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

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Altcoins

Crypto

FTX was a centralized exchange that declared bankruptcy in Q4 2022. Its new CEO has plans to relaunch the exchange as FTX 2.0. Find out more here.

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 (SBF), who also co-founded Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund. Both of these companies declared bankruptcy in Q4 2022. Prior to its bankruptcy, the FTX trading platform was one of the most popular choices amongst crypto traders. Its rise to fame could be attributed to several factors, including SBF’s Jane Street background and being the world’s 

. FTX’s marketing also played a huge role in attracting users, promoting its low fees and collaborating with A-list celebrities such as Tom Brady to gain market attention.

However, despite all its efforts and fame, FTX filed for 

 on Dec 12, 2022. The collapse of FTX had a significant impact, rippling through the entire crypto market, triggering liquidations and causing even more companies to fall. Yet despite this havoc, it seems FTX might be launching version 2.0.

In this article, we’ll be exploring how the FTX exchange fell, take a look at the potential FTX 2.0 and identify the possible effects it might have on the 

As mentioned earlier on, FTX was a CEX founded in May 2019 by SBF and Gary Wang, who also served as its 

 (CTO). The cryptocurrency exchange specialized in 

. At the beginning of 2022, FTX had amassed more than a million registered users, and was recording billions of dollars in daily trading volume. One of FTX’s key innovations was its FTT token.

 token issued on the Ethereum network. Much effort was put into making FTT less 

, with FTX regularly repurchasing FTT tokens and conducting FTT 

. Both of these processes reduced the circulating supply of FTT in the market, which in turn decreased the level of selling pressure. The repurchase of FTT was made possible by using 33% of the trading fees generated on FTX.

In addition to reducing selling pressure, FTX also increased buying pressure by offering users a discount on trading fees and tighter spreads when they held FTT. For active traders, this was a very attractive value proposition for holding onto FTT, as it could offer savings of up to 60%. Furthermore, FTT could be used as collateral for future positions, increasing the utility of the token and further incentivizing people to purchase and hold the token.

Other benefits of FTT included serving as a form of insurance, protecting traders from clawback. This was an extremely useful feature, especially during periods of volatile markets which increased the chances of traders’ margin calls being triggered. FTT holders could also 

 the token, which entitled them to free withdrawals of ERC-20 tokens from the FTX platform. This was particularly helpful during periods of Ethereum network congestion, which can lead to skyrocketing gas fees.

How did a platform with such a high level of innovations end up bankrupt? Let’s take a look at the series of events leading up to FTX’s bankruptcy and SBF’s arrest.

November 2017: Founding of Alameda Research

Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, is founded by SBF, who rises to fame through his 

FTX’s CEX is founded, with a focus on derivative products.

December 2019: Binance’s Investment Into FTX

Binance announces a strategic investment into FTX. 

2021: Binance Sells FTX Equity in Exchange for FTT and USD

With this transfer, Binance receives $2.1 billion worth of FTT and USD.

, with concerns that some of Alameda Research’s assets are commingled with FTX, even though these two are meant to be separate entities. In particular, it’s found that $5.8 billion of the $14.6 billion worth of assets in Alameda Research’s balance sheet is in the FTX-issued token, FTT.

Given that FTT was sold to Alameda Research at a very low price early on in the establishment of FTX, the artificial inflation of FTT by FTX gave Alameda Research an opportunity to use their FTT holdings as collateral to borrow other assets from FTX’s customer deposits.

 (known as CZ), announces on Twitter that Binance will 

. This sends the broader crypto market into a frenzy, with speculation regarding FTX and Alameda Research’s insolvency. In turn, this causes a massive sell-off of the FTT token, and FTX begins to see users withdraw their assets.

Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, takes to Twitter to highlight that Alameda Research would be 

. This further spurs the market’s speculation that FTT has been heavily used for collateral by Alameda Research, and that any price drop below $22 could potentially trigger liquidations.

CZ rejects the sale of FTT to Alameda Research; the market is convinced that CZ is out to cause the death of FTT. Given that FTT has had a low circulating liquidity since Alameda Research holds most of the circulating supply, Alameda isn’t able to sell off their FTT since there would be insufficient market liquidity to buy up their tokens.

With nonstop user withdrawal from FTX amounting to $6 billion, FTX is left with no choice but to halt their withdrawals, and announce that they’re suffering from a liquidity crisis. The cause of this insolvency is that customers whose deposits have been loaned to Alameda Research have had their positions liquidated as a result of FTT’s price decline.

Binance stepped in shortly after, announcing that they had signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to acquire FTX international. This is, however, subject to due diligence, and Binance will first be examining FTX’s balance sheet before making a final decision.

After conducting due diligence on FTX’s balance sheet, Binance ultimately decides to step out of the deal. As a result, SBF reveals to investors that FTX will file for bankruptcy.

The Bahamas securities’ regulator freezes the digital assets of the Bahamas subsidiary of FTX.

SBF steps down as CEO and FTX files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas (SCB) takes control of crypto assets within FTX. SBF is instructed to move the assets to the regulator’s wallet in order to protect creditors.

FTX founder SBF is arrested by Bahamian authorities and later extradited to the U.S., where he’s indicted by the U.S. District Court in Manhattan and charged on eight counts, including securities fraud and money laundering.

SBF is released on a $250 million bond, the largest in history, by a federal judge.

As of this point, both FTX customers and creditors have yet to withdraw their assets from FTX. This is where it gets interesting: amidst the ongoing lawsuit, there have been plans for a reboot known as FTX 2.0. Let’s take a look at them.

It appears that since January 2023, John Ray, the new FTX CEO who took over the exchange prior to bankruptcy proceedings, has set up a task force to work on restarting FTX, 

. This comes after an announcement on Jan 11, 2023, highlighting that FTX has recovered at least 

, of which more than $3 billion is owed to its top 50 creditors. On May 22, 2023, it was revealed that documents 

 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware that depict the extensive planning put in by Ray and his team to execute the launch of FTX 2.0.

Ray shared that some of FTX’s shareholders have given feedback that, should FTX be relaunched, it could still be a viable business, and it may be possible to reimburse users with their assets. In addition, creditors will also be able to benefit by recouping the loans they’ve made, a point raised by Twitter influencer 

However, there have been some doubts regarding the validity of FTX 2.0, with concerns including 

 that undermine the user experience. Nonetheless, Ray has attempted to address these concerns, enlisting 

 to enhance the security of FTX. On the legal side of things, Ray has also been keeping in touch with investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners L.P. to review steps required for the rebooting of FTX.

Restarting FTX to launch FTX 2.0 is likely going to require a very large sum of fresh capital. In the latest court filing, it was revealed that Ray had reviewed a list of bidders for FTX 2.0 amongst rumors that Tribe Capital, a VC firm that invested in FTX before its collapse, has expressed interest in leading the round for FTX 2.0.

It seems we might be closer to the launch of FTX 2.0 than we think.

With all the news regarding FTX 2.0, the market has begun to speculate on FTT’s price. 

As shown below, since the documents were revealed on Twitter on May 22, 2023, the price of FTT has increased by approximately 16% from $0.96 to a local peak of $1.13. Should there be more confirmation from the FTX team — in particular from Ray — or any form of funding news, it’s likely that FTT’s price will surge even higher.

 believe that FTT’s price could increase to $1.46 by the end of 2023, double to $3.20 by 2025, rise to $6.54 by 2027 and reach $18.73 by 2030.

 also have a positive outlook, though they’re less bullish in the long term. They predict that FTT’s price may increase to $2.25 by year end 2023 and reach $3.73 by 2025, $4.71 by 2027 and $10.78 by 2030.

Although experts are bullish on the price of FTT, we would strongly encourage users to do their own research before making any investment, especially because of the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies such as FTT. 

If you’re looking to trade FTT, you can do so on Bybit. Simply 

, fund it with cryptocurrency and navigate to the 

What will FTX 2.0 mean for the market? Users may be able to gain access to their assets, which has been inaccessible since November 2022, and creditors could also retrieve their loans. Nonetheless, whether users will be able to trust the exchange once it’s been set up is still an unknown, since its tarnished reputation might deter users from using it. In the meantime, it might be interesting to keep tabs on FTT’s price, which is likely to be volatile in light of news revolving around FTX 2.0.

FTX (FTT): Its Downfall & The Launch of FTX 2.0

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