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Russia's finance ministry and central bank are set to unveil a crypto exchange for "highly-qualified" investors, news agency Interfax reported on Wednesday.
The exchange will "legalize crypto assets and bring crypto operations out of the shadows," Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said during a ministry board meeting, according to the report.
"Naturally, this will not happen domestically, but as part of the operations permitted under the experimental legal regime," Siluanov said.
The Central Bank of Russia proposed allow crypto trading within a pilot known as the experimental legal regime (ELR) in March.
This would apply to highly qualified investors, a new investor category for individuals whose investments exceed 100 million rubles ($1.2 million) or an annual income exceeding 50 million rubles ($600,000).
The absence of a centralized domestic crypto exchange in Russia means Russians rely on overseas trading platforms to buy and sell cryptocurrency, which the Finance Ministry and Central Bank may be seeking to counteract.
The Central Bank has also proposed allowing highly-qualified investors to access derivatives and securities linked to digital assets, that do not involve the delivery of crypto to the investor but derive returns based on its value.
KiloEX, the decentralized exchange (DEX) hit by a $7 million attack earlier this month, has revealed its resolution plans for affected users.
Users whose positions remained open during the platform suspension will be compensated for the difference on increased losses or decreased profits, KiloEX said on Thursday.
Compensation will only be calculated up to the point the platform resumes, so users are advised to close their positions as soon as possible thereafter.
The KiloEx attacker, using a wallet funded by crypto laundering service Tornado Cash, appeared to exploit a vulnerability in the platform's price oracle system.
ZKsync said $5 million worth of tokens stolen during an admin wallet hack last week have been returned and the case is now considered resolved.
The layer-2 blockchain protocol saw a hacker compromise its admin wallet, leading to the theft of unclaimed tokens from the ZKsync airdrop.
In a post on X, the project said the hacker cooperated with the team and returned the funds within the “safe harbor” deadline — a grace period commonly offered in security incidents to incentivize returns without legal consequence. The cooperation means the hacker took a 10% bounty.
The tokens are now in custody of the ZKsync Security Council and a governance process will determine what to do with them. A final investigation report is being prepared and will be published when complete.
Would you offer insurance when expecting low odds of a claim being made? Most likely, you would, while pocketing the premium without a second thought. Bitcoin (BTC) traders are doing something similar in the Deribit-listed BTC options market, hinting at bullish price expectations.
Recently, an increasing number of traders have been selling (writing) BTC put options, likened to providing insurance against price drops in exchange for a small upfront premium.
They are implementing this strategy in a cash-secured manner by holding a corresponding amount in stablecoins, ensuring they can buy BTC if the market declines and the put buyer decides to exercise his right to sell BTC at the predetermined higher price.
This strategy enables traders to collect premiums (paid by put buyers) while potentially accumulating bitcoin if the options are exercised. In other words, it's the expression of a long-term bullish sentiment.
"There is a notable increase in cash-secured put selling using stablecoins—another sign of a more mature, long-term approach to BTC accumulation and a continued expression of bullish sentiment," Deribit's Asia Business Development Head Lin Chen told CoinDesk.
Chen said BTC holders are also selling higher strike call options to collect premiums and generate additional yield on top of their coin stash, which is weighing over Deribit's DVOL index, which measures the 30-day BTC implied volatility. The index has dropped from 63 to 48 since the April 7 panic selling in BTC to $75K, according to data from the charting platform TradingView.
"We observe that investors remain long-term bullish on BTC, particularly among crypto-native “holders” who are willing to hold through market cycles," Chen said.
Bitcoin's price has risen to over $92,000 since the early month slide to $75,000, supposedly on the back of haven demand and renewed institutional adoption narrative.
The sharp price recovery has seen BTC options risk reversals reset to suggest a bias for call options across time frames, according to data source Amberdata. Over the past two days, traders have specifically snapped up calls at strike $95,000, $100,000 and $135,000 via the over-the-counter tech platform Paradigm. As of writing, the $100,000 strike call was the most popular option play on Deribit, with a notional open interest of over $1.6 billion.
$9 billion in delta
Just how important it is to track flows in the options market can be explained by the fact that the cumulative delta in Deribit's BTC options and options tied to the U.S.-listed BlackRock spot bitcoin ETF (IBIT) and its peers was $9 billion as of Wednesday, according to data tracked by Volmex.
The data indicates heightened sensitivity of options to changes in BTC's price, suggesting potential for price volatility.
Delta, one of the metrics used by sophisticated market participants to manage risk, measures how much the price (premium) of an options contract is likely to change in response to the $1 chance in the price of the underlying asset, in this case, BTC.
So, the cumulative delta of $9 billion represents the total sensitivity of all outstanding BTC and bitcoin ETF options to changes in the spot price. As of Wednesday, the total notional value of all outstanding options contracts was $43 billion.
Such large data or sensitivity to price swings in the underlying asset means market makers and traders actively engage in hedging strategies to mitigate their risks. Market makers, or those mandated to provide order book liquidity, are known to add to price volatility through their constant effort to maintain a net directional neutral exposure.
"Option deltas have increased to record levels as open interest grew and strike deltas shifted significantly. Option market makers are actively hedging this delta exposure, driven by substantial new positions and notable shifts in strike pricing," Volmex noted on X.
According to Volmex, crypto-native options traders over Deribit are positioned more bullishly than those trading options tied to IBIT.
For every 1 bitcoin (BTC) sold by short-term holders, long-term holders (LTHs) have accumulated 1.38 BTC in a clear sign of their commitment as the largest cryptocurrency continues to recover.
Since bottoming out in January, LTHs have amassed 635,340 BTC, bringing their total holdings to 13,755,722 BTC, according to Glassnode data. Defined as those who have held bitcoin for at least 155 days, this cohort tends to accumulate during periods of market weakness and sell into strength.
In contrast, short-term holders (STHs) — those who acquired BTC within the last 155 days — have distributed 460,896 BTC, often through profit-taking or selling at a loss. Their holdings now sit at 3,516,265 BTC.
The 155-day threshold dates back to around Nov. 20, a period when bitcoin’s price climbed to $95,000 from $65,000 . Many of the investors who bought during that surge have now transitioned into long-term status, reinforcing the strength of conviction behind that move. Despite a 30% drawdown from bitcoin’s all-time high of $109,000 reached in January, LTHs on average have continued to hold.
Although bitcoin has rebounded above $90,000 after holding below that level since early March, a substantial number of coins remain underwater. Some 2.6 million BTC sit at a loss, about half the over 5 million BTC peak from earlier this month, but still indicative of heavy unrealized losses. Many of these coins were purchased during the euphoric run-up past $100,000.
Dubai’s crypto regulator has issued an alert, warning of firms falsely claiming to be part of the city’s high-profile real estate tokenization pilot, saying that such misrepresentation may violate the emirate’s virtual asset laws.
The Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), in coordination with the Dubai Land Department (DLD), said on Tuesday that several entities have improperly suggested they are participating in the DLD’s blockchain-based property title deed initiative, which launched as a limited pilot on March 19.
“No entities beyond those explicitly approved by DLD and VARA are authorised to participate,” the regulator said. “Any entity promoting their involvement in the project without formal confirmation… is misrepresenting their status.”
VARA did not name any firms in the release.
The tokenization initiative could account for 7% of all property deals, valued at 60 billion dirhams ($16 billion), by 2033, CoinDesk previously reported, as part of the city’s broader push to position itself as a global tech and digital asset hub.
This warning from VARA comes days before Token 2049 kicks off in the city. Earlier in March, on-chain investigator ZachXBT pointed out that the conference tends to attract a disproportionate amount of scams.
Metaplanet (3350) has reached a major milestone in its bitcoin (BTC) strategy, the Japanese hotel company now holds 5,000 BTC as part of its treasury operations.
Its BTC stash is valued at approximately $428.1 million at an average acquisition cost of around $85,621 per coin.
The Tokyo-listed firm continues to double down on bitcoin as a reserve asset, with its latest purchase of 145 BTC made at an average price of approximately $93,327 per coin, totaling roughly $13.6 million.
The accumulation strategy has achieved a year-to-date (YTD) BTC Yield of 121.1% in 2025. This yield metric reflects the company’s effective increase in bitcoin per share held.
Notably, BTC Yield is a proprietary KPI Metaplanet uses to track treasury performance. It isolates gains driven purely by bitcoin acquisition strategies while neutralizing dilution from newly issued shares. In Q1 2025 alone, the company saw a yield of 95.6%.
Shares of Metaplanet were trading 5% lower at the time of writing.
Disclaimer: This article, or parts of it, was generated with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.
Major tokens fell as much as 5% on Thursday as traders took profits on a steady move higher from earlier this week, with memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) leading losses among the largest assets.
Bitcoin (BTC) clung to the $93,000 zone in the past 24 hours, but XRP, Solana’s SOL, BNB Chain’s BNB and DOGE showed losses above 2%. Ether (ETH) fared relatively better with a 1.5% slump.
Overall market cap decreased 2.5%. The broad-based CoinDesk 20, a liquid index tracking the largest tokens by market cap, fell over 3%.
Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. bagged over $916 million in inflows on Wednesday. Some traders point to the asset’s growing safe haven as a catalyst underpinning this surge in flows.
“The inflows are driven by a declining U.S. dollar index, and Bitcoin’s growing safe-haven appeal amid equity market volatility,” Vugar Usi Zade, COO at Bitget, told CoinDesk in an email. “The massive ETF inflows reflect Bitcoin’s strengthening position as a leading crypto asset, with growing institutional adoption.
“Its reduced correlation with equities and safe-haven narrative position it as a diversification tool, though short-term challenges like weak investment signals require sustained macro catalysts,”
Bitcoin’s safe-haven narrative has been growing in the past week on its relevant resilience, mirroring gold’s price rise, even as bond yields and U.S. equities corrected amid the ongoing tariff wars.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump said he had no intention to fire Federal Reserve Chair Powell and that a deal with China (which is facing tariffs as high as 245% on some items) would significantly reduce some of its levies.
The mixed signals and frequent tone shift are jading traders, however, who continue to monitor comments for further cues on positioning.
“Macro risks remain, but one critical overhang appears to be cleared. Trump is signaling no intention to replace Fed Chair Powell for now. The reassurance has prompted a modest pullback in long-end yields, helping reduce a key tail risk,” Singapore-based QCP Capital said in a broadcast message Thursday.
“The broader outlook, however, is anything but simple. Trade frictions, geopolitical jitters, and regulatory opacity continue to cast long shadows,” the firm added.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) breakout to $93,000 is being driven by deep-pocketed institutions, not retail exchange traded-fund (ETF) buyers, said Coinbase Institutional's John D’Agostino on CNBC.
The rally began in early April, as institutional investors, and sovereign wealth funds quietly accumulated BTC with their "patient pools of capital" while retail investors were still pulling capital from spot ETFs.
“Institutions, sovereigns, patient pools of capital were piling in,” he said. “Retail via the ETF were exiting. So you’ve got to ask yourself, what do the institutions know?”
That institutional conviction is now being formalized. Earlier this week, Strike CEO Jack Mallers and Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brandon Lutnick unveiled Twenty One Capital, a new bitcoin investment company backed by Tether, Bitfinex, and SoftBank.
The company will launch with more than 42,000 BTC and is expected to trade publicly under the ticker “XXI” after merging with Cantor Equity Partners, a $200 million SPAC.
D’Agostino has a three-part thesis as to why this is happening. First is de-dollarization: sovereigns and institutions reduce USD exposure as trade weakens. Second, decoupling from tech: Bitcoin shedding its Nvidia-adjacent identity. Third, hedge basket theory: Bitcoin ranks in the top five in inflation hedge models used by veteran commodities traders.
"Bitcoin is trading on its core characteristics, which again are similar to gold. You've got scarcity, immutability, and non-sovereign asset portability," he continued. "So it's trading the way people who believe in Bitcoin would like it to trade."
Meanwhile, major altcoins like ether (ETH), Solana's SOL, and Cardano's ADA have yet to make similar technical moves. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a measure of the performance of the world's largest digital assets, is down 3% over the last month while BTC is up 7%.
This recent move in prices might have pushed back up retail interest in BTC ETFs. Data from SoSoValue put ETF inflow over $900 million for the second day in a row for Wednesday, putting ETF inflow over $2.2 billion between April 21 and 23. There were 9 days in this month where Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows, totaling approximately $1.21 billion
DeFi Development Corp (JNVR), formerly known as Janover, added another $9.9 million in Solana's SOL to its corporate treasury, pushing total crypto holdings to 317,273 SOL or about $48 million, the company said on Wednesday.
The purchase, made through BitGo’s over-the-counter desk, includes a tranche of locked SOL. These are tokens typically tied to vesting or bankruptcy proceedings that can’t yet move on-chain but are cheaper than spot prices.
"By gaining access to locked discounted inventory through a trusted partner like BitGo, we’re able to accumulate some of our SOL below market prices while deepening our alignment with the Solana ecosystem," CEO Joseph Onorati said in a statement.
Janover, which was renamed to DeFi Development earlier this week, began as a real estate data and software company but has shifted to position itself as U.S. public company offering direct exposure to the Solana ecosystem to investors through its balance sheet. The pivot happened after a group of former executives of crypto exchange Kraken, including Onorati, acquired a majority stake in the firm this month.
The company noted that with the latest purchase, each of the firm's 1.5 million outstanding shares now represents 0.22 SOL, up 40% from earlier disclosures.
Corporations have been buying SOL to provide TradFi investors with exposure to the token, and this trend has been gaining momentum recently. SOL Strategies, the publicly traded company helmed by CEO Leah Wald—former co-founder of digital asset manager Valkyrie Investments—spearheaded the movement. Earlier today, the firm announced that it had secured an up to $500 million convertible note facility to ramp up its investments in the Solana network.
Read more: Janover Takes Page From Saylor Playbook, Doubling SOL Stack to $20M as Stock Soars 1700%
Disclaimer: This article, or parts of it, was generated with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.