Speaker 1: Hey, it's Alex with the Token Metrics Daily Pulse for
Speaker 1: April fourth, twenty twenty six. The market looks calm on
Speaker 1: the surface, it is not calm underneath. Let's get into it,
Speaker 1: but first a quick word from our sponsor. Okay, so
Speaker 1: here's what's happening. Bitcoin is sitting right around sixty seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars up less than one percent, basically flat. And
Speaker 1: if that's all you looked at today, you think nothing
Speaker 1: was happening. But here's what's actually going on under the hood.
Speaker 1: Large holders, the whales who've been in this market since
Speaker 1: the last cycle, dumped nearly one hundred and eighty eight
Speaker 1: thousand bitcoin over the past ninety days. At the same time,
Speaker 1: net demand is contracting at sixty three thousand bitcoin per month.
Speaker 1: That means the market is losing more buyers than it's
Speaker 1: gaining every single month, and yet institutions keep buying. So
Speaker 1: you've got this weird situation where the price holds, but
Speaker 1: the people selling are the ones who know this market best,
Speaker 1: and the people if buying are the ones who are
Speaker 1: newest to it. That's not a healthy handoff. That's old
Speaker 1: money cashing out into new money's excitement and Meanwhile, bears
Speaker 1: are piling into shorts, right into a potential squeeze, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly where we're headed next. So where does the
Speaker 1: rest of the market stand? Pretty quiet, honestly, Thethereum barely moved.
Speaker 1: It's just over two thousand dollars, which is basically unchanged.
Speaker 1: Solana is around eighty dollars, up just under one percent.
Speaker 1: Total market cap is sitting around two point four trillion.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin dominance is a fifty six percent, which tells you
Speaker 1: all coins aren't getting much love right now. DeFi total
Speaker 1: value locked is around ninety to three billion. Nothing screaming
Speaker 1: in either direction on price, but the narrative rotation underneath
Speaker 1: is interesting. Deepen that's decentralized physical infrastructure networks think wireless
Speaker 1: networks and storage run by tokenholders is up over twenty
Speaker 1: percent this week, meme coin up fourteen percent, AI tokens
Speaker 1: up nearly thirteen. Meanwhile, DeFi and smart contract platforms are
Speaker 1: both down around five percent. So money is moving, it's
Speaker 1: just moving towards the speculative end of the spectrum, away
Speaker 1: from the infrastructure place. Make of that what you will.
Speaker 1: Prediction markets are also worth a look here. Sixty five
Speaker 1: and a half percent probability that bitcoin hits sixty thousand
Speaker 1: before it hits eighty thousand. The crowd is leaning bearish,
Speaker 1: but almost nobody is betting on a real crash. The
Speaker 1: odds of bitcoin touching forty thousand this month are basically
Speaker 1: zero according to the markets. Bearish but not catastrophist. That's
Speaker 1: the vibe, all right, So what's actually driving all this?
Speaker 1: Let me walk you through the five stories that matter today. First,
Speaker 1: the demand picture. Five separate data sources are telling the
Speaker 1: same story about bitcoin right now, and it's not comfortable.
Speaker 1: Net demand is negatative sixty three thousand bitcoin per month.
Speaker 1: Institutions are buying. That part's real, but the sellers are
Speaker 1: the large holders who've been here since the last cycle.
Speaker 1: The technical term for what's happening is supply absorption, which
Speaker 1: just means institutions are mopping up what whales are offloading.
Speaker 1: The price stays stable, but the underlying order book is
Speaker 1: slowly deflating. Think of it like a tire with a
Speaker 1: slow leak. It looks fine until it doesn't. The number
Speaker 1: to watch if that net demand figure flips from negative
Speaker 1: to zero or above in the next week, the institutional
Speaker 1: bid is winning. If it stays negative while whale selling continues.
Speaker 1: The price support is borrowed, not built. Second story, and
Speaker 1: this one's a real tension. Bears are short into a
Speaker 1: squeeze setup. There's two and a half billion dollars in
Speaker 1: short liquidations stacked right around seventy two thousand dollars. Here's
Speaker 1: why that matters. If Bitcoin rallies to that level for
Speaker 1: any reason, those shorts wiped out automatically, their forced by
Speaker 1: orders fuel to move higher. New longs pile in on
Speaker 1: the momentum, and suddenly a weak fundamentals market looks like
Speaker 1: a breakout. It's the oldest trick in crypto. The bears
Speaker 1: aren't wrong about the demand picture, we just covered that,
Speaker 1: but they might just be wrong about the timing, and
Speaker 1: in this market, timing is everything. If bitcoin closes above
Speaker 1: about sixty nine and a half thousand on heavy volume
Speaker 1: in the next two days, the squeeze is probably starting.
Speaker 1: If it stalls below sixty eight thousand, bears survive and
Speaker 1: the weak demand story reasserts. Third Charles Schwab, This one's
Speaker 1: actually big. Schwab is planning to launch spot Bitcoin and
Speaker 1: Ethereum trading, not an ETF. Actual Spot trading in the
Speaker 1: first half of this year. Schwab has over thirty five
Speaker 1: million brokerage accounts. That's your parents brokerage, your uncle's retirement
Speaker 1: account adjacent app When someone with the Schwab account can
Speaker 1: buy bitcoin the same way by applestock, the is crypto
Speaker 1: real conversation is over. The question just becomes which assets
Speaker 1: they offer next. Watch for an official launch data announcement
Speaker 1: this week. If they confirm before June thirtieth, expect a
Speaker 1: short term positive reaction in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Fourth Solana
Speaker 1: and quantum computing. Okay, so this one's a bit more technical,
Speaker 1: but stay with me because it matters the short version.
Speaker 1: Quantum computers, if they get powerful enough, could theoretically crack
Speaker 1: the cryptography that protects crypto wallets. Google published research suggesting
Speaker 1: nearly seven million bitcoin are sitting in addresses that could
Speaker 1: be exposed now. Solana's specific problem is that its entire
Speaker 1: competitive advantage is speed. Post quantum cryptography, the kind of
Speaker 1: encryption that would be quantum resistant is computationally heavier. Implementing
Speaker 1: it without slowing the chain down is an unsolved engineering problem.
Speaker 1: Ethereum is already planning for this. Bitcoin developers are still
Speaker 1: debating it. Solana is at least asking the right questions,
Speaker 1: but asking and solving are very different things. This isn't
Speaker 1: Tomorrow's problem, but it's not science fiction either. Fifth story
Speaker 1: and this one reframes everything else. Large bitcoin holders the
Speaker 1: richest cohort lost an average of three hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: seven million dollars per day throughout all of Q one
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, every single day for three months straight.
Speaker 1: Two things can be true at once. Institutions are buying
Speaker 1: with optimism about the future, and the people who've been
Speaker 1: in this market the longest are losing the most right now.
Speaker 1: When the people who know the most about this market
Speaker 1: are on the wrong side of it. That's worth sitting
Speaker 1: with quick hits before we get to risks. Tether made
Speaker 1: delay of fundraising round. They're reportedly unwilling to accept evaluation
Speaker 1: below five hundred billion dollars, and institutional appetite might not
Speaker 1: be there at that number. That's a signal about how
Speaker 1: stretched private crypto valuations have gotten. Nevada extend its ban
Speaker 1: on cal She's sports prediction markets. A judge ruled they're
Speaker 1: indistinguishable from gambling, which is a setback for the whole
Speaker 1: prediction market industry. Bitcoin minor Mara is cutting staff even
Speaker 1: while sitting on over a billion dollars in bitcoin. Operational
Speaker 1: costs are squeezing them even as their treasury appreciates. A
Speaker 1: DeFi lending protocol called high Profile got its domain hijacked.
Speaker 1: Users were warned not to interact with the site. Classic
Speaker 1: DNS attack still one of the most underrated attack vectors
Speaker 1: in DeFi. And Leapwallet, one of the most used wallets
Speaker 1: in the Cosmos ecosystem, is shutting down another piece of
Speaker 1: infrastructure gone, which raises real questions about developer sustainability in
Speaker 1: smaller layer one ecosystems. All right, before we get into
Speaker 1: the risks, quick word from our sponsor. Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about what to watch for. So what should
Speaker 1: you actually be watching out for? Three things on my radar.
Speaker 1: One whale distribution into institutional demand. When large holders sell
Speaker 1: to ETF buyers, the price can stay stable while the
Speaker 1: ownership quality quietly degrades. Institutions are steady accumulators until something
Speaker 1: changes their thesis. If institutional flows slow while whales keep selling,
Speaker 1: there's no bid left to catch the price. Two the
Speaker 1: short squeeze creating a false signal. A mechanical rally to
Speaker 1: seventy two thousand could look exactly like a trend reversal
Speaker 1: when it's actually just forced buying. If the squeeze fires
Speaker 1: without the demand fundamentals improving underneath it, anyone who chases
Speaker 1: that move is walking into a distribution event. Three. The
Speaker 1: quantum computing narrative moving faster than the protocols can respond.
Speaker 1: The Google headline about cracking Bitcoin in nine minutes is
Speaker 1: already circulating widely. If that story gets amplified in a
Speaker 1: major media cycle, it could trigger panic selling from holders
Speaker 1: with older wallet formats, regardless of whether the actual threat
Speaker 1: is anywhere close to eminent. Narrative risk is real risk.
Speaker 1: Looking ahead at the next week. Three things I'm watching
Speaker 1: Schwab's official launch announcement. If they confirm a date before
Speaker 1: June thirtieth, that's a genuine catalyst for Bitcoin and ethereum.
Speaker 1: The seventy two thousand dollars short squeeze level any session
Speaker 1: this week could be the one, and if it triggers,
Speaker 1: it moves fast. And Tether's fundraising decision. If they pull
Speaker 1: the rays rather than accept below their five hundred billion valuation,
Speaker 1: that's a sentiment read for the entire private crypto market,
Speaker 1: not just tether. That's the pulse for today. If you
Speaker 1: want the full written breakdown with all the charts and
Speaker 1: source links, head over to the newsletter at tokenmetrics dot com.
Speaker 1: Everything we covered is there with the data behind it.
Speaker 1: And if you're finding this useful, subscribe to the podcast
Speaker 1: and share it with someone who's trying to make sense
Speaker 1: of this market. This is educational content, not in estment advice.
Speaker 1: Always do your own research. I'm Alex, See you next time.