Bitcoin has climbed almost 12% this month (April 2026). But crypto derivatives aren't getting excited just yet.

has helped underpin a close to 12% rally in 

 month-to-date, while derivative markets continue to fade the rally.

 saw their longest consecutive inflow streak since the 10/10 liquidation event, vacuuming more than $2.1B worth of bitcoins.

 have continued to showcase their insatiable appetite for bitcoin and ether, respectively:

April is also on track to break 5 straight months of Spot 

Despite the bullish sentiment in spot markets however, derivative markets have so far failed to echo the same enthusiasm.

Funding rates in perpetual futures contracts have mostly traded negative, open interest in perp contracts shows little interest in opening new positions, and in options markets, put-call skew is still tilted towards put options.

 on track for its best month since April 2025

A near-12% rally month-to-date has put BTC on track for its 

Risk-appetite in crypto spot prices rose earlier in the week, coinciding with record highs in US equities after Iran offered the US a new peace deal. That deal proposed a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later date after both sides lifted their blockades in the vital waterway.

BTC rallied to as much as $79,500 – a twelve-week high, before meeting a sharp wall of resistance just below $80K.

Since then, the spot price has lingered around $76K after it was reported that President Trump rejected Tehran’s peace proposal and told his White House aides to potentially prepare for an extended naval blockade of the Hormuz Strait, 

The slow, steady (and almost stealth-like) recovery in BTC over the month of April has not, however, been driven by leverage or exuberance in perpetual futures markets.

Open interest in BTC perp contracts, for example, has been steady over the course of the month, below $4B, while total open interest across several blue-chip tokens has mostly ranged between $6-7B. 

That suggests that despite a 3-month high in spot price, traders on Bybit are yet to rush into leveraged perp positions in the hope of capturing further upside in spot price.

We can also look at funding rates to gauge whether traders expect the rally to continue.

 indicates that traders are willing to pay a fee for the leveraged long exposure perpetual swap contracts offer – a sign of 

trader expectation of a further rally in spot price.

Much of the spot rally in April, however, has not been accompanied by positive funding rates in BTC or ETH perp contracts, suggesting a lack of conviction from perp traders. 

For comparison, see below how the early 2026 spot move towards $100K was backed by a more prolonged period of positive funding rates.

While BTC’s recovery rally in April may not have been driven by speculative leverage position building, it has, however, coincided with strong institutional interest.

Between April 14 and April 24, Spot Bitcoin ETFs had a straight run of 9 consecutive inflow days, purchasing more than $2.1B worth of bitcoins. 

The last time Spot Bitcoin ETFs had such a long inflow streak was between Sept 29 and Oct 9, 2025 – just before the historic October 10 liquidation event. 

While the past 2 days have seen outflows ... 

April is still on track to be the strongest month for Spot Bitcoin ETF net flows since October 2025.

Institutional interest has not, however, been limited to just ETFs.

, the largest Bitcoin digital asset treasury and the largest institutional holder of BTC, has purchased $4.1B worth of Bitcoin over the course of April. 

On April 20, 2026 for example, the firm made its largest purchase since November 2024, acquiring 34,164 bitcoin at a total cost of $2.5B.

The rolling 20-day sum of Spot Bitcoin ETFs and Strategy purchases has more than doubled from $2.9B at the start of April to over $6.5B, and is currently at its highest since October last year.

ETH spot price is up more than 10% this month, with April on track to break 5 straight months of Spot Ethereum ETF outflows. 

 recently purchased 101,901 Ethereum, bringing the firm’s total ETH holdings to 4.21% of the total circulated supply. That also marked the firm’s largest purchase since mid-December 2025.

Similar to perpetual futures markets, we continue to see skepticism from options markets around the longevity of the rally.

Despite spot price trading close to its highest since the US-Iran conflict began 2 months ago, excluding a very brief call-premium in mid-April, the 25-delta put-call skew continues to tilt towards put options.

As we highlighted in a previous edition, the large premium with which put options traded at earlier in the year has subsided in line with the spot price recovery – however, while traders may not have the same urgency to hedge against downside spot moves, they also show signs of limited conviction to chase upside moves.

We also continue to observe a selloff in implied volatility.

Across the entirety of the curve, forward-looking volatility expectations have steadily compressed lower. 

7-day ATM IV now trades 10 vol points lower than before the conflict began and has touched a zone which has historically acted as strong support for IV over the past year. 

The steady drop in volatility expectations has occurred despite considerable macro uncertainty around a US-Iran peace deal and little sign of a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz in the near term.

This article is provided for general information and reflects the author’s views only. It does not constitute investment advice, nor an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any financial instruments or digital assets. Your ability to access or use any products or services mentioned may be subject to the laws and regulatory requirements of your jurisdiction.

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Institutional Demand Underpins BTC’s Best Month Since April 2025

Read on, and you'll understand why we're switching playbooks.

On April 22, two things happened simultaneously:

BTC surged to $77,541, breaking out of the two-month consolidation range drawn from the 2025 lows.

All of April, the market was locked on one question: "The ceasefire expires April 22 — and then what?" The answer arrived: 

Still that was signal enough for the geopolitical and psychological glass ceiling that had suppressed bulls for six weeks to disappear, at least for the time being.

Gold, the safe-haven asset, was sold off as the ceasefire was extended - capital is voting with real money that risk-on is back. 

 fell roughly 2.1% on the week, in stark contrast to BTC. 

This is a clean confirmation of the risk-on rotation, with stock indexes rallying higher to fresh record highs as well.

II. Options Data ｜ Price Up, DVOL Down to 41 — A Divergence Worth Examining

The most important options signal of the week 

BTC moved from $75,700 to $79,000, breaking out of a two-month range — but instead of expanding alongside the breakout, 

DVOL fell further to 40.96, marking a new low since before the Iran war began.

Price up, vol down — the market has heavily priced in "continued range-bound action" and assumes no big moves are coming. 

Option sellers are stacking the books, compressing IV further and further.

But the calendar says: FOMC rate decision, Powell's last press conference, Bitcoin Conference.

This combination of "the market thinks nothing's happening" + "the calendar is full of catalysts" historically resolves the same way - 

realized volatility ends up far higher than the implied vol that was sold.

This is the textbook setup for a long strangle. The strategy section below builds it out.

III. Macro ｜ One Good News Closes, One Hard Test Opens

The War Narrative: From "Could Blow Up Anytime" to "They're Talking, Sorta"

This is the week's biggest variable shift. The ceasefire upgraded from "two-week temporary" to "indefinite," now framed as the start of a peace process — this isn't just oil-price relief, it's a structural repricing of risk premium across the entire market. DVOL's decline this week is the real-time mapping of that repricing.

BTC has fallen within 48 hours following 8 of the last 9 FOMC decisions — regardless of cuts, holds, hawkish, or dovish. The "sell-the-news" pattern is the most reliable short-term signal in crypto since mid-2025, and it gets tested again at 2:00 PM ET on April 29.

Las Vegas Bitcoin Conferences have historically produced market-moving announcements. 

With Fed leadership change weeks away, expect institutional adoption narratives to be amplified.

IV. Outlook ｜ $80,000 Is the Door, Powell Holds Both Key and Detonator

BTC enters this FOMC on the back of a strong rally — not in a beaten-down position. 

March FOMC saw BTC at $74,000 after weeks of decline, with little pre-event positioning to unwind. 

April looks more like the October or December setups, where BTC rallied into the meeting and gave back the gains within 48 hours.

Three Scenarios — Each One Implies a Big Move:

The key insight: the base case (range stays tight) is historically the least common outcome around FOMC.

 With DVOL pinned at 41, this gives the long strangle the best possible risk/reward asymmetry — you only lose when the market does 

, and you potentially make money in the vast majority of other outcomes.

V. Trading Strategy ｜ Historic DVOL Lows + Dense Binary Events = Textbook Long Strangle

btc price movement.png

Bybit Options Weekly Review: April 22–28

Bybit and Mantle respond to rsETH incident; Strategy makes biggest BTC purchase since Nov 2024.

, as the biggest holder and supporter of 

 the latter's proposal to contribute a loan facility to 

According to Mantle, the loan would form part of a wider coordinated framework, structured to minimize disruption across the broader ecosystem and contribute to a measured path forward for users affected.

 located at an Arbitrum One address associated with the 

, acting in coordination with law enforcement insights regarding the exploiter’s identity. 

As of April 20 at 11:26pm ET, the assets were successfully transferred into an intermediary frozen wallet, rendering them inaccessible to the KelpDAO exploit- associated address and subject only to future movement through actions governed by Arbitrum governance in coordination with relevant stakeholders.

 have published further context on the $292M exploit, stating that on April 18 rsETH was drained from the bridging adapter through a forged cross-chain message after two LayerZero-hosted RPC nodes were compromised and a simultaneous DDoS attack disabled the third node, confirming the attack originated from LayerZero infrastructure rather than Kelp’s systems. 

Kelp reported that it mitigated further damage by pausing affected smart contracts across 

 mainnet and L2s and blacklisting exploiter-linked wallets, which prevented an additional attempt to drain 40,000 rsETH (approximately $95M). 

Kelp have specified that their 1-of-1 DVN configuration was consistent with LayerZero’s documented default for OFT deployments and previously validated during Kelp’s L2 expansion.

-based liquid staking platform, has disclosed a 

wherein an exploit targeting specific smart contracts resulted in the extraction of approximately 

, XAUm, USDC) from three isolated vaults, indicating a vault-level vulnerability rather than a protocol-wide issue. 

The team has detected anomalous on-chain activity, coordinated with the Sui Foundation and ecosystem partners, and frozen affected vaults to halt contract interactions, while confirming that other vaults (~$28M TVL) remain secure.

, outlining results from 17 researchers including over $5.8M recovered, 785+ vulnerabilities identified, and 36+ incident responses handled. 

The update highlights new technical outputs such as open-source tooling, exploit PoC databases, and threat intelligence frameworks, alongside ecosystem engagement across 800+ teams and 80+ workshops.

as a Charter-level member, reinforcing the growing institutional focus on security in blockchain and digital asset infrastructure. 

By contributing its expertise in payments security, digital identity, fraud prevention, and cyber resilience, Mastercard will help shape stronger industry standards for trust, interoperability, and consumer protection.

Japan Securities Clearing Corporation (JSCC),

 the central clearing house owned by Japan Exchange Group, has 

launched a blockchain-based collateral trial 

with Mizuho Financial Group, Nomura Holdings and Digital Asset Holdings. The project will test the transfer and management of Japanese government bonds on the Canton Network. 

The focus is on enabling real-time collateral movement while remaining within existing regulatory constraints. The broader significance is the digitisation of high-quality collateral – if sovereign bonds can move more efficiently between institutions, settlement friction could fall.

 digital asset treasury company in the world, announced on Monday that it had

worth of bitcoins over the last seven days — its largest purchase for the currency since November 2024.

 has outlined a multi-phase roadmap to prepare XRPL for a 

on their official page, with full readiness targeted by 

The near-term focus is on testing quantum-resistant cryptography, assessing the performance impact of larger keys and signatures, and introducing hybrid models that can operate alongside existing systems before any full transition.

on the structure of the crypto market in the USA is being 

 – the vote may be rescheduled for May. 

Senator Tom Tillis stated that the banking committee will not have time to review and put the document to a vote in April. 

The parties need additional time to reach a compromise on the profitability of stablecoins.

, a global stablecoin-based payments fintech, has entered a strategic partnership with 

integrate SUI and native USDC-Sui into its payments stack,

 enabling users across 100+ countries to access SUI-based stablecoin-denominated transactions and global payout functionality via the RedotPay app. 

RedotPay is also extending its multi-currency wallet and card infrastructure, supported by 

 Pay, by leveraging Sui’s layer 1 blockchain to facilitate low-fee transfers, near-instant finality, and integrated fiat on/off-ramps for real-world merchant payments.

agentic wallet for AI-led onchain execution

, with built-in guardrails aimed at improving control and security. 

The product supports more than 80 blockchains, including 

, and uses a “Pact” mechanism to define execution limits and termination conditions for each task. 

Cobo said the wallet also incorporates multi-party computation, positioning the product as a more secure framework for AI agents handling real onchain activity.

South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance 

is launching a pilot using tokenized deposits to handle government spending, with rollout planned for the fourth quarter of 2026 starting in Sejong City.

last Thursday, a spot crypto trading service that it will roll out to clients in the upcoming weeks. 

The platform will provide a direct way of trading 

, as well as educational content around crypto assets. Head of Retail Investing at the firm said, “With Schwab Crypto, clients who want direct access to the asset class can trade it alongside their other investments, while benefiting from the service, education, and research they expect from us.”

 through DigiFT, marking another step in the continued institutionalisation of real-world assets on public blockchain infrastructure. 

According to Bloomberg, the Hong Kong-based asset manager plans to bring the fund onchain by the end of April and raise a further $30M in tokenised shares by year-end, with ambitions to scale the strategy to $250M by the end of 2026.

CHIP is the governance token of USD.AI, a decentralised protocol focused on financing AI compute infrastructure through GPU-backed lending. 

Rather than serving as a conventional payment token, CHIP underpins an on-chain financing system designed to channel capital into a fast-growing segment of the digital economy: artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The USD.AI ecosystem consists of three core components:

The protocol is built around a clear market need: AI infrastructure requires significant upfront capital, while traditional financing channels are often slow, expensive, and difficult to scale. 

USD.AI aims to address this by creating a more standardised, crypto-native framework for infrastructure credit, allowing users to gain exposure to AI-related lending through a productised on-chain structure rather than through direct loan origination or underwriting. 

Yield is intended to be generated from loans secured against GPU and related infrastructure assets, as well as from returns on undeployed reserve capital.

What differentiates CHIP is its exposure to a tangible economic activity rather than a purely narrative-driven theme. 

By linking the protocol to income-generating physical infrastructure, USD.AI presents a more concrete use case than many projects marketed under the AI token category. 

At the same time, this model carries a more complex risk profile than traditional stablecoin structures, as outcomes depend on the quality, liquidity, and valuation stability of the underlying collateral, as well as on disciplined underwriting and execution. 

Early market interest has been supported by strong trading performance, major exchange listings, and investor demand for AI-linked digital assets, although near-term price action is still likely to be influenced more by sentiment, liquidity, and speculation than by fully established fundamentals.

Beginner

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24 April 2026: What's New in DeFi?

BTC hits 2-month high amid flickering bullish catalysts, sidesteps near-US$300mil crypto hack.

As the two-week ceasefire agreement with Iran was on the cusp of expiring, President Trump announced an indefinite extension, marking yet another reversal from his comments on Monday that an additional extension would be “highly unlikely”. 

Risk-appetite rose following the announcement with 

 trading up past $78K, its highest since the onset of the war, though it fell short at the $78.5K resistance wall.

Block Scholes' in-house Risk Appetite Metric has continued to tick higher too, and now moves at a year-to-date high for both BTC and ETH. 

Block Scholes’ Risk-Appetite Indexes for both major assets have once more crossed over the -0.5 threshold from below; a crossing that has typically marked a transition into a more bullish market regime.

Earlier in the week, options markets priced in the first premium towards OTM call options since January 30, 2026, as options traders briefly turned bullish over the near-term – unfortunately however that has yet to hold for long and skew quickly tilted towards put contracts again.

Block Scholes’ Risk Appetite Index measures the level of euphoria (above 1) or panic (below -1) in the spot market. Momentum in this index shows a strong relationship to spot returns.

President Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’ negotiation style and Iran’s refusal to give in to US demands continue to be the dominant driver of crypto spot prices. 

Only last Monday, the President said that he would not be “rushed into making a bad deal”, and that it would be “highly unlikely” that he would renew the two-week ceasefire agreement set to conclude this week. 

That meant risk-on assets entered the week with a risk-off sentiment — BTC fell from $78K down to $74K, while US equities snapped their win-streak to end Monday’s session lower. 

Sentiment was further soured on news that Vice President JD Vance had cancelled his trip to Pakistan for a second-round of negotiations after Iranian officials refused to attend, citing unreasonable American demands. 

However, in a reversal that we may have now come to expect from the US president ...

Trump announced on Tuesday (Apr 21) that the US-Iran ceasefire would be extended “indefinitely”, though the US’s naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would remain. 

, though stumbled at the same $78.5K resistance that it failed to breach on Friday 17 April, 2026, when a flurry of comments from Trump had indicated a peace resolution was possible. 

Despite a spot price that has been dynamic to changing geopolitical headlines, implied volatility in options markets on the other hand continues to dwindle lower. 

The term structure of at-the-money implied volatility levels is compressed around 40%, superficially suggesting that traders expect this level of volatility in spot price to persist over a longer-term horizon. 

However, longer-dated volatility levels have trended downward by around 10 points since early May as options traders price out the risk of a further extension to the conflict and the uncertainty that would entail. 

 we highlighted that options markets had shown a more bullish tilt in Ether than they had in Bitcoin. 

However, over the past 7 days, that optimism spread into BTC markets too. 

BTC’s 7-day 25-delta put-call skew turned positive for the first time since January 30, 2026, before the breakout of the conflict. 

Like in ETH markets, that positive premium towards out-the-money BTC call options did not last long. 

Despite spot price once more reaching $78K (the same level it traded at when 7-day skew rose to 3.1% on April 17, 2026) skew has yet to turn bullish again and is currently trading at -2.9%.

For now it appears that options markets are refusing to turn bullish with serious conviction due to the back-and-forth uncertainty in diplomatic efforts between the US and Iran. 

However, beneath the surface, a number of bullish catalysts underpinning buy-side demand have emerged:

Overall, such flickers of bullish sentiment suggest that major cryptos remain sensitive to developments surrounding the Middle East conflict, even sidestepping the largest DeFi hack so far in 2026.

For a deep dive into the almost-US$ 300 million DeFi hack, 

Bybit - Middle East watch.jpeg

Major Cryptos Focused on US-Iran Peace Talks; Shrug Off Biggest DeFi Hack of 2026

SO CLOSE: 2 of our "3 Assets to Watch" within 2% of their targets!

The US-Iran ceasefire has been extended, again.

And this time, indefinitely (apparently).

Despite US President Donald Trump saying on Monday, April 20, that it was “highly unlikely” to be extended, 

which was set to expire this evening (Wed, Apr 22).

Markets are drawing some comfort from Trump’s reluctance to return to military hostilities.

This extended ceasefire gives us an opportune time to do a mid-week check in on our selected 

Today (Wed, Apr 22), Bitcoin surpassed its previous 2-month high, posted on April 17th, by $100.

From today’s intraday high, BTCUSDT is a mere 

Also, on a week-to-date basis, Bitcoin is the best performing major crypto (among the 5 biggest digital assets excluding stablecoins):

SOURCE: Bloomberg; % figures show week-to-date performance

So far this week, Bitcoin appears to be justifying its selection in our “3 Assets to Watch” this week.

 has outperformed its major crypto peers, rising 1.6% so far this week.

This past weekend, on April 19th specifically, TRON finally reached the 

, having also formed a technical “golden cross” earlier this month.

At the time of writing, news of the extended ceasefire sent the Nikkei 225 on another run towards the 60,000 psychological level.

Should Japan’s benchmark stock index climb another 0.65% from current levels, that would mark a 

 is the worst-performing G10 currency against the US dollar so far this week (

 has sent the Nikkei 225 climbing 1.9% so far this week:

At the time of writing GBPUSD+ is a mere 3 pips away from forming a technical “death cross”:

A “death cross” is when an asset’s 50-day simple moving average (SMA) crosses below its 200-day SMA.

A “death cross” typically signals more price declines ahead.

The push-and-pull forces between the released UK economic data, and the shifting market sentiment surrounding the Middle East conflict, has left 

GBPUSD+ little changed (+0.1%) so far this week.

Still, we are only mid-way through this week, and there could be more volatility ahead.

Don't get left behind. Stay up-to-date here: 

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Bitcoin hits new 2-month high!

Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna get bumpy.

This past week delivered another headline-dominated whipsaw — BTC briefly broke $78,000 on a surprise Hormuz reopening announcement, only to surrender most of those gains within 24 hours as Iran reversed course. The net result: a modest +4.7% weekly gain that masked intraweek volatility of over 5%.

Weekly Expiry (4/17) — Hormuz Whipsaw, Vol Stays Compressed:

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