‍All Time Highs on Wall Street, Resistance in Crypto

It has been a week of two stories running simultaneously. US equities hit all time highs with the S&P 500 reaching 7,173, up over 11% in the past month alone, driven by a combination of ceasefire optimism, strong earnings, and sustained AI infrastructure spending. Bitcoin told a more cautious story, grinding up to a 79-day high of $79,500 before pulling back to around $76,000-$77,000 as momentum stalled below the critical $80,000 level. ETH sits at approximately $2,300 and SOL around $83. The divergence between equities at all time highs and crypto facing resistance is one of the more interesting dynamics of the week.

Beneath the surface the institutional picture remains firmly constructive. Strategy made its largest single Bitcoin acquisition since late 2024, purchasing 34,164 BTC for $2.54 billion last week before following up with a further $255 million purchase at $77,906 per coin this week, bringing total holdings to 818,334 BTC and generating an unrealised gain of approximately $3.6 billion for the month of April alone.

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Pump Fun Burns $370M

Pump announced they have burned all previously bought back $PUMP tokens, approximately $370 million worth, representing around 36% of the entire circulating supply. Gone permanently. On top of that they have initiated a programmatic buyback and burn scheme at 50% of all revenue for the next year, locked into an irreversible smart contract. To put that in context, over the past nine months Pump was already allocating 100% of revenue to buybacks. The community raised concerns about trust, what would happen to those tokens, would the business even be here in a year. Today they answered that directly.

The community is split. A vocal group believes the $370 million should have been airdropped back to holders rather than burned, and that is a fair argument. But a 36% reduction in circulating supply is not nothing. Revenue is strong and consistent. And the single biggest overhang on $PUMP since launch has been the uncertainty that buybacks could be switched off at any point. That risk is now gone, locked into an irreversible smart contract for one year. Not the exact play every holder wanted. But circulation is down 36%, revenue is strong, and the buyback commitment is now on-chain and immovable. That is a structural improvement for the token. 

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NFT Resurgence 

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The NFT market has posted some numbers this week that are hard to ignore. Market cap is up 54% over the past month and 24-hour trading volume is up 200%. Bored Ape Yacht Club is up 81% over the past month and Pudgy Penguins has crossed back above 5 ETH. On the surface it looks like a comeback.

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Overall market participation is actually shrinking, global sales, transactions, and active users have nearly halved since February while average sale prices have more than doubled. What that tells you is that a smaller pool of capital is concentrating into high value blue-chip trades rather than broad-based demand returning across the sector.  That said, capital rotating back into blue chips in a risk-on environment is still a signal worth paying attention to. It tends to happen early in broader market recoveries. Most collections are still 80-95% below their 2021 highs and the speculative frenzy of that era is a long way away.

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Hyperliquid & AERO — The RevFi Thesis in Real Time

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Two of our highest conviction positions have been quietly making new highs. Hyperliquid just hit an all time high in open interest positions, a remarkable achievement at a time when TVL is falling across DeFi, traders are disappearing from other platforms, and sentiment is broadly cautious. The platform keeps setting new records in key metrics regardless of what the macro environment throws at it. That is what a genuinely dominant protocol looks like.

Aerodrome has been the standout performer in the Alpha Portfolio, now sitting at a 45% gain from our public entry. The move appears to be the market beginning to forward price the EVM expansion launching across other chains in June and July, the same revenue flywheel that already dominates Base gets deployed to an entirely new pool of liquidity and users. More chains, more volume, more revenue distributed back to holders. We have been talking about this catalyst for months and the market is starting to catch up.

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BTC $80k Resistance & The FOMC Week

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Bitcoin spent the week grinding against one of the most significant levels on its chart, the Bull Market Support Band, sitting between $77,659 and $78,404. As we flagged back in March, this band was the key ceiling to watch if the relief rally extended. Bitcoin pushed into it, briefly touched $79,500, and has since pulled back to around $76,000-$77,000. The level has acted as resistance rather than support, which is the technically expected behaviour when price approaches the band from below. A clean weekly close above it would change the picture meaningfully. Until that happens, it remains the ceiling the market needs to break to confirm a broader trend change.

The timing of this technical test could not be more loaded with macro events. This week the Fed, Bank of Japan, ECB, and Bank of England all set interest rate policy simultaneously, the most concentrated central bank week of the year. The Fed is expected to hold rates steady at 3.50-3.75%, with the median projection implying only one rate cut before year end 2026. Goldman Sachs has pushed its rate cut forecast back to September and December, citing rising inflation risks linked to the Iran war, while Barclays now expects only a single quarter-point reduction for the entire year. Layered on top is Q1 earnings from Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google, representing 20% of the S&P 500 reporting in a single week. Markets do not like uncertainty and this week is full of it. How Bitcoin responds to each of these data points, particularly the Fed statement on Wednesday, will tell us a great deal about whether the BMSB break is coming or whether the mid-year pullback thesis plays out first

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Bitcoin 2026 Las Vegas

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Bitcoin 2026 opened at the Venetian Convention and Expo Center in Las Vegas on April 27, drawing more than 40,000 attendees across a three-day programme featuring over 500 speakers. The guest list alone signals how much has changed in the industry's relationship with Washington. SEC Chair Paul Atkins became the first sitting US securities regulator to address the conference, appearing alongside Senator Cynthia Lummis, Michael Saylor, Arthur Hayes, and Jack Dorsey, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also spoke at the conference's policy forum. Bitcoin ETFs showed a 9 days consecutive streak of net inflows totalling over $1.5B. Previous conferences have a track record of producing market-moving announcements, from Strategy's live BTC purchase reveals to presidential Bitcoin Reserve pledges. With regulators, senators, and the largest institutional Bitcoin holders all on the same stage, this year's event has the same potential.

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