Crypto Investment Products See Resilience As Digital Asset Funds Draw in $1.06 Billion Inflow for...

MicroStrategy raises $1.76 billion for a Bitcoin war chest, Saylor’s “Orange Dot” signal hints at a scale upgrade

Michael Saylor posted his iconic “orange dot” buy signal chart on the X platform on April 19, along with the caption “Think Bigger.” MicroStrategy has raised $1.76 billion in standby capital through financial instruments such as STRC preferred stock. The company’s treasury currently holds 780,897 bitcoins, with an average cost of $75,577 per coin.

Bitcoin ETFs posted net inflows for a third consecutive week; last week saw $996 million, the highest since January.

Last week, spot Bitcoin ETF net inflows reached $996 million, the highest level since 2026, marking net inflows for three consecutive weeks, which is related to easing tensions between the U.S. and Iran. BlackRock’s IBIT led the way, pulling in $906 million. Spot Ethereum ETFs also performed, with Fidelity’s FETH attracting $126 million. The market needs to watch how the U.S.-Iran agreement and the Federal Reserve’s rate cuts affect ETF capital flows to determine the direction of ETF fund flows.

LayerZero Strategic Partner Wallet Distributes 1.21M ZRO, with 855K Transferred to Major CEX

LayerZero's partner wallet recently distributed 1.21 million ZRO (around $1.97 million) to 52 addresses, with the largest transfer of 855,000 ZRO (about $1.42 million) to a significant centralized exchange.

A Kelp bridge hack spreads and affects Aave, as TVL plunges and bad debt surges to 196 million

Liquidity re-staking protocol Kelp’s cross-chain bridge was attacked, stealing 116,500 rsETH and depositing it into Aave V3, resulting in roughly $196 million in bad debt. Aave’s contracts were not affected, but the incident revealed the systemic risk of LRT collateral, prompting DeFi protocols to re-evaluate their risk models, which could lead to losses for stkAAVE holders.

BTC 15-minute rise of 0.53%: Institutional derivatives adding positions drives a short-term rebound

Between 2026-04-20 01:30 and 2026-04-20 01:45 (UTC), the BTC spot price fluctuated within a narrow range of 74290.9 to 74709.7 USDT. Over the 15-minute period, the return was +0.53%, with a range of 0.56%. Overall market volatility increased, drawing attention, but the number of active on-chain addresses remained steady, with no sign of extreme capital movements. The main driver behind this move is institutional capital inflows into mainstream futures platforms and adjustments to derivatives position structures, especially CME futures open interest (OI), which rose against the trend by 2.61%. Meanwhile, some institutions added to defensive hedges and positioned for short-term rebounds within the price consolidation range. In addition, short-term Put options trading on platforms such as Deribit was active: the main contracts were concentrated on near-term downside protection, indicating that derivatives capital has increased its allocation to defensive strategies and that the spot market has passively followed the upward move. In addition, ETF funds recorded $1.87 billion in net inflows in Q1, easing the consecutive net outflow trend seen earlier before March and providing medium-term background support for spot prices. Although on-chain active addresses over 1 hour stayed in the 19500–19600 range without abnormal increases or decreases, structural behavior by institutions across the derivatives and ETF markets converged to push short-term price volatility higher. There were no signals of sell pressure from retail traders or major whales, and no large transfers or extreme liquidation events; overall momentum came from institutional-level maneuvering. It is worth noting that the derivatives market Put/Call ratio remains on the high side. If the price cannot continue moving upward, short-term exit pressure could intensify at any time. With overall OI shrinking, the activity of leveraged funds in the market weakens. Going forward, it is important to focus on changes in derivatives positions, ETF fund flows, and the in-and-out movements of active capital on-chain in order to respond to the risk of sharp short-term volatility. For more market information, it is recommended to continuously track relevant data indicators and capital-level anomalies.

AAVE (Aave) down 6.53% in 24 hours

Gate News message, April 20, according to Gate market data. As of the time of writing, AAVE (Aave) is trading at $92.32. Over the past 24 hours, it is down 6.53%, with a high of $99.17 and a low of $88.71. The 24-hour trading volume is $16.9544 million. The current market cap is approximately $140.1 million. Aave is an open-source decentralized lending protocol that provides deposit and borrowing services for users. The deposit interest rates for depositors and the loan interest rates for borrowers are calculated algorithmically based on the platform’s borrowing amount and deposit amount. The platform also uses Chainlink oracles to ensure fairness in the collateral price. AAVE’s recent important news: 1️⃣ **Kelp DAO cross-chain bridge hacked, triggering a liquidity crisis** The hacker exploited a LayerZero cross-chain bridge vulnerability to steal rsETH worth $291 million, and then used the illegally obtained rsETH to provide collateral and borrow on Aave, causing the utilization rate of Aave’s core lending pool to reach 100%. The incident triggered a chain reaction: Aave’s net withdrawals totaled $6.2 billion, and total deposits fell from $45.8 billion to $35.7 billion. This event directly hit market confidence and is the main reason for the recent decline. 2️⃣ **Multiple institutions and whales panic-selling** After the incident, multiple whale addresses sold AAVE heavily on-chain, including the "smaugvision" address selling 20,015 tokens, the 0xFC5 address selling 20,000 tokens, and the 0xA2E address selling 19,665 tokens—totaling nearly 60,000 tokens. The well-known whale "ThisWillMakeYouLoveAgain" even cut losses and stopped the loss by selling 29,400 AAVE for $2.73 million, with losses exceeding $6 million. Large-scale selling further intensified downward pressure on the market. 3️⃣ **DAO governance approves a large financing plan to support long-term development** The Aave DAO passed the first grant proposal under the Aave Will Win framework with 75% support. Aave Labs will receive $25 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE (about $6.8 million) unlocked linearly over four years. Founder Stani clearly laid out the strategic direction: all product revenues will flow back to the DAO treasury, with the goal of expanding the protocol’s scale from $40 billion to the trillion-level. This financing plan provides a solid foundation for the protocol’s long-term development, but in the short term the market still needs to absorb the impact of the hacker incident. 4️⃣ **Smart money addresses build positions against the trend** On-chain data shows that over the past seven days, approximately $2.9 million worth of AAVE has flowed out of exchanges. Smart money addresses are accumulating AAVE, with their holdings increasing to 359,880 tokens. The top 100 traders saw a net inflow of $2.18 million, and the leading profit-taking wallets maintained their positions without moving, suggesting that institutional investors are optimistic about Aave’s long-term prospects and providing some support for the current price. This information is not investment advice. Please note the risk of market volatility when investing.