Again, this past week, the crypto market expressed cautious optimism amid macroeconomic uncertainty but maintained strong institutional momentum. The digital asset market continued to challenge traditional asset classes, with investors buying but remaining highly aware of crypto market volatility. Institutional investment pumped 1.3b USD in the past week, the 3rd consecutive week of positive inflows.
Sentiment in the market had a gradual growth as the total market cap for crypto hit 2.6t USD, as many central banks stated they would hold interest rates at their current levels, contributing to a more favorable risk environment.
The Fear & Greed Crypto Index fell somewhat this week from 55 to 47, but is still occupying a neutral level. This means the market as a whole shares a neutral sentiment, the first time since the end of January when extreme fear was the zone. Analysts believe that the current market correction is easing fears as more institutional investors continue to show interest.
Bitcoin Corrects on Technical Resistance
Bitcoin rallied in April with a 13% increase over March, but is still down 12% since January. In the past week, BTC remained flat after hitting 79.4k USD, then retraced its gains and is currently trading around 76.6k USD. Several factors were apparent for the pullback: Iran tensions, a technical rejection at 79.3k USD, approximately 120m USD in long liquidations and lower trading volumes.
The most positive development was strong spot BTC ETF inflows with around 2.4b USD over 8 consecutive days. The multi-week momentum was led by BlackRock’s IBIT ETF, with JP Morgan not far behind. The strong inflows are far outpacing miner output as institutional buying remains robust and the supply dwindles.
Whales amplified the BTC buying with whale wallets containing 10k BTC (or more) added over 50k BTC to their wallets in April. These purchases alone are over 3.1b USD as whales accumulated BTC on the dips, even though the retail sector remained flat.
Ethereum Selling Pressure on Decline
Ethereum had a very tumultuous week, hitting 2.4k USD and then dropping to its current level of 2.2k USD, an overall drop of 1.8%. Two technical indicators tell a different story, though, that buying is outpacing selling and seller exhaustion.
Buying is dominating as traders see the current price level as an entry point rather than waiting for the price level to drop, as derivatives exchanges are experiencing huge order flows. Sellers have been in control of ETH since last October, and as stated above, the selling supply is diminishing, and positive order flow is starting to take control. The underlying demand has created a ‘selling gap’ which favors buyers currently and usually precedes upward price movement.
Institutional buyers such as Bitmine continue to add to their treasury as they bought an additional 101,901 ETH, bringing their overall ETH supply to 4.21%. The target is 5% of the total ETH supply. Bitmine also has 3.7m ETH staked, with annualized staking revenues of approximately 264m USD.
Ethereum recorded a 10-day consecutive streak of spot ETF inflows amounting to 549m USD for April, 12b USD under management. BlackRock led the way with 54m USD and Fidelity with 40.5m USD in the past week.
AI Continues to Surge on Fresh Investment
In the past week, massive capital injections into the AI sector have contributed to its rise. The spending is focused on infrastructure and projections on current technologies. Part of the rise is the expected positive earnings reports for the coming weeks of Alphabet, Meta, Apple, AMD and Microsoft.
One of the low market cap AI gems this week is Infinity Ground (AIN), and it is up 55%. The company’s momentum is riding the AI narrative wave, but it has proven infrastructure. AIN focuses on AI agents, specifically agentic IDE (AI-powered Dev environment), and positions itself as a builder ecosystem and not just a token. The small-cap company competes with Fetch.ai (FET), which has a market cap of 450m USD, and a few million inflows can produce massive gains.
Whales are accumulating and this could wake the retail sector and push the price levels up further. Another small-cap AI company is ChainGPT, which is up 25% this week because the market recognized its utility. The token has a Web3 launchpad, AI tools (pay-per-use) and regular staking unlocks that have increased the narrative. The market is demanding flexible AI tools, and this launchpad provides those options for developers who value control and compliance.
DeFi Sector Bounces after Sophisticated Exploit
In mid-April, KelpDAO was attacked, and almost 300m USD was stolen by the alleged North Korean Lazarus Group, known for their cyber-attacks. The DeFi sector dropped 13b USD in a few days, and as a result, a coalition formed (DeFi United) to restore and plug the security breaches, basically moving towards more decentralized security models.
Real-Time Payments Token Jumps 34%
A large market cap token, Zebec Network (ZBCN) is a decentralized payment platform that performs per-second payments (unlike monthly/weekly processing). The company is primarily on Solana but operates on other chains, bridging Web3 and traditional finance with their products – Zebec Payroll (crypto), Zebec Card and PayFi. The real-time money streaming token is up 34% this week and has value based on actual payment volume/enterprise integrations, not speculation.
AERO Leads a Broadening Crypto Rally
Aerodrome Finance (AERO) is another large market-cap company that is a decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Base chain. The company is up 44% this month and 20% in the past week due to strong interest from investors because of its protocol earnings. The company has traded over 10b USD in 30-day trading volume, translating into 680k USD in fees earned. Aerodrome also has a token buyback program and a next-generation trading platform coming out (tentative launch in July), intensifying the narrative. The company has strong yields, revenue growth and buybacks, driving the intensified interest in this DeFi sector token.
This past week reflects a market that is broadening and strengthening. Bitcoin and Ethereum are getting stronger, and there are more opportunities arising in other sectors. This could set the stage for a more durable and fundamentally driven phase for the crypto market.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. All crypto news reports created by mBitcasino are purely for informational purposes only. If you are planning on investing, please refer to a advisor who specializes in financial advice for cryptocurrency investments.
