Institutional Demand Underpins BTC’s Best Month Since April 2025

Key insights

Strong institutional demand has helped underpin a close to 12% rally in BTC’s spot price month-to-date, while derivative markets continue to fade the rally. 

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

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

• Strategy made its largest purchase since November 2024 earlier this month
• BitMine recently purchased over 100,000 Ether.

April is also on track to break 5 straight months of Spot Ethereum ETF outflows. 

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. 

Block Scholes BTC Risk Appetite Index

Block Scholes ETH Risk Appetite Index

Bitcoin on track for its best month since April 2025 

A near 12% rally month-to-date has put BTC on track for its best month since April 2025. 

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, with plans for further military action reportedly in the pipeline

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. 

Perpetual Futures Contracts Open Interest

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 three-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. 

DECODE: A consistently positive funding rate indicates that traders are willing to pay a fee for the leveraged long exposure perpetual swap contracts offer – a sign of bullish sentiment and trader expectation of a further rally in spot price. 

BTC and ETH Perpetual Futures Funding Rates

Much of the spot rally in April 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 two days have seen outflows, April is still on track to be the strongest month for Spot Bitcoin ETF net flows since October 2025. 

BTC Spot ETF Inflows and Monthly Returns

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

Strategy, 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.

BTC Spot ETF Flows and Strategy Purchases

We see a similar story in Ethereum, too. 

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

Implied Volatility Dwindles Lower 

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.

BTC 25-Delta Put-Call Skew

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. 

BTC At-the-money Implied Volatility

What’s New in DeFi?

1. Western Union, one of the world’s largest money transfer and remittance companies, is preparing to launch its Solana-based U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, USDPT, next month. The company said during its 24 April earnings call that USDPT will initially be used for onchain settlement with agent partners, rather than as a consumer-facing token, positioning it as a faster alternative to traditional settlement rails such as SWIFT. Alongside USDPT, the company is launching its Digital Asset Network to connect crypto wallets with Western Union’s retail infrastructure, while a planned USD Stable Card would allow consumers in dozens of markets to hold dollar-denominated stablecoin value and spend globally.

2. Data shows that Bitmine has staked an additional 112,656 ETH this week, worth around $260M, lifting its total staked holdings to 3,814,245 ETH, or roughly 75% of its total ETH supply. The latest increase follows last week’s announcement that Bitmine had staked approximately $320M worth of ETH, taking its staked ether position to around 3.5M ETH, valued at more than $8B.

3. Pump.fun has burned approximately $370M worth of PUMP tokens (~36% of circulating supply) and introduced a programmatic buyback-and-burn mechanism funded by 50% of future net revenue. The buyback system is executed via smart contracts that automatically repurchase tokens from the open market and permanently remove them from circulation over a one-year period.

4. Ondo Finance has partnered with Broadridge to integrate proxy voting into tokenized equities and ETFs, using a Web3-enabled extension of Broadridge’s ProxyVote infrastructure that supports wallet-based authentication and on-chain verification of investor actions. The system enables holders of 250+ tokenized securities to access issuer communications, prospectuses, and regulatory disclosures, while linking blockchain-based ownership records with traditional shareholder voting workflows and corporate action systems. The integration effectively bridges on-chain tokenized assets with off-chain market infrastructure, allowing real-time trading (24/7) while maintaining compliance with governance, reporting, and investor participation standards used in traditional capital markets.

5. 3F, a vault protocol built on Morpho, has raised $4M to develop leveraged exposure products for tokenized real-world assets. The funding includes a pre-seed and seed round, with the latter led by Maven 11 and participation from F-Prime, GSR, Susquehanna Crypto, Gate Ventures, and others. The capital will support product development ahead of a private beta and a broader launch expected in Q2. 3F is designed to simplify leveraged RWA strategies that are currently operationally complex. Instead of manually looping positions by buying an asset, posting it as collateral, borrowing stablecoins, and repeating the process, users will be able to select a supported RWA and leverage factor through a one-click interface.

6. Lido Labs has proposed that the Lido DAO allocate up to 2,500 stETH, worth roughly $5.8M, to support a recovery package following the recent Kelp exploit. The proposed contribution is intended to help reduce the shortfall in Kelp’s rsETH backing, which emerged after the LayerZero-related exploit. Lido said the incident has created wider stress across DeFi venues, including pressure on market rates, lending markets, vaults, and looping strategies linked to rsETH and stETH liquidity.

7. Litecoin suffered a major chain change after attackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability linked to its MimbleWimble Extension Block privacy layer. According to the Litecoin Foundation, the vulnerability allowed mining nodes running older software to validate an invalid MWEB transaction, enabling coins to be improperly pegged out of the privacy extension and routed to third-party decentralised exchanges. The incident reportedly affected blocks 3,095,930 to 3,095,943, creating a more than three-hour window during which attackers attempted double-spends against cross-chain swap protocols that had accepted transactions later removed from Litecoin’s main transaction history. The network ultimately reverted 13 blocks, removing the invalid MWEB-related transactions from the canonical Litecoin chain. The Litecoin Foundation said valid transactions from the period were unaffected and that the vulnerability has now been patched.

8. Syndicate, an Ethereum-based infrastructure platform for building rollups and sequencers, has detected an exploit linked to a compromise of its Commons cross-chain bridge, where an attacker acquired ~18.5M SYND tokens and liquidated them for approximately $330K. The team is conducting on-chain tracing and working with security firms to investigate the bridge vulnerability, while assessing remediation measures and confirming it has sufficient token reserves to compensate affected users.

9. Telegram’s blockchain strategy is expanding into AI-driven on-chain execution, as TON Tech launches agents capable of carrying out transactions and DeFi activity on behalf of users. At launch, these agents can carry out transfers, swaps, staking, automated trading within pre-set budgets, and basic portfolio management.

10. Paradigm-backed Succinct Labs has launched ZCAM, an iPhone camera app designed to verify the authenticity of photos and videos at the point of capture, as stated in their official statement. The app aims to address the growing challenge of AI-generated and manipulated media by shifting authentication away from post-hoc detection and toward cryptographic proof created at capture. ZCAM signs photos and videos on-device, using Apple’s Secure Enclave and App Attest service to link each piece of media to the device and application that captured it.

11. Metaplanet is issuing roughly $50M in zero-interest bonds to fund further bitcoin purchases, according to their post on X. The bonds were fully subscribed by EVO Fund and mark Metaplanet’s 20th ordinary bond issuance. The company has been steadily accumulating bitcoin since April 2024 and holds 40,177 BTC as of 31 March 2026, after adding 5,075 BTC in the first quarter.

12. KBank, the South Korean internet-only bank that serves as the sole banking partner for crypto exchange Upbit, announced on Monday that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Ripple to test onchain cross-border remittances. The proof-of-concept will assess whether Ripple’s blockchain infrastructure can improve the speed, cost and transparency of international transfers. The first phase has already verified a wallet-based remittance system, while the second phase will test the stability of onchain transfers in a virtual environment, including routes to markets such as the UAE and Thailand.

13. Uzbekistan has introduced a presidential decree establishing “Besqala Mining Valley,” a special mining zone in Karakalpakstan aimed at scaling Bitcoin and crypto mining through structured regulation, tax incentives, and large-scale use of renewable energy sources. The framework allows licensed legal entities to conduct mining operations using solar, hydrogen, and grid electricity, with requirements for separate metering, onshore registration, and mandatory conversion or repatriation of mined crypto proceeds via regulated exchanges or bank accounts The policy includes tax exemptions on mining income until 2035, differentiated electricity pricing (including higher tariffs for grid usage), strict compliance and KYC rules, and infrastructure development plans leveraging underutilised energy assets, positioning the zone as a state-backed hub for industrial-scale BTC mining and energy optimisation.

The Latest Listings - BLEND

Fluent Network is an Ethereum-based Layer 2 built around the idea of “blended execution”. Instead of supporting only Ethereum’s EVM, Fluent is designed to bring together multiple execution environments — including the EVM, Solana’s SVM and Wasm — within a single L2. Its native token is BLEND.

The aim is to make cross-ecosystem development easier. 

Today, developers usually have to build around the specific tools, languages and constraints of one blockchain environment: Ethereum applications run on the EVM, Solana applications use the SVM, and some newer blockchain systems rely on Wasm. 

Fluent wants to reduce these boundaries by allowing developers to use familiar tooling while building applications that can interact across environments.

The technical layer behind this is rWasm, Fluent’s main execution environment. 

Rather than forcing all smart contracts into an EVM-compatible format, rWasm is intended to help run and connect code from different virtual machines. This is what underpins Fluent’s claim to offer blended execution, to provide broader compatibility rather than simply cheaper or faster Ethereum transactions.

This makes Fluent different from a standard Ethereum L2. 

Most L2s focus primarily on scaling Ethereum-style applications through lower fees, faster settlement and higher throughput. Fluent is trying to make the execution layer itself more flexible, potentially enabling applications that combine Ethereum-style smart contracts, Solana-style execution and Wasm-based logic without requiring developers to rebuild everything for one environment.

BLEND is the native token of Fluent Network and is expected to sit at the centre of its economic design. Within the ecosystem, BLEND is intended to support network incentives, ecosystem participation and liquidity formation as Fluent attempts to attract developers and applications to its blended execution model.

Bybit listed BLEND on the Spot trading platform on Apr 24, 2026.

Data & methodology

Data acquisition, composition & timeline

Open interest and trading volume data are sourced “as is” from the Bybit exchange platform API exclusively, and as such do not represent a comprehensive picture of the sum of trading activity across all derivatives markets or exchanges. The data visualized in this report consists of hourly and daily snapshots, recorded over the previous 30 days. Daily (hourly) snapshots of trade volume record the total sum of the notional value of trades recorded in the 24H (1 hour) period, beginning with the snapshot timestamp.

If not explicitly labeled as derived from another exchange, the input instrument prices to all derivatives analytics metrics in this report are sourced from the appropriate endpoints of Bybit’s public exchange platform API. In the event that data is labeled or referred to as representing the market on another exchange source, that data is sourced from the appropriate endpoint of each respective exchange’s public API.

Macroeconomic charts and data are sourced “as is” from the Bloomberg Terminal. Exchange data is sourced “as is” from publicly available exchange APIs. Block Scholes makes no claims about the veracity of public third-party data.

Open interest & volume dollar denomination

After acquisition of underlying-denominated raw data for open interest and trading volume on the Bybit exchange platform from Bybit’s API endpoint, equivalent dollar-denominated figures are calculated using the concurrent value of Block Scholes’s Spot Index for the relevant underlying asset.

Block Scholes’s Spot Index represents the aggregate Spot mid-price for a given currency across the top five CEXs by volume (with USD-quoted markets). It considers the proportion of total volume in the instrument on the exchange, as well as the deviation of a data point from those on other exchanges.

Block Scholes–derived analytics metrics

Futures prices are used for Block Scholes’s futures-implied yields calculation services in order to derive the constant-tenor annualized yields displayed in the Futures section of this report.

Options prices are used for Block Scholes’s implied volatility calculation services in order to calibrate volatility surfaces, from which all derivatives volatility analytics displayed in the BTC Options and ETH Options sections of this report are calculated. Volatility smiles are constructed by calibrating to mid-market prices observed in Bybit options markets. As part of the calibration process, prices go through rigorous filtration and cleaning steps, which ensures that the resulting volatility surface is arbitrage-free and has exceptional fit to the market observables.