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- Bitcoin rose 11.27% last week and posted the largest inflows since January ($3.39 bn total), while policy momentum accelerated with Arizona’s Bitcoin reserve bills scheduled for a potential final vote today.
- Sentiment across crypto markets improved moderately, with our in-house Cryptoasset Sentiment Index turning slightly bullish and altcoin outperformance rising—50% of tracked altcoins and Ethereum outpaced Bitcoin—indicating a pickup in risk appetite.
- Corporate Bitcoin holdings surged to 746,302 BTC (+166% YoY), pointing to rising structural buy-side pressure as cash-rich companies increasingly pivot to Bitcoin treasuries—tightening available supply and deepening Bitcoin’s role as an institutional reserve asset (Chart of the Week).
Chart of the Week
Performance
Last week, Bitcoin rose by 11.27%, with prices climbing steadily from $84,000 early in the week to approximately $94,400 at the time of writing. ETF flows also posted one of the strongest weekly inflows since late January, with global crypto ETP flows totalling $3,393.1 mn, led by Bitcoin inflows of $3,165.7 mn.
Beyond the surface, critical developments are steadily reshaping the institutional Bitcoin landscape. Twenty One Capital, a newly formed entity backed by Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether, and SoftBank, announced a $3.6 bn Bitcoin acquisition initiative. Modelled loosely on Strategy's treasury strategy but designed for greater scale, Twenty One Capital highlights how traditional finance and crypto-native giants are converging around direct Bitcoin accumulation.
The corporate Bitcoin story is gaining strength.
At Bitwise's Bitcoin Standard Corporations Investor Day, Kraken's CFO Stephanie Lemmerman projected that 20% of the roughly 55,000 public companies worldwide could allocate to Bitcoin treasuries over the coming years. Semler Scientific's Chair Eric Semler echoed this view, emphasizing how many cash-rich but operationally stagnant companies are now viewing Bitcoin as a long-term strategic pivot. He estimates that there are “thousands” of such "zombie" companies that could realign their treasury strategies toward Bitcoin.
Corporate Bitcoin holdings (Chart of the Week) have surged to 746,302 BTC as of April 2025, marking a 166.88% increase from Q1 2024 and a 26.3% jump since Q4 2024. Notably, unlike ETF flows, most of this growth stems from direct corporate accumulation-sticky, price-agnostic capital that structurally tightens Bitcoin's available supply.
A wave of so-called "zombie companies"-public companies with stagnant cash-heavy balance sheets but limited operational growth-are now exploring Bitcoin as a strategic pivot.
The potential impact is enormous: if even a fraction of the estimated 55,000 public companies worldwide allocate to Bitcoin, as Kraken's CFO recently suggested, corporate demand could meaningfully tighten supply dynamics over the next cycle.
While Strategy pioneered the Bitcoin treasury strategy, the entrance of competitors like Twenty One is likely to compress NAV premiums across the sector, forcing even incumbents like Strategy to eventually explore yield-enhancing strategies-such as covered call programs or lending their Bitcoin holdings. The corporate arms race for Bitcoin accumulation is now underway.
Furthermore, corporate Bitcoin acquisitions have historically clustered around local price peaks. This dynamic is largely explained by the reflexive nature of capital markets: as Bitcoin rallies and market enthusiasm builds, companies are able to tap into equity and debt markets more easily, raising capital to finance new Bitcoin purchases at elevated prices. While this reflexivity can contribute to drawdowns during periods of stress, it also reinforces Bitcoin's structural integration into corporate balance sheets over time.
Importantly, as more public companies adopt Bitcoin-heavy treasury strategies, a new category of Bitcoin-native institutions is quietly emerging. Companies that embed Bitcoin deeply into their capital structures could evolve into the next generation of Bitcoin banks, wielding substantial balance sheets in a structurally scarce asset.
Building on our analysis from last week, where we outlined the early signs of bitcoin beginning to decouple from U.S. equities, recent developments reinforce this trajectory.
The Trump administration's evolving economic strategy-cantered on tariff threats and weakening the dollar-continues to undermine U.S. monetary credibility. Although Stephen Miran's policy framework for addressing trade imbalances and the overvalued dollar laid out a structured, multi-phase approach, it appears Trump's team is improvising between competing internal influences. Scott Bessent has reportedly emerged as a moderating voice advocating for a segmented tariff strategy and gradual dollar weakening through international coordination. Peter Navarro, by contrast, is pushing for a more aggressive, unilateral stance. If unilateral tariffs escalate without parallel security agreements, retaliatory measures and broader market dislocations could follow.
In this environment, Bitcoin's case as a neutral apolitical store-of-value and institutional hedge strengthens further. Since the Executive Order on tariffs earlier this month, Bitcoin has outperformed every Magnificent 7 stock and key U.S. equity benchmarks. Meanwhile, short-term correlations between Bitcoin and equities are beginning to soften, hinting at deeper structural decoupling.
Volatility trends also continue to mature. Although Bitcoin's realized volatility has risen slightly amid recent macro turbulence, it remains significantly below previous cycle highs. Structurally, Bitcoin's volatility has been in a long-term downtrend since inception, reinforcing its transition from a speculative asset toward a potential institutional reserve asset. While Bitcoin remains more volatile than most traditional assets, its volatility profile continues to improve cycle over cycle.
Across the broader ecosystem, strategic moves continue to signal long-term commitment to the digital asset space. Circle announced plans to debut its Circle Payments Network (CPN) in May, positioning USDC and EURC stablecoins at the centre of real-time cross-border settlements and challenging SWIFT's entrenched dominance. Ripple's Hidden Road subsidiary secured FINRA broker-dealer approval, strengthening institutional access to digital assets. Meanwhile, Sol Strategies secured a $500 million convertible note facility to expand its Solana validator operations, marking the largest financing of its kind within that ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin's positioning at the macro level continues to climb. At the time of writing, Bitcoin surpassed Silver and Saudi Aramco to become the world's seventh-largest asset by market cap, reaching $1.87 trillion. Momentum on the policy front also continues to build. Arizona's two Bitcoin reserve bills-SB1025 and SB1373-are now scheduled for their Third Reading today, with a potential final vote. If enacted, Arizona would become the first U.S. state to formally establish a sovereign Bitcoin reserve framework. SB1025, the Arizona Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act, would allow the state treasurer and retirement systems to allocate up to 10% of available public funds into Bitcoin, explicitly recognizing it as a store of value. SB1373 would create a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund, holding seized and appropriated digital assets under strict custody and governance standards.
Taken together, the backdrop remains clear: the supply constraints highlighted in our Chart of the Week are structural, not transient. With a rising cohort of corporates-and increasingly, zombie companies-pursuing Bitcoin treasury strategies, future buy-side pressure is not just likely, but inevitable. Bitcoin's evolution into an institutional hedge, marked by declining volatility and weaker equity correlations, is underway-and accelerating.
In general, among the top 10 crypto assets Sui, Dogecoin and Chainlink were the relative outperformers.
Overall, altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin increased from last week, with 50% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Furthermore, Ethereum outperformed Bitcoin last week.
Sentiment
Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” has continued to signal a slightly bullish sentiment.
At the moment, 9 out of 15 indicators are above their short-term trend.
The Bitcoin Exchange Inflows and Crypto Hedge Fund Beta metrics have improved compared to last week, while the Crypto ETP Fund Flows metric showed a significant recovery, recording a positive one standard deviation move in its Z-score week-on-week.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently signals a “Neutral” level of sentiment as of this morning, improving from last week.
Performance dispersion among cryptoassets remains at very low levels, signalling that altcoins have continued to be highly correlated with the performance of Bitcoin lately.
Altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin has sustained from last week, with around 50% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum also managed to outperform Bitcoin last week.
In general, increasing (decreasing) altcoin outperformance tends to be a sign of increasing (decreasing) risk appetite within cryptoasset markets and the latest altcoin underperformance signals a bearish risk appetite at the moment.
Sentiment in traditional financial markets as measured by our in-house measure of Cross Asset Risk Appetite (CARA) has improved slightly while remaining at low levels, moving from -0.43 to -0.11.
Fund Flows
Weekly fund flows into global crypto ETPs have posted the largest net inflows from January 2025 last week.
Global crypto ETPs saw around +3393.1 mn USD in weekly net inflows across all types of cryptoassets, after -30.2 mn USD in net outflows the previous week.
Global Bitcoin ETPs have experienced net inflows totalling +3165.7 mn USD last week, of which +3062.9 mn USD in net inflows were related to US spot Bitcoin ETFs.
The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) in the US experienced net inflows, totalling +116.7 mn USD last week.
In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Bitcoin ETP (BTCE) also experienced net inflows equivalent to +14.4 mn USD, while the Bitwise Core Bitcoin ETP (BTC1) experienced minor net outflows of -1.3 mn USD.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has posted net inflows of +94.1 mn USD. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) also followed suit and experienced net inflows of around +1445.7 mn USD last week.
Meanwhile, flows into global Ethereum ETPs flipped positive last week, with around +196.6 mn USD in net inflows last week
US Ethereum spot ETFs, also recorded net inflows of around +157.1 mn USD on aggregate. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), however, experienced net outflows of around -32.0 mn USD last week.
The Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) in the US experienced net inflows, totalling +12.9 mn USD last week.
In Europe, the Bitwise Physical Ethereum ETP (ZETH) saw minor net inflows of +0.7 mn USD while the Bitwise Ethereum Staking ETP (ET32) saw net inflows of around +12.0 mn USD on aggregate.
Altcoin ETPs ex Ethereum have continued its positive trend last week, with around +30.3 mn USD in global net inflows.
Furthermore, thematic & basket crypto ETPs experienced net inflows of around +0.5 mn USD on aggregate last week. The Bitwise MSCI Digital Assets Select 20 ETP (DA20) had attracted minor net inflows of +0.3 mn USD.
Global crypto hedge funds have slightly increased their market exposure to Bitcoin. The 20-days rolling beta of global crypto hedge funds' performance to Bitcoin increased to around 0.89 per yesterday's close.
On-Chain Data
Broadly speaking, Bitcoin's on-chain activity remained neutral throughout last week.
Selling pressure remains, as Bitcoin spot exchanges recorded approximately -$0.21 bn in net selling volumes.
In terms of Spot Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD), which measures the difference between buying and selling volume, the metric has been negative most of last week, indicating dominance of sell-side pressure.
It is worth noting that supply dynamics on exchanges tend to provide a slightly clearer explanation of price action.
In terms of supply dynamics, we are observing an opposite pattern. Whales have removed bitcoins from exchanges on a net basis, indicating an increase in whale buying pressure. More specifically, BTC whales removed a further -125,303 BTC on exchanges last week. Network entities that possess at least 1,000 Bitcoin are referred to as whales.
Based on recent data from Glassnode, exchange-held Bitcoin (BTC) reserves have further declined to 2.54 million coins, representing approximately 12.7% of the total circulating supply. This metric has reached its lowest level since November 2018, marking a significant multi-year low in exchange balances.
We also notice that over 63.3% of Bitcoin supply remains unmoved for at least a year in tandem to long-term holder supply climbing to a year-to-date high of 69% -underscoring strong conviction among long-term holders.
That being said, a measure of “apparent demand” for Bitcoin over the past 30 days had been in persistent decline since February 2025, reflecting a slowdown in demand. However, the metric has recently begun to recover, improving toward levels last observed prior to March 12th.
Futures, Options & Perpetuals
Last week, BTC futures open interest increased by around +10.2k BTC while perpetual open interest increased by around +4.7k BTC.
BTC perpetual funding rates turned negative following Tuesday of last week, but flipped positive yesterday indicating a slightly bullish sentiment among traders in the perpetual futures market.
In general, when the funding rate is positive (negative), long (short) positions periodically pay short (long) positions, which is indicative of bullish (bearish) sentiment.
The BTC 3-months annualised basis increased from around 5.7% p.a last week to around 7.0% p.a. averaged across various futures exchanges. BTC option open interest decreased by around -60.3k BTC. The put-call open interest ratio had experienced an decrease from 0.59 to 0.56.
The 1-month 25-delta skew for BTC continued to drop last week, indicating a modest decrease in demand for put options and a slightly bullish market sentiment.
BTC option implied volatilities fluctuated last week, with 1-month realized volatility ending the week by increasing by around +1.5%.
At the time of writing, implied volatilities of 1-month ATM Bitcoin options are currently at around 50.94% p.a.
Bottom Line
- Bitcoin rose 11.27% last week and posted the largest inflows since January ($3.39 bn total), while policy momentum accelerated with Arizona’s Bitcoin reserve bills scheduled for a potential final vote today.
- Sentiment across crypto markets improved moderately, with our in-house Cryptoasset Sentiment Index turning slightly bullish and altcoin outperformance rising—50% of tracked altcoins and Ethereum outpaced Bitcoin—indicating a pickup in risk appetite.
- Corporate Bitcoin holdings surged to 746,302 BTC (+166% YoY), pointing to rising structural buy-side pressure as cash-rich companies increasingly pivot to Bitcoin treasuries—tightening available supply and deepening Bitcoin’s role as an institutional reserve asset (Chart of the Week).
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