A Strategy Competitor Emerges, HyperLiquid Looks to Increase Validator Set, and Helium Partners with AT&T
Weekly Market Update #67
In partnership with Elementus
Happy start to the week! Welcome back to the Reflexivity Weekly Market Update — your concise rundown of the biggest moves in crypto. If someone forwarded this to you, you can sign up here for free to get it straight to your inbox!
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Before jumping into last week’s action, check out some of the content published last week from Reflexivity Research:
Major Market Developments:
🤑 Fear & Greed Index: 65 (Greed)
🤝 Cantor + SoftBank + Tether near $3B crypto venture
🔼 Hyperliquid expands validator set to 21 permissionless nodes (Spotlight)
🔥 Fuel Network announces $1M buyback
💰 SolStrategies secures $500M facility to expand SOL holdings
🍽️ Trump team formalizes $TRUMP token dinner event
🚫 Nvidia abruptly ends Arbitrum partnership
📶 AT&T partners with Helium for wireless expansion
⚽ Tether buys 10% of Juventus football club
🎖 Infrared Finance launches points system
🛡️ Solana Foundation tightens validator policies
🧩 LayerZero introduces vApps
🔍 Jupiter Exchange unveils AlphaScan
🔄 Orca starts ORCA token buybacks
🎮 Ubisoft partners with Immutable for new Web3 game
Fear & Greed Index:
The crypto Fear & Greed Index spiked from 32 (Fear) last week to 65 today, catapulting sentiment firmly into Greed. This massive one-week swing reflects a sharp uptick in bullish momentum as markets rebound and optimism returns. Traders are growing confident, but extreme sentiment can also precede volatility – a reminder to stay nimble even as greed overtakes fear.
ETF Flows:
Across the five trading days to 25 April 2025, BTC ETFs attracted a hefty $3,062.9 million of net inflows, with BlackRock’s IBIT hoovering up nearly half the haul ($1,445.7 m), followed by Ark/21Shares’ ARKB ($621.1 m) and Fidelity’s FBTC ($573.8 m). Every day was positive, with the strongest being 22 April, when the complex generated $936.5 million.
In stark contrast, the fledgling ETH cohort mustered only $157.1 million in net funds, and flows were choppy: two days of outflows (-$25.4 million and -$23.9 million) were offset by a $104.1 million surge on 25 April. Bitwise’s ETHA ($64.1 m) and Fidelity’s FETH ($68.6 m) led the charge, while Grayscale’s legacy ETHE trust bled $32 m.
The upshot: Bitcoin demand is running roughly twenty times heavier than Ether in the ETF arena, underscoring a pronounced investor preference for the larger crypto asset last week.
Spotlight 🔦
Hyperliquid, a high-performance decentralized exchange, just took a major step toward trustless infrastructure by expanding its validator set from 16 to 21 nodes and making them fully permissionless. Now, anyone can spin up a validator node – if they stake 10,000 HYPE tokens (locked for one year) – to compete for one of the 21 active slots. This opens the door for a much broader community of validators to secure the network, rather than a limited, hand-picked set.
Why it matters: By decentralizing its validators, Hyperliquid boosts censorship resistance and user confidence. A permissionless validator set means no single authority controls who validates transactions, reducing the risk of collusion or censorship. The hefty self-stake requirement ensures only serious, long-term participants run nodes, which should improve network reliability for traders. The community has widely praised this update as it strengthens Hyperliquid’s credibility as a truly decentralized trading platform, one poised to challenge more centralized exchanges.
Rapid Reflexivity: Quick Market Takes ⚡
Fuel Network announces $1M buyback: Fuel Network launched a $1 million buyback program for its $FUEL token, deploying roughly $250K per week over four weeks to repurchase tokens from the market.
Cantor + SoftBank + Tether near $3B crypto venture: Financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald is teaming up with SoftBank, Tether, and Bitfinex to create a ~$3 billion Bitcoin investment vehicle called 21 Capital. The publicly listed venture will be backed by a massive reserve (reportedly around 42,000 BTC), making it one of the largest crypto treasuries once launched.
SolStrategies secures $500M facility to expand SOL holdings: Canada-based SOL Strategies obtained a convertible note facility of up to $500 million to buy and stake more Solana. This huge capital infusion could vault the firm into the top ranks of SOL holders as it doubles down on Solana’s staking yields.
Trump team formalizes $TRUMP token dinner event: Donald Trump’s team confirmed an exclusive gala dinner for top $TRUMP token holders. Attendees must verify their holdings via a wallet connection to secure an invite to the black-tie event at Trump’s golf club – news that sent the memecoin’s price jumping over 70% this week.
Nvidia abruptly ends Arbitrum partnership: Nvidia has unexpectedly terminated a planned partnership with Arbitrum’s developers, requesting the removal of its brand from a crypto-related program. Arbitrum was set to be Nvidia’s exclusive blockchain partner in an AI accelerator initiative, but the deal was scrapped last-minute as Nvidia continues to keep crypto at arm’s length.
AT&T partners with Helium for wireless expansion: Telecom giant AT&T is collaborating with Helium Network to expand wireless coverage via Helium’s decentralized hotspots. The partnership lets AT&T mobile customers automatically offload to Helium’s community-run Wi-Fi nodes, boosting coverage while validating Helium’s Web3 telecom model.
Tether buys 10% of Juventus football club: Stablecoin issuer Tether has raised its stake in the Italian soccer club Juventus to over 10%, becoming a significant shareholder. Tether now holds 6.18% of voting rights in the famed club and casts the investment as a long-term bet on Juventus’ growth potential.
InfraredFinance launches points system: DeFi protocol Infrared Finance (built on Berachain) introduced an Infrared Points rewards program to incentivize its community. Users earn points by staking and providing liquidity in the protocol’s vaults – a scheme designed to reward early participants ahead of a potential token launch later this year.
LayerZero introduces vApps: LayerZero Labs unveiled vApps (Verifiable Applications), a new Rust-based framework for building blockchain apps with Web3-level security and transparency. vApps run on a high-performance zkVM, offering developers near-web2 speed and scalability alongside trustless verifiability – an approach to bring Internet-scale throughput to decentralized applications.
JupiterExchange unveils AlphaScan: Solana’s Jupiter Exchange launched AlphaScan, an advanced tool on its Jupiter Pro platform for tracking new token launches. AlphaScan aggregates data from multiple launchpads and DEX liquidity pools, allowing traders to discover and trade emerging tokens with better insight and execution.
Orca starts ORCA token buybacks: Solana DEX Orca has begun programmatic buybacks of its native ORCA token. Going forward, 20% of fees from Orca’s Whirlpools (concentrated liquidity pools) will be used to buy back ORCA on the open market, reducing supply and rewarding long-term token holders ahead of upcoming staking features.
Last week saw an impressive bounce across the board for risk assets, with the top 4 biggest gainers all increasing by more than 70%. Notably, 3 of the top 4 gainers were meme coins.
The biggest losers were modest, with the largest loss coming in at just under 7%, reaffirming the positive market sentiment of the week.
Disclaimer: This research report is exactly that — a research report. It is not intended to serve as financial advice, nor should you blindly assume that any of the information is accurate without confirming through your own research. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other digital assets are incredibly risky, and nothing in this report should be considered an endorsement to buy or sell any asset. Never invest more than you are willing to lose, and understand the risk that you are taking. Do your own research. All information in this report is for educational purposes only and should not be the basis for any investment decisions that you make.