The bank’s indirect Bitcoin exposure via stocks reached $356 million, raising sell pressure risk amid a global trade war and recession concerns.

Abu Dhabi’s $437 million spot Bitcoin ETF stake shows sovereign wealth funds see Bitcoin as a hedge.

Norges Bank, Norway’s $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund, reported a $40 billion loss in the first quarter of 2025, with most of the decline caused by a drop in the value of US-listed technology companies. Norges Bank also indirectly owned 3,821 BTC through its stock market investments by the end of 2024, presenting a potential sell pressure risk to Bitcoin, especially when considering the socio-political uncertainty and the risk of an economic recession caused by the global trade war.

Key points:

Bitcoin booked a 10% gain in the past week and technical indicators remain bullish going into a new week.

Analysts expect Bitcoin to gain an additional 40% by the end of the year

Select altcoins are showing a positive bias on improving crypto sentiment.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose more than 10% this week as buyers made a strong comeback, pushing the price to the overhead resistance at $95,000. Although buyers are struggling to clear the overhead hurdle, a positive sign is that they have not given up much ground to the bears.

Michael Saylor's Strategy is "synthetically halving Bitcoin" (BTC) by purchasing half or more of the newly minted supply from miners every single month, according to Adam Livingston, a BTC analyst and author of "The Bitcoin Age and The Great Harvest."

Livingston said miners currently produce around 450 BTC per day or approximately 13,500 BTC per month, but Strategy acquired 379,800 BTC in the last six months. This translates to the firm purchasing roughly 2,087 BTC per day — far in excess of daily miner output. The author added:

"When Bitcoin becomes this scarce, access to Bitcoin will require paying a premium. Lending against Bitcoin will cost more. Borrowing Bitcoin will become a luxury business reserved for nation-states and corporate whales, and Strategy will control the bottleneck."

"BTC's global cost of capital will no longer be set by 'the market.' It will be set by the gravitational policies of the first Bitcoin superpower: Strategy," Livingston continued.

The author's prediction of a Bitcoin supply crunch translates into much higher BTC prices if Strategy can continue its pace of BTC acquisitions while market demand for the supply-capped digital asset grows among institutional and retail investors.

The Bitcoin miner reserve, a metric tracking the total amount of BTC held in miner wallets, continues to decline. Source: CryptoQuant

Related: Michael Saylor hints at Bitcoin purchase as whales stack aggressively

Two Ethereum community members, Kevin Owocki and Devansh Mehta, proposed a dynamic fee structure for the Ethereum application layer to strike a balance between revenue generation for app builders and fairness in fee extraction.

The April 27 proposal outlined a simple equation that uses a square root function that proportionally lowers the percentage of fees as the funding capital allocated to a particular project grows. Owocki and Mehta explained:

"For smaller funding amounts, the fee follows a square root function (sqrt(1000 x N)), providing proportionally higher returns to make building mechanisms for smaller pools worthwhile. For example, if the funding pool is $170,000, then the root of 1000 x 170,000 equals $13,038.4 or 7% is taken as overhead."

The authors of the proposal added that fees would be capped at 1% once a particular application's funding pool crossed the $10 million level, ensuring that small app builders can develop decentralized applications without excess fees while also encouraging project and funding growth by capping fees as developers scale their applications.

A visualization of the proposed fee structure tapering off at higher project funding levels. Source: Ethereum Research

Owocki and Mehta's proposal to balance revenue generation and profitability among Ethereum's app builders reflects the growing calls to reform fee structures and value accrual mechanisms to maintain Ethereum's economic viability against competing networks.

Related: Ethereum's L2 approach equals many high-throughput chains — Avail exec