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

web3

Explainers

Altcoins

Fluence is a decentralized, serverless computing platform and marketplace that serves as a permissionless, scalable and secure alternative to centralized cloud computing platforms.

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In today's digital landscape, centralized cloud servers have exposed businesses and individuals to vulnerabilities and limitations, from data breaches to downtime. However, a pioneering solution is on the horizon: Fluence, a revolutionary force in decentralized computing.

Fluence isn't just another cloud computing platform — it's a paradigm shift. By offering a revolutionary cloudless computing environment, Fluence empowers developers and users to harness the full potential of decentralized technology. With Fluence, security vulnerabilities and limitations of traditional cloud servers become a thing of the past.

Read on to learn how Fluence aims to create a resilient, accessible, scalable and verifiable compute ecosystem that empowers developers and users alike to take control of their computing resources.

 is a decentralized, serverless computing platform and marketplace that serves as a permissionless, scalable and secure alternative to centralized cloud computing platforms. 

With Fluence, developers and users can harness the full potential of decentralized technology, prioritizing security, reliability and decentralization.

Developers can leverage Fluence to build and deploy a wide range of applications, backends, APIs and digital services. Fluence's open-source, 

 (P2P) development platform offers a developer experience similar to traditional serverless clouds, but goes a step further by allowing developers to choose and change providers freely and manage an app's execution over a distributed network.

Unlike traditional cloud platforms, Fluence allows developers to verify that their apps are being used as intended, and that computations are performed correctly by checking proofs posted by providers on-chain. Additionally, Fluence seamlessly integrates both Web 2.0 and 

 data storage and management platforms, enabling developers to plug data inputs and outputs for application execution.

 can earn rewards by offering their connected devices for rent on the marketplace. Any devices — from professional rigs and data centers to personal computing devices like laptops or mobile phones — can be used, and the device setup process is simple. However, it’s crucial to note that customers usually prefer devices with better hardware and internet access, due to their better performance.

Providers earn revenue from developers paying for served applications, as well as via Fluence tokens rewarded for contributing to network performance and 

The Fluence network is governed by the Fluence DAO, which ensures transparency through the collective participation of token holders in the protocol’s development and decision-making processes. This dynamic fosters a collaborative and community-driven ecosystem.

The Fluence DAO grants significant voting control to the on-chain 

 while enforcing measures to safeguard the project against rogue votes and potential attacks. Additionally, the Fluence DAO offers a legal framework to protect on-chain voters from legal liability in case of a security breach.

Token holders are also incentivized to help secure Fluence's compute model by staking for compute hardware to support hardware availability and correct compute job execution. In return, stakers are rewarded with additional tokens. 

The Fluence protocol underpins a network of compute resources and defines the cloudless stack for executing computations. It comprises two key components: Cloudless Functions, powered by the Aqua protocol, and Compute Functions, driven by the Marine WebAssembly (Wasm) runtime.

Cloudless Functions and Compute Functions

Cloudless Functions, named for their ability to operate across clouds, servers and various geographies, handle essential tasks such as service discovery, routing, load balancing and fault tolerance. These distributed functions are expressed as Aqua scripts, and drive both applications and the Fluence protocol itself.

The Compute Functions are akin to serverless cloud functions encompassing various computations. They’re essential for tasks ranging from data processing to complex algorithms. Compute Functions leverage the capabilities of Marine, a WebAssembly runtime enabling multi-module execution to execute computations within a single machine, thereby ensuring fast and reliable processing of tasks.

The security, reliability and transparency of the Fluence network are guaranteed through the interplay of several unique features: Subnets, Proofs of Compute, Aqua Security, Proof of Processing and Proof of Execution.

Subnets replicate Compute Functions to facilitate robust data storage and processing capabilities. They support critical functions, such as data caching, indexing and querying, offering developers customizable options for better performance and reliability.

The integrity of all executions is ensured through cryptographic proofs, a process integral to Proof of Compute. Providers generate proofs for their computations, which customers require for payment validation. Aqua Security enhances this by validating execution traces of Cloudless Functions, ensuring correct operation and discarding erroneous executions.

Proof of Processing enforces probabilistic validation on-chain for Aqua executions, verifying computations and rewarding providers accordingly. Additionally, Proof of Execution provides cryptographic proof for each code execution on Fluence, validated by participating nodes and contributing to Proof of Processing.

The Fluence platform also operates an on-chain marketplace, powered by the 

 (IPC) blockchain framework, which matches compute providers with customers seeking compute resources. It operates on a completely permissionless basis, allowing any provider to participate and publish their available compute capacity.

The marketplace ensures the availability of advertised resources through 

, rewarding providers proportionally. Each provider has to submit a specific amount of Proof of Capacity in order to earn FLT rewards. Customers can select providers based on price and other parameters, or publish work with required max prices for provider pickup, with Deals created on-chain to record financial and technical details for each application deployment.

's mainnet, Fluence's IPC subnet leverages Filecoin's smart storage capabilities, facilitating compute operations on data stored within the Filecoin network. The marketplace ensures swift, low-cost transactions to support the renting of compute resources at any scale, thereby allowing the platform to support an exponential increase in verified compute demand as adoption grows. Furthermore, IPC provides Fluence with advanced cryptographic proof verification capabilities, including the verification of 

FLT is the Fluence platform's native token, used for staking, gas payments and governance. 

Compute providers run the hardware and earn FLT for contributing their compute supply to the network. The activated hardware then generated Proofs of Capacity. 

Token holders act as delegators to stake FLT on a provider, or across multiple providers, to diversify their staked FLT and earn a portion of the revenue generated. The rewards aren’t distributed immediately, but are vested daily over six months in order to incentivize compute providers to operate reliably. If the provider fails to execute the job correctly, the stake will be slashed by 0.3% every day, up to a maximum 1.5% slashing ratio, during which the stake is returned to the delegator.

The on-chain DAO empowers FLT holders to use their tokens to create and vote on proposals concerning treasury management, protocol upgrades and other essential directives.

FLT has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with an initial circulating supply of 50 million tokens. In addition, 450 million tokens will be released over 24 months after the token launch. 

FLT token distribution is as illustrated below:

Fluence offers a compelling investment opportunity with its open, distributed P2P protocol designed for credible neutrality. Here's why it stands out:

Moreover, Fluence stands out as the first project to launch on InterPlanetary Consensus (IPC), a groundbreaking scaling technology developed by the creators of Protocol Labs, Filecoin and 

, so it benefits from advanced scaling technology and cryptographic proof verification capabilities. In addition, Fluence enables significant cost savings, offering 60–80% lower prices as compared to centralized cloud providers. This cost efficiency makes Fluence an attractive option for businesses and individuals looking to optimize their computing expenses.

Based on these factors, Fluence definitely looks to be a promising investment. Nevertheless, it’s vital to exercise caution and responsibility by 

 on any crypto project before you invest in Fluence or any cryptocurrency. This is especially true for new 

 like Fluence, which may experience greater market volatility.

Users interested in FLT can sign up for a Bybit account and trade with Bybit Spot for the 

From May 23 to Jun 6, 2024, you can participate in two events for a chance to win a share of the 

. The first is a Token Splash event in which you can deposit or trade FLT to earn from a 1,900,000 FLT prize pool, while the second is a 50,000 FLT Referral Boost event in which you can easily earn 10 FLT for every successful referral (up to 10 total) to join the FLT Token Splash event.

In conclusion, Fluence is poised to revolutionize internet infrastructure through its decentralized computing platform. By providing developers and users with a secure, scalable and permissionless alternative to centralized cloud computing, Fluence will empower individuals and businesses to take control of their computing resources.

With its commitment to credible neutrality, community governance and advanced technology like IPC, Fluence presents a compelling investment opportunity for those seeking to participate in the future of compute infrastructure. As Fluence continues to innovate and expand its ecosystem, it holds the potential to reshape the digital landscape and pave the way for a truly decentralized internet infrastructure.

Fluence (FLT): The Cloudless Future of Internet Infrastructure

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