Gate Research: Gate Research: BTC Breaks Above $78,000, DeFi Security Pressure Intensifies

Summary

• BTC is trading near $78,300, remaining in a strong upward channel after breaking above $78,000 and reaching a high of $79,469.

• ETH is quoted at $2,366.70, showing moderate upward momentum after rebounding from a low near $2,320 and testing $2,423.61.

• The altcoin market has entered a high-level structural divergence phase, with only about 35% of tokens advancing and capital showing net outflows over the past 24 hours.

• Total stablecoin supply stands at around $320 billion, while Ethereum mainnet gas fees remain below 0.5 Gwei, keeping on-chain transaction costs extremely low.

• CHIP, MDAO, and CORE gained 130.27%, 168.35%, and 15.32% respectively, with AI infrastructure and BTCFi narratives continuing to attract capital.

• S&P and Nasdaq both hit record closing highs, while crypto-related equities broadly rallied, showing stronger linkage between risk assets and digital asset markets.

• DeFi security pressure has intensified, with losses from exploits exceeding $600 million in the first 18 days of April.

• Over the next seven days, H, JUP, and XPL will unlock approximately $130 million, $9.19 million, and $9.05 million worth of tokens respectively.

Market Overview

Market Commentary

• BTC Market Update — BTC is currently trading near $78,300 and remains within a strong upward channel. At the macro level, market expectations for the Fed to keep rates unchanged in April have been largely priced in. Meanwhile, the recent extension of the ceasefire agreement with Iran has significantly reduced geopolitical risk, helping risk appetite recover. Against this backdrop, BTC successfully broke above and held the $78,000 level, reaching a high of $79,469. On the 1-hour chart, RSI currently stands at 72.5, entering overbought territory and suggesting the possibility of a short-term pullback. Although MA5 at $78,470 is slightly below MA10 at $78,629, forming a short-term bearish alignment, overall upside momentum remains strong, supported by continued institutional inflows. In options strategy, partial profit-taking may be considered for the Bull Call Spread at $75,000–$80,000, with potential rolling into the $80,000–$85,000 range. New positions may wait for a pullback to $75,000–$76,000, while tail protection can be moved up to the $72,000–$73,000 Put range.

• ETH Market Update — ETH is currently quoted at $2,366.70 and has shown moderate upward momentum over the past 24 hours. After stabilizing near the $2,320 low, price rebounded and reached a high of $2,423.61. Technically, MA5 at $2,383 and MA10 at $2,388 are closely aligned, forming a short-term bearish setup and indicating some resistance above. On the 1-hour chart, RSI stands near 57.1, remaining in a neutral-to-strong zone. As broader market sentiment improves, ETH’s bottom support continues to move higher, and the asset may attempt to retest the $2,400 psychological level in the short term. From an options perspective, the condition for ETH skew turning positive has been met, making the purchase of $2,500–$2,800 Calls a potential trend signal.

• Altcoins — The broader crypto market has been mildly stronger over the past 24 hours, while the Fear & Greed Index stands around 46, still in the “Fear” zone. Risk appetite has clearly recovered from the previous extreme fear phase, although about 56% of capital remains positioned bearishly. The altcoin market has entered a high-level structural divergence phase, with capital rotating selectively rather than broadly.

• Stablecoins — Total stablecoin supply is around $320 billion, meaning the on-chain dollar liquidity pool remains elevated. This continues to provide underlying settlement depth for both spot and derivatives markets.

• Gas Fees — Ethereum mainnet gas fees remain near historical lows, staying below 0.5 Gwei. Overall on-chain interaction costs remain extremely low, while sharp fluctuations are mostly driven by short-term transaction hotspots.

Trending Tokens

Today’s market has entered a typical high-level structural divergence phase, with the proportion of rising tokens shrinking to 35%. Over the past 24 hours, major capital recorded net outflows of $1.327 billion, reflecting a sharp increase in profit-taking pressure after the previous broad-based rally. The Fear & Greed Index fell sharply from 59 yesterday to 46, shifting market sentiment from “Neutral” to “Fear.” However, the AI infrastructure sector showed strong resilience, especially USD.AI (CHIP), which doubled on the back of its new exchange listing narrative, once again confirming that the AI sector remains a core driver of the current market.

CHIP USD.AI (+130.27%, Circulating Market Cap: $216 million)

According to Gate market data, CHIP is currently trading at $0.13342, up 130.27% over the past 24 hours. USD.AI is a decentralized AI governance and prediction market protocol.

CHIP was officially listed on major platforms on April 21. Together with strong market interest in betting contracts around whether its Fully Diluted Valuation (FDV) would exceed $300 million, the token attracted intense speculative buying.

MDAO MarsDAO (+168.35%, Circulating Market Cap: $120 million)

According to Gate market data, MDAO is currently trading at $0.025136, up 168.35% over the past 24 hours. MarsDAO focuses on crypto ecosystem incubation and decentralized wealth management tools.

The project recently announced major upgrades to its 2026 roadmap and a new round of ecosystem incentive programs. During the broader market pullback, MDAO showed strong defensive premium characteristics and became a short-term capital safe haven.

CORE Core (+15.32%, Circulating Market Cap: $150 million)

According to Gate market data, CORE is currently trading at $0.04439, up 15.32% over the past 24 hours. Core is a Layer 1 blockchain based on Bitcoin mining hash rate and is a key member of the BTCFi sector.

Driven by the continued popularity of the Bitcoin ecosystem, Core has recently made progress in cross-chain asset integration and BTC-native yield products, attracting increasing attention from Bitcoin holders.

Key Market Data Highlights

Blockchain Capital Is Raising $700 Million for Two New Funds

According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, crypto venture capital firm Blockchain Capital is raising capital for its seventh early-stage fund and second growth fund, with a combined target size of $700 million. The firm has already begun deploying part of the new capital, and the fundraising process is expected to be completed within five to six months.

Against the backdrop of broader pressure in the crypto market, Blockchain Capital’s move to raise two large funds reflects strong confidence from leading institutions in positioning for the lower part of the cycle. The $700 million target would mark the firm’s largest fundraising effort to date. Its parallel early-stage and growth-fund strategy covers the full investment spectrum from Seed to Series B, helping the firm secure high-quality targets ahead of the next major cycle. This may also encourage more traditional venture capital to return to the crypto sector, forming a positive catalyst for overall market sentiment.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq Hit Record Closing Highs, Crypto Stocks Rally Broadly

At Wednesday’s close, the Dow rose 0.69%, the S&P 500 gained 1.05%, and the Nasdaq advanced 1.64%, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq setting record closing highs. Crypto-related equities also rallied broadly: Coinbase (COIN) rose 5.25%, Circle (CRCL) gained 8.69%, Strategy (MSTR) climbed 9.39%, and Gemini (GEMI) rose 4.67%.

The record highs in major equity indices indicate that market expectations for a soft landing and an improving liquidity environment continue to strengthen. Technology and growth sectors led the rally, showing a clear recovery in risk appetite, while investors remained optimistic about the rate-cut path and AI-driven earnings prospects. The broad rally in crypto-related equities, especially the nearly 10% single-day gain in MSTR, suggests that valuation recovery for digital-asset-related businesses is accelerating in traditional capital markets, further strengthening the cross-asset linkage among risk assets.

KelpDAO Hacker Converts $175 Million in ETH Into BTC

According to on-chain analysts, the KelpDAO hacker has converted almost all 75,700 ETH, worth approximately $175 million, into BTC after about one and a half days of operations. The hacker mainly used THORChain to complete the cross-chain swaps, generating around $800 million in trading volume and $910,000 in platform fees for THORChain.

This event once again highlights the compliance risks surrounding cross-chain protocols. While THORChain provided a permissionless cross-chain channel for the hacker, it also generated substantial fee revenue from the activity. This dilemma reflects the deeper tension between censorship resistance and compliance within decentralized infrastructure. For KelpDAO, the $175 million loss represents a major security incident that may continue to affect its TVL and user confidence. Regulatory scrutiny of cross-chain bridges and atomic swap protocols may intensify, putting short-term policy pressure on related sectors.

Focus of the Week

DeFi Security Pressure Intensifies: Losses Exceed $600 Million in the First 18 Days of April

According to DefiLlama-related data, crypto protocols lost more than $606 million to exploits in the first 18 days of April, making it one of the most severe exploit months since the Bybit incident in February 2025. Among them, the KelpDAO and Drift Protocol incidents accounted for the majority of losses, with KelpDAO alone reportedly losing close to $293 million.

For the broader crypto market, security incidents may not directly trigger systemic sell-offs, but they significantly raise the risk premium for DeFi, cross-chain, restaking, and bridged assets. If exchanges, custodians, and market makers respond by raising risk control thresholds, liquidity may contract across some protocols. Going forward, TVL changes, bridge asset flows, abnormal large transfers, and hacker fund-laundering routes should be closely monitored.

Prediction Markets Move Toward Derivatives as Polymarket and Kalshi Advance Perpetual Contracts

Polymarket announced on April 21 that it had launched or opened perpetual contract-related functionality, while Kalshi was also reported to be planning crypto perpetual contract products. Perpetual contracts have no fixed expiration date and use funding-rate mechanisms to maintain price anchoring, allowing users to engage in leveraged trading.

For the broader crypto market, the shift from event contracts toward perpetual derivatives means prediction markets are beginning to compete directly with crypto exchanges, brokerages, and derivatives platforms. If such products operate within regulatory frameworks, they may attract more dollar-denominated capital into crypto derivatives markets. However, high leverage may also amplify liquidation risks, especially when 24/7 trading overlaps with macro news shocks, causing volatility to transmit more intensely.

Institutional Capital Returns as Crypto ETFs Attract About $1.37 Billion in Weekly Inflows

According to ETF flow data, spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs recorded combined net inflows of about $1.27 billion. Including XRP, Solana, Chainlink, and other related ETF products, total inflows reached approximately $1.37 billion, marking the strongest weekly performance since mid-January. Bitcoin ETFs attracted nearly $1 billion in weekly inflows, while Ethereum ETFs also showed a notable recovery.

For the broader crypto market, the return of ETF inflows indicates that institutional risk appetite has improved and spot market liquidity expectations have strengthened. However, capital concentration remains high. If future inflows remain concentrated in a small number of leading products, market structure may become more dependent on large issuers and passive capital flows, making short-term prices more sensitive to ETF creation and redemption activity.

Funding Weekly Recap

According to RootData, from April 16 to April 23, 2026, around 9 crypto and closely related fundraising or strategic investment deals were publicly disclosed. Based on representative disclosed projects, capital mainly flowed into trading infrastructure integration, fiat on-ramp optimization, and stablecoin ecosystem expansion.

Bitnomial

Bitnomial disclosed on April 17 that it had been acquired by Kraken for approximately $550 million.

This M&A deal marks a further move by centralized exchanges into compliant derivatives markets and licensing systems. Bitnomial previously focused on crypto futures and derivatives trading infrastructure. After joining Kraken’s ecosystem, it is expected to strengthen Kraken’s derivatives capabilities under a regulated framework, especially as a complementary competitor outside traditional venues such as CME. From an industry trend perspective, exchanges are evolving from simple matching platforms into multi-asset, compliant, institution-grade infrastructure providers.

JPYC

JPYC, a yen stablecoin project, completed a $17.62 million Series B round on April 20, with participation from Metaplanet, NCB Venture Capital, and other institutions.

JPYC has long positioned itself as a bridge between yen stablecoins and Web3 payments. This financing round sends two important signals: local capital is beginning to build stablecoin infrastructure more systematically, and stablecoins are evolving from “trading mediums” into payment and settlement-layer infrastructure.

Valour

Digital asset investment product issuer Valour disclosed on April 22 that it had completed approximately $11 million in financing.

Valour mainly provides crypto ETPs to the European market. Its business model packages crypto assets into traditional securities products for institutional and compliant investment channels. Continued fundraising by such projects reflects ongoing growth in traditional financial demand for digital asset exposure.

Next Week to Watch

Token Unlocks

According to Tokenomist, the market will see several major unlocks over the next seven days from April 24 to April 30, 2026. The top three are as follows:

• H will unlock approximately $130 million worth of tokens, accounting for 5.8% of circulating supply.

• JUP will unlock approximately $9.19 million worth of tokens, accounting for 1.5% of circulating supply.

• XPL will unlock approximately $9.05 million worth of tokens, accounting for 3.7% of circulating supply.

References:

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT

• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/btc/

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data

• DeFiLlama, https://defillama.com/stablecoins

• Etherscan, https://etherscan.io/gastracker

• Coingecoko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap

• The Block, https://www.theblock.co/post/383595/tom-lees-bitmine-88-million-eth

• The Block, https://www.theblock.co/post/383711/polymarket-third-party-vulnerability-hack

• Coindesk, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/12/24/trump-media-shuffles-2-000-btc-after-fresh-bitcoin-inflows

• Rootdata, https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising

• Tokenomist, https://tokenomist.ai/

• Deribit, https://www.deribit.com/statistics/BTC/metrics/options

• X, https://x.com/AustinBarack/status/2003902632973275405?s=20

• CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.html

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