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Bitcoin Surpasses $94,000 with a 0.1% Increase in 24 Hours

Bitcoin has surpassed the $94,000 benchmark and is now trading at $94,478, with a narrowed 0.1% increase in 24 hours.

MicroStrategy Acquired $1.42B Worth of Bitcoins Last Week

Strategy, acquired 15,355 bitcoins for $1.42B between April 21 to April 27, raising its total BTC holdings to 553,555.

Bitcoins were bought at an average purchase price of $92,737. The transactions were made using proceeds from the company’s common at-the-market equity offering and STRK at-the-market offering.

Bitcoin to Hit New Record High of $120K in Q2, StanChart Predicts

Bitcoin could reach new all-time highs of around $120K in Q2, Standard Chartered predicted Monday, citing a broad asset reallocation away from U.S. assets as well as several technical indicators.

That implies a ~25% rise from current levels. The cryptocurrency is then expected to hit $200K by the end of 2025, up ~65% from the Q2 target price and ~110% from the current mark.

Stoking the firm's bullish view, the U.S. Treasury term premium -- which has a strong relationship with bitcoin -- is standing at a 12-year high, analyst Geoff Kendrick wrote in a note to clients. UST term premium is the extra yield investors demand for holding longer-dated Treasury bonds over shorter-term ones.

He also pointed out that so-called whales (i.e., major token holders) have been accumulating bitcoin strongly. Earlier, Michael Saylor-founded Strategy, the largest corporate holder of BTC, disclosed yet another round of weekly bitcoin purchases.

Mastercard Adds Stablecoin Settlement Support for Merchants

MasterCard Inc. announced that it will give merchants the option to receive payments in stablecoins amid increasing global regulatory clarity on the digital assets that are usually pegged to fiat currencies.

In a press release, Mastercard said it was partnering with firms including payments processor Nuvei and stablecoin issuers Circle and Paxos to enable the payments in the cryptocurrencies.

Coinbase to Launch Institutional Fund Offering Yield on Bitcoin

Coinbase Global, Inc. Asset Management is launching a new fund that aims to deliver a regular yield on a customer’s Bitcoin holdings.

The Coinbase Bitcoin Yield Fund, which is set to launch on May 1, will seek a 4% to 8% annualized net return, delivered in Bitcoin, and will only be open to non-US institutional investors.

The fund will employ a version of the so-called basis trade that is common in other financial realms. In the crypto version of the strategy, known as the cash-and-carry trade, traders look to take advantage of discrepancies between the price of Bitcoin and the price of derivatives tied to Bitcoin, known as perpetual swaps, or perps for short, which are essentially futures contracts that don’t expire. While the two prices should move in tandem, they are often disconnected, particularly when bullish traders are eager to capitalize on the rising price of Bitcoin and are willing to pay more to keep their perps positions open.

Three Abu Dhabi Giants Plan Stablecoin Backed by UAE’s Currency

Three major Abu Dhabi entities, including a sovereign wealth fund, plan to launch a stablecoin fully regulated by the central bank of the United Arab Emirates and backed by the dirham, a move that could speed the Persian Gulf nation’s efforts to adopt digital currencies and facilitate payments.

The sovereign wealth fund, ADQ along with the UAE’s largest lender, First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, and International Holding Co., a sprawling conglomerate, will be the founding partners of the new stablecoin, whose creation will be subject to regulatory approval.

“This stablecoin will be used as a reliable digital currency across a wide range of everyday scenarios,” according to a statement released Monday. “It will also support emerging digital use cases such as machine-to-machine and AI.”

Bitcoin Devotees Plowed $3 Billion Into ETFs Amid Crypto’s Surge

Cryptocurrency investors waded back into the market last week, riding a surge in Bitcoin.

Exchange-traded funds tracking Bitcoin and Ether attracted more than $3.2 billion last week, with the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (ticker IBIT) alone seeing a nearly $1.5 billion inflow — the most this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Other Bitcoin-focused funds also saw meaningful infusions, with investors adding more than $620 million to the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and roughly $574 million into the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).

Meanwhile, Ether products posted their first net weekly inflows since February, according to data from Wintermute.

Bitcoin Spot ETF Flow

The overall net inflow of the US Bitcoin spot ETF on Monday was $591.29 million. The total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $109.30 billion, and the ETF net asset ratio (market value compared to total Bitcoin market value) is 5.83%.

The Bitcoin spot ETF with the highest net inflow on Apr. 28 was iShares Bitcoin Trust, with a net inflow of $970.93 million. Following that was ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, with a net outflow of 226.30 million, according to SoSoValue.

SoSoValue