Apr 21, 2025: Our weekly Institutional Insights explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

 explores the latest market developments — market performance, industry news, exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows, trending topics, upcoming events and token unlocks — to help you supercharge your crypto trading.

Weekly highlight — Trump wants to fire Powell? 

US president Donald Trump is actively considering firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, following Trump's public criticism of Powell for not moving quickly enough to reduce interest rates. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett confirmed that the administration is examining this option, suggesting that Powell's actions have politically favored Democrats. Hassett argued that the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates shortly after Trump took office was intended to undermine the economic impact of the tax cuts implemented during his administration, which were deemed inflationary. He further criticized the Fed for not addressing inflation concerns stemming from federal spending under President Biden, implying a lack of accountability.

During a recent press conference, Trump conveyed his dissatisfaction with Powell, asserting that if he wanted to remove him, it could happen "real fast." While he did not explicitly state his intention to dismiss Powell, his remarks highlighted the growing tensions between the White House and the Federal Reserve regarding monetary policy. Hassett defended Trump's frustrations, advocating for a focus on economic policy rather than interpersonal conflicts. This situation underscores the complex dynamics between the executive branch and the central bank, as Trump navigates economic challenges leading up to the next election.

Weekly crypto highlight — XRP ETF coming

HashKey Capital has officially launched the HashKey XRP Tracker Fund, marking the first investment fund in Asia designed specifically to track the performance of XRP, the digital asset integral to Ripple's global payment ecosystem. This fund is aimed at professional investors and offers a unique opportunity to gain exposure to XRP without the complexities of direct asset management. Investors can subscribe through cash and in-kind options, with the fund providing monthly liquidity.

Ripple, as an early backer of the fund, is looking to enhance its strategic partnership with HashKey Capital, which already manages Hong Kong–listed spot ETFs for Bitcoin and Ethereum. This collaboration not only solidifies Ripple's presence in the Asian market, but also opens avenues for future financial products, such as the potential tokenization of a money market fund on the XRP Ledger. Fiona Murray, Ripple's Managing Director for the Asia-Pacific region, highlighted that this partnership is part of a broader strategy to introduce more regulated cryptocurrency products for institutional investors in the region, aiming to foster a more robust crypto landscape in Asia.

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Weekly Institutional Insights: Trump’s desire to fire Powell might induce volatility; XRP ETF coming

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has approved a new Ethereum ETF with staking capabilities, allowing institutional investors to earn staking rewards.

Daily top performer — Pyth Network (PYTH)

The S&P 500 dropped 1.5% to 5,282.70 this week, down 5.9% in April and 10% year-to-date, led by tech losses. Real estate and energy outperformed, while political pressure on Fed Chair Powell and inflation concerns weighed on sentiment. Gold dipped 0.6% to $3,319 after a record high, as Powell’s stagflation warning tempered its rally. Despite the pullback, the uptrend remains intact. The Coindesk Indices, which tracks the broader crypto market, are up by 0.77%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising 0.64% and 0.72%, respectively, over the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is PYTH, up 10.1%, following the launch of Pyth Entropy for secure on-chain random number generation by Soneium.

Pyth Network (PYTH),  is a blockchain oracle system that delivers real-time crypto price data to blockchains, enabling smart contracts to react to market changes. Soneium 

 Pyth Entropy, a tool for securely generating random numbers on-chain. Two apps, HandsNFT AI and 2p2e, are already utilizing Pyth Entropy to create unpredictable and engaging experiences.

Check out the latest prices, charts, and data of 

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has approved a new Ethereum ETF with staking capabilities, allowing institutional investors to earn staking rewards. This approval follows recent changes to local laws, with China Asset Management (ChinaAMC) partnering with OSL Digital Securities to launch the ETF by May 15. The ETF will offer exposure to Ethereum staking, transforming it from a passive investment into an active participant in the Ethereum network. The staking process is powered by Kiln, with OSL providing custody and insurance services. The rewards will contribute to the ETF's net asset value, benefiting shareholders.

Yesterday, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw $25.9M in inflows, all from non-GBTC funds, while GBTC recorded no flow.

" and a points campaign called Drops, where users can earn points—potentially leading to an airdrop—by engaging with Linera content on X. To join, sign up on 

, complete tasks like joining Discord and interacting on X, then enter the campaign. Keep engaging to earn more points, but avoid spamming.

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Hong Kong approves Ethereum ETF with staking rewards, boosting institutional participation

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events; the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume; and futures, options and perpetual contracts.

US president Donald Trump’s tariff policies are influencing both crypto and US equities. Last week, BTC and the S&P 500 rallied due to a 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs (excluding China). Equities are slightly below their April 9 highs, while BTC is holding above $83K. Its implied volatility term structure has normalized, and the volatility skew has improved from last week’s bias toward out-of-the-money puts, though it hasn't fully shifted toward calls.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

Tariff pause briefly brings back trading volume

Since our last report, open interest surged on Apr 9, 2025, as crypto spot prices rose after President Trump’s temporary tariff pause, accompanied by a nearly $10B increase in trade volumes. However, trade volumes have since returned to mid-March levels, and open interest has declined from the April 9 highs. The initial price spike indicates the tariff pause surprised the markets, but the subsequent pullback reflects concerns over remaining tariffs.

After being inverted for much of April due to trade policy shocks and macro headwinds, BTC’s term structure has disinverted, with front-end volatility dropping significantly this week. Call and put volumes have been balanced, with calls slightly exceeding puts most days. Apr 9, 2025, reflected mixed market sentiment, as both call and put volumes rose, but puts were higher overall. Open interest remains greater in calls, and has increased slightly since last week, reaching its highest level for the month (more than double from the beginning of April).

Despite a rally on Apr 9, 2025 that brought ETH close to $1.7K, traders sought downside protection, leading to higher volumes in put contracts as compared to calls. Since then, ETHUSDT options volumes have declined, but open interest remains strongly weighted toward calls with later expirations, which have increased since last week. After being inverted for much of April, ETH’s term structure of volatility has flattened, with volatility compressing around the 70% mark across tenors.

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Bybit X Block Scholes crypto derivatives analytics report (Apr 16, 2025): Bitcoin put bias has moderated, but not yet shifted to calls

KiloEx (KILO) is a user-friendly DEX for perpetuals trading, offering high leverage, rewards, LSTfi integration and a robust multi-chain ecosystem.

 trading is one of the most lucrative areas for cryptocurrency enthusiasts if you know how to navigate the sometimes complex world of these contracts. Unlike standard futures, perpetual futures contracts have no expiration date, allowing traders to hold onto their positions as long as they prefer. You only exit a crypto perpetual (or “perp”) contract when you feel it’s the best time to execute your long or short trade. The lack of an expiration period makes these contracts attractive for traders.

Unfortunately, many crypto perpetual contract trading platforms are far from user-friendly. It seems like many perpetual crypto exchanges assume that only professional traders dabble in these contracts, and along with that assumption goes a second one — that these pros can navigate even the most complex user interfaces. As a result, finding a user-friendly perps platform is a challenge in the world of crypto trading.

 (DEX) that aims to change the status quo by providing a user-friendly environment for traders. Its platform also offers high leverage ratios, integration into the wider liquid staking token finance (LSTfi) ecosystem and generous reward programs for referrers and affiliates.

Thanks to its numerous benefits, this DEX caters to the needs of traders at all levels of expertise who are interested in crypto perpetuals. Operational since mid-2023, KiloEx launched its native token, KILO, in March 2025 to further enhance its platform's reward, staking and governance mechanisms.

 (BNB) that specializes in crypto perpetual futures trading.

 The platform prides itself on offering a user-friendly interface, high 

 ratios of up to 100x, multi-token vaults with generous APYs and a number of reward programs for referrers and affiliates.

Co-founded by Joey Ni (CEO) and Charles Gong (COO), KiloEx was originally launched on BNB Chain's mainnet in June 2023. As of mid-April 2025, the platform has additionally expanded its service coverage to five 

 (B2). This coverage allows KiloEx to access the ecosystems of three leading blockchain platforms — 

Manta, Base and Taiko are Ethereum-focused Layer 2 solutions, while opBNB is an efficient and low-cost optimistic rollup for the BNB Chain, while B

 is a platform linked to Bitcoin that acts as a major Bitcoin DeFi (BTCFi) enabler.

Because it’s a BNB-native platform, KiloEx's industry footprint is most notable within this blockchain's broader ecosystem. In fact, as Apr 17, 2025, KiloEx is the top DEX on the opBNB network by 

Using Layer 2 chains allows KiloEx to offer its users fast and low-cost transactions, which isn't always possible on a typical Layer 1 network. It's true that BNB Chain, the primary Layer 1 used by KiloEx, generally has much lower gas fees than Ethereum, the industry's leading 

 chain that’s notorious for its exorbitant costs. However, KiloEx's partner Layer 2 networks help drive costs and transaction times even lower. BNB Chain's current average gas fee is slightly over $0.10, while the opBNB Layer 2 rollup's comparable fee is only about $0.005.

In 2024, the platform introduced one of its most innovative features — the 

, which allows liquidity providers to stake multiple assets to earn high yields. That same year, KiloEx significantly expanded its partnership network, becoming an active player in the LSTFi ecosystem. LSTFi is a new stream within the DeFi industry that allows you to use 

 (LSTs) on various protocols for additional yield.

Having solidified its market presence in 2024, the project launched its native token, KILO, in March 2025. However, in mid-April 2025, KiloEx 

 and halted trading on April 15 as a risk management measure, pending investigation of the damage.

The Hybrid Vault is among the most innovative features offered by KiloEx. Essentially, it acts similarly to liquidity pools on other exchanges. Liquidity providers can contribute their crypto funds to the vault to support trading activity on the DEX and earn interest on their contributions, based on the fees earned by the protocol.

You can contribute a mix of coins to a KiloEx vault. Supported assets include 

Depending upon trading activity and the mix of coins contributed, you can earn APYs as high as 30%, making KiloEx one of the most lucrative choices for liquidity providers in this niche.

KiloEx uses a health factor calculation for this type of vault to keep your funds and the entire ecosystem safe. Based on the health factor score of your contribution to the vault, your funds could be liquidated if their value drops dangerously low.

Discounts are also offered for fixed-term deposits for established assets, such as USDT and USDC. Withdrawals for the fixed deposits are processed upon maturity, while all other withdrawals are processed within one to three "epochs," with each epoch on the platform lasting about three days. Thus, depending upon your contributed funds, you’ll wait anywhere from three to nine days to receive your crypto back.

The KiloEx platform also runs a generous referral program under which you can earn rewards for referring your friends to the platform. The amount you earn depends upon the trading volumes generated by the people whom you’ve referred. Additionally, your referees to the DEX can also benefit from fee rebates, again depending upon the volume of trade they generate.

There’s a tiered system, comprising nine levels, based on which you and your friends earn commissions and rebates. Under this system, even those referred traders whose monthly volume is at the lowest level (below $5,000) can still benefit from 5% rebates, while you also earn a 10% commission.

The table below shows the structure of this referral system with percentages for commission and rebates based on monthly trading volumes.

KiloEx offers an affiliate program for key opinion leaders (KOLs) with a certain level of social media following and influence in the crypto market. KOLs may apply to join the program by filling out an application, which is then considered by the project team within 48 hours.

To qualify for affiliate status, a KOL must have: 

Approved affiliates are provided a link to the platform, and are encouraged to invite their followers to trade on the KiloEx. If they invite at least five followers who trade at sufficient levels, the affiliates can start earning their commission. KOLs can earn up to 55% commission, depending upon the referred followers' trading activity.

KiloEx’s native utility token, KILO, is a 

 asset launched on BNB Chain. It’s used on the platform for governance, fee discounts on trades, rewards via 

, liquidity provision incentives and staking.

KILO is a supply-capped asset, with a maximum and total supply of 1 billion. The token’s supply allocation shares are shown in the chart below.

xKILO is an escrowed version of the KILO token. You can convert KILO to xKILO at a fixed rate of 1:1. The primary utility of xKILO is to provide boosted liquidity provision, which makes it possible to receive staking rewards. By locking xKILO on the platform, you can access special discounts and other benefits reserved for VIP-level users. Holding xKILO also grants you governance power to vote and influence the platform's future direction.

Unlike KILO, xKILO is nontransferable and isn’t tradable on the secondary market. The only ways to obtain xKILO are either to buy it with KILO or receive it via airdrops.

Platform users can earn points to qualify for KILO airdrops. Typically, you accumulate points by trading, depositing funds, referring others to the DEX, checking in to the platform and completing other specified eligible activities.

The project’s initial airdrop, Genesis Season, had an eligibility snapshot taken back in July 2024. Under the currently running airdrop campaign, Pioneer Season, users can earn points to receive KILO tokens for 180 days past the token generation event (TGE) in late March 2025 (i.e., until late September 2025).

Additionally, you can earn KILO tokens on Bybit simply by participating in the 

 event and holding BNB in your account. Every day at various random times, Bybit will take snapshots of your BNB holdings in your Funding and Unified Trading Accounts to calculate the number of KILO tokens you’re eligible for. The campaign will run through Apr 25, 2025, 11:59PM UTC, and you’ll have your share of KILO airdropped seven days after this date.

 market as a swap pair with USDT. If you don't have a Bybit account, you can easily 

, and access opportunities across hundreds of trading pairs and crypto products on the exchange's Spot and Derivatives markets.

As of Apr 17, 2025, the KILO token is trading at $0.039, which is 76.2% lower than its ATH of $0.1648 on Mar 27, 2025, and 17.3% higher than its ATL of $0.03344 on Apr 12, 2025.

Long-term price forecasts for KILO are mostly bullish. CoinCodex 

 at $0.0387 in 2027 and then rise to $0.135 in 2030 while PricePredictions 

When it comes to perpetuals trading, both traditional 

 (CEXs) and DEXs have often struggled to offer an intuitive trading experience. In contrast, KiloEx has made user-friendliness a cornerstone of its operations. With KiloEx, you can enjoy a streamlined trading process, access market trends info for thorough research, get an overview of the cryptocurrency market and conduct other activities via an interface that’s designed for anyone, irrespective of their familiarity with decentralized trading.

The platform also boasts a diverse range of other benefits not easily found in the world of perpetuals-based cryptocurrency trading — generous leveraged trading options, trading fee discounts, lightning-fast trades, low trading fees and an innovative Hybrid Vault system. Many of these benefits are thanks to KiloEx's collaboration with several Layer 2 decentralized platforms, which provide the technical infrastructure to enable low costs and fast order processing.

If you’re a crypto perpetuals enthusiast, KiloEx is definitely a platform to peruse.

Intermediate

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KiloEx (KILO): More than a DEX — a rewarding ecosystem

DeFi

PolkaBridge is a decentralized financial application platform powered by the Polkadot blockchain that connects Polkadot with multiple blockchains.

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If you’re interested in making transactions across multiple blockchains, then prepare to deal with different exchanges and third-party tools, which can get hectic.

But there’s a platform designed to make this process easier for you. It’s called PolkaBridge, and it’s quickly gaining popularity due to its unique offerings. 

Don’t know much about it? Then you’re in the right place because we’re going to explain everything about how PolkaBridge works, the products in its ecosystem and whether its token is worth buying or not. 

PolkaBridge is a decentralized financial application platform powered by the 

In simple terms, it’s a metaphorical bridge that connects Polkadot to multiple blockchains. 

It aims to unify various blockchains so that you can perform transactions, farm, yield, invest in NFTs and more, all on a single platform. The purpose is to reduce the need for centralized organizations and third-party services that you currently need if you want to make transactions across multiple blockchains. 

On top of that, the PolkaBridge team has created an entire ecosystem to fulfill its goal of making multi-chain and cross-chain transfers easier for users. 

PBR is PolkaBridge’s native token. It’s an 

 blockchain. You need PBR tokens to pay fees while making transactions on the PolkaBridge platform, for staking, participating in launchpad IDO (more on this later), etc. It’s also used for governance, whereby PBR token holders can vote for changes in the PolkaBridge ecosystem.

the same day, and now you can buy it on quite a few different exchanges. 

The PolkaBridge ecosystem has many products that link Polkadot with other blockchains. Here are some of those that are either already launched or coming soon. 

Here, you can automatically trade or swap assets, such as tokens and coins, through 

 instead of offering, bidding, or buying from sellers. 

The multi-chain AMM is PolkaBridge’s main product, with a similar interface to Uniswap’s. It allows you to trade tokens on multiple blockchains simultaneously from the same platform. You’ll have to pay a 0.2% fee per swap, whereby 20% of the fees will be used for AMM “buyback and burn” to burn some PBR tokens monthly.

The multi-chain AMM currently supports Ethereum, 

This is an AMM extension, with a cross-swap function, that’s set to launch in the near future. It aims to remove the extra steps you have to go through to swap an asset of one blockchain with that of another. 

PolkaBridge plans on making cross-chain swaps possible by running two smart contracts simultaneously on both blockchains. 

For example, with the multi-chain AMM, you can convert your 

 to PBR on the BNB Chain and swap your Ether (ETH) to PBR on the Ethereum blockchain in a single platform. But you won’t be able to swap BNB for ETH, as they run on different blockchains. However, when the cross-chain AMM launches, you’ll be able to switch BNB with ETH, and vice versa. 

Do you see? This feature, which hasn’t yet launched, has the potential to act as a true bridge between multiple blockchains, and make these transactions a lot faster and smoother for users. 

, you can only stake a specific blockchain-based token in their own blockchain liquidity pools. But PolkaBridge provides multi-chain staking, which gives you the freedom to 

 on different blockchain pools for more rewards. 

PolkaBridge’s deflationary farming mechanism is ideal for ensuring that the supply of PBR decreases over time while its value increases. 

from each on-chain PBR transaction, and distributes 90% of it among the liquidity providers or “farmers” who’ve staked their coins or tokens in the pool, instead of rewarding them with more PBR tokens. 

PolkaBridge Launchpad, also called IDO launchpad, allows PBR token holders to join lucrative crypto projects deployed on multiple blockchain platforms at the very beginning. 

A great feature of this launchpad is that each project listed here is vetted by its team, so all you have to do is choose the one you like and invest in it, instead of manually looking at its dev team and authenticity. 

 is a way for you to support NFT artists and fund their projects. It links artists and enterprises directly with their supporters, and allows them to form communities around their NFT projects and interact with their audiences.

The INO operates through individual NFT pools, which offer packages containing limited edition NFTs available only for a limited period. You’ll first need to stake 1,000 PBR to buy the NFT package, and can only buy up to five packages, individually.

More Features Expected to Be Added to the PolkaBridge Ecosystem

The PolkaBridge blockchain plans on being the go-to place for all crypto transactions, swaps, NFT projects and more. 

Here are a few more projects they’re planning on launching in the future:

The PBR token has a market cap of around $$4,302,921 as of Aug. 28, 2022. Its max supply is 100 million PBR, with a total supply of nearly 76,264,425 PBR. The circulating supply is around 64,263,324 PBR at the time of writing of this article (Sept. 2, 2022). The token is burned monthly through the AMM “buyback and burn” strategy, and features like PolkaBridge’s deflationary farming aid in constantly reducing the token supply. 

One PBR is currently priced at around $0.067, while its 24-hour trading volume is close to $687,335 ( as of Sept. 2, 2022). 

If you look at PBR’s price history, you’ll notice that it’s been relatively steady since its launch, except for a marked price hike between November 2021 to December of the same year. 

PolkaBridge Price Prediction: Is PBR Coin a Good Investment?

All cryptocurrencies are risky. There have been some concerns about this project being a 

 scam, causing certain experts to paint a gloomy future for PBR. However, other experts anticipate a price hike for this coin because of its multi-chain capabilities, which will attract more adoption from other blockchains.

Experts at DigitalCoinPrice predict the PolkaBridge price to 

TechNewsLeader is also bullish about PBR tokens, predicting an increase in value from the current price of around $0.0747 to about $0.30 in 2025.

However, according to WalletInvestor analysis, the PBR price will

 within a year (Aug. 2023). By 2025, they predict the price will be just slightly higher at 

PBR Coin is currently listed on only a few cryptocurrency exchanges, such as 

. You can also buy PBR tokens by swapping them for coins of other blockchains on the 

As of August 2022, you can’t buy PBR directly with fiat currencies such as the Hong Kong dollar and U.S. dollar. Therefore, you must first convert those currencies into ETH, 

, etc., on any centralized or decentralized exchange. Then, transfer them to your wallet and import the crypto coins later to the PolkaBridge DEX to buy PolkaBridge tokens.

So far, the PolkaBridge platform shows a lot of promise with its unique products and utilities for its token. However, since some of its features haven’t been launched yet, we’ll have to wait and see if it can become a genuinely unified decentralized platform for multiple blockchains and offer its users all of the benefits it promises.

PolkaBridge: Bridging Polkadot to Other Chains

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PolkaBridge: Bridging Polkadot to Other Chains

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Compete for 2,500 USDT Every Week

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards