BTC preps for a weekend make-or-break moment

Mainstream data observations

BTC core liquidation positions:

Long position: Liquidation price at $84,022 with a liquidation amount of $450 million.

Short position: Liquidation price at $85,588 with a liquidation amount of $341 million.

The current BTC price is $84,769. The liquidation amount for short positions is larger and more concentrated, with strong liquidation intensity between $85,000 and $86,000. The liquidation risk for long positions is relatively controllable, and $84,000 can be observed as a short-term support level.

ETH core liquidation positions:

Long position: Liquidation price at $1,568.9 with a liquidation amount of $223 million.

Short position: Liquidation price at $1,616.5 with a liquidation amount of $287 million.

The current ETH price is $1,581.7. The liquidation intensity for long positions is large and concentrated, mainly around the $1,570 level. The liquidation amount is substantial and can be observed as a support level.

Total stablecoin market cap: $234.81B

The total market cap has slightly increased. USDC has issued an additional 359.81 million coins, with a 0.26% increase on Ethereum, a 0.22% increase on Solana, and a 0.48% decrease on Base.

BTC market cap share: 64.04%

TOTAL3 market cap: $754.37B

BTC’s market share has increased again, now exceeding 64%, with the latest data reaching a new peak. Liquidity is unlikely to flow from BTC/stablecoins into altcoins. The total market cap of TOTAL3 has slightly risen, with most crypto sectors showing increases, led by AI with a 24-hour increase of 4.29%, although investors remain relatively cautious.

Current core miner shutdown price: $60,565

The proportion of miners currently above the shutdown price has decreased to 17%, with the average shutdown price for mainstream mining machines at $71,000. This is an important price level to monitor.

Bitcoin MVRV-Z score: 1.76

MVRV is the ratio between the minimum market value (current market value) and the actual value (the total value of all BTC when last moved). The MVRV index has not changed significantly, with market confidence in BTC remaining higher compared to other crypto assets.

Bitcoin BVIV score: 51.04

The BVIV score has decreased from 52.37 to 51.04. It has been continuously declining since April 13, with BTC showing smaller volatility momentum. The large impact of early tariff news is gradually being digested by the market.

Market rating

Uncertainty over tariffs continues to affect both the US stock market and the cryptocurrency market, but BTC continues to oscillate above $84,000. The Federal Reserve is maintaining a wait-and-see stance, sticking to data-driven indicators for policy (rate cuts). Donald Trump has criticized Powell and expressed an intention to potentially fire him. The market remains focused on whether Jerome Powell will lower interest rates under political pressure. The current bull/bear sentiment score is 70 (Neutral, cautiously bullish).

[0-40 Bearish; 40-50 Cautiously Bearish; 50-70 Neutral; 70-80 Cautiously Bullish; 80-100 Bullish]

Market overview

BTC continues to attempt breaking through 86,000, reaching a high of around 85,400, but then retracing overall, staying within the 84,000-85,000 range. This marks the sixth attempt in recent times to surpass 85,000 and break through 86,000, with each attempt being dragged down by the pullback in US stocks. Currently, BTC’s trend is relatively strong, as every decline is followed by a rebound.

There are two possible future trends:

(1) Over a weekend when the US stock market influence is smaller, BTC could push higher, confirming 74,500 as the bottom range, breaking through 88,000, with a core resistance level at 92,000.

(2) Multiple attempts to break through fail, and a decline below 83,700 would indicate the end of the upward movement since 84,500, with future pullbacks reaching key long-entry points (specific support levels requiring confirmation through real-time technical analysis).

At the moment, (1) seems more likely, so it’s important to continue monitoring.

Macro overview

Recently, gold broke its historical high, reaching $3,357 per ounce. According to the latest report from Bridgewater, the main buyers of gold are central banks and individuals. Since 2022, the percentage of GDP spent by various central banks on gold has significantly deviated from its previous trajectory, accelerating their purchases, while individual purchases of gold have declined, offsetting the rapid rise in gold prices that should have occurred in 2022.

The US Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates since 2022, and the increase in federal rates has suppressed individual demand for gold. Long-term, the price of gold tends to move inversely to interest rates. However, since 2022, geopolitical tensions have escalated, with Russia’s war on Ukraine and the subsequent freezing of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves in the US, leading to the weaponization of the US dollar. This has driven central banks to accelerate their gold accumulation.

Currently, the total market value of gold is $21 trillion, with physical gold bars accounting for 20%-30%, and central banks holding around 20%, or roughly $4 trillion. Central banks hold 8 trillion USD in US Treasury bonds. The current market value of BTC is $1.7 trillion. If central banks begin to sell off US Treasury bonds or use their natural funds to continue purchasing gold, gold could potentially reach $3,500-$4,000 per ounce in the future. Similarly, BTC, as an increasingly scarce asset, will have a similar effect.

However, the likelihood is that BTC will see rapid growth in institutional and corporate penetration, with central banks establishing BTC strategic reserves. In the early stages, this will mainly be driven by demand from medium and large companies, pushing BTC’s market value above $1.5 trillion.

Key events

• Ethereum re-staking protocol EigenLayer has launched the slashing mechanism on the mainnet, which economically punishes a node or a group of nodes for executing a strategy proven to deviate from the given protocol specification in the PoS protocol.
• Ali Yahya, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), has tweeted that a16z Crypto has invested an additional $55 million in a Web3 company operating the cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero, acquiring its tokens ZRO with a 3-year lock-up period.
• The full-chain Rollup L1 network Initia's co-founder, zon, has stated that Initia’s mainnet will launch on April 24, with Binance Labs (now YZi Labs) as its first and largest investor.
• Stablecoin issuer Circle has launched the on-chain dispute resolution smart contract Refund Protocol.
• The first quarter of the BNB AI Hack hackathon has produced 13 winning projects, including the DeFAI operating system BINK AI, the AI autonomous trading platform Botzilla, the AI ecosystem assistant Tutorial Agent, the AI trading assistant Tokrio, the NFT platform Polycruz, the on-chain AI agent protocol WORLD3 Protocol, the multi-agent platform Sentism AI, the Web3 gaming platform iDos Games, the AI token deployment robot Boomie, the AI agent marketplace VitaminAI, the decentralized knowledge center Stitch AI, the Web3 automation ecosystem Tearline, and the AI agent commitment framework Kudo.
• According to the New York Times, Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, has stated that the US government's strengthened chip export controls have had a significant impact on NVIDIA's business. He emphasized that NVIDIA will grow together with the Chinese market and achieve mutual success, and that the company will continue to serve the Chinese market without hesitation.
• The DeSci project Bio Protocol has initiated a discussion on BIO staking mechanisms in its governance forum.
• According to Cointelegraph data, stablecoin trading volume surpassed Visa's payment volume for the first time in 2024.
• Layer1 blockchain Shardeum will conduct its Token Generation Event (TGE) on May 5 and will release detailed information about the airdrop and token distribution.
• Asset manager VanEck is planning to launch a new crypto-related ETF called "NODE" on May 14.

Hot projects

Token		Description	Market Cap（$）
	JProof High-heat meme	The narrative of JPROOF mainly revolves around "rebelling against the traditional financial system" and "community-driven decentralized movements." According to related posts on the X platform, JPROOF is positioned as a movement based on "resentment," aimed at opposing the influence of "usurious financial systems" and traditional banking institutions. Its slogan includes "Built for the awakened (noticers), empowering the community to fight against the international banking system," reflecting strong anti-establishment sentiment. This narrative appeals to some in the cryptocurrency community dissatisfied with traditional finance and attempts to empower users with financial autonomy through decentralized tokens.	38 million
	AERGO High-heat project	Aergo was launched by the South Korean blockchain technology company Blocko, which has the support of large enterprises such as Samsung. Aergo’s goal is to provide a simple and efficient blockchain solution for businesses and developers to build and deploy decentralized applications. Recently, the token has experienced unusual price movements, with a significant increase in volatility.	116 million
	CHILLGUY Token experienced unusual activity	Chill Guy’s IP character is a dog wearing jeans with its hands in its pockets, giving off a calm and relaxed vibe. The community has hosted a TikTok meme activity where users incorporated Chill Guy’s original image into various different pictures, creating strong virality within the community. The token has recently shown unusual activity.	23.84 million

Exchange updates

• Coinbase International will launch perpetual contracts for WCT/USDT, BABY/USDT, KERNEL/USDT, and PROMPT/USDT, available starting April 24 or later.
• Solana ecosystem DEX Jupiter has tweeted that the smart aggregation system Juno has gone live.
• Bitget has launched Onchain trading for tokens including LEGO, TIME, and mt, as well as Initia (INIT) in pre-market trading, and 10,000,000 AIDOGE/USDT perpetual contracts with up to 20x leverage, while also completing its first quarterly burn of Bitget Token (BGB), destroying approximately 30 million BGB.
• Binance Alpha has listed GOMBLE (GM) and DARK (DARK), will distribute 403 GM airdrops to eligible users, and will delist GOUT and GAME/GAMEAI due to technical compatibility issues, while Binance Launchpool will list Initia (INIT) with spot trading for INIT opening on April 24.
• Bybit Launchpool has listed WalletConnect (WCT), with a staking reward pool of 2 million WCT.
• HTX has launched the Fireblocks Off-Exchange asset mapping function, and the test transaction volume has increased by 200%.

Industry landscape

• Market maker Wintermute has invested in the DeFi lending agreement Euler Finance, and the specific amount has not been disclosed.
• According to Decrypt, a16z is urging the US SEC to update the crypto custody rules for registered investment advisers. 
• The US SEC has announced the agenda and panel members for the roundtable on April 25, focused on custody-related topics.

Emerging projects

Token	PEEP	GCATS	HYPERSKIDS
Description	PEEP is centered around the narrative of "PEPE variants" on the Solana blockchain, building a new ecological niche through cross-chain meme culture (ETH's PEPE vs SOL's PEEP). The community emphasizes a "grassroots resistance" narrative (with the community's cohesion strengthening after the token was attacked) and intentionally creates knowledge archeology memes involving interactions with ChatGPT (a fictional backstory of being "born 10 years ago").	GCATS is backed by an Emmy Award-winning game team, combining bloody aesthetics with cat elements to create blockchain game-derived memes. The core narrative revolves around the fusion of independent game development skills and contrasting visual styles.	HYPERSKIDS centers around charity as its core narrative, deeply linking token economics with Ugandan children's aid. Through the meme-based expression of "tokens are donations," the project establishes a philanthropic attribute. The project seeks to create a differentiated cultural symbol within the meme space by focusing on the empathy point of African children's education aid.
Price	$0.001968	$0.001486	$0.01388
Market Cap（$）	1.96  million	1.48  million	13.88  million
Token Holders	3,407	1,611	6,555

Token	ESIM	EDWIN	TheLion
Description	An eSIM card that does not require KYC, usable in 135 different countries, supporting Web3 wallet payments.	EDWIN's core narrative is "DeFAI," deeply integrating AI agents into the DeFi ecosystem to shape an image of innovative intelligent financial tools. The project builds community identity through the owl symbol, emphasizing the long-term value of governance tokens and the fusion of technology.	The narrative revolves around the extreme violence of "the lion raping and barking at the little dog," using controversial animal hierarchy metaphors to create a crushing sense of dominance. The core is the symbolic clash between online provocation culture and marginal subcultures.
Price	$0.003581	$0.01200	$0.001331
Market Cap（$）	3.58 million	12  million	1.33  million
Token Holders	3,398	7,060	1,408

Hyperliquid Smart Money tracking

The tracking results on April 18 show that the bearish strategy continues, but several smart money addresses have reduced their HYPE short positions, with no new significant long positions entering the market, indicating that the market has entered a period of strategic adjustment.          

Although HYPE remains a core short target, there are clear signs of short covering. The main address 0xcc…ab1 has completely closed its position today, and the HYPE short position of 0x3c…fb0 has only 3.92 coins left (almost closed). Additionally, the unrealized profit and position of 0xf4…d1d have also shrunk, indicating that most smart money is taking profits or waiting on the sidelines.

The largest position holder, 0xb3…06f, still maintains a HYPE short position of 137,133 coins, with a return rate of about 76.76%, with no signs of reducing the position. However, the total value of the position has risen to 2.36 million USDT, which is likely related to leverage or changes in the coin price.

Other short positions such as PURR, BNB, VIRTUAL, WLD, and USUAL are in stable profit, but their return rates have not expanded further, indicating that although the short positions still hold an advantage, momentum is weakening. Among them, the WLD short position still maintains a return of over 800%, but this seems to be part of a long-term layout, rather than a focus of recent major operations.

On the long position side, the overall sentiment is weak, with only a small ETH long position (0xf4…d1d) still holding unrealized profits. The BTC long position (0xb3…06f) has decreased to 7 coins, currently in a slight unrealized loss.

Address	Trading pair	Long/Short	Token quantity	Position size	Average cost	Current price	Unrealized PnL	Last seven days PnL	Unrealized profit and loss
0xb3…06f	HYPE	Short	137,133	2,360,333.2	21.1	17.18	743,138.56 (76.76%)	-272,324	668,546
	PURR	Short	367,406	37,828.12	0.2908	0.103	71,927.83 (201.94%)
	BNB	Short	647.02	381,250.06	656.56	589.23	48,212.17 (113.49%)
	MNT	Short	65,000	43,457.05	0.7506	0.668	3,451.79 (35.37%)
	BTC	Long	7	593,523	84,686.1	84,780	-8,751.48 (-14.76%)
0xe0…411	No position	X	X	X	X	X	X	-128,277	0
0xf4…d1d	HYPE	Short	3,992.59	68,680.53	22.07	17.26	19,255.48 (65.57%)	-15,196	309,095
	VIRTUAL	Short	91,460	50,323.12	0.9815	0.5491	39,510.63 (220.07%)
	WLD	Short	60,000.6	41,967.42	3.86	0.698	189,876.63 (819.15%)
	USUAL	Short	149,972.7	19,019.54	0.153	0.1268	3,895.29 (84.87%)
	ETH	Long	7.1002	11,344.7	1,479	1,580.2	724.22 (137.93%)
0xcc…ab1	No position	X	X	X	X	X	X	-87,456	0
0x3c…fb0	HYPE	Short	3.92	67.72	19.89	17.28	10.22 (39.33%)	X	10

Other opportunities

On-chain DeFi mining yield products:

Project Name	Merkl（Blockchain：Ethereum） ←→ Token：USDC|ETH
Participation Method	From the Merkl official website, connect your wallet and deposit USDC / ETH to provide liquidity to the Uniswap V4 ETH-USDC product in order to supply liquidity to Uniswap V4.
Project Information	Merkl: A one-stop shop for DeFi investment opportunities. Users can benefit from liquidity pools, lending protocols, and more. Uniswap: A DEX protocol used for providing liquidity and trading.
Earnings Details	Staked tokens: USDC | ETH APR: 126.61% (returns vary continuously)
Product Data	Current total value locked [TVL]: 12.79M 24h trading volume: 18.77M Daily reward pool: 8.61K UNI ($44.34K) Incentive period: 2025.04.15 - 2025.04.29 Current number of participants: 1,693

Risk: Currently, the Total Value Locked (TVL) is relatively small. If there is significant price volatility in ETH, it may impact actual returns. Users should invest with caution and conduct their own research.

Disclaimer

The development and market cap of stablecoins mentioned in the above content are speculative and based on market analysis at the time of writing and should not be interpreted as guaranteed outcomes. Market conditions can fluctuate widely and unpredictably due to numerous factors such as regulatory changes, market demand, and global economic developments. 

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