Subject to Revision

Daily Updates:

• Longer maturity treasuries rallied in the first part of yesterday, with the yield on the 10Y and 30Y maturities tumbling down. However, the 10Y treasury pared back those gains and ended the day flat. 
• Dollar-denominated, risk-on assets rallied: the S&P 500 ended the day up 1.67% (though that gain was as high as 3.4% during the day), the Nasdaq-100 surged 2.28% and the Dow Jones rose 1.07%, respectively. 
• Yields had already begun to fall following President Trump’s late Tuesday U-turn on China and Jerome Powell, but accelerated as the Wall St Journal speculated that Trump would slash levies on China from 145% closer to 50-65%.
• Later on Wednesday evening however speaking at the Oval Office Trump said “I haven’t brought it down, it’s still 145, I said it’s a high tariff, I haven’t brought it down”. 
• That wasn’t the only contradictory tariff message either: the Financial Times reported that Trump was considering reducing tariffs on auto parts ahead of their 3rd May deadline. At the Oval Office, however, Trump stated that he is not considering changes to automobile and auto part tariffs and that the existing 25% tariffs on Canada “could go up in terms of cars”.
• Trump’s guns-blazing style of policymaking (whether that be via his Truth Social posts, executive orders, or comments to reporters) have also consistently been subject to revision.
• His stance on trade with China and recent reversal on Chair Powell is yet another example. Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said yesterday that Trump was not looking to lower tariffs on China unilaterally and that a full trade deal could take 2-3 years. He added that Trump was not looking to interfere with the independence of the Fed either.

‍

• That has resulted in consistent violent swings across US equities and crypto markets. Over the course of this week so far BTC has rallied from $84K to over $94K, dragging the rest of the crypto market up with it – today most of the market is down: BTC has dropped off to $92K and ETH and SOL are both down 3%, respectively. Additionally, US equity futures are all trading lower than their close yesterday. 
• Options markets don’t appear to be strongly backing a continuation of the recent relief rally either. ETH’s term structure has flattened again after yesterday’s brief inversion, and BTC’s flat term structure steepened as volatility across the curve dropped off, led by a 9 point decline at the front-end. 
• The recovery of the put-call skew at short-tenors towards calls for BTC did not hold for long and the 25delta skew is back at 0%. For ETH, the bias towards calls that resulted in a skew ratio of over 6% has now relented to a lower but still high 3%. 
• Interestingly, the divergence between BTC and ETH in derivatives markets has exacerbated – the volatility smile for shorter ETH expiries in options markets are still pricing in a more bullish outlook for ETH than they are for BTC, however BTC’s funding rates have turned negative after being positive for most of April while ETH funding rates remain flat. 
• In addition, the spread of ETH futures prices above spot remains far narrower than in BTC futures markets, having dislocated in mid-April. ETH futures therefore price-in a less bullish outlook in the short-term, in contrast to the behaviour that we see in options.

‍

• U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are backing the rally however. Total net inflows reached $916.9M on Wednesday, following $936.4M the previous day – marking two days of significantly strong inflows. The standout buyer, as it often has been, was BlackRock's IBIT, which recorded $643M inflows yesterday – its largest single-day intake since January 21, 2025. That helped secure its position as the largest spot BTC exchange-traded fund by net assets. 

‍

• SoSo Value data states that Ark & 21Shares' ARKB experienced inflows of $129.5 million, while Fidelity's FBTC saw inflows of $124.37 million. Grayscale's Mini Bitcoin Trust and VanEck's HODL also contributed to net inflows, however, Bitwise's BITB registered net outflows of $15 million.

‍

• 21Shares has filed to register a SUI spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Delaware, signaling a major step toward mainstream adoption of the SUI cryptocurrency.

‍

• HODL Strategies Inc., an investment firm listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange, has announced a major financial development, securing a $500M convertible note, to increase its exposure to Solana.
• According to the company's announcement on Wednesday, this facility represents the largest of its kind within the Solana ecosystem to date.

This Week’s Calendar:

Charts of the Day:

‍