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.

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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

DeFi

Altcoins

Explainers

Elixir (ELX) is a blockchain platform bridging institutional RWAs to DeFi, offering yield opportunities and liquidity support for decentralized exchanges.

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 (RWAs) are one of the hottest topics in 

 setting still comes with its own share of issues. First, asset owners such as investment funds don't have a wide choice of alternatives for securely tokenizing their assets in a compliant way. Secondly, there's a lack of sufficient avenues for the active use of RWAs within DeFi protocols after the assets have been tokenized and brought on-chain.

As a result, many institutional asset owners are still hesitant to use their funds within a blockchain environment. Those brave enough to adopt RWAs by tokenizing their assets on-chain face the reality of limited choices for deriving healthy returns from their investment. 

Due to these factors, RWAs — despite having great promise as a bridge between traditional and web3 finance — are still underutilized within DeFi.

Elixir is a modular blockchain and DeFi-focused platform that aims to make it easy for institutional investors to utilize their RWAs in yield-bearing products on-chain. The platform also acts as a 

, decentralized USD (deUSD), plays a key role in enabling active RWA use for yield and liquidity provision to partner DEXs.

 (ELX) is a blockchain network that facilitates institutional investors' use of RWAs in the DeFi ecosystem and provides liquidity support to DEXs. 

The project features a synthetic stablecoin, deUSD, that’s backed by collateral made up of two crypto assets — USDS and 

 (SKY), formerly known as MakerDAO (MKR), while stETH is a tokenized version of staked Ether (ETH) provided by the 

Elixir enables institutional holders of tokenized RWAs, such as those issued by Securitize and other RWA service providers, to mint deUSD and use it in DeFi while still earning yields from their underlying assets.

Elixir also helps other DEXs by enabling its users to supply liquidity to order book–based exchanges easily. This reduces DEXs' reliance on centralized market makers and allows them to access additional liquidity. Users who provide liquidity earn subsidized APYs, which are either incentivized by Elixir or the DEXs themselves. As of early 2025, Elixir has already been integrated by more than 30 DEX platforms.

The Elixir project was founded in 2022 by Philip Forte and Christopher Gilbert. Its chain launched the first phase of its mainnet operations in October 2024 and held a token generation event (TGE) for its native cryptocurrency, ELX, on Mar 7, 2025.

 (DPoS) consensus model. The project’s documentation states that its network features a highly modular design and high throughput capacity.

To synchronize its work with other DEXs, the network uses exchange feeds, which pull live trading data from these DEXs and send it to Elixir's data aggregators. An aggregator node is then responsible for creating an encrypted database from these feeds and passing it to the chain’s validator and auditor nodes. Then, relay nodes execute trades on DEXs using their API keys, collect order proposals from validators and send them for auditing before final execution.

Elixir's validators secure the network using a DPoS consensus model, whereby users can delegate their funds to a preferred full validator node. The network requires a 66% consensus among its active validator nodes in order to approve transaction blocks.

A validator node needs to have at least 9,000 ELX 

 or delegated to it to earn block rewards. As such, it's important for users to choose a reasonably popular validator in order to ensure they can earn rewards from their delegated funds. For instance, as of the time of this writing (Mar 17, 2025), fewer than 30 Elixir validators have enough funds staked with them to generate rewards.

We noted above that relay nodes send order data for executing transactions on other DEXs for further auditing before the actual execution occurs. Auditors are the 

 responsible for verifying this data before the orders can be placed. In addition to the order data sent by relay nodes, auditors also use the encrypted exchange feed data sent by aggregators.

Auditors use these two critical data sources — the encrypted exchange feed data from aggregators and the order data from relay nodes — to verify and approve the orders for final execution on the participating DEXs.

 that ensures the smooth operation of several key network activities: staking, reward distributions to validators and financial penalties to misbehaving validators, known as slashing.

In the case of disputes or inconsistencies in the network data, the controller and auditors resolve these together, acting as a dispute resolution layer.

deUSD is a synthetic stablecoin introduced by Elixir. Subject to approval via a governance vote, the token will be used for staking, allowing users to earn rewards from protocol fees. The staked version of deUSD, sdeUSD, is an asset that’s used to accrue yields from rewards generated both on Elixir and via its partner DeFi platforms.

Importantly, deUSD is also used to provide liquidity in the form of collateral to participating DEXs. The deUSD stablecoin enables users in the institutional domain, specifically RWA holders, to obtain a sufficiently liquid asset to participate in the wider DeFi ecosystem. According to the project’s documentation, more than ten leading institutional finance organizations have already adopted deUSD for their assets.

deUSD differs from many other stablecoins in that it isn’t collateralized by US dollar reserves. The token’s collateral is made up of Lido’s stETH and Sky Protocol’s USDS. To ensure its stability, deUSD is subject to an 

 adjusting overcollateralization mechanism, the 

When funding rates become negative, the OCF shifts more of deUSD’s collateral into USDS. If the OCF’s value drops too much, it automatically converts its assets into USDS to ensure deUSD’s backing remains intact. Meanwhile, when funding rates become positive, funding rate exposure — that is, the potential gains and costs from holding leveraged positions in 

 contracts — is used to generate additional returns.

During the project’s earlier period of operations, 

 (CEXs) are expected to provide the bulk of liquidity for deUSD and facilitate the token’s minting and redemption. Eventually, the protocol plans to shift more of the backing and liquidity management to decentralized platforms. The minting/redeeming process will be supported by authorized market makers, who will use stETH collateral and engage in basis trading to manage risk.

The Elixir protocol's native token, ELX, is primarily used for governance, staking and stake delegation. Certain rewards, such as 

, can also be distributed in ELX. The token’s total and maximum supply is 1 billion.

The ELX token is available on Bybit’s Spot market as a 

. You can also take advantage of Bybit’s campaign dedicated to the token to grab a share of the 

Under the terms of the campaign, new users can earn ELX rewards by accumulating a deposit volume of at least 200 ELX, or by depositing at least 100 USDT and trading 100 USDT worth of ELX via their first trade. Existing users can also qualify for rewards by trading at least 500 USDT worth of ELX on the Spot market. The campaign is valid till Mar 24, 2025, 9AM UTC.

Bybit also offers two additional ELX airdrop campaigns to its users. One of these is the 

 event. In order to receive your share of the airdrop, just follow these three steps: 

The airdrop is valid till Mar 31, 2025, 10AM UTC.

. Win a share of the 40,000 ELX prize pool by registering for the event, completing specified tasks to earn Lucky Draw tickets and spinning the wheel by using your tickets. You can register for the event until Mar 20, 2025, 12AM UTC, and the Lucky Spin period ends exactly 24 hours after this date.

Additionally, Elixir runs its own reward campaign, 

, that lets you earn Potions, points that help you build power across the platform’s network of participating DEXs. However, note that participation in the Apothecary campaign doesn't guarantee an airdrop of ELX tokens.

Elixir is a relatively new entrant in the DeFi space. The project launched the first phase of its mainnet in October 2024, with the main launch in March 2025. Elixir’s platform aims to address the issue of inflexibility of RWA use 

. The project aims to focus its efforts on larger institutional players, including leading investment funds.

At the same time, while Elixir pursues the ambitious goal of attracting the big players of the financial world via its RWA stream, its second key specialization — liquidity support to DEXs — should provide enough quick wins within the shorter term. With more than 30 DEXs already in Elixir’s ecosystem, it looks like this specialization is already paying dividends. The question now is: Will the push for the top brass of the institutional finance world enjoy similar success? 

Elixir (ELX): The institutional bridge to DeFi liquidity

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