Bitcoin ‘on track’ for $90K, ETFs pull in nearly $1B: Hodler’s Digest, April 12 – 18

Top Stories of the Week

Russia introduces bill to criminalize unregistered crypto services

Russia’s government submitted a bill to its parliament’s lower house to amend the country’s legal code and impose criminal liability on crypto services offered without regulatory approval or licensing.

In a draft law sent to the State Duma on Friday, Russian lawmakers proposed that entities “carrying out activities related to the organization of digital currency circulation,” that operate without a license from Russia’s central bank, could be subject to criminal liability.

Without registration with the Bank of Russia, individuals could face up to $4,000 in fines and up to four years in prison, or more severe penalties if part of an organized group.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs attract nearly $1B in weekly inflows as risk sentiment improves

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded nearly $1 billion in net inflows over the past week, marking their strongest performance in more than three months as market sentiment shifts toward risk assets.

Data from SoSoValue shows that spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $996 million in total net inflows last week, the highest weekly intake since early January, when inflows reached about $1.4 billion.

Friday saw $663.9 million in inflows, the week’s strongest single-day performance. Earlier gains included $411.5 million on Tuesday and $186 million on Wednesday, followed by a more modest $26 million on Thursday. The period began with a $291 million outflow on Monday.

Worldcoin tanks 13% as World’s iris-scanning tech expands to Zoom, Docusign

Worldcoin fell 13.4% to roughly $0.28 on Friday as World, the identity-focused company led by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, unveiled several new integrations for its “proof of human” stack, which uses iris-scanning technology to verify identities.

Video conferencing tool Zoom is integrating World’s Deep Face authentication to prevent deepfakes, while electronic signature platform Docusign is adding World’s ID verification tech to digital agreements, World said on Friday. Dating app Tinder is also expanding its World ID verification to US users.

“As AI agents increasingly act on behalf of real people, the infrastructure to prove a human stands behind each agent becomes critical,” World said.

Polymarket odds of Hormuz Strait traffic normalizing by end of May spike to 73%

Polymarket prediction market odds of the Strait of Hormuz “returning to normal” by the end of May spiked to 73% on Friday, following news that Iranian officials have temporarily opened up the Strait of Hormuz as part of a ceasefire deal.

The odds climbed to a high of 82% on Friday, after Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi announced that the Strait of Hormuz is open. Since that time, the odds have fallen back down to 73%. He said in an X post:

“The passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced by the Ports and Maritime Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Telegram CEO Durov warns EU age-verification app could enable wider tracking

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov warned Friday that the European Union’s new age-verification app could become a stepping stone toward broader online identity tracking, days after the European Commission said the system was technically ready for rollout.

In a Telegram post on Friday, Durov cited analysis from security consultant Paul Moore, who said the app is hackable in “under two minutes” after examining its technical design.

“This product will be the catalyst for an enormous breach at some point,” Moore said in an X post on Thursday, adding that the system could be tricked so the age check isn’t properly tied to the actual user or their device.

Durov argued that the security concerns went beyond age checks and could, over time, be used to justify broader identity verification across online services in Europe.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $75,525, Ether (ETH) at $2,328 and XRP (XRP) at $1.42. The total market cap is at $2.55 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are 币安人生 (币安人生) at 186.58%, DeXe (DEXE) at 62.75% and Celestia (TIA) at 35.52%. The top three altcoin losers of the week are siren (SIREN) at 20.03%, Dash (DASH) at 18.72% and LayerZero (ZRO) at 12.46%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“Quantum computing still has a lot to prove. Current systems are essentially lab experiments. I’ve followed the field for over 25 years, and progress has been incremental.”

Adam Back, Blockstream CEO

“I think there’s still this idea that tokenizing something illiquid will somehow magically make it a liquid asset, which is just not true.”

Oya Celiktemur, Ondo Finance sales director

 “In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire.”

Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iranian Foreign Minister

“The amount of capacity and the type of compute it was trained on is abundantly available in China, so you just have to first realize that chips exist in China.”

Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO

“Rather, it’s a rough sketch of one way we could approach the issue of a looming circulating supply shock if quantum computing advances to the point that a post-quantum signature scheme achieves consensus for being added to Bitcoin.”

Jameson Lopp, cypherpunk

Top Prediction of The Week

Bitcoin eyes $90K as whales absorb 20x daily BTC supply in 30 days

Bitcoin (BTC) appears on track to hit $90,000 in the coming weeks as whales have accumulated about 20 times the cryptocurrency’s daily new supply in the past weeks.

Whales, entities holding over 1,000 BTC, have added roughly 270,000 coins to their wallets over the past 30 days, marking their largest buying spree since 2013, according to onchain data provider CryptoQuant.

Part of that whale accumulation came from Strategy. The company’s recent filings show that it bought about 42,166 BTC between March and April, accounting for roughly 16% of the 270,000 BTC added by whale wallets over the same period.

US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs also recorded more than $200 million in net inflows during that stretch. Still, those inflows remain modest compared with earlier phases of the cycle, pointing to cautious re-engagement by Wall Street traders.

Top FUD of The Week

Bitcoin mining difficulty falls, but projected to rise in next adjustment

The Bitcoin mining difficulty, the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the BTC blockchain, fell on Saturday, amid public mining companies selling record amounts of BTC to cover operating expenses.

The Bitcoin mining difficulty fell to about 135.5 T, a modest decrease of about 1.1% over the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinWarz. Mining difficulty is also projected to increase in the next adjustment period. CoinWarz said:

“The next Bitcoin difficulty adjustment is estimated to take place on May 01, 2026, 01:24:54 PM UTC, increasing the Bitcoin mining difficulty from 135.59 T to 137.43 T, which will take place in 1,865 blocks, about 12 days, 18 hours, and 41 minutes from now.”

Kelp restaking platform exploited, $293M drained in attack

Kelp, a liquid restaking protocol, was the victim of a cyber attack on Saturday, causing the platform to pause smart contracts for its restaking token (rsETH), as it “investigates” the attack amid reports of hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

“Earlier today, we identified suspicious cross-chain activity involving rsETH. We have paused rsETH contracts across mainnet and several Layer-2s,” the Kelp platform said in an X post.

The attacker exploited the rsETH adapter bridge contract, the software code that manages Kelp’s rsETH token, and drained the platform of about $293 million in funds, according to blockchain security firm Cyvers.

SEC charges Donald Basile in $16M crypto fraud tied to ‘insured’ token

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against crypto executive Donald Basile, accusing him and two companies he controlled of raising about $16 million from investors through false claims tied to a so-called “insured” crypto token known as Bitcoin Latinum.

In a complaint filed Friday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the SEC alleged that Basile ran the scheme between March and December 2021 through Monsoon Blockchain Corp. and GIBF GP Inc., offering investors Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFTs) that promised future delivery of the token, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Regulators said hundreds of investors were told the asset was backed and insured, but the SEC alleged no insurance company ever provided coverage or any proof that these claims were true, per the report.

Top Magazine Stories of the Week

Will the CLARITY Act be good — or bad — for DeFi?

The CLARITY Act could reset the relationship between regulators and DeFi — but the industry isn’t out of the woods just yet.

Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Bad news for those hoping to retire on 1 or 2 Bitcoin by 2030 — respected analyst Peter Brandt says you’ll need to hold on a bit longer.

Singapore isn’t a ‘crypto hub’ — it’s something better: StraitsX CEO

Singapore’s regulators have filtered out speculative crypto activity but embraced regulated use cases, says StraitsX CEO.