Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alex with the Token Metrics Daily Pulse for
Speaker 1: April twentieth, twenty twenty six. Crypto funds just absorbed one
Speaker 1: point four billion dollars in a single week and prices
Speaker 1: are basically flat. That tension is the whole story today.
Speaker 1: But first a quick word from our sponsor. Okay, so
Speaker 1: here's what's happening. One point four billion dollars walked into
Speaker 1: crypto funds last week. Bitcoin is sitting at seventy five thousand,
Speaker 1: ethereum can't hold twenty three hundred, and the total market
Speaker 1: cap hasn't moved. So where is all that money going.
Speaker 1: Here's the most interesting explanation. It's being absorbed. Short term
Speaker 1: holders who bought higher are quietly selling into the inflows.
Speaker 1: The new money is real, it's just getting handed to
Speaker 1: people who want out. Those two forces are canceling each
Speaker 1: other out in price. But here's what that means for
Speaker 1: what comes next. If the sellers eventually run out of
Speaker 1: coins and the inflows keep coming, there's nobody left on
Speaker 1: the other side, no overhead supply to absorb. Price just goes.
Speaker 1: The quiet tape isn't bearish. It might be the setup.
Speaker 1: So where does that leave the rest of the market
Speaker 1: pretty still. Bitcoin at seventy five k basically unchanged, Ethereum
Speaker 1: at twenty three hundred down a fraction Solana around eighty
Speaker 1: five dollars. Total market cap two point six trillion, But
Speaker 1: the narrative tracker tells a different story. Meme tokens are
Speaker 1: up thirty seven percent in seven days, a fifty two
Speaker 1: billion dollar category moving like a penny. Stock roll ups
Speaker 1: up fourteen percent, liquid staking tokens up twelve Money is
Speaker 1: moving just into specific pockets, not the broad market. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: dominance at fifty seven percent tells you the rotation into
Speaker 1: all coins hasn't started. Capital is consolidating around Bitcoin, not
Speaker 1: spreading out, and prediction markets are backing up. A cautious read.
Speaker 1: Odds on three or four FED rate cuts this year
Speaker 1: are sitting at just eleven percent. The market has basically
Speaker 1: priced out aggressive easing. Any rally needs a real catalyst
Speaker 1: to stick. All right, what's driving the headlines today? First,
Speaker 1: the KELP dow exploit two hundred and ninety two million
Speaker 1: dollars drained from a bridge connecting rs eth, a liquid
Speaker 1: restaking token, to other chains ave the biggest lending market
Speaker 1: in DeFi took a visible hit to its total value
Speaker 1: locked as a result. Here's why this matter is beyond
Speaker 1: the hack itself. DeFi spent the last year stacking yield
Speaker 1: on top of restaking tokens. Stake ethereum, get a token back,
Speaker 1: use that token as collateral, borrow more, earn more. The
Speaker 1: problem is those restaking tokens are not the same as
Speaker 1: the underlying asset. They carry bridge risk, oracle risk, and
Speaker 1: liquidity risk all at once. Nobody stress tested what happens
Speaker 1: when the bottom brick gets pulled. The market is ricing
Speaker 1: that risk, and now slowly and probably not completely yet.
Speaker 1: If a second restaking token runs into trouble, the cascade
Speaker 1: hits ave compound and every protocol that accepted these tokens
Speaker 1: without proper safeguards. Watch this one closely. Next, Polymarket is
Speaker 1: reportedly in talks to raise four hundred million dollars at
Speaker 1: a fifteen billion dollar valuation. A prediction market, something that
Speaker 1: was a niche experiment eighteen months ago, is now being
Speaker 1: valued alongside mid sized US banks. What that signals Wall
Speaker 1: Street has decided betting markets are a legitimate asset class.
Speaker 1: The counterweight is regulatory. Polymarket's US status is still unresolved,
Speaker 1: and a fifteen billion dollar valuation makes it a much
Speaker 1: bigger target for the sec This is the prediction market thesis,
Speaker 1: either arriving or overheating, probably both. Then there's Ripple quietly
Speaker 1: doing something the rest of the industry should be paying
Speaker 1: more attention to. They're upgrading the XRP ledger to be
Speaker 1: quantum resistant. The quantum thread has been theoretical for years,
Speaker 1: but that's changing the math securing most crypto wallets could
Speaker 1: eventually be broken by a powerful enough quantum computer, and
Speaker 1: Ripple is actively building defenses against that. Now the uncomfortable
Speaker 1: question it raises how many other chains are quietly vulnerable
Speaker 1: and doing nothing about it. Bitcoin's oldest wallets, coins sitting
Speaker 1: in legacy address formats could be at risk before anyone
Speaker 1: has a migration plan ready and quickly. On the Trump
Speaker 1: moves Bitcoin angle, there's a real pattern here. White House
Speaker 1: statements have moved Bitcoin meaningfully at least five times in
Speaker 1: recent memory. With Bitcoin sitting at a key level, any
Speaker 1: policy signal this week tariffs, dollar policy cryptoregulation could be
Speaker 1: the catalyst that breaks the flat tape in either direction.
Speaker 1: Keep one eye on Washington, all right, before we get
Speaker 1: into the risks. Quick word from our sponsor, k We're back.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what to watch for. Three risks worth
Speaker 1: keeping on your radar. First, sentiment is running ahead of fundamentals,
Speaker 1: mean tokens up thirty seven percent, fund inflows strong, but
Speaker 1: ethereum is still below twenty three hundred, and the broad
Speaker 1: market structure is cautious. When sentiment and structure diverge like this,
Speaker 1: it usually resolves fast. Which direction is the question. Second,
Speaker 1: restaking contagion is probably not fully priced in yet. The
Speaker 1: KELP Dow exploit hit ave visibly, but liquid restaking tokens
Speaker 1: are embedded across multiple lending markets. A second to PEG
Speaker 1: or bridge failure doesn't just hurt one protocol, it hits
Speaker 1: every platform that accepted these tokens without adequate safeguards. The
Speaker 1: market learned something this week, it may not have learned enough. Third,
Speaker 1: polymarkets regulatory exposure just got a lot bigger. A fifteen
Speaker 1: billion dollar valuation transforms it from a niche platform into
Speaker 1: something the SEC can't ignore. A formal enforcement action against
Speaker 1: the most prominent prediction market would reprice the entire category overnight.
Speaker 1: The upside and the risk are now the same size
Speaker 1: two things on my radar for the week ahead Friday,
Speaker 1: April twenty fifth, the PCE inflation report, the FEDS preferred
Speaker 1: inflation reading. It'll either reinforce or challenge the market's assumption
Speaker 1: of fewer than four rate cuts this year. If it
Speaker 1: comes in hot risk assets feel it. And sometime this
Speaker 1: week confirmation on the polymarket funding round. If that four
Speaker 1: hundred million RAYS closes at the fifteen billion valuation, it's
Speaker 1: the clearest institutional endorsement prediction markets have ever received. If
Speaker 1: the SEC moves first, very different story. That's the pulse
Speaker 1: for April twentieth. If you want the full written breakdown
Speaker 1: with all the sources and charts, check out our newsletter
Speaker 1: at tokenmetrics dot com. This is educational content, not investment advice.
Speaker 1: Always do your own research. I'm Alex. See you next time.