OVERVIEW

Well, Hello Altcoins 👋

Here’s What’s Happening 👇️

Israel and Lebanon agree to a ceasefire, which, if you forgot, was something rumored as a condition by Iran for any ceasefire with the US. And alts have responded positively. The Altcoin Market Cap is up +4.5% versus the rest of the market (up only 1%).

$DOT ( ▲ 12.14% ) , $AAVE ( ▲ 8.84% ) , $XLM ( ▲ 6.55% ) , $UNI ( ▲ 6.29% ) , and $ICP ( ▲ 4.61% ) are all up over 5%.

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto crypto’s total market and altcoin market cap charts:

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ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
ETH Is Knocking on the Door. XRP Is Still Looking for the Address 🚪

We’re gonna look at $ETH ( ▼ 0.06% ) ’s and $XRP ( ▲ 4.96% ) ’s composite MVRV score, which is an equal weighted average of the 180-day MVRV, 90-day MVRV, and 60-day MVRV. Other than that, the interpretation is the same: Above 1.0 means the average crypto/token/ticker is in profit, below 1.0 means it's underwater.

XRP

The composite MVRV is sitting well below breakeven and has been sub-1.0 since it fell through in early October 2025 - that's roughly six months of aggregate underwater holders on a 60/90/180-day cost basis.

The recovery off the February 5 trough (0.5981) has retraced only 34.3% of the peak-to-trough decline, and the really concerning data point is the price-vs-MVRV divergence: over the last 60 days, MVRV climbed +14.7% while price fell 6.4%.

That's a -21pp spread, which means the composite is rising primarily because the cost basis is resetting lower (older, higher-cost coins aging out of the windows), not because demand is pushing price up.

Lean: Neutral to Bearish.

ETH

ETH is in materially better shape. The composite MVRV is kissing the 1.0 line right now - it actually crossed above on April 13 and yesterday (April 15), but keeps slipping back.

The 42.7% retracement of the decline is notably better than XRP's 34.3%, and the 30-day momentum tells the real story: ETH's 30-day MVRV delta is +0.1441 vs. XRP's +0.0354. That's 4x the velocity. The price-MVRV divergence still exists (-10pp over 30d, -25pp over 60d), so ETH isn't immune from the same cost-basis-reset dynamic, but price is at least cooperating - up +7% over 30 days vs. XRP's -5%.

Lean: Bullish.

NEWS
Cato Institute: One Bitcoin Purchase, Seventeen Forms, Zero Logic 👍️

For once, a policy wonk looked at Bitcoin/crypto taxes and came to the only sane conclusion - this setup makes no sense.

In a piece for the Cato Institute, Nicholas Anthony argues that the U.S. tax code treats using Bitcoin like some kind of forensic accounting crime scene instead of what it can be - money.

That’s the problem. Buy coffee with Bitcoin, and the IRS treats it like you sold property. So now a basic purchase means tracking when you got the BTC, what you paid for it, when you spent it, and whether you had a gain or loss.

Congratulations - your latte now comes with Form 8949 and a low-grade headache.

Anthony’s point is simple - capital gains taxes punish the actual use of Bitcoin as currency. Crypto payments keep getting easier through merchant tools and self-custody wallets, while the tax code keeps acting like it was designed by people who panic at the sight of optionality.

And he has some ideas to fix it:

• Ending capital gains taxes on crypto transactions,

• Exempting personal purchases, or

• Creating a much bigger de minimis threshold than the weak little $200 figure floating around in current proposals.

The point stands either way - if crypto is going to compete as money, it has to be treated like money. Not like a taxable felony with extra paperwork. 😡

NEWS
FASB Catches Up To Crypto’s Least Complicated Idea 🤦

Only people brand new to crypto would think stablecoins should not count as cash-like assets. The fact this even needs debate in 2026 tells you how slowly accounting people move when something on-chain shows up wearing a tie. 🪙 

Per The Wall Street Journal’s Mark Maurer, the Financial Accounting Standards Board voted to propose new disclosure rules requiring companies to break out significant parts of their cash equivalents, including stablecoins when holdings are material. That means investors may soon see whether “cash” includes money-market funds and T-bills, or a chunky pile of dollar-backed tokens.

That matters because some stablecoins function like digital dollars, not speculative crypto bets. FASB’s current view is that a stablecoin could qualify as a cash equivalent if it has enough liquid reserves behind it and gives holders a contractual right to a known amount of cash.

So, yes - accounting is finally catching up to what crypto people already knew. 🔢 

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NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
AI, Stablecoins, & Privacy News 🕵️

💸 Circle’s Fulfiller Model Says You Don’t Need to Burn-and-Mint for Every Payout If You Enjoy Operational Sanity

Instead of using CCTP for every contractor payment, Circle shows a setup where a local fulfiller pays first on the destination chain and gets reimbursed later through a batched CCTP flow. That keeps the platform operationally single-chain while the fulfiller handles local execution, which matters a lot once payouts stop being cute little demos and start becoming actual volume. Circle.

🌐 Tao Private Network Wants Proxies for the Agentic Web Without the Usual “Pay More for Worse IPs” Routine

Tao Private Network launched on SKALE with decentralized proxy and VPN infrastructure, time-based pricing, x402 support, and node coverage across 81 countries. The point is to make routing infrastructure programmable and cheap enough for AI agents, developers, and enterprises that are tired of bandwidth billing and junk IP pools. SKALE Network.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Real World Asset Tokenization (RWA) News 🪙

🏦 Ripple Found a Korean Insurance Giant to Test Bond Settlement So TradFi Can Modernize Without Sweating Publicly

Ripple partnered with Kyobo Life Insurance to explore tokenized government bond settlement in Korea using Ripple Custody inside a regulated institutional setup. The stated upside is near real-time settlement instead of the usual two-day plod, plus a path toward stablecoin-based payment rails and broader treasury tooling. XRP.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Metaverse, NFT, & Gaming News 🎮️

🗳️ Enjin’s Kallang Upgrade Removes Sudo, Fixes Staking Voting, and Makes Governance Slightly Less Janky

The Kallang upgrade brings a dedicated sENJ conviction voting pallet, removes the legacy sudo pallet, updates the Polkadot SDK, and patches staking, pools, marketplace logic, and offchain worker issues. Testnet started yesterday, while mainnet is targeted for May 18 at block 15,543,000. Enjin.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
DeFi, DEX, & Lending News 🏦

🧾 Anchored Put Nasdaq Stocks on Monad

Anchored launched tokenized U.S. stocks on Monad, starting with 10 top Nasdaq names through Monday Trade and Alpaca’s brokerage. 1:1 backing, 24/7 transferability, stablecoin funding, and DeFi composability without pretending compliance is optional. Monad.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Protocol News 🏦

🏗️ Arbitrum Wants to Be the Operating System for Markets Because Institutions Prefer Software to Committees

The programmable economy is simple: put access, settlement, and coordination into software so markets stop relying on manual glue and layers of middlemen. Arbitrum says it already has the liquidity, stablecoin throughput, and sub-second performance to make that practical for enterprises that still need privacy, controls, and reliability. Arbitrum.

💰 HIVE Is Raising $75 Million in Zero-Percent Notes Because AI Compute Eats GPUs Like Popcorn

HIVE announced a private offering of $75 million in 0% exchangeable senior notes due 2031, with an option for another $15 million, to help fund GPU purchases, data center buildout, and general corporate use. The structure also includes capped call transactions to reduce dilution and comes as the company lines up a move from the TSXV to the TSX around April 30. HIVE.

OLD NEWS
Crypto Stuff That Happened Today, But A Long Time Ago 📜

Here’s what was happening in the newsletter a year ago today:

• Binance’s delisting vote threat turned $ZEC ( ▼ 1.56% ) into the hill half of crypto wanted to die on.

• The Secret Service helped bust a $4.3M ETH phishing scam - not exactly bullish, but at least someone was working.

• Italy said dollar stablecoins were a bigger threat than Trump’s tariffs.

• MANTRA’s team finally gave its side of the OM collapse - blame went to whale collateral, forced liquidations, and exchange chaos, with buybacks and a dashboard promised after the fact.

Here’s what was happening in the newsletter two years ago today:

• The pullback kept dragging on - week three of the retracement and sentiment was still getting stepped on.

• $BONK ( ▲ 7.33% ) and $WIF ( ▲ 10.95% ) got smacked .

• Tether printed another $1B in USDT.

• PayPal scaled back NFT protections.

OLD NEWS
Other Stuff That Happened Today, But A Long Ass Time Ago ⌛️

April 16

• 69 - Roman emperor Otho commits suicide

• 73 - Masada falls to Rome.

• 1799 - Battle of Mount Tabor. Napoleon sends Jean-Baptiste Kleber’s division of 2,000 men to track the Ottoman Empire’s Abdullah Pasha al-Azm’s 35,000 strong force. Kleber holds off al-Azm’s 35,000 long enough for another 2,000 French who completely surprise the Ottomon forces, who lose 6,000 - 7,000 men. The French lose only 2 with 60 wounded.

• 1889 - Charlie Chaplin is born.

• 1910 - Boston Arena opens for the first time.

• 1917 - Vladimir Lenin returns to Russia.

• 1943 - Albert Hofmann discovers, accidentally, that LSD has hallucinogenic effects.

• 1947 - The first use of the term ‘Cold War’ to describe the US and Soviet Union relationship is used by Bernard Baruch.

• 1961 - Fidel Castro announces Cuba is adopting Communism.

• 2003 - The Treaty of Accession signed in Athens. The EU admits the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia.

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in AVAX, ADA, PUDGY, WLD, NEAR, INJ, LTC, LINK, ZEC, XLM, and FET. 📋