Apr 21, 2025: Our weekly Institutional Insights explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

 explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

Weekly highlight — Trump wants to fire Powell? 

US president Donald Trump is actively considering firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, following Trump's public criticism of Powell for not moving quickly enough to reduce interest rates. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett confirmed that the administration is examining this option, suggesting that Powell's actions have politically favored Democrats. Hassett argued that the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates shortly after Trump took office was intended to undermine the economic impact of the tax cuts implemented during his administration, which were deemed inflationary. He further criticized the Fed for not addressing inflation concerns stemming from federal spending under President Biden, implying a lack of accountability.

During a recent press conference, Trump conveyed his dissatisfaction with Powell, asserting that if he wanted to remove him, it could happen "real fast." While he did not explicitly state his intention to dismiss Powell, his remarks highlighted the growing tensions between the White House and the Federal Reserve regarding monetary policy. Hassett defended Trump's frustrations, advocating for a focus on economic policy rather than interpersonal conflicts. This situation underscores the complex dynamics between the executive branch and the central bank, as Trump navigates economic challenges leading up to the next election.

Weekly crypto highlight — XRP ETF coming

HashKey Capital has officially launched the HashKey XRP Tracker Fund, marking the first investment fund in Asia designed specifically to track the performance of XRP, the digital asset integral to Ripple's global payment ecosystem. This fund is aimed at professional investors and offers a unique opportunity to gain exposure to XRP without the complexities of direct asset management. Investors can subscribe through cash and in-kind options, with the fund providing monthly liquidity.

Ripple, as an early backer of the fund, is looking to enhance its strategic partnership with HashKey Capital, which already manages Hong Kong–listed spot ETFs for Bitcoin and Ethereum. This collaboration not only solidifies Ripple's presence in the Asian market, but also opens avenues for future financial products, such as the potential tokenization of a money market fund on the XRP Ledger. Fiona Murray, Ripple's Managing Director for the Asia-Pacific region, highlighted that this partnership is part of a broader strategy to introduce more regulated cryptocurrency products for institutional investors in the region, aiming to foster a more robust crypto landscape in Asia.

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Weekly Institutional Insights: Trump’s desire to fire Powell might induce volatility; XRP ETF coming

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has approved a new Ethereum ETF with staking capabilities, allowing institutional investors to earn staking rewards.

Daily top performer — Pyth Network (PYTH)

The S&P 500 dropped 1.5% to 5,282.70 this week, down 5.9% in April and 10% year-to-date, led by tech losses. Real estate and energy outperformed, while political pressure on Fed Chair Powell and inflation concerns weighed on sentiment. Gold dipped 0.6% to $3,319 after a record high, as Powell’s stagflation warning tempered its rally. Despite the pullback, the uptrend remains intact. The Coindesk Indices, which tracks the broader crypto market, are up by 0.77%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising 0.64% and 0.72%, respectively, over the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is PYTH, up 10.1%, following the launch of Pyth Entropy for secure on-chain random number generation by Soneium.

Pyth Network (PYTH),  is a blockchain oracle system that delivers real-time crypto price data to blockchains, enabling smart contracts to react to market changes. Soneium 

 Pyth Entropy, a tool for securely generating random numbers on-chain. Two apps, HandsNFT AI and 2p2e, are already utilizing Pyth Entropy to create unpredictable and engaging experiences.

Check out the latest prices, charts, and data of 

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has approved a new Ethereum ETF with staking capabilities, allowing institutional investors to earn staking rewards. This approval follows recent changes to local laws, with China Asset Management (ChinaAMC) partnering with OSL Digital Securities to launch the ETF by May 15. The ETF will offer exposure to Ethereum staking, transforming it from a passive investment into an active participant in the Ethereum network. The staking process is powered by Kiln, with OSL providing custody and insurance services. The rewards will contribute to the ETF's net asset value, benefiting shareholders.

Yesterday, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw $25.9M in inflows, all from non-GBTC funds, while GBTC recorded no flow.

" and a points campaign called Drops, where users can earn points—potentially leading to an airdrop—by engaging with Linera content on X. To join, sign up on 

, complete tasks like joining Discord and interacting on X, then enter the campaign. Keep engaging to earn more points, but avoid spamming.

Beginner

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Hong Kong approves Ethereum ETF with staking rewards, boosting institutional participation

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events; the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume; and futures, options and perpetual contracts.

US president Donald Trump’s tariff policies are influencing both crypto and US equities. Last week, BTC and the S&P 500 rallied due to a 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs (excluding China). Equities are slightly below their April 9 highs, while BTC is holding above $83K. Its implied volatility term structure has normalized, and the volatility skew has improved from last week’s bias toward out-of-the-money puts, though it hasn't fully shifted toward calls.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

Tariff pause briefly brings back trading volume

Since our last report, open interest surged on Apr 9, 2025, as crypto spot prices rose after President Trump’s temporary tariff pause, accompanied by a nearly $10B increase in trade volumes. However, trade volumes have since returned to mid-March levels, and open interest has declined from the April 9 highs. The initial price spike indicates the tariff pause surprised the markets, but the subsequent pullback reflects concerns over remaining tariffs.

After being inverted for much of April due to trade policy shocks and macro headwinds, BTC’s term structure has disinverted, with front-end volatility dropping significantly this week. Call and put volumes have been balanced, with calls slightly exceeding puts most days. Apr 9, 2025, reflected mixed market sentiment, as both call and put volumes rose, but puts were higher overall. Open interest remains greater in calls, and has increased slightly since last week, reaching its highest level for the month (more than double from the beginning of April).

Despite a rally on Apr 9, 2025 that brought ETH close to $1.7K, traders sought downside protection, leading to higher volumes in put contracts as compared to calls. Since then, ETHUSDT options volumes have declined, but open interest remains strongly weighted toward calls with later expirations, which have increased since last week. After being inverted for much of April, ETH’s term structure of volatility has flattened, with volatility compressing around the 70% mark across tenors.

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Bybit X Block Scholes crypto derivatives analytics report (Apr 16, 2025): Bitcoin put bias has moderated, but not yet shifted to calls

KiloEx (KILO) is a user-friendly DEX for perpetuals trading, offering high leverage, rewards, LSTfi integration and a robust multi-chain ecosystem.

 trading is one of the most lucrative areas for cryptocurrency enthusiasts if you know how to navigate the sometimes complex world of these contracts. Unlike standard futures, perpetual futures contracts have no expiration date, allowing traders to hold onto their positions as long as they prefer. You only exit a crypto perpetual (or “perp”) contract when you feel it’s the best time to execute your long or short trade. The lack of an expiration period makes these contracts attractive for traders.

Unfortunately, many crypto perpetual contract trading platforms are far from user-friendly. It seems like many perpetual crypto exchanges assume that only professional traders dabble in these contracts, and along with that assumption goes a second one — that these pros can navigate even the most complex user interfaces. As a result, finding a user-friendly perps platform is a challenge in the world of crypto trading.

 (DEX) that aims to change the status quo by providing a user-friendly environment for traders. Its platform also offers high leverage ratios, integration into the wider liquid staking token finance (LSTfi) ecosystem and generous reward programs for referrers and affiliates.

Thanks to its numerous benefits, this DEX caters to the needs of traders at all levels of expertise who are interested in crypto perpetuals. Operational since mid-2023, KiloEx launched its native token, KILO, in March 2025 to further enhance its platform's reward, staking and governance mechanisms.

 (BNB) that specializes in crypto perpetual futures trading.

 The platform prides itself on offering a user-friendly interface, high 

 ratios of up to 100x, multi-token vaults with generous APYs and a number of reward programs for referrers and affiliates.

Co-founded by Joey Ni (CEO) and Charles Gong (COO), KiloEx was originally launched on BNB Chain's mainnet in June 2023. As of mid-April 2025, the platform has additionally expanded its service coverage to five 

 (B2). This coverage allows KiloEx to access the ecosystems of three leading blockchain platforms — 

Manta, Base and Taiko are Ethereum-focused Layer 2 solutions, while opBNB is an efficient and low-cost optimistic rollup for the BNB Chain, while B

 is a platform linked to Bitcoin that acts as a major Bitcoin DeFi (BTCFi) enabler.

Because it’s a BNB-native platform, KiloEx's industry footprint is most notable within this blockchain's broader ecosystem. In fact, as Apr 17, 2025, KiloEx is the top DEX on the opBNB network by 

Using Layer 2 chains allows KiloEx to offer its users fast and low-cost transactions, which isn't always possible on a typical Layer 1 network. It's true that BNB Chain, the primary Layer 1 used by KiloEx, generally has much lower gas fees than Ethereum, the industry's leading 

 chain that’s notorious for its exorbitant costs. However, KiloEx's partner Layer 2 networks help drive costs and transaction times even lower. BNB Chain's current average gas fee is slightly over $0.10, while the opBNB Layer 2 rollup's comparable fee is only about $0.005.

In 2024, the platform introduced one of its most innovative features — the 

, which allows liquidity providers to stake multiple assets to earn high yields. That same year, KiloEx significantly expanded its partnership network, becoming an active player in the LSTFi ecosystem. LSTFi is a new stream within the DeFi industry that allows you to use 

 (LSTs) on various protocols for additional yield.

Having solidified its market presence in 2024, the project launched its native token, KILO, in March 2025. However, in mid-April 2025, KiloEx 

 and halted trading on April 15 as a risk management measure, pending investigation of the damage.

The Hybrid Vault is among the most innovative features offered by KiloEx. Essentially, it acts similarly to liquidity pools on other exchanges. Liquidity providers can contribute their crypto funds to the vault to support trading activity on the DEX and earn interest on their contributions, based on the fees earned by the protocol.

You can contribute a mix of coins to a KiloEx vault. Supported assets include 

Depending upon trading activity and the mix of coins contributed, you can earn APYs as high as 30%, making KiloEx one of the most lucrative choices for liquidity providers in this niche.

KiloEx uses a health factor calculation for this type of vault to keep your funds and the entire ecosystem safe. Based on the health factor score of your contribution to the vault, your funds could be liquidated if their value drops dangerously low.

Discounts are also offered for fixed-term deposits for established assets, such as USDT and USDC. Withdrawals for the fixed deposits are processed upon maturity, while all other withdrawals are processed within one to three "epochs," with each epoch on the platform lasting about three days. Thus, depending upon your contributed funds, you’ll wait anywhere from three to nine days to receive your crypto back.

The KiloEx platform also runs a generous referral program under which you can earn rewards for referring your friends to the platform. The amount you earn depends upon the trading volumes generated by the people whom you’ve referred. Additionally, your referees to the DEX can also benefit from fee rebates, again depending upon the volume of trade they generate.

There’s a tiered system, comprising nine levels, based on which you and your friends earn commissions and rebates. Under this system, even those referred traders whose monthly volume is at the lowest level (below $5,000) can still benefit from 5% rebates, while you also earn a 10% commission.

The table below shows the structure of this referral system with percentages for commission and rebates based on monthly trading volumes.

KiloEx offers an affiliate program for key opinion leaders (KOLs) with a certain level of social media following and influence in the crypto market. KOLs may apply to join the program by filling out an application, which is then considered by the project team within 48 hours.

To qualify for affiliate status, a KOL must have: 

Approved affiliates are provided a link to the platform, and are encouraged to invite their followers to trade on the KiloEx. If they invite at least five followers who trade at sufficient levels, the affiliates can start earning their commission. KOLs can earn up to 55% commission, depending upon the referred followers' trading activity.

KiloEx’s native utility token, KILO, is a 

 asset launched on BNB Chain. It’s used on the platform for governance, fee discounts on trades, rewards via 

, liquidity provision incentives and staking.

KILO is a supply-capped asset, with a maximum and total supply of 1 billion. The token’s supply allocation shares are shown in the chart below.

xKILO is an escrowed version of the KILO token. You can convert KILO to xKILO at a fixed rate of 1:1. The primary utility of xKILO is to provide boosted liquidity provision, which makes it possible to receive staking rewards. By locking xKILO on the platform, you can access special discounts and other benefits reserved for VIP-level users. Holding xKILO also grants you governance power to vote and influence the platform's future direction.

Unlike KILO, xKILO is nontransferable and isn’t tradable on the secondary market. The only ways to obtain xKILO are either to buy it with KILO or receive it via airdrops.

Platform users can earn points to qualify for KILO airdrops. Typically, you accumulate points by trading, depositing funds, referring others to the DEX, checking in to the platform and completing other specified eligible activities.

The project’s initial airdrop, Genesis Season, had an eligibility snapshot taken back in July 2024. Under the currently running airdrop campaign, Pioneer Season, users can earn points to receive KILO tokens for 180 days past the token generation event (TGE) in late March 2025 (i.e., until late September 2025).

Additionally, you can earn KILO tokens on Bybit simply by participating in the 

 event and holding BNB in your account. Every day at various random times, Bybit will take snapshots of your BNB holdings in your Funding and Unified Trading Accounts to calculate the number of KILO tokens you’re eligible for. The campaign will run through Apr 25, 2025, 11:59PM UTC, and you’ll have your share of KILO airdropped seven days after this date.

 market as a swap pair with USDT. If you don't have a Bybit account, you can easily 

, and access opportunities across hundreds of trading pairs and crypto products on the exchange's Spot and Derivatives markets.

As of Apr 17, 2025, the KILO token is trading at $0.039, which is 76.2% lower than its ATH of $0.1648 on Mar 27, 2025, and 17.3% higher than its ATL of $0.03344 on Apr 12, 2025.

Long-term price forecasts for KILO are mostly bullish. CoinCodex 

 at $0.0387 in 2027 and then rise to $0.135 in 2030 while PricePredictions 

When it comes to perpetuals trading, both traditional 

 (CEXs) and DEXs have often struggled to offer an intuitive trading experience. In contrast, KiloEx has made user-friendliness a cornerstone of its operations. With KiloEx, you can enjoy a streamlined trading process, access market trends info for thorough research, get an overview of the cryptocurrency market and conduct other activities via an interface that’s designed for anyone, irrespective of their familiarity with decentralized trading.

The platform also boasts a diverse range of other benefits not easily found in the world of perpetuals-based cryptocurrency trading — generous leveraged trading options, trading fee discounts, lightning-fast trades, low trading fees and an innovative Hybrid Vault system. Many of these benefits are thanks to KiloEx's collaboration with several Layer 2 decentralized platforms, which provide the technical infrastructure to enable low costs and fast order processing.

If you’re a crypto perpetuals enthusiast, KiloEx is definitely a platform to peruse.

Intermediate

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KiloEx (KILO): More than a DEX — a rewarding ecosystem

Bybit Learn

Crypto

Curious to find out more about the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade and whether ETH price could soar? Read this article for more information.

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After the momentous Ethereum Merge was flawlessly executed on Sep 15, 2022, the crypto market buzzed with enthusiasm as everyone wondered what was next for 

. Supposedly, Ethereum’s post Merge upgrade schedule was supposed to go along the lines of the Surge, Verge, Purge and Splurge. Recently, Ethereum’s core developers have decided to detour from their original roadmap plans.

Titled the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade, the plan is for developers to include multiple Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that will minimize any delays before EIP-4844 launches. Curious about the EIPs that the upcoming Shanghai upgrade will include? Here’s how it’ll change Ethereum for the better in the long run.

Alongside EIP-4895 are a couple of other EIPs that are also planned to be implemented with the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade. These include:

Ethereum developers are currently planning a Q1 release, with the Shanghai Public Testnet expected to begin in February 2023. At the current rate of development, it seems that all is going according to plan as regular updates have stated March 2023 as the target release time frame.

Why Is Everyone Talking About the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade?

If the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade is simply a precursor to the much more important Surge upgrade, the average investor might be wondering why there’s so much buzz with regard to its launch. To understand this, it’s key to first grasp what happened in the Ethereum community after the Merge was implemented.

Prior to the implementation of EIP-4895, participating in the staking of ETH was a one-way street. In order to secure an 

 staking reward, users had to lock up their ETH for a specific amount of time. As part of the 

 process, users had to minimally stake 32 ETH to participate. 

For users with less available capital, they could opt for 

 which streamlined the staking process and opened ETH staking to the masses. As staking ETH became easy and convenient for the average retail crypto investor, this led to the rise of popular staking platforms like Stakewise, Lido and Rocket Pool.

Ultimately, staking ETH was a calculated risk; stakers could earn extra yield at the downside of lowering their liquidity and exposing themselves to the dangers of counterparty risk. Despite not being able to withdraw ETH at the time, many investors took the Ethereum Foundation’s words to heart and trusted that in due time, they would be able to withdraw their deposited ETH from the Beacon Chain.

With the Merge’s implementation, the Foundation began to publicly display a rough timeline that laid out when withdrawing ETH from the Beacon Chain would become possible. Unfortunately, somewhere down the line, these dates got shifted as developers became ambiguous about Ethereum Shanghai upgrade’s exact launch date. This became the basis of the 

 surrounding Ethereum as the Ethereum Foundation was publicly denounced for this shady, non-transparent decision.

To the relief of many ETH bulls and investors, the developers seemed to have pulled through and stuck to their originally planned timeline. The experimental testnet Shandong went live in October 2022 and quelled many 

 fears as it successfully activated selected Shanghai-related EIPs without a hitch. With staked ETH levels approaching the 16 million mark, it’s safe to say staking ETH will only become more popular over time thanks to the withdrawal flexibility implemented by the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade.

Staking is a key issue here when discussing the movement of ETH price. With the implementation of the Shanghai network upgrade, our bullish argument would be that we can expect more users to HODL and stake their ETH as adoption rises. This would drive Ethereum’s staking ratio up as users who were previously fearful because they could not withdraw their ETH can now proceed to enjoy additional yield without the downside of lower liquidity. In this regard, we can certainly expect ETH to rise in price as large-scale institutions buy and stake their ETH to earn a respectable APY of about 5% without sacrificing liquidity.

From lowered gas fees to fewer failed transactions, the upcoming Ethereum Shanghai upgrade fixes various nagging issues that have constantly affected users and developers. By getting these fixes in before the big 

 implementation, the Foundation ensures minimal delays as they prepare themselves to ship the Surge update.

On the bearish side of things, the crypto market as a whole is still not out of the woods as big institutions continue to out themselves as victims of the 

 contagion. Macroeconomic factors are also bearish as US inflation still remains far from its 2% target and the Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates. These factors might pressure original ETH stakers from December 2020 to sell their staked ETH and gain more liquidity so the rest of their portfolio can stay afloat during the crypto bear market. 

In anticipation of this, the Ethereum Foundation has set a hard limit of about 40,000 ETH that can be unlocked each day. This will hopefully ease the selling pressure and reduce short-term ETH volatility.

Ethereum Shanghai Network Upgrade Progress

Since testnet Shandong went live in late 2022, plenty of progress for the Ethereum Shanghai network upgrade has been made. These progress updates serve to show that the Ethereum Foundation is on track with its promised March network upgrade rollout.

Firstly, the team managed to copy the blockchain and create a shadow fork to begin the initial stages of testing the new EIPs in an isolated environment. The shadow fork proved a success as it immediately revealed minor glitches with Ethereum nodes that were making use of 

The latest progress update involves news of the latest Zhejiang testnet being launched. It serves to replace the Shandong testnet. This is because when Shandong was launched, it included several EIPs involving 

 (EOF) that will not be rolled out with the Shanghai network upgrade due to time and resource constraints. 

Thus, the newest Zhejiang testnet seeks to allow for staked ETH withdrawal testing in a more accurate environment that places the Ethereum network under a similar load. Ideally, withdrawals for staked ETH should go off without a hitch as they're exposed to simulated network attacks and stress tests. According to Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh Jayanthi, Zhejiang 

 "a great opportunity for all tools to test out how they want to collect, display and use the withdrawal information.” 

 will be made available on Feb 1, 2023. Following this, the Shanghai+Capella testnet will be triggered six days later at epoch 1350. It's when users will be able to deposit ETH to validators on the testnet, practice Boneh–Lynn–Shacham (BLS) digital signature changes and exit without incurring any risk. On top of this, you'll also be able to convert 0x00 credentials to 0x01 and set a withdrawal address as you test partial and full withdrawals when exiting your validators.

How to Profit from the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade

Thinking of how you can profit from the near-term volatility caused by Ethereum's Shanghai upgrade? Here are our thoughts on how you can long ETH in the event that ETH prices soar:

Optimal Bullish Strategy: Stop Market Leveraged Long Order

Firm believer of our bullish ETH thesis on how more long-term ETH investors might just buy and stake ETH because of the ability to finally withdraw their deposited ETH? Then consider our strategy of utilizing a stop market leveraged long order by buying the leveraged perpetual token 

To do so, simply sign up for a Bybit account before accessing the Spot Trading platform on Bybit and locating the ETH3L token. Once you’re in the trading interface, you’ll need to change your order type to 

. This type of market order essentially helps you extract maximum short-term gains while limiting your maximum loss thanks to the 

Before inputting your price levels, it’s key to check for areas of strong buying and selling. You can then place price levels based on perceived support and resistance levels. These can vary based on your personal risk appetite as some price levels appear to be stronger than others.

Once you’ve funded your Bybit Spot Trading wallet with the necessary funds, you may proceed to input the fields present in your ETH3L leveraged token stop market order and submit the order to place your trade.

 Difference between Entry - Exit before rebalancing

 Difference between Exit - Entry + Volatility Decay + Fees

Keen on reading up more about exact strategies on how you can trade with Spot and Derivative products on Bybit? Check out our guide on 

For many ETH investors and traders, all eyes will be on its execution as the core developers seek to execute the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade in the smoothest possible manner. While this network upgrade might not be as pivotal as The Merge, it does lay the foundations for future upgrades. 

By changing the way ETH staking works, the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade will impact how retail and institutional investors interact with ETH as they consider staking viable now that withdrawals from the Beacon Chain are possible. This ultimately paints a brighter future for Ethereum as a whole as it continues to prove itself as a viable 

. Who knows; in the long haul, Ethereum might even be able to threaten Bitcoin’s top spot on the market cap list and achieve the Flippening.

Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade: Can ETH Prices Soar Again?

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