$135K in Sight? Analyst Says Bitcoin Uptrend Remains Intact

The Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS) push to isolate crypto markets and its controversial recommendations on DeFi and stablecoins is “dangerous” for the entire financial system, warns the CEO of a blockchain investment firm.

“Many of their recommendations and conclusions – perhaps due to a mix of fear, arrogance or ignorance--are completely uninformed and frankly, dangerous,” CoinFund president Christopher Perkins said in an April 19 X post, referring to the BIS April 15 report titled “Cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance: functions and financial stability implication.”

BIS recommendations exposes TradFi to risks of “unimaginable scale”

“Crypto is not communism,” Perkins said, pushing back against the BIS’s call for a “containment” approach to isolate crypto from traditional finance and the broader economy.

“It’s the new internet that provides anyone with a connection access to financial services,” Perkins said. “You cannot control it anymore than you control the internet,” he added.

Perkins warned that a containment approach to crypto would expose the traditional financial system to massive liquidity risks “of unimaginable scale,” especially when the crypto market operates in real-time, 24/7, while traditional financial markets shut down after trading hours.

The report warned that the number of investors and amount of capital in crypto and DeFi have “reached a critical mass,” with investor protection becoming a “significant concern for regulators.”

Over the past trading week, Bitcoin (BTC) failed to make any significant price breakout, experiencing rejections at the $86,000 price region. While the market suffered no major price pullback, the high level of sideways price movement indicates a strong investor uncertainty.

Interestingly, popular market analyst with X username Daan Crypto has provided an insightful technical analysis on the BTC market, highlighting the present barriers that are restricting an upward price movement.

Bitcoin Multiple Barriers: 200-Day EMA, 200-Day MA, And Diagonal Trendline In Focus

Since hitting a new all-time high in late January, Bitcoin has slipped into heavy correction, losing over 22% of its market price. The majority of the price loss has been linked to international trade tariff crises, which have forced investors to seek relief in less risky assets.

However, a pause in new tariffs and an onset in global negotiations soon accompanied a price rebound seen in early April. Albeit, Bitcoin is now struggling to break out of the $84,000-$86,000, forming a tight consolidation range.

In performing a technical analysis on the current BTC market, Daan Crypto has identified the three resistance factors that have been active in the specified price zone.

The first price opposition is a diagonal downtrend line formed by Bitcoin’s consistent lower lows and lower highs amidst the price correction in the past three months. To establish any intent of a trend reversal, Bitcoin bulls must force a convincing price breakout above this long-standing diagonal resistance.

Other critical indicators are the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) and 200-day Simple Moving Average (MA), both of which provide an average of the past 200 days’ prices, with the EMA giving more weight to recent prices.

The 200-day EMA is important in spotting medium-to-long-term trend changes as it reacts faster to any price change than the 200-day MA, which is a classic long-term indicator. However, Bitcoin must move above both indicators to break out of its consolidation and perhaps experience a full price recovery.

Bitcoin Ultimate Resistance At $90,000-$91,000

Despite Bitcoin’s struggles in the $84,000-$86,000 price zone, Daan Crypto has warned that the asset’s ultimate test of a price reversal is at the $90,000-$91,000 price range, which served as a key support in the earlier phase of the bull cycle.

A successful reclaim of this range would place Bitcoin back into the bullish trading zone, signaling a potential resumption of the broader bull market. At press time, BTC continues to trade at $84,868 following a 0.13% gain in the past day. Meanwhile, the daily trading volume is down by 42.34% and valued at $12.52 billion.

Large investors are buying Bitcoin at record levels, which may be the precursor to a price explosion. Recent statistics indicate that these large holders, or “whales,” are acquiring around three times the amount of daily Bitcoin produced by miners as the cryptocurrency sits at key price levels.

Whales Purchase At Record Levels While Exchanges Witness Outflows

According to Glassnode information, investors possessing between 100 and 1,000 Bitcoins are buying up the cryptocurrency aggressively. These giant holders are at present taking on over 300% of the annual supply emission of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin prices gained by only 0.95% in the past week amidst an intense market consolidation. The premier cryptocurrency is struggling to break out of the $85,000-$86,000 price range following an impressive price rally in the second week of April. However, popular crypto analyst Ali Martinez has identified the major price resistance for the current Bitcoin uptrend.

Bitcoin STH Realized Price At $91,000 Presents Major Make-Or-Break Moment

In a recent post on X, Martinez states that Bitcoin faces a key resistance level at the $91,275 following a price rebound in early April. Notably, the asset surged by 17.33% after reaching a price low of $75,000 on April 9. However, BTC has since entered a consolidation following this feat, producing no significant price movement in either direction.

Over the past week, the crypto market leader moved only between $84,000 to $86,000, forming a tight range-bound market. However, amidst these struggles, Martinez states that Bitcoin short-term holders realized the price lies at $91,275, indicating the pivotal resistance to the recent market resurgence lies ahead.

For context, the short-term holders’ realized price is the average price at which new buyers (i.e, new investors of Bitcoin over the past 155 days) acquired their BTC. It is an important technical indicator used to evaluate short-term market sentiment and behavior.

When a market price is above the STH realized price, it indicates a bullish momentum as recent buyers are in profit and are likely to hold. In this case, the STH realized price serves as a strong support level, with new market entrants often defending their entry zone.

However, when Bitcoin’s price is below the STH realized price as currently seen in the market, the realized price forms a significant psychological price resistance. This is because many short-term holders may choose to exit once the market breaks even, increasing the selling pressure around that zone.

Therefore, Bitcoin reclaiming $91,275 is essential to validate a sufficient bullish potential to fuel a complete price reversal.

Bitcoin Price Overview

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $84,872, reflecting a price growth of 0.14% in the last day. Meanwhile, the premier cryptocurrency is down by 1.34% on its monthly chart as bearish pressure continues to wane.

While a major market resistance lies at $91,000, Bitcoin faces an immediate opposition at the $86,000 price zone, breaking past which could spur a sharp price rise to $91,000. However, a price fall below the support at $84,500 could result in a further price slide to $84,000 with the potential to trade as low as $83,300.

Mantra CEO plans to burn teams tokens in bid to win community trust

Mantra CEO John Mullin said he is planning to burn all of his teams tokens in order to win back the trust of the networks community following the sudden collapse of the Mantra (OM) token on April 13.

Im planning to burn all of my team tokens and when we turn it around the community and investors can decide if I have earned it back, Mullin posted to X on April 16.

Mantra set aside 300 million OM, 16.88% of the tokens nearly 1.78 billion total supply, for its team and core contributors. They are currently locked and were scheduled to be released in stages between April 2027 and October 2029, according to an April 8 blog post.

Oregon targets Coinbase after SEC drops its federal lawsuit

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield is planning a lawsuit against crypto exchange Coinbase, alleging the company is selling unregistered securities to residents of the US state, after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) dropped its federal case against the exchange.

According to Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, the lawsuit is an exact copycat case of SECs 2023 lawsuit against the exchange, which the federal agency agreed to drop in February. Grewal added:

In case you think Im jumping to conclusions, the attorney general’s office made it clear to us that they are literally picking up where the Gary Gensler SEC left off seriously. This is exactly the opposite of what Americans should be focused on right now.

TRUMP tokenholders face 90% decline from peak as unlock begins

TRUMP tokenholders face steep losses as the first vesting unlock goes live on April 18, releasing 40 million tokens, worth roughly $309 million, into circulation at a 90% discount from its peak.

The unlocked tokens account for 20% of the current circulating supply and could introduce fresh volatility as a previously illiquid portion of the supply hits the market. According to CoinGecko, the TRUMP token price has fluctuated between $7.46 and $7.83 in the past 24 hours.

April 18 marks the first unlock event for the TRUMP token, with steady, smaller unlocks following from that date.

Crypto rug pulls have slowed, but are now more devastating: DappRadar

There has been a 66% year-on-year decrease in the number of crypto rug pulls this year compared to 2024, but recent data shows the size of each rug pull has been increasing.

Rug pulls have dropped in frequency year-over-year, with early 2024 recording 21 separate incidents, compared to only seven so far in 2025, according to an April 16 report from blockchain analytics platform DappRadar.

However, since the beginning of 2025, the Web3 ecosystem has lost nearly $6 billion to rug pulls, according to DappRadars report. However, the report attributes 92% of that to Mantras OM token collapse, which the founders have strongly denied was a rug pull.

In comparison, during the same period in early 2024, three months into the year, total losses from rug pulls hit $90 million.

Bitcoin has risen dramatically over the last 10 years against gold, with a rise of an incredible 13,693%, according to the financial statistics shared by crypto entrepreneur Ted.

The figures demonstrate the alarming divergence between the two assets from April 2015 and April 2025. In particular, this striking ascent of Bitcoin has caught the eye of investors spread around the globe.

Bitcoin Vs. Gold: From Equal Footing To Massive Gap

Ten years ago, gold and Bitcoin were at similar prices. In April 2015, Bitcoin moved between $200 and $250, whereas gold was ranging around $1,200 to $1,300 per ounce.

The fortunes of these investments have since become totally different. Bitcoin has soared to about $84,000 per coin, up some 33,500% in the ten-year period. The cryptocurrency briefly peaked at nearly $109,000 during the timeframe.

Gold, on the other hand, has preserved its image of reliability over volatility, rather than offering spectacular gains. The precious metal increased by only 156% over the same period. From the market onlookers, gold’s worth proposition is still anchored on its consistent, inflation-proof behavior spanning very long timescales.

Historical Context Demonstrates Divergent Patterns Of Growth

Going back even farther shows an even greater disparity in the growth rates. According to a market analyst on social media platform X, the price of gold was only $20.67 per ounce in 1933. As for 2025, the price has gone up somewhat to around $3,330 an ounce, which is indeed a steep rise but a gradual increase over a period of almost a century.