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

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DeFi

Trader Joe is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange on the Avalanche blockchain that offers an extensive range of financial features. Find out more here.

, offering advantages such as faster transaction processing speed and significantly lower fees. Since Avalanche’s launch, it has supported an extensive range of decentralized cryptocurrency exchange projects. The most notable of these projects is Trader Joe, which has consistently developed new features since its debut in 2021, adding to its strong utility.

The Trader Joe platform currently offers an extensive range of services, such as a launchpad, an NFT marketplace, an exchange, and staking and lending. Trader Joe also features community governance. For each JOE token held, a user has one vote on issues like future improvements, strategies and more.

Trader Joe is the brainchild of longtime family friends 

, with the primary objective of simplifying and enhancing crypto users’ trading experiences. It offers a variety of services to achieve that important goal. Trading is accomplished through financial intermediaries, which offer necessary liquidity. Staking JOE tokens yields staking rewards, which are funded through trading fees. 

. Trader Joe also has a robust NFT marketplace that offers functions for auctions, safelists and displays. The Trader Joe team has created numerous tutorials so that users can easily take full advantage of the platform’s many features. In addition to being established on the Avalanche blockchain, Trader Joe supports BNB Chain and 

At the end of 2022, the Trader Joe team introduced the 

 to enhance capital efficiency, and reduce impermanent loss and slippage. The Liquidity Book works by accepting deposits from liquidity providers in various price bins. Each bin has a unique price, and liquidity providers can contribute to as many of the bins as they desire. When they provide liquidity, they receive fungible receipts. 

Through this improved system to provide liquidity, contributors can minimize risk while generating more rewards from Trader Joe fees. The Liquidity Book claims to improve capital efficiency by scaling up to 20,000 times higher.

The Trader Joe team is focused on setting the bar for investment activities on the Avalanche platform. It immediately offered utility to its users at launch, and its utility has expanded considerably with the introduction of new features and improvements made to established features. 

 is a fundamental feature of Trader Joe, supported through liquidity pools. The recent introduction of the Liquidity Book has bolstered capital efficiency, and the Trader Joe trading fee is 0.3% of each transaction. This low transaction fee is enabled because trades are completed on the AVAX blockchain. Of this fee, 0.25% is provided to the liquidity pools. The remaining 0.05% of the Trader Joe fee is allocated to the JOE token farm.

Prior to the launch of the Liquidity Book in November 2022, Trader Joe used a standard liquidity pool function to support trades. However, the team identified the need to improve capital efficiency, which led to the development of the Liquidity Book. Liquidity providers can make deposits to special bins, each of which has a different price, and they receive a fungible receipt for their deposits. This results in a greater return for liquidity providers, as well as reduced slippage and substantially greater capital efficiency since less liquidity is sitting idle in the liquidity pool. 

Users can also generate a return on Trader Joe through 

. Farmers lock their JOE tokens to be used for lending purposes and trading. 

 gives farmers access to bonus rewards and a portion of collected trading fees.

 JOE tokens takes place on the marketplace and produces sJOE or veJOE tokens. 

Those who contribute to the sJOE pool by staking JOE tokens can expect to receive a share of rewards from the pool in the form of a 

. Every swap completed on Trader Joe is charged a 0.05% fee. These fees are accumulated by Trader Joe and converted into stablecoins, to be distributed to the sJOE pool periodically every 24 hours.

On the other hand, contributing to the veJOE pool enables you to earn veJOE tokens that can be claimed. Doing so will apply a Boost APR feature to all Farms marked 

. This reward mechanism allows users to stake JOE to earn even more JOE tokens. The higher the amount you stake, the more rewards you receive. 

By staking JOE, users also contribute to essential functions. For example, holding veJOE tokens grants users voting rights for future platform governance.

Loans are available on Trader Joe through 

, which uses Compound Protocol’s lending mechanism to efficiently complete the loan process. An applicant’s borrowing limit is established by the value of their collateral. Thus, borrowers can increase their borrowing limit by simply increasing their collateral. As long as their current obligation has been satisfied, borrowers can remove tokens at their discretion. Banker Joe supports lending and borrowing using 

, AVAX and other tokens. Those who participate in lending activities may receive rewards paid in JOE tokens.

, the largest NFT marketplace on the Avalanche blockchain,. Users can search for NFTs that suit their interests by using a filtering function. Artists can take advantage of a support website. Those who wish to sell their NFTs have access to safelists, auction settings and display tools.

After officially launching on the Avalanche blockchain in 2021, Trader Joe quickly gained traction and now has several million active users. The Trader Joe team has progressively expanded to improve the platform’s utility. While its 

, Trader Joe today holds its status as the Avalanche project with the highest transaction volume. 

The platform’s important Liquidity Book update was released at the end of 2022 to optimize capital efficiency, and 

, Liquidity Book V2.1, is upcoming. The team has also bridged to BNB Chain and Arbitrum in order to capture new user bases, and staking is now available on these networks as well.

JOE is the native token that powers the Trader Joe platform. JOE tokens are used for community governance, granting one vote per JOE token. In addition, Trader Joe fees are paid in JOE tokens, as are rewards for staking. The total supply of JOE is 500 million tokens, and there are more than 345 million tokens in circulation. The 

n allocates 50% to liquidity providers, 20% to the treasury, 20% to the development team and 10% to future investors.

The current price of JOE as of Apr 17, 2023 is $0.6538. The price has surged dramatically over the last couple of weeks, and was valued at $0.187 on Mar 12. The current market cap is $226 million, and the 24-hour trading volume has surpassed $26 million. 

 may continue its upward trajectory in the years to come, though it may close 2023 with a dip. Its experts project a price of $0.35 at year-end. This may increase to $0.79 in 2025 and $1.73 in 2027, and by 2030, JOE may be valued at $5.29.

 are more bullish, suggesting that JOE will close 2023 at $1.29. JOE’s price is then expected to increase to $2.07 in 2025, $2.64 in 2027 and $6.11 in 2030. 

JOE tokens can be purchased on several cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bybit. You can trade JOE tokens in the form of perpetual contracts. After you’ve established a Bybit account and funded it with cryptocurrency, you may proceed to navigate to the 

Established on the Avalanche blockchain, the Trader Joe token’s utility and benefits are strongly tied to the success of its blockchain. Trader Joe has exceptional features that may be difficult for other platforms to mimic, and this supports the platform’s lasting dominance on AVAX. For this reason, and because the team and community continue to identify new opportunities for growth and improvement, the popularity of Trader Joe may continue to expand in the years to come.

Anticipation and belief in its projected growth are displayed via the positive price predictions for JOE tokens. Whether you hold JOE for long-term gains from price growth or use your tokens for rewards from staking, lending and more, JOE may prove to be a lucrative investment. That said, always do your own research and evaluate your own risk appetite before investing.

The Trader Joe token’s utility and low fees are two of the reasons why this platform has gained popularity quickly since its launch. As the project continues to evolve through various updates, it may remain a leading platform on Avalanche with continued growth in both its user base and the price of JOE.

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