Digital assets returned another week of positive performances, featuring activity from several major names within both DeFi and TradFi. BlackRock and Morgan Stanley extended their digital asset exposure and offerings, stablecoins continued to attract attention and growth, and the venture capital sphere saw significant increases in investment, with a singule new fund from a16z eclipsing all the new capital raised by VCs in Q4. 

Digital assets continued their recent bullishness, as both Bitcoin and Ether closed April with consecutive monthly gains, before Bitcoin posted its best performance since January in early trading today. Catalysts for this shift in investor sentiment included advances in the US-Iran peace process, Jerome Powell leaving his post as Fed chair, and potential progress on the long-awaited CLARITY crypto market structure bill. Adoption and advances continued globally, as BlackRock enhanced its onchain money market fund further, the DTCC targeted October for the launch of tokenised securities, Western Union officially launched their stablecoin, and much more. 

Digital assets continued their recent upward trajectory, with more strong performance across ETFs indicating continued investor enthusiasm, even after a major recent DeFi exploit potentially dampened institutional appetite for fully-decentralised protocols. Prediction markets and stablecoins continued their growth pattern, launching new products and services, whilst regulatory efforts progressed and a veteran VC kicked off its latest major raise across multiple funds.

Digital assets maintained last week’s bullish momentum, despite some late headwinds from US-Iran escalations. Tokenisation and stablecoins remained areas of major adoption and development, Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs all voiced support for crypto, ETFs performed strongly, blockchain-based prediction markets attracted more attention (and capital), a new survey revealed Japanese institutional attitudes, and much more.

Digital assets rallied strongly this week, as optimism around a resolution of the US-Iran war increased, leading investors back to perceived risk-on assets.

Digital assets recovered some of their recent losses, as markets rallied on renewed hopes of a US-Iran peace deal.