Bounce off the floor

Risk appetite continued to recover as U.S. equities posted an eighth consecutive gain, with Bitcoin extending its three-week rally to briefly touch $97K. BTC short-tenor volatility rose to 40%, while option skews shifted further in favor of out-of-the-money calls. Gold declined to a two-week low despite remaining up 24% YTD. Treasury Secretary Bessent noted that bond markets are signaling the need for Fed rate cuts, citing two-year yields below fed funds. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi’s MGX announced a $2B investment in Binance via the Trump-backed USD1 stablecoin, which has now integrated with the Tron network.

Crypto

Derivatives

DeFi

Macro

Daily Updates:

The cautious rekindling in risk appetite continued yesterday as US equities rallied for an eighth consecutive trading session, following the ‘Sell America’ narrative that recently gripped financial markets.
BTC followed US equities, continuing a now three week long rally and briefly touching $97K (a level it last reached in late February).
As we noted in yesterday’s daily comment, short-tenor volatility for BTC has consistently bounced off a floor of 35% for the past 18 months. We saw the same yesterday as short-tenor volatility bounced off that floor by over 5 points, now trading at 40%.
Volatility smile skews have tilted even further towards OTM calls across all tenors, with the 7-day skew up 4.3% over the past 24 hours.
Gold, on the other hand, to which BTC has recently increased its correlation, dropped to a two-week low however as risk-on sentiment seems to be prevailing in the market, although its YTD performance is still +24%.
According to the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, bond markets are signalling that the Federal Reserve should soon begin to cut interest rates. Although Bessent previously advocated that the administration has a focus on 10-year yields and not interest rates, yesterday he stated that “we are seeing that two-year rates are now below fed funds rates. So that’s a market signal that they think the Fed should be cutting”.
President Trump also recently took his gloves to Jerome Powell once again during his Michigan rally where he claimed “I know much more than he [Powell] does about interest rates, believe me”.
Abu Dhabi-based MGX will invest $2 billion in Binance using Trump - backed WLF stablecoin, USD1. This investment marks Binance’s first institutional investment and one of Web3’s largest funding deals.
Separately, World Liberty Finance announced the integration of its stablecoin USD1 with the Tron network. Tron Network founder, Justin Sun and WLF co-founder Zach Witkoff aim to scale USD1 globally, projecting it to reach a multibillion-dollar market cap.

This Week’s Calendar:

‍

Charts of the Day:

Figure 1. BTC at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. *Source: Deribit, Block Scholes*

Figure 2. ETH at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. *Source: Deribit, Block Scholes*

Figure 3. BTC 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. *Source: Deribit, Block Scholes*

Figure 4. ETH 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. *Source: Deribit, Block Scholes*

Scroll back to the top ↑

Thahbib Rahman

Research Analyst

Share this post

Copy URL

Daily Updates:

The cautious rekindling in risk appetite continued yesterday as US equities rallied for an eighth consecutive trading session, following the ‘Sell America’ narrative that recently gripped financial markets.
BTC followed US equities, continuing a now three week long rally and briefly touching $97K (a level it last reached in late February).
As we noted in yesterday’s daily comment, short-tenor volatility for BTC has consistently bounced off a floor of 35% for the past 18 months. We saw the same yesterday as short-tenor volatility bounced off that floor by over 5 points, now trading at 40%.
Volatility smile skews have tilted even further towards OTM calls across all tenors, with the 7-day skew up 4.3% over the past 24 hours.
Gold, on the other hand, to which BTC has recently increased its correlation, dropped to a two-week low however as risk-on sentiment seems to be prevailing in the market, although its YTD performance is still +24%.
According to the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, bond markets are signalling that the Federal Reserve should soon begin to cut interest rates. Although Bessent previously advocated that the administration has a focus on 10-year yields and not interest rates, yesterday he stated that “we are seeing that two-year rates are now below fed funds rates. So that’s a market signal that they think the Fed should be cutting”.
President Trump also recently took his gloves to Jerome Powell once again during his Michigan rally where he claimed “I know much more than he [Powell] does about interest rates, believe me”.
Abu Dhabi-based MGX will invest $2 billion in Binance using Trump - backed WLF stablecoin, USD1. This investment marks Binance’s first institutional investment and one of Web3’s largest funding deals.
Separately, World Liberty Finance announced the integration of its stablecoin USD1 with the Tron network. Tron Network founder, Justin Sun and WLF co-founder Zach Witkoff aim to scale USD1 globally, projecting it to reach a multibillion-dollar market cap.

Don't miss what's next

Upgrade your Block Scholes account to unlock this article and other exclusive insights

Get Premium Access

For only $30/month

Daily Updates:

The cautious rekindling in risk appetite continued yesterday as US equities rallied for an eighth consecutive trading session, following the ‘Sell America’ narrative that recently gripped financial markets.
BTC followed US equities, continuing a now three week long rally and briefly touching $97K (a level it last reached in late February).
As we noted in yesterday’s daily comment, short-tenor volatility for BTC has consistently bounced off a floor of 35% for the past 18 months. We saw the same yesterday as short-tenor volatility bounced off that floor by over 5 points, now trading at 40%.
Volatility smile skews have tilted even further towards OTM calls across all tenors, with the 7-day skew up 4.3% over the past 24 hours.
Gold, on the other hand, to which BTC has recently increased its correlation, dropped to a two-week low however as risk-on sentiment seems to be prevailing in the market, although its YTD performance is still +24%.
According to the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, bond markets are signalling that the Federal Reserve should soon begin to cut interest rates. Although Bessent previously advocated that the administration has a focus on 10-year yields and not interest rates, yesterday he stated that “we are seeing that two-year rates are now below fed funds rates. So that’s a market signal that they think the Fed should be cutting”.
President Trump also recently took his gloves to Jerome Powell once again during his Michigan rally where he claimed “I know much more than he [Powell] does about interest rates, believe me”.
Abu Dhabi-based MGX will invest $2 billion in Binance using Trump - backed WLF stablecoin, USD1. This investment marks Binance’s first institutional investment and one of Web3’s largest funding deals.
Separately, World Liberty Finance announced the integration of its stablecoin USD1 with the Tron network. Tron Network founder, Justin Sun and WLF co-founder Zach Witkoff aim to scale USD1 globally, projecting it to reach a multibillion-dollar market cap.

Heading 2

Get insights in your inbox—join our newsletter

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Daily Updates:

This Week’s Calendar:

Charts of the Day:

Daily Updates:

Upgrade your Block Scholes account to unlock this article and other exclusive insights

Daily Updates:

Upgrade your Block Scholes account to unlock this article and other exclusive insights

Table of contents

Subscribe to our research offering to receive exclusive reports and free access to the Crypto Trader Bot

Related articles

Altcoins Analytics 20th April 2026

“IRAN HAS JUST ANNOUNCED THAT THE STRAIT OF IRAN IS FULLY OPEN AND READY FOR FULL PASSAGE”

DeFi Analytics 17th April 2026