hodler

5 May 2026, 14:14

XRP Targets $8, $13, and $27 Once It Establishes This Foundation in 2026

While XRP remains under pressure in 2026, historical patterns suggest a strong base could trigger a major rally toward $8, $13, and $27. Market analyst Chart Nerd revealed that XRP follows repeating cycles, where corrections lead to strong breakouts. Visit Website

5 May 2026, 13:34

Bitcoin ‘supercycle’ or bear-market rally? BTC breaking $81K has traders at odds

Bitcoin bottom calls grow as analysts target $180,000–$250,000 within a year, fueling debate over whether BTC has resumed its broader bull cycle.

5 May 2026, 13:30

Ex-Ripple Exec Breaks Down The XRP To $10,000 Predictions, Is It Possible?

XRP has never lacked lofty price targets, but the latest comments around a possible move to $10,000 have led to a direct response from one of the most familiar voices in the Ripple ecosystem. David Schwartz, Ripple’s former chief technology officer and one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, has pushed back against the idea by pointing to a simple market question. According to him, if serious capital truly believed in even a small chance of that outcome, why is XRP still trading at its current level? David Schwartz Challenges The $10,000 XRP Predictions The XRP community has long been home to some of the most ambitious price forecasts in crypto. Numbers like $10,000, $20,000, and above circulate regularly on social media, often backed by the outlook of financial institutions adopting the XRP Ledger for facilitating payments. Related Reading: Does The Ethereum 300% Boost In Capacity Mean Price Can Rise 3x To $6,000? David Schwartz, who departed as Ripple CTO in December 2025, addressed the $10,000 XRP prediction head-on during a discussion on X earlier this week. The motivation for Schwartz’s comments was a question from an X user who asked him to respond to valuation theories built around a crypto adaptation of analyst Chris Burniske’s equation of Price = PQ / (V × S). Some market commentators have used the model to support very high projections for digital assets, including XRP. According to Schwartz, if there were a few very rich and very rational people who really believed that there was a 1% chance that XRP could hit $10,000 in 10 years, then they would’ve bid XRP up to at least $20 today. A move to $20 would still be huge from XRP’s current level, but it is nowhere near $10,000. The Gag Order Claim At the time of writing, XRP is trading $1.41, with a market cap of $86.7 billion and a circulating supply of about 61.8 billion tokens. At $10,000 per XRP, that same circulating supply would imply a valuation around $618 trillion. Therefore, the point made by Schwartz is that even a remote chance of such a massive future price and market should already be attracting aggressive buying from large investors if it were credible. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Expansion To $97,000 Is Only Being Blocked By One Pesky Retest The conversation did not stop at XRP price predictions. Schwartz also addressed suggestions that he may be restricted from speaking fully about XRP or Ripple. He noted that he has never signed any agreement that required him to lie, adding that he would choose silence or avoidance over giving an answer he did not believe was truthful and accurate. Schwartz also took aim at claims that Ripple holds an undisclosed mechanism that will one day be revealed and send the XRP price above $100. “For one thing, circumstances have changed so much that it’s hard to imagine we’ve held onto this magic switch for so long and it’s still just waiting to go,” he said. Interestingly, this is not the first time Schwartz has spoken against ultra-bullish XRP price predictions. Back in January, he pointed out that even a modest chance of XRP reaching $100 within a few years would already be reflected in its current price. Featured image from Dall.E, chart from TradingView.com

5 May 2026, 13:30

April Closed Near $79K; The First Four Days Of May Tell A More Complicated Story

Summary BTC options flow is split between volatility positioning and directional bets. ETH showed a systematic pattern of $2,000 put buying across four different expiries. Persistent instruments reveal a structured call ceiling above $80K that has been written for months. 1. Investment Thesis April is done. BTC ( BTC-USD ) exited the month in structurally better shape than it entered - moving from the $66-68K stress area to the $76-79K range. That recovery was real. But April never produced a clean new-regime signal: no high-volume session where call buying, positive delta, and improving futures basis all confirmed simultaneously without a contradicting data point. May opened with four trading days that I can now read in full. The honest answer after those four sessions: I am not sure. BTC is consolidating below $80K with signals that lean slightly constructive - but the lean is narrow, and the noise is real. What surprised me most was not the May 1 session itself. It was what the persistent instrument data revealed underneath it: the December 2026 $80K call has been written for 92 consecutive days. That is not a recent development. It is the structural context that does not show up in daily headlines, and it explains why spot keeps approaching $80K without clearing it in options terms. ETH ( ETH-USD ) is a different story, and a more uncomfortable one. Across May 1 to May 4, the same $2,000 put strike was bought across four different expiries - one week, one month, two months, ten months. That kind of spread across time frames does not happen by accident. So where does that leave me? BTC: range $76-80K, with the written call book above acting as a structural ceiling rather than a chart level. The May 6 $80K call bought on May 2 is the nearest test. ETH: range $2,250-2,350, with $2,000 as the level the options market is actively buying protection against across four different time frames. 2. The Structural Layer Nobody Talks About: Persistent Instruments Before reading the May sessions, I want to show what the persistent instruments table reveals about market structure. I almost skipped this section when preparing the article, because persistent data feels like background noise compared to fresh daily prints. That would have been a mistake. These are the instruments that have traded continuously for 70 or more days since January - the slow-moving structural book that frames everything happening in short-dated flow. The picture that emerges is specific. From the sell side: the December 2026 $60K put has been written continuously for 98 days, with $73.5M total volume and buy_ratio of 0.383 - meaning it was primarily sold. The December 2026 $85K call has been written for 97 days, $32.7M total, buy_ratio 0.390. The December 2026 $80K call has been sold for 92 days, $56.7M total, buy_ratio 0.422. The December 2026 $90K, $95K, $120K calls and September 2026 $90K, $100K calls all show buy_ratios below 0.42 - primarily written. The buy side is also clear. The September 2026 $75K put has been actively bought for 86 days: $51.9M total, buy_ratio 0.574. The December 2026 $75K put: $14.7M, buy_ratio 0.731. The December 2026 $80K put: $16.4M, buy_ratio 0.555. The September 2026 $80K put: $13.5M, buy_ratio 0.526. The implication for price is direct and not especially subtle. Someone - or multiple entities - have been running a structured position throughout the year. They write calls above $80-85K and write puts below $60-65K, while buying put hedges in the $75-80K range. This is a range trade with a protected long: long exposure hedged between $75K and $80K, capped above $80-85K. The implication for price is direct - there is persistent sell-side pressure in calls at and above $80K, which mechanically creates supply at that level regardless of spot direction. Table 1. BTC Persistent Instruments - Structural Call Ceiling and Put Floor (Top Active) Instrument Type Days Active Total Volume Avg Buy Ratio Read BTC-25DEC26-60000-P put 98 $73.5M 0.383 ⚠ Primarily sold — put floor written below market BTC-25DEC26-85000-C call 97 $32.7M 0.390 ⚠ Primarily sold — call ceiling at $85K Dec BTC-25DEC26-70000-P put 97 $28.3M 0.265 ⚠ Primarily sold — deep put floor written BTC-25DEC26-80000-C call 92 $56.7M 0.422 ⚠ Primarily sold — call ceiling at $80K Dec BTC-25DEC26-120000-C call 93 $35.4M 0.357 ⚠ Primarily sold — extreme upside written BTC-25DEC26-65000-P put 79 $77.3M 0.497 Balanced — largest total volume in report BTC-25SEP26-75000-P put 86 $51.9M 0.574 ✅ Primarily bought — active hedge at $75K Sep BTC-25DEC26-100000-C call 93 $43.9M 0.570 ✅ Primarily bought — $100K upside participation BTC-25DEC26-70000-C call 86 $38.7M 0.604 ✅ Primarily bought — deep ITM call, leveraged long BTC-25DEC26-75000-P put 78 $14.7M 0.731 ✅ Primarily bought — active hedge at $75K Dec BTC-25DEC26-80000-P put 70 $16.4M 0.555 ✅ Primarily bought — put hedge at $80K Dec Buy ratio below 0.45 = instrument primarily sold (written). Above 0.55 = primarily bought. This is the accumulated position over 70-98 trading days. The December 2026 $80K call being written for 92 days at $56.7M total volume is the clearest source of structural supply near current spot. 3. How April Actually Ended The final week of April - April 24 through April 30 - saw options volume collapse to under $0.40M per day. There is not much I can honestly say about those sessions directionally. What I take from the April close is simpler: the market went into May without a big new options commitment in either direction. Thin, quiet, inconclusive. The slate was relatively clean when May 1 arrived. Spot told a more constructive story. BTC held the $76-78.5K area through the entire quiet period. April 26 showed spot at $78,526 - the highest level since January. The dominant instrument that day was the December 2026 $105K put at 100% of a near-zero volume session. April 28 had spot at $76,472, with futures showing shorts_overheated. April 30 closed near $76,145 with PCR 0.57 on $0.23M volume. ETH held $2,260-2,347 through the same period. ETH April 27 showed an extreme PCR distortion: raw PCR of 1.94 resolved to 0.06 after removing the dominant May 1 $2,225 put that represented 64% of the session. That is one of the largest distortions in the entire ETH dataset - another reminder that reading raw ETH PCR without adjustment consistently misleads. 4. May 1-4: Session by Session May 1 - The most important new session BTC spot: $77,287. Options volume: $12.78M - the first meaningful session since April 23. PCR: 0.55. IV spike metric: 28.76, driven by an expiry day instrument with extreme implied volatility. Net delta: -$2.75M. Dominant instrument: Jul 31 $81K call at 17.7% of the day's flow. Futures: longs_dominant, basis +0.018% - first positive basis reading since April 23. The IV picture on May 1 needs a precise read, because the headline number is misleading. The short-dated bucket showed median IV of 34.7% with a maximum of 999% - the report cap. The max/median ratio that drives the 28.76 spike metric was caused by a single instrument: the BTC-1MAY26-74000-C, which showed IV of 413.1% on expiry day. I want to be explicit that this is a mechanical artifact of same-day expiry with spot far from the strike - not a genuine market-wide volatility signal. The 8-30 day bucket was actually informative: median 37.9%, max 93%, max/median ratio 2.45, $4.27M volume. A calm, normally shaped surface for a mid-range session. Now the execution layer, which is where the real story sits. I want to break this down by bucket because the headline PCR of 0.55 hides what actually happened. The 90 day-plus call bucket had $3.3M volume - the largest single bucket of the day. It was dominated by one instrument: the Jul 31 $81K call sold at $2.26M (buy_ratio 0.002). The remaining 90d+ calls bought were $53K in March 2027 $82K calls (buy_ratio 1.000) - a fraction of the sold volume. Conclusion: 90d+ calls were net sold heavily. The 8-30 day call bucket had $2.4M volume. The May 15 $80K call was sold ($112K, buy_ratio 0.048). The May 22 $78K call was sold ($116K, buy_ratio 0.000). On the buy side: May 29 $86K call ($107K, buy_ratio 1.000) and May 29 $83K call ($69K, buy_ratio 0.936). Conclusion: 8-30 day calls were net sold, with smaller upside participation bought. The 8-30 day put bucket had $1.87M volume - the largest put bucket. This is where active buying happened: May 29 $76K put ($727K, buy_ratio 0.901), May 29 $75K put ($140K, buy_ratio 0.997), May 15 $77K put ($110K, buy_ratio 0.000 - sold). The Jul 31 $82K put was also bought ($115K, buy_ratio 1.000). Conclusion: The $75-76K put floor was actively bought in the 8-30 day range. The strategy table registered one strangle on May 1 (buy_ratio 0.635, $14.2K notional) - a small volatility structure, consistent with the mixed buy/sell pattern across strikes. May 1 summary: The call side was net sold across all time buckets, dominated by the Jul $81K call. The put side saw active buying of the $75-76K floor in 8-30 day expiries. Net delta was -$2.75M. This is not a bullish session. It reads as a delta-reduction day where someone sold upside exposure and simultaneously bought near-term downside protection. The one constructive element was the futures layer: longs_dominant with positive basis for the first time since April 23. May 1 ETH - Straddle and downside begins ETH spot: $2,293. Volume: $3.96M - a real session by ETH standards. PCR: 1.17. Net delta: -$1.18M. Dominant instrument: June 2026 $2,300 put at 13.2% of the day - aggressively sold ($524K, buy_ratio 0.005). Futures: shorts_dominant, basis -0.0117%. The same day BTC futures showed long dominance, ETH futures showed short dominance. Two near-dated instruments were aggressively bought: the May 8 $2,300 call ($152K, buy_ratio 0.859) and the May 8 $2,250 put ($133K, buy_ratio 0.924). These bracket $2,293 spot almost exactly - a near-ATM straddle structure on a 7-day expiry. This is a pure volatility position: the buyer does not know which direction ETH moves, but expects it to move. Alongside the straddle: the May 29 $2,000 put was aggressively bought ($73.3K, buy_ratio 0.916), and the May 5 $2,000 put was bought ($11.2K, buy_ratio 1.000). The $1,800 put for May 8 was also bought ($2.2K, buy_ratio 0.955). I will return to this $2,000 pattern in the next section. May 2 - The $80K call that was bought BTC spot: $78,353 - the closest to $80K in the entire data window. Options volume: $0.16M - thin. Dominant instrument: BTC-6MAY26-80000-C at 30.9% of the session, aggressively bought. Buy_ratio: 0.851. 52 trades. IV: 28.5% - notably below the $76K put IVs from the same period, meaning this $80K call was relatively cheap at current spot. The PCR distortion table confirms the day's structure: raw PCR was 0.75 (call-heavy), but after removing the dominant $80K call's 30.9% share, adjusted PCR moved to 1.62. The rest of the tape, excluding that one dominant call, was actually put-weighted. The $80K call was an outlier buying event on an otherwise cautious tape. ETH May 2: spot $2,308, PCR 1.41, volume $0.13M - too thin. Adjusted PCR 0.67 after removing the September 2026 $2,400 put's 30.5% dominance. No clean read. May 3 - Highest spot, lowest signal BTC spot: $78,681 - the highest in the entire report. Options volume: $0.02M - effectively zero. May 3 was the day BTC got closest to $80K and the options market was completely silent about it. That combination is worth noting, even if I cannot draw a conclusion from it. ETH spot: $2,320. ETH PCR: 0.50, adjusted to 0.87. Volume: $0.26M. The May 6 $2,000 put was bought on May 3 (14 trades, buy_ratio 0.78) - adding another data point to the ETH $2,000 pattern. I cannot read May 3 directionally. BTC made its highest spot print with no options backing. May 4 - ETH institutional hedge, BTC absent BTC spot: $78,373. BTC inverse options volume: effectively zero. BTC is absent from the options tape on May 4. ETH: spot $2,313. PCR 718.2. Volume $0.09M. One instrument: ETH-26MAR27-2000-P at 96.8% of the session. Buy_ratio: 1.000. Notional: $85,664. Aggressively bought. Anomaly score: 9 - among the highest in the ETH series. Regime: institutional. Hedge_signal: hedge_not_short. Adjusted PCR after removing the dominant instrument: 21.75. Distortion: 696.45 - the largest in the ETH dataset. The positive net delta on May 4 (+$86,624) alongside the extreme put confirms this is a hedge on an existing long position, not a standalone short. The instrument is a March 2027 $2,000 put - ten months of protection starting 13.5% below current spot. Combined with the May 1 $2,000 put buying, the pattern becomes harder to dismiss as noise. Table 2. BTC Key Sessions - May 1 to May 4 Date Spot PCR Adj PCR Net Delta Vol ($M) Dominant Instrument Dom % Futures Signal May 1 $77,287 0.55 — −$2.75M 12.78 BTC-31JUL26-81000-C (sold) 17.7% ✅ longs_dominant +0.018% May 2 $78,353 0.75 1.62 +$0.09M 0.16 BTC-6MAY26-80000-C (✅ bought) 30.9% — May 3 $78,681 0.71 — −$0.01M 0.02 ⚠ BTC_USDC excluded 22.4% — May 4 $78,373 0.00 — ~$0.00 ~0.00 ⚠ BTC_USDC excluded 87.9% — May 3-4 BTC dominant instruments are BTC_USDC - excluded per universe filter. May 1 is the only full BTC options session in the window. May 2 dominant instrument was aggressively bought despite overall put-heavy adjusted tape. Table 3. BTC May 1 - Call and Put Flow by Time Bucket Bucket Type Volume ($) % of Day Net Direction Key Instruments 0–7 days call $2,200,048 17.2% ⚠ Mixed / sold Expiry-day sells dominant (IV 413% on $74K C, $126K on $80K P) 8–30 days call $2,397,925 18.8% ⚠ Net sold $80K May 15 C sold, $81K May 8 C sold vs $86K/$83K May 29 C bought 31–90 days call $353,053 2.8% Mixed Small volume, mixed signals 90d+ call $3,304,160 25.9% ⚠ Strongly sold Jul $81K C sold $2.26M dominates. Mar27 $82K C bought $53K only 0–7 days put $446,632 3.5% Mixed Small, expiry effects 8–30 days put $1,870,093 14.6% ✅ Net bought May 29 $76K P bought $727K + $75K P bought $140K — active floor 31–90 days put $1,135,055 8.9% Mixed Jun $76K P sold, some buying at $100K P 90d+ put $1,070,479 8.4% Mixed Jul $82K P bought $115K, Dec $70K P bought $63K Calls: total $8.26M, predominantly sold across all buckets. Puts: total $4.52M, with active buying concentrated in 8-30 day $75-76K range. PCR headline (0.55) understates the sell-side dominance in the larger 90d+ call bucket. Table 4. BTC May 1 - Key Instruments: Bought vs. Sold Instrument Strike Expiry Notional Buy Ratio Signal Read BTC-31JUL26-81000-C $81K Jul 31 ~$2.26M 0.002 ⚠ Sold Dominant. Call ceiling sold at $81K. BTC-15MAY26-80000-C $80K May 15 ~$0.11M 0.048 ⚠ Sold $80K call written short-dated. BTC-8MAY26-81000-C $81K May 8 ~$0.07M 0.048 ⚠ Sold $81K call written very short-dated. BTC-22MAY26-78000-C $78K May 22 ~$0.12M 0.000 ⚠ Sold Near-spot call sold. BTC-29MAY26-76000-P $76K May 29 ~$0.73M 0.901 ✅ Bought Largest put buy. $76K floor defended. BTC-29MAY26-75000-P $75K May 29 ~$0.14M 0.997 ✅ Bought $75K floor also defended. BTC-31JUL26-82000-P $82K Jul 31 ~$0.11M 1.000 ✅ Bought Longer put bought. Paired hedge? BTC-29MAY26-86000-C $86K May 29 ~$0.11M 1.000 ✅ Bought Upside participation at $86K May. BTC-29MAY26-83000-C $83K May 29 ~$0.07M 0.936 ✅ Bought Upside participation at $83K May. BTC-26MAR27-82000-C $82K Mar 2027 ~$0.05M 1.000 ✅ Bought Very long-dated upside. Structural. BTC-6MAY26-80000-C (May 2) $80K May 6 ~$0.05M 0.851 ✅ Bought May 2 only: $80K call bought. IV 28.5%. Put that together and May 1 was a delta-reduction day, not a directional one. Someone sold the dominant upside call, bought the floor, kept smaller upside exposure at $83-86K, and walked away with negative net delta. The futures layer gave me the only unambiguous positive signal: longs_dominant, positive basis, for the first time since April 23. That is enough to keep the recovery thesis alive. Not enough to call it confirmed. 5. ETH: The $2,000 Pattern Across Four Expiries I want to be specific about what happened with ETH downside positioning across May 1 to May 4, because I think the pattern is more significant than any single instrument. On May 1: the May 5 $2,000 put was bought with buy_ratio 1.000 across 22 trades ($11.2K notional). The May 29 $2,000 put was aggressively bought - 16 trades, buy_ratio 0.916, $73.3K notional. The May 8 $1,800 put was bought across 26 trades, buy_ratio 0.955, $2.2K notional. This is a deep OTM put on May 8 that implies positioning for ETH below $1,800 - 21.5% below the $2,293 spot - within one week. Even at small notional, 26 trades at 0.955 buy_ratio is a committed buy, not an accident. On May 3: the May 6 $2,000 put was bought - 14 trades, buy_ratio 0.780, $2.1K notional. On May 4: the Mar 26, 2027 $2,000 put was bought institutionally - 2 trades, buy_ratio 1.000, $85.7K notional, representing 96.8% of the day's flow. In total, the $2,000 ETH put strike was bought across four different expiries - May 5, May 6, May 29, and March 2027 - with consistent buy_ratios above 0.78 in every case. The total notional is approximately $172K across these instruments. That is not large in absolute terms. But the consistency of the strike, the variety of expiries, and the buy-side execution across all of them is the signal. The conclusion I draw: $2,000 is the level where ETH downside protection is being systematically purchased. I find it notable that the buying happened across four different expiries - May 5, May 29, May 6, March 2027 - rather than clustering in one. That spread says something about conviction: someone is not just rolling a single hedge. They are building a position at this strike across time. Whether that is one entity or several, I cannot say. But the $2,000 put strike is where the options market is voting with real money, repeatedly. Table 5. ETH $2,000 Put Pattern - May 1 to May 4 Date Instrument Expiry Strike Notional Trades Buy Ratio IV Read May 1 ETH-5MAY26-2000-P May 5 $2,000 $11.2K 22 1.000 66% ✅ Aggressively bought. Pure buy. May 1 ETH-29MAY26-2000-P May 29 $2,000 $73.3K 16 0.916 56.9% ✅ Aggressively bought. Largest in group. May 1 ETH-8MAY26-1800-P May 8 $1,800 $2.2K 26 0.955 75.7% ⚠ Deep OTM bought. -21.5% vs spot. May 3 ETH-6MAY26-2000-P May 6 $2,000 $2.1K 14 0.780 72% ✅ Bought. Continues pattern. May 4 ETH-26MAR27-2000-P Mar 2027 $2,000 $85.7K 2 1.000 63.7% ⚠ Institutional. 96.8% of session. ETH-8MAY26-1800-P is an anomaly: deep OTM by 21.5%, bought aggressively across 26 trades. At that distance from spot, this is tail-risk insurance rather than a directional bet. ETH-26MAR27-2000-P on May 4 is categorized as hedge_not_short by the report. Combined, these prints define $2,000 as the floor being actively defended in the options market. Table 6. ETH Key Sessions - May 1 to May 4 Date Spot Raw PCR Adj PCR Net Delta Vol ($M) Dominant Instrument Futures Key Read May 1 $2,293 1.17 — −$1.18M 3.96 Jun $2,300P (⚠ sold, 13.2%) ⚠ shorts_dominant −0.012% Straddle bought (May8 $2300C + $2250P). $2000P floor bought. Futures short-dominant. May 2 $2,308 1.41 0.67 −$0.02M 0.13 Sep $2,400P (sold, 30.5%) — Thin. Neutral after adj PCR. May 3 $2,320 0.50 0.87 −$0.13M 0.26 Sep $2,300C (sold, 28.8%) — Thin. $2000P pattern continues. May 4 $2,313 ⚠ 718.2 ⚠ 21.75 +$0.09M 0.09 ⚠ Mar27 $2,000P: 96.8%, bought — ⚠ Institutional hedge. Distortion 696.45. ETH May 1 straddle: ETH-8MAY26-2300-C (buy_ratio 0.859, $152K) and ETH-8MAY26-2250-P (buy_ratio 0.924, $133K) both bought aggressively. This is a pure volatility bet - the buyer expected ETH to move by May 8 but was not committed to direction. 6. The $80K Question: What the Full Tape Says The $80K data tells two simultaneous stories, and I have to hold both of them at once. The persistent instrument table shows the December 2026 $80K call has been written for 92 consecutive days with $56.7M total volume and buy_ratio 0.422 - meaning structural sellers have been placing supply at that strike for months. On May 1, the May 15 $80K call and May 8 $81K call were both sold with buy_ratios near zero. Against this: the May 2 session showed the May 6 $80K call aggressively bought (52 trades, buy_ratio 0.851) when spot was at $78,353 - the closest approach to $80K in the window. The IV of 28.5% on that call was lower than the surrounding put IVs, which made it relatively cheap. And on May 3, BTC reached $78,681 - the highest spot in the report - without any options volume behind it. Where I land on this: This is a level with persistent structural sellers above it (from the written call book) and opportunistic buyers approaching from below. The May 2 $80K call buy was specific and committed. The May 6 expiry of that call is the first measurable near-term test: if spot reaches $80K before expiry, the buyer wins and the signal confirms. If spot fails to reach it, the structural sellers above continue to define the ceiling. 7. Futures: BTC and ETH Diverge Clearly May 1 showed the sharpest BTC/ETH futures split since the recovery began. BTC: longs_dominant, basis +0.018%, volume $143.89M perps plus $21.96M futures, funding +0.054% - the first unambiguously positive futures read since April 23. ETH: shorts_dominant, basis -0.0117%, volume $71.5M perps plus $13.13M futures, funding -0.035%. The same calendar day, the same data window: BTC futures showed long dominance and positive basis, while ETH futures showed short dominance and negative basis. That is not a marginal difference. It is a structural split between the two assets in their derivatives market. May 2 showed a BTC futures session with an aggressive buy signal on very small volume ($0.03M, 5 trades) - directionally consistent with the $80K call being bought on the options side, but too thin to weight heavily. 8. BTC Scenario Map - Updated for May Scenario Condition Key Level What Confirms It What Breaks It Range / consolidation (base case) BTC holds $76K–$79K; call sellers above $80K continue to cap; put floor buyers defend $75K–$76K $76K–$79K Adj PCR stays below 1 on next full session; futures basis stays positive; May 29 $76K put floor holds in flow Put buying broadens below $75K across multiple expiries; net delta sharply negative on vol >$50M Upside continuation May 6 $80K call expires in the money OR next high-vol session shows $80K+ call buying with positive delta $80K–$84K Buy-side execution at $80K+ calls; positive net delta; volume >$30M; persistent sellers begin covering (buy_ratio rises on Dec $80K C) Dominant call again sold on next major session; $80K level rejected at expiry on May 6 Defensive reset BTC loses $76K; put buying broadens across expiries; persistent call sellers remain inactive $72K–$74K May 29 $76K put floor breaks; put-heavy sessions on >$40M volume; futures basis negative; $75K put persistents see buy_ratio rise Reclaim of $77K+ with positive delta and call buying The May 6 expiry of the $80K BTC call bought on May 2 is the first specific near-term options test. The May 29 $76K put (bought $727K on May 1) is the options-visible floor for the base case. 9. ETH: Structurally Weaker, Floor at $2,000 ETH entered May with three concurrent signals: a near-ATM straddle bought on May 1 (volatility positioning, not directional), a systematic pattern of $2,000 put buying across four expiries, and ETH futures staying short-dominant while BTC flipped positive. The straddle structure on May 1 - May 8 $2,300 call and $2,250 put both bought aggressively - said the market expected ETH to move by May 8 without committing to direction. That expiry has now passed. The $2,000 put pattern is the more durable signal: four separate buying events across May 5, May 6, May 29, and March 2027 define $2,000 as the floor being actively defended. The adjusted PCR picture for ETH was neutral to slightly constructive across May 2 and May 3 (0.67 and 0.87 respectively), but with volumes too thin for conviction. ETH has not produced a full session with positive delta and improving adjusted PCR since April 17. For ETH, the framework is simpler: $2,250-2,350 range while BTC resolves the $80K question. The $2,000 put structure visible across multiple expiries defines the floor the options market is explicitly buying protection against. For ETH to turn constructive enough to change my view, I need a session above $5M options volume with positive net delta and adjusted PCR below 0.70. 10. Risks to the Thesis The first risk is the call ceiling holding. The persistent instrument data shows the December 2026 $80K call has been written for 92 days continuously. If the structured sellers continue writing calls at $80-85K on every rally, the range thesis becomes very difficult to break on the upside without a fundamental shift in that book. The second risk is the May 1 pattern repeating. The dominant call sold, negative net delta, and put buying around $75-76K is a delta-reduction pattern. If the next high-volume BTC session shows the same structure, the options market is consistently telling me there is more supply than demand at current levels. The third risk is the May 6 $80K call expiring worthless. The call was bought aggressively on May 2 when spot was $78,353. If spot fails to reach $80K before the May 6 expiry, that specific signal is invalidated. A failed short-dated $80K call with no follow-through on volume weakens the upside case. The fourth risk is ETH $2,000 put buying accelerating. The current pattern covers four expiries in a calm, measured way. If May shows new sessions with more instruments added at $2,000 and below, and particularly if volume increases, that changes ETH from "hedge buying" to "active downside positioning". The fifth risk is the BTC futures basis reverting. May 1 gave the first positive basis reading since April 23. If the next available BTC futures session flips back to shorts dominant and negative basis, the one genuine confirmation from May disappears. 11. Where Does Price Go From Here I have been going back and forth on how directly to state a directional view here. The data has a lean. I will state it. BTC The range is defined by the options book, not by chart levels. Below spot: the $75-76K put floor has been actively bought in 8-30 day expiries and reinforced in the persistent Sep/Dec instruments. Above spot: the $80-85K call ceiling has been written for 92 consecutive days. Those are the walls. The question is which one breaks first. Within that range, the lean is slightly upward. The May 2 $80K call purchase at 28.5% IV - when spot was closest to that level - is the most specific constructive signal. The May 29 $83K and $86K calls were bought on May 1. The BTC futures flipped to longs_dominant on May 1 with positive basis. The spot trajectory from May 1 to May 3 was a quiet, unforced climb: $77,287 → $78,353 → $78,681. I want to be honest about the other side of this, though. The dominant call was sold on May 1. Net delta was negative. And the persistent call book above $80K is not a thin position - it is $56.7M written over 92 days. Getting through that supply requires either the sellers to start covering, which would show up as buy_ratio rising on the December $80K call, or a new buyer large enough to absorb what is already written. I do not see evidence of either in the data I have. My lean, stated plainly: Test of $80K before test of $76K, driven by the May 2 $80K call signal and positive futures momentum. But $80K is not clear - it is contested. The May 6 expiry is the first checkpoint. If spot cannot reach $80K by then, the base case shifts to range-bound consolidation, with the next significant signal coming from the next high-volume options session. The $83-86K May 29 call range is the medium-term upside target visible in the flow. A close above $80K with supporting options volume would be the first genuine new regime signal from this data. ETH ETH is clearer in structure but less constructive in direction. The $2,000 put pattern across four expiries defines a specific floor. The straddle on May 8 expiry has now resolved. The futures short dominance on May 1 was the opposite of BTC. The ETH options tape is not telling me ETH goes to $2,000. It is telling me someone is explicitly buying insurance against that scenario across multiple time frames - short, medium, and very long. That is a different signal from the BTC put floor buying, which is concentrated in one expiry range (May 29) and looks more like near-term protection than structural fear. On ETH specifically: ETH stays in range and follows BTC directionally, but with less upside conviction and with $2,000 as the explicitly marked floor in the options structure. If BTC tests and clears $80K with volume, ETH likely moves toward $2,400-2,500 in sympathetic follow. If BTC stalls, ETH is more vulnerable - the $2,000 put buyers are positioning for a reason, and ETH does not have the same put floor defense ($75K–$76K) that BTC has in the near-term options market. 12. Final Investor Takeaway I want to be clear about what this article is and is not. The numbers above come from Deribit inverse options and futures flow through May 4. They describe positioning - not where price will go. The directional view I gave in section 11 is my reading of what the structure implies, not a forecast. Four sessions into May, and I am more cautious about the continuation case than I was when I wrote the previous article - not because the data turned bearish, but because the persistent instrument picture added a layer I did not have before. The call ceiling above $80K is not fresh. It is months old and substantial. That context changes how I read every short-dated upside signal: it is not just about whether calls are being bought today, but whether the accumulated structural supply is starting to give way. ETH showed something different from BTC this week. The $2,000 put buying across four expiries - from one-week to ten-month horizon - is a pattern of explicit floor-building, not noise. Combined with ETH futures staying short-dominant while BTC turned long-dominant, the cross-asset divergence is real and confirmed. Six things to monitor: (1) May 6: Does the $80K BTC call expire in the money? (2) Next BTC session above $20M volume: Is net delta positive or negative? (3) Do the persistent Dec $80K call sellers start covering (buy_ratio rising from 0.422)? (4) Does ETH add new $2,000 put buying in additional expiries? - Expansion of the pattern would be significant. (5) Does BTC futures basis stay positive after the May 1 flip? (6) Does ETH produce a session above $5M volume with positive delta? If yes, the May 1 straddle buyer was right about an upside move. Data: Deribit inverse options + futures, January 1-May 4, 2026 inclusive. Linear options excluded. Analysis: IVCompass. Disclaimer: This analysis is intended for informational purposes only. It reflects my reading of market structure and options positioning based on available data and should not be treated as financial or investment advice. Past positioning patterns do not guarantee future results. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Original Source: Author

5 May 2026, 13:26

April 2026 Crypto Fundraising Report

Sharp Slowdown, Mega-Round Drought, and a 12-Month Capital Low $662.5M VC Capital 64 VC Deals -74% MoM Capital -23% MoM Deals Published: May 01, 2026 Coverage Period: April 01 – April 30, 2026 Data Source: CryptoRank MCP Report Version: v1.0 1. Crypto Fundraising Trend MoM Crypto Fundraising Hits 12-Month Low as April Capital Plunges 74% April 2026 marked the weakest month in the 12-month window, with only $662.4M raised across 64 rounds — a sharp 74% capital drop from March’s $2.59B and the lowest total since May 2025. Round count fell 23% MoM, continuing the steady decline since the October 2025 peak of 125 rounds. The trend signals tightening risk appetite: fewer deals, smaller checks, and absence of the mega-rounds that defined late 2025. Figure 1: Source CryptoRank MCP . Excludes M&A, IPO, Debt, and PIPE deals 2. Capital Distribution by Transaction Type M&A captured 48.6% of April’s $1.57B disclosed capital across just 6 deals, edging out VC at 42.1% spread over 64 rounds. The dollar dominance of M&A despite far fewer transactions signals a consolidation phase — strategic acquisitions reshaping the market while primary fundraising thins. 2.1 MoM Comparison by Transaction Type Series A, B, C+ / Strategic capital fell 86% to $296M, M&A dropped 58% to $765M, and IPO/PIPE flows went silent from $646M to zero — pointing to a broad pullback rather than a category-specific slowdown. 3. VC Capital Distribution by Category Exchange led April VC capital with $231M across just 6 deals, while DeFi and AI dominated activity with 12 and 10 deals respectively but on much smaller average tickets. Payments and Infrastructure stood out for combining both volume and dollar weight, signaling sustained investor interest in foundational rails. Exchange Category Deals Breakdown CEX dominated April Exchange capital ($208M across Payward, Hata, CAEX) while DEX / perpetuals attracted smaller checks (Liquid, Exponent, Paragon). Project Project description Raised Round Type Core product Investors Payward Parent of Kraken; trading, custody, payments, lending across 190+ jurisdictions. $200.00M Undisclosed CEX Deutsche Borse Liquid Non-custodial perp trading; users keep funds & data on-chain, no KYC storage. $18.00M Series A DEX, Perpetuals Haun Ventures, SV Angel, Anti Fund Hata Global crypto exchange licensed in Malaysia; fiat on-ramp for retail and pros. $8.00M Series A CEX Bybit Exponent Solana yield protocol; fixed-yield Income Tokens and tradeable volatile yields. $5.00M Seed AMM, DEX, Yield Aggregator Multicoin Capital, RockawayX, Solana Ventures CAEX Vietnam’s regulated crypto exchange backed by VPBank under government pilot. – Strategic CEX HashKey Capital, OKX Ventures Paragon Hyperliquid-based DEX for index perps (BTC dominance, TOTAL2, macro indicators). – Seed DEX, Perpetuals, Synthetic Assets – Payments Category Deals Breakdown Slash captured 71% of April Payments capital with a $100M Series C; the remainder skews toward API-focused infrastructure (Fence, Kulipa, INXY) and card / cashback rails (Kulipa, GoSats). Project Project description Raised Round Type Core product Investors Slash Banking for entrepreneurs and SMBs; accounts, virtual cards, $200M FDIC coverage. $100.00M Series C Custody Y Combinator, NEA, Ribbit Capital Fence Tech-native facility-agency platform for asset-backed finance; automates ABF ops. $20.00M Series A API, Data Service Galaxy, ParaFi Capital, Crane Venture Partners Kulipa Lets non-custodial wallets issue branded payment cards with API and dashboard. $6.20M Seed API 1kx, Fabric Ventures, Flourish Ventures GoSats India fintech; cashback in Bitcoin/digital gold for everyday purchases via card. $5.00M Series A E-commerce, Mobile, Payments Y Combinator, Konvoy Ventures, Taisu Ventures Depay LatAm payment rails; cross-border collections/payouts without local bank setup. $4.00M Seed Payments CMT Digital, DCG, Hash3 INXY Payments EU-licensed multi-asset payment platform for businesses managing digital tx. $4.00M Extended Seed API, Payments Flashpoint VC Transak Fiat-to-crypto on-ramp/off-ramp; integrates with wallets & DeFi apps in 100+ countries. – Strategic API, Smart Contract Platform, Social Gobi Partners 4. Investor Activity 4.1 Crypto Investor Base Hits 25-Month Low as Participation Plunges 72% from 2024 Peak April 2026 saw 211 unique investors, down 45% MoM from March 2026 (383) and 72% below the April 2024 peak of 741. The 25-month series trends consistently downward, with monthly participation roughly halving since mid-2025 and reaching its low at the period close. 4.2 April Most Active Funds GSR led April with 4 deals; Maven 11 Capital led every round it joined (2/2). Most top-10 funds participated as co-investors, signaling cautious capital with limited lead conviction. 5. Top VC Deals and Mega-Rounds Top 10 biggest April 2026 VC rounds (excludes M&A, IPO, Debt, PIPE). Project Raised Description Round Type Investors Payward $200M Parent company of Kraken exchange, plus xStocks, NinjaTrader, CF Benchmarks, and Breakout — trading, custody, payments, lending, on-chain finance. Undisclosed Deutsche Borse Slash $100M Fintech offering business accounts, virtual cards, and real-time tracking for entrepreneurs; client funds held with FDIC insurance up to $200M. SERIES C Y Combinator, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Ribbit Capital Cross River $50M Banking infrastructure and APIs that let fintechs embed accounts, cards, and loans; serves as licensed lender of record handling KYC and compliance. Undisclosed T. Rowe Price Pharos $44M EVM-compatible Layer 1 network focused on trustless payments and applications, targeting underserved communities and Web3 mass adoption. SERIES A SNZ Holding, Chainlink, Flow Traders Fence $20M Tech-native facility-agency platform for asset-backed finance; digitizes covenants and automates verification, calculations, and cash flows. SERIES A Galaxy, ParaFi Capital, Crane Venture Partners Reppo $20M Permissionless coordination layer for AI systems to collaborate with data, infra, and capital, giving developers and agents shared resources. STRATEGIC Bolts Capital Spektr $20M Compliance automation platform for banks combining workflows with AI agents that handle document review, ownership mapping, and risk analysis. SERIES A New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Northzone, seedcamp Squads $18M Solana multisig wallet/SaaS letting teams manage shared crypto assets and on-chain resources — tokens, NFTs, programs, validators — together. STRATEGIC Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, Haun Ventures Liquid $18M Non-custodial perp trading platform: users keep funds in their own wallets, no KYC storage, censorship-resistant on-chain execution. SERIES A Haun Ventures, SV Angel, Anti Fund Belo $14M LatAm mobile wallet for freelancers and remote workers; receive Wise/Deel/Payoneer payouts in stablecoins, hold crypto, low-cost cross-border transfers. SERIES A G2 Venture Partners, Mindset Ventures, TheVentureCity

5 May 2026, 13:25

10 Common Mistakes Investors Make in Gold-Backed DeFi

Gold-backed DeFi has scaled to multi-billion-dollar TVL across PAXG, XAUT, Kinesis, and newer protocols like Ayni Gold. The category has matured, but reader confusion has scaled alongside it. This piece walks through ten common mistakes investors make when allocating to gold-backed DeFi positions, with the underlying logic that explains why each one costs returns or creates unexpected risk. Why These Mistakes Matter More in 2026 The category has more variety than ever. Vault-backed tokens, production-linked yield, fee-share platforms, and other newer structures all live under the gold-backed umbrella. Treating them all the same way produces real allocation errors. Investors who treated PAXG and XAUT as similar in 2024 could often get away with it. The same approach in 2026 misses real differences in mechanics, verification, and portfolio fit. 1. Confusing Price Exposure with Yield Most tokenized gold is vault-backed. PAXG, XAUT, Comtech, and Meld give holders gold price exposure with no native yield. Buying these expecting steady returns produces a surprise: returns only happen when the gold price rises. The yield-paying alternatives are different. Kinesis pays from platform activity. Ayni Gold pays quarterly PAXG distributions from gold mining. Gold-token investors should know which type they're buying. 2. Treating Gold-Backed DeFi as a Static Category The category has expanded fast. New protocols, new yield models, and new verification approaches have all appeared since 2024. Information from older sources may describe products that have since changed structure or no longer reflect current best practices. Investors using two-year-old reviews to make 2026 allocation decisions miss the structural changes that have reshaped the category in the meantime. 3. Missing the Structural Difference Between Vault-Backed and Production-Linked Tokens Vault-backed tokens (PAXG, XAUT) and production-linked tokens (Ayni Gold) tokenize fundamentally different things. Vault-backed tokens represent stored bullion. Production-linked tokens represent operating mining capacity. Same underlying commodity, different exposure model. Comparing them as alternatives misses the structural distinction. They serve different portfolio roles, and treating them as complements is closer to the honest framing. 4. Focusing on APY Without Counting Total Return A token's headline APY isn't the full return picture. Some yield-paying tokens have an inflationary supply that dilutes returns over time. Others pay yield in the same asset that drives the underlying exposure, which can compound differently than yield paid in a separate asset. Total return accounting includes APY, supply changes, exposure to the underlying asset's price, and any token-burning mechanics that affect circulating supply. Looking only at APY misses several of these. 5. Treating All "Gold-Backed" Claims as Equally Verified "Gold-backed" means different things across the category. PAXG attestations come from BDO Italia. XAUT also uses BDO Italia. Kinesis uses LBMA-certified vaults. Ayni Gold uses CertiK and PeckShield for smart contracts, TurnKey for custody, and Kangari Consulting for geological assessments. Each verification setup matches what the protocol does. Assuming any "audited" claim is automatically equivalent misses the structural differences in what each protocol needs to verify. 6. Assuming Custody Models Work the Same Across All Tokens Custody varies meaningfully across the category. PAXG holders trust Paxos to custody the underlying gold. XAUT holders trust Tether and its Swiss vault custodian. Ayni's smart wallet uses TurnKey infrastructure with email OTP signing for user transactions. Each model has different failure modes. A PAXG investor's main custody concern is Paxos's regulatory standing. An Ayni investor's main custody concern is smart contract integrity plus their own wallet practices. 7. Skipping the Operational Due Diligence Behind Production-Linked Tokens For production-linked tokens, smart contract audits are necessary but not sufficient. The mining concession, geological assessment, jurisdictional structure, and operational variables also need due diligence. Ayni Gold publishes the concession registration (INGEMMET No. 070011405), the legal entity (Minerales SH San Hilario S.C.R.L.), and the geological scoping study (9 to 10.7 tonnes conceptual recoverable). For production-linked positions, that operational documentation is the production-linked yield equivalent of vault attestations for PAXG. 8. Underestimating Regulatory Differences Across Issuers Issuer regulatory profiles vary substantially. Paxos operates under NYDFS supervision. Tether operates offshore through TG Commodities Limited. Ayni separates its physical mining (Peruvian jurisdiction via Minerales SH) from its token issuance (BVI jurisdiction via AYNI TOKEN INC.). These structures have different implications for what protections users have, where disputes get resolved, and which regulatory changes affect each protocol. Lumping them together misses material differences. 9. Overweighting Liquidity Over Backing Quality XAUT has the deepest derivatives liquidity in the gold-token category. PAXG has wide exchange listings. Newer or smaller tokens carry less liquidity by definition. Liquidity matters when frequent trading is part of the strategy. For long-term allocation positions, backing quality and yield mechanics often matter more than how easily the token trades on a given day. Investors who chose tokens solely for liquidity sometimes missed that other tokens fit their actual portfolio role better. 10. Ignoring Portfolio Fit and Correlation Adding gold-backed DeFi to a portfolio that already holds vault-backed gold ETFs or physical gold creates redundant exposure. Both move with the gold price. Adding Ayni Gold's quarterly PAXG yield to that same portfolio adds something the existing positions don't deliver: a yield component from a different cash flow source. DeFi yield diversification is most useful when the new position adds something the portfolio doesn't already have, which often means yield-paying gold instead of additional price-tracking gold. Where This Leaves Gold-Backed DeFi Investors in 2026 The ten mistakes share one underlying pattern. Treating gold-backed DeFi as a single category misses the structural variety that has emerged since 2024. Vault-backed, production-linked, and platform-fee tokens carry different return profiles, different risks, and different portfolio roles. Investors who understand the structural distinctions allocate more deliberately. They capture the right kind of gold exposure for their goals instead of treating gold as yield generating asset as a single product. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.