The market was cautiously optimistic this week as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East cooled. The Iran-U.S. situation continued as the unstable ceasefire holds with diplomatic talks bringing fresh hope to the standoff.
The overall crypto market capitalization gained approximately 5% (2.6t USD total) in the past week as over 1.4b USD flowed into the market, its strongest week since January. The Fear & Greed Index was up slightly from last week and the consensus from the big exchanges put it in neutral territory at 55. Analysts believe that investors are waiting for positive catalysts for further investment to push the index into Greed territory. As the following week unfolds, it looks poised to build on this positive momentum as patient capital remains disciplined for a future payoff.
Bitcoin Bouncing
Bitcoin bounced back this week with a 5% surge on April 17th passing the key resistance level of 74.5K USD and touching 78k USD, before pulling back to its current level of 75.7k USD. BTC responded to positive macroeconomic news and reduced tensions in the Middle East and renewed interest from institutional investors.
The resilient rally saw ETF inflows of almost 1b USD in the past week with BlackRock’s IBIT leading the way with 900m USD and Morgan Stanley’s new ETF (MSBT) with 71m USD since its launch last week. Institutional investor risk appetite has shifted to a more positive stance as the Middle East talks appear to be making headway. The total asset value of all spot ETFs is above 100b USD with over 25k BTC flowing into the market this week.
Yesterday Strategy bought 34,164 BTC, its biggest purchase in over a year, bringing the biggest BTC corporate holder to 815K BTC. The recent buy follows Strategy’s pattern of buying BTC around 75k USD, their breakeven point, signaling conviction at this price. They are now closer to the company’s goal of acquiring 1m BTC, tightening up the BTC supply and its goal of holding almost 4% of the total BTC supply.
Ethereum Stabilizes Before Next Breakout?
Ethereum is currently trading around 2.3k USD after breaking through the key level of 2.45k level, then pulling back 2.3% this past week. The price is off the highs but daily trading volumes remained above 18.3m USD, bolstered by Bitmine’s latest ETH buy. Bitmine bought over 101k ETH, the biggest purchase since December 15th, 2025, bringing its ETH total to 4,976,485. Analysts have stated that Bitmine and Strategy buys signals bullish sentiment in the crypto market.
Another interesting ETH buy this week was a whale long for almost 91m USD at 20x leverage. This buy corresponds with 7 consecutive day net ETH ETF inflows of 430m USD this week.
Spot ETH ETF inflows this week recorded 430m USD which is the strongest week since the middle of January. Analysts point out that this is a pivotal stabilization phase despite market volatility. It reflects demand, successful ETH integration as a financial digital asset and market maturation as positive capital continues to support and build on the ETH blockchain.
DePIN the Top Crypto Narrative this Week
The Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) sector was up 25% overall as the top performing sector in crypto this week. The sector had tangible revenue from the compute, storage and connectivity tokens bringing the sector market cap to 9.5b USD.
One of the biggest gainers this week was Theta Network (THETA) that focuses on AI, video streaming and edge computing. A new strategic partnership with Alibaba Cloud International pumped up the price of THETA and is up 23% this week. Alibaba will operate the Enterprise Validator Node that confirms transactions, security and overall governance of the network.
In the decentralized storage network sector, Arweave (AR) displayed a 17% gain this week. This company is known for its one-time fee (instead of monthly subscriptions) for storing data permanently and immutably, the ‘Permaweb.’ Investors are embracing the company’s continuing fundamental development at strengthening and decentralizing the network which is currently driving possible long-term utility demand.
AI Continues to Top the Charts
Despite all the global tensions, the AI sector remains one of the top crypto sectors. Tradoor (TRADOOR) is a decentralized derivatives trading platform that has rotated into this week’s crypto narrative. It gained recognition from its integration with Telegram’s Mini Apps, which enabled fast trading and up to 100x leverage.
This mid-market cap company is up over 300% this week and is currently promoting their ‘Airdrip’ campaign to increase its circulating supply through targeted distribution and in-app rewards. Usually, airdrops (airdrips) create selling pressure (users claim and sell) but investors have retained the increased supply and caused the tokens’ parabolic move upwards.
Unibase (UB) launched in September 2025 and provides autonomous AI agents with a high-performance decentralized AI memory and cross platform interoperability, creating self-evolving AI entities. Investors in UB have been very independent of the crypto market and UB will rise against a falling or flat BTC. The sudden rise in price was due to a combination of a strong social media campaign and positive analyst comments.
Unibase has also partnered with HyperGPT and Blazpay AI, increasing the utility and ecosystem of token causing a 79% increase in the last week. UB has outperformed the overall market by 20% as a middleware provider for the AI agent sector.
The crypto market is slowly retracing its previous overall market cap by rewarding specific sectors and tokens that have utility, narrative strength and verifiable endorsement.
AI continues to uptrend, fueled by decentralized compute demand and AI agent narratives with strong double-digit gains. DePIN projects that have been idle for months/years are now on investor radar, gaining capital to expand their infrastructure. Capital is flowing into sectors with proper market fit rather than hype… the fear is easing and conviction is returning.
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.
