Macro News: Crypto Rallies On TradFi Adoption, Oil Drops After Strait of Hormuz Briefly Reopens

Crypto’s blockbuster performance continued throughout last week as multiple institutional investors announced plans to launch new crypto and prediction markets products.

• Morgan Stanley’s MSBT spot Bitcoin ETF added over $100 million in inflows during its first seven days of trading.
• Goldman Sachs filed SEC documents for a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF, following in the footsteps of BlackRock, which is weeks away from launching a competing product.
• Charles Schwab plans to launch spot trading in Bitcoin and Ether for its clients.
• Strategy completed one of its largest single-week Bitcoin acquisitions, buying $1 billion worth of BTC for the fourth time in 2025.

The biggest story of the crypto week was the acceleration of institutional adoption—through ETF inflows, new financial products from Wall Street, and growing market participation.

Just a week after telling Bloomberg Markets that the MSBT spot Bitcoin ETF “was our best first day of trading for any of our ETFs since we started the ETF product line a few years ago,” Morgan Stanley's head of digital strategy, Amy Oldenburg, told GSR that crypto is now “becoming daily business across the firm.”

Institutions Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is

Institutions aren’t just pledging their allegiance to crypto; they’re putting their money where their mouth is. Fresh capital inflows across the market have surged, and the prices of crypto majors followed the money.

March-to-April 17 spot Bitcoin ETF flows. Source: SoSoValue

Demand also showed up in centralized exchange order books, where an imbalance in the bid-ask ratio indicated that buyers were making moves in spot markets.

Hyblock analysts said that Bitcoin’s local bottom was reached at $65,500 on April 2, when “an orderbook imbalance across various depths reached outlier levels, all of which were above true 90th percentile.”

According to Hyblock, it is “a rare event for all four depths to be > 90th percentile.” Despite the imbalance, the “Drawdown was negligible, and price went straight up since,” the analysts added.

BTC/USDT bid-ask ratio imbalance. Source: Hyblock

Since Bitcoin ‘bottomed’ near $59,000 on Feb 6, the price has been stuck in a range, essentially searching for direction. This pattern has been reflected in aggregate open interest in the futures market, which has been pinned below $20 billion, down more than 50% from its pre-Oct. level.

At the same time that Hyblock noted an orderbook imbalance across multiple depths, open interest also began rising and finally topped the $20 billion level on April 15.

BTC/USDT bid-ask ratio imbalance. Source: Hyblock

The Tone on Clarity From Capitol Hill Shifts in Crypto’s Favor

Committee Chair Senator Tim Scott’s public itinerary for the coming week made no mention of the CLARITY Act markup, but rumors coming out of Capitol Hill suggest that reputable crypto founders and lobbyists are among the pro-crypto advocates, and that the big banks have found more common ground on issues related to DeFi and stablecoin yield.

US Inflation is Back, But So Are Fed Rate Cut Odds

“On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand rose 4.0 percent for the 12 months ended in March, the largest 12-month advance since increasing 4.7 percent in February 2023.”

The report, along with other data, suggests that the Trump administration’s economic and foreign policy decisions  may be raising recession concerns. The Fed and investors are now forced to consider whether these policy decisions will fuel higher inflation and negatively impact retail investor sentiment.

For Bitcoin investors who believe Fed bailouts, interest rate cuts, and expansionary monetary policy are bullish for BTC, these global and macroeconomic events might confirm their long-held thesis that a debt-ridden nation dependent on money printing will lead to higher crypto prices.

According to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, investors are pricing in a 99.5% chance that the US Federal Reserve will cut rates by 100 basis points at the next FOMC meeting.

Fed target rate odds. Source: CME group

Looking Forward: Economic Data May Impact Capital Flows

The upcoming week features a handful of important US economic reports that could affect capital flows and potentially lead to some risk-off behavior across crypto markets. Traders should keep an eye on the following:

• Possible Clarity Act markup in the Senate Banking Committee, with possible hang-ups over crypto ethics concerns addressed in the legislation.
• April 20: Global Supply Chain Pressure Index report
• April 21: ADP National Employment Report
• April 23: Initial Jobless Claims

Beyond the key US economic reports, the status of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, along with its impact on the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices, is bound to affect the crypto markets.