Early May Market Outlook: BTC Holds Above 80K, ETH Tests 2.4K, SOL Near a Turning Point (Hotcoin Research | April 27 - May 3, 2026)

Weekly Insights

Cập nhật2026-08-21

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Crypto Market Performance

Currently, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is $2.54 trillion, with BTC accounting for 59.9% at $1.52 trillion. The market capitalization of stablecoins is $319.8 billion, a decrease of 0.38% in the last 7 days, with USDT accounting for 59.25%. Among the top 200 projects on CoinMarketCap, most declined with a small number rising. Specifically: BTC fell 1.67% in 7 days, ETH fell 2.07% in 7 days, SOL fell 2.61% in 7 days, LUNC rose 61.14% in 7 days, and H rose 28.81% in 7 days.

This week, US Bitcoin spot ETFs saw net inflows of $162.8 million; US Ethereum spot ETFs saw net outflows of $82.7 million.

Market Forecast (May 4 - May 10):

The RSI stands at 45.36 (neutral, lower than last week), the Fear & Greed Index is 28 (fear), and the Altcoin Season Index is at 38 (neutral).

BTC: $79,000-$82,500 (Bullish bias, pending confirmation of a valid breakout)

ETH: $2,320-$2,420 (Neutral to bullish, following BTC)

SOL: $84-$88 (Neutral to bearish, awaiting directional breakout)

In the coming week, the market is likely to trade between macro headwinds and underlying support. Considering the market just experienced the FOMC shock from April 30 to May 1, the beginning of next week will likely be characterized by consolidation and correction, while the latter half of the week's trend will depend on whether ETF flows improve.

Main Risks:

Nonfarm Payroll Risk: Stronger-than-expected non-farm payroll data on Friday could cause the market to give back this week's gains.
$80k Option Pressure: Approximately $1.5 billion in call options are concentrated around this level; market makers may engage in hedging operations.
Continued ETH Weakness: If the ETH/BTC ratio continues to weaken, it could become a leading signal for market correction.
Profit-Taking After a Sharp Rise: BTC has rebounded by over 20% from its April lows, suggesting increasing short-term profit-taking pressure.

Current Overview

Geopolitical Double-Edged Sword: Bitcoin Briefly Approaches $80,000 Before Pulling Back

This week's core market narrative revolved around the geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran. On Monday (April 27), as the US-Iran standoff intensified and institutional buying rebounded, Bitcoin rose as much as 1.6% to $79,488, a 12-week high since the end of January, as investors viewed it as "digital gold," a safe-haven asset. However, this rally was short-lived. With Iran proposing a new plan, US negotiations stalling, and the Trump administration expressing dissatisfaction with the proposal, risk appetite declined sharply. As of Tuesday (April 28), Bitcoin fell below $77,000, triggering nearly 80,000 liquidations.

The Fed's "hawkish" move: Interest rates unchanged but rhetoric turned hawkish, causing the market to lose tens of billions in a single day

At dawn on April 30 Beijing time, the Federal Reserve announced that it would maintain interest rates at 3.50%-3.75%, in line with expectations. However, the statement abandoned the "somewhat elevated" inflation description, replacing it with "elevated," signaling a more hawkish stance. Coupled with Powell's hawkish remarks, the crypto market instantly "plummeted." Data shows that before and after the FOMC meeting, the total amount of liquidations across the network surged to $565 million in a single day, with long positions losing as much as $370 million. Market analysts generally believe that the expectation of tightening liquidity has undermined bullish sentiment.

Visa's strategic bet: Polygon becomes the core of global stablecoin settlement

Despite a bearish macroeconomic environment, adoption by traditional financial institutions continues to grow. On April 29, payment giant Visa announced that it had officially included the Polygon network in its global stablecoin settlement plan. Data shows that Polygon currently handles 54% of global USDC transfers and 36% of USDC trading volume. Visa's settlement program has reached an annualized operating scale of $7 billion this quarter. Polygon, with its low fees (Asia-US tiered pricing) and high speed (4-second finality), has outperformed many competing networks, including BNB Chain.

Regulatory Milestone: SEC and CFTC Join Forces to Develop Framework, Moving Beyond "Enforcement Regulation"

This week saw a major positive development in regulation. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins reiterated the progress of "Project Crypto," announcing a collaboration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to develop a digital asset classification framework, clarifying the security attributes of tokens, and introducing "innovation exemptions" to support on-chain transactions. The market widely believes this marks a formal abandonment by US regulators of the Biden-era "enforcement-based regulation" model, shifting towards clear rule-making and clearing obstacles for large-scale institutional capital entry.

Celsius Founder's Dismal End: Millions in Payments, Lifetime Ban from the Industry

The legal liquidation of failed projects saw a landmark outcome this week. Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky reached a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), agreeing to pay $10 million and being permanently banned from promoting, marketing, or distributing any cryptocurrency-related products and services. The court also awarded a $4.72 billion fine, enforceable immediately if he is found to have concealed assets. He had previously been sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud.

MoonPay Transforms into Institutional Services: $100 Million Acquisition and Recruitment of Former CFTC Chair

Crypto payment infrastructure company MoonPay took a key step this week, announcing the acquisition of Israeli security company Sodot for $100 million and the creation of a new division, "MoonPay Institutional." More notably, former acting chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Caroline D. Pham, will head the division. This marks MoonPay’s expansion into providing compliant services such as trading, tokenized securities, and wallet management for traditional financial institutions.

Ethereum Foundation Unstaking Nearly $49 Million Worth of ETH

Arkham, an on-chain analytics platform, tracked that the Ethereum Foundation unstaking approximately $48.9 million worth of ETH this week. This move has sparked widespread attention and speculation in the market—will the foundation, as in the past, sell these ETH to pay operating expenses? The market is currently closely watching subsequent transaction flows, as any large-scale sell-off could put further pressure on the already weak ETH price.

Central Bank Entry: Czech Republic Pushes for Bitcoin Reserve Strategy

At the Bitcoin 2026 Las Vegas conference, Ales Michl, Governor of the Czech National Bank, delivered a historic keynote speech, publicly making the case for including Bitcoin in central bank reserves. He revealed that the bank manages approximately $180 billion in reserves, and internal research shows that allocating just 1% to Bitcoin could increase expected returns with almost no increase in overall risk. The Czech National Bank completed its first test purchase of Bitcoin in November 2025, becoming the world's first central bank to hold Bitcoin.

Giant Donations and AI Infrastructure: The Crypto Power Behind the White House's New Banquet Hall

Fortune magazine this week revealed the list of donors to the construction project of the White House's new banquet hall, with the tech and crypto industries standing out prominently. Besides Meta, Apple, and Amazon, Coinbase, Ripple, Tether, and the Winklevoss brothers are all on the list. Meanwhile, Parallel Web Systems, the AI infrastructure company founded by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, completed a $100 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $2 billion, highlighting continued investor interest in the intersection of AI and crypto infrastructure.

Macroeconomics

On April 30, initial jobless claims in the US for the week ending April 25 were 189,000, compared to an expected 215,000.
On April 30, the Bank of England kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.75% for the third consecutive meeting, in line with market expectations.
On April 30, the Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50%-3.75%, marking the third consecutive meeting without taking action, in line with market expectations. According to the Fed's interest rate watch, the probability of maintaining the current rate in June is 98.6%, while the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut is 1.4%.

ETFs

Statistics show that between April 27 and May 1, US Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $162.8 million; as of May 1, GBTC (Grayscale) experienced a total outflow of $26.201 billion, currently holding $11.821 billion, while IBIT (BlackRock) currently holds $63.578 billion. The total market capitalization of US Bitcoin spot ETFs is $104.604 billion.

US Ethereum spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $82.7 million.

Looking Ahead

Industry Conference

Consensus Miami 2026 will be held in Miami, USA, from May 5 to 7.
Istanbul Blockchain Week 2026 will be held in Turkey from June 2 to 3.

Project Updates

ZKsync Lite will completely cease operation on May 4, including stopping block production and permanently freezing the final state of the network to ensure that balances will not change after the closure. ZKsync recommends that users complete their withdrawals before this date for a better experience. Assets not withdrawn before the deadline can still be claimed in full, but the claiming tool will be released immediately after block production stops. Furthermore, the read-only API will remain available for at least one year after the closure.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange will add Avalanche and Sui futures contracts.

Key Events

At 20:30 on May 7, the US will release initial jobless claims (in thousands) for the week ending May 2.
At 20:30 on May 8, the US will release the April unemployment rate.
At 20:30 on May 8, the US will release the April seasonally adjusted non-farm payrolls (in thousands).

Token Unlocking

BounceBit (BB) will unlock 29.7 million tokens on May 8, worth approximately $1.01 million, representing 2.68% of the circulating supply.
Space and Time (SXT) will unlock 39.7 billion tokens on May 8, worth approximately $5.96 million, representing 23.2% of the circulating supply.
Movement (MOVE) will unlock 160 million tokens on May 9, worth approximately $2.89 million, representing 4.69% of the circulating supply.
Babylon (BABY) will unlock 133 million tokens on May 10, worth approximately $2.66 million, representing 7.86% of the circulating supply.
Linea (LINEA) will unlock 138.8 billion tokens on May 10, worth approximately $4.86 million, representing 5.05% of the circulating supply.
io.net (IO) will unlock 13.3 million tokens on May 11, worth approximately $1.57 million, representing 3.95% of the circulating supply.
Solayer (LAYER) will unlock 26.9 million tokens on May 11, worth approximately $2.26 million, representing 7.26% of the circulating supply.
Avalanche (AVAX) will unlock 1.67 million tokens on May 12, worth approximately $15.08 million, representing 0.31% of the circulating supply.

About Us

Hotcoin Research, as the core research institution of the Hotcoin exchange, is dedicated to transforming professional analysis into practical tools for your investment decisions. We analyze market trends through our "Weekly Insights" and "In-Depth Research Reports"; and with our exclusive column "Hotcoin Selection" (AI + expert dual screening), we help you identify potential assets and reduce trial-and-error costs. Every week, our researchers will also engage with you face-to-face via live stream, interpreting hot topics and predicting trends. We believe that warm support and professional guidance can help more investors navigate cycles and seize the valuable opportunities of Web3.

Risk Warning

The cryptocurrency market is highly volatile, and investment inherently carries risk. We strongly recommend that investors fully understand these risks and invest within a strict risk management framework to ensure the safety of their funds.

Website: https://lite.hotcoingex.cc/r/Hotcoinresearch

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Mail: labs@hotcoin.com

Mục lục

Crypto Market Performance
Main Risks:
Current Overview
Macroeconomics
ETFs
Looking Ahead
Industry Conference
Project Updates
Key Events
Token Unlocking
About Us
Risk Warning

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