Bitcoin Surges 20% to $97,300 on Institutional Inflows, ETF Demand
2min read Bitcoin's price surged to an over two-month high of $97,300, bolstering analyst predictions for a rally driven by institutional and exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows. This surge comes as the total crypto market capitalization breached the $3 trillion mark for the first time since the beginning of March. The rise in risk appetite among crypto investors was further fueled by indications from state-linked news outlets that the Trump administration had quietly contacted Beijing to discuss tariff reductions.
Bitwise’s head of European research, André Dragosch, predicted that Bitcoin’s expanding institutional adoption could provide the necessary inflows to surpass gold’s market capitalization and push its price beyond $1 million by 2029. According to Dragosch, for the 2025 market cycle, Bitcoin may surpass $200,000 in the “base case” and $500,000 with more governmental adoption. Gold is currently the world’s largest asset, valued at over $21.7 trillion, while Bitcoin’s market capitalization sits at $1.9 trillion, making it the seventh-largest asset globally.
Ethereum developers proposed a new token standard to improve the interoperability of the world’s second-largest blockchain network. The new token standards, ERC-7930 and ERC-7828, aim to provide a standard way for wallets, apps, or protocols to interpret or display information, addressing the current inconsistency in crosschain user experience. The Ethereum Foundation interoperability working group is working to finalize both token standards within the next two weeks, with feedback sought from the ETH-Magicians forum.
Cryptocurrency hackers stole more than $90 million in April, dealing another blow to the industry’s mainstream reputation. The total marks a 124% month-over-month increase from March, with the month’s largest hack on open-source platform UPCX accounting for most of the damage in April, with over $70 million in losses. All of April’s reported attacks targeted decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, with centralized exchanges reporting no incidents during the month.
The crypto lobby group, the DeFi Education Fund, petitioned the Trump administration to end what it claimed was the “lawless prosecution” of open-source software developers, including Roman Storm, a creator of the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash. The group urged President Donald Trump “to take immediate action to discontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice's lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.” The letter specifically mentioned the prosecution of Storm, who was charged in August 2023 with helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash. The group also called for the recognition that the prosecution contradicts the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance from Trump’s first term, which established that developers of self-custodial, peer-to-peer protocols are not money transmitters.
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green. The Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) token rose over 103% as the week’s biggest gainer, followed by the Solayer (LAYER) token, up over 29% during the past week.
