Jerome Powell Re-Nominated as Federal Reserve Chair by Senate Committee

April 30th — Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid unveiled its "Outcome Tokens" fee structure, a key milestone ahead of its mainnet launch as it gears up to go head-to-head with top prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi. The core feature of the fee design: zero fees to open positions; fees only apply when closing or settling trades. Traders using the platform’s "quote alignment tokens" get extra perks: 20% lower taker fees and 50% higher maker rebates. The full fee schedule is now accessible to developers. Outcome Tokens rolled out under the HIP-4 upgrade proposal, letting users trade binary real-world event contracts in the same account as Hyperliquid’s existing perpetuals and spot positions. The timing is strategic: Polymarket just announced this week that "perpetual trading is coming soon," setting up direct competition between the two. For context, the prior upgrade — HIP-3 — launched permissionless perpetual contracts in October 2025; trading volume from those contracts

As of April 30, Bloomberg reports Bitcoin recently rebounded to a high of $79,477 before pulling back, now trading around $77,000. Option market data shows traders have heavy positioning around the $80,000 level—analysts dub this the “electric fence” effect: A dense cluster of short positions sits in the $80,000–$82,500 range, creating stiff resistance; meanwhile, the $76,000–$77,000 zone below is a concentration of long liquidation risk, trapping prices in a two-sided pressure state. Fundamentally, long-side support remains intact: Bitcoin spot ETFs saw net inflows of over $2 billion in April, with Strategy purchasing an additional 34,000 BTC that month, and Morgan Stanley’s ETF attracting $153 million in just two weeks post-launch. Binance’s USDC reserves have risen from their March low to $7.5 billion. But macro headwinds persist: Fed rate cut expectations are near zero, geopolitical tensions continue to weigh on risk appetite, and the 30-day cumulative funding rate remains

On April 29, Ripple announced an expanded long-term partnership with digital asset exchange Bullish, opening Bullish’s Bitcoin options market to Ripple Prime institutional clients. Per a joint announcement, this integration will let Ripple Prime users directly access Bullish’s regulated BTC options market. Bullish noted its platform currently ranks as the world’s second-largest Bitcoin options market by open interest, and already supports spot trading, perpetual contracts, and futures. Additionally, the parties revealed that OKX has entered a strategic partnership with Ripple to bring the stablecoin RLUSD (Ripple USD) to compliant markets. As one of the world’s largest non-bank prime brokers, Ripple Prime is projected to handle over $30 trillion in settlement volume by 2025, offering multi-asset prime brokerage, settlement, and financing services.

April 29 — Prediction market platform Polymarket is in talks with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to lift a four-year ban, aiming to reopen its Polygon-based mainnet for U.S. users — with settlements in USDC stablecoin. In 2022, Polymarket parent Blockratize paid a $1.4 million CFTC fine for operating an unregistered platform and was ordered to bar U.S. users. What makes this round of negotiations unusual? Only CFTC Chairman Michael Selig is currently in office out of the commission’s five seats — meaning he alone will decide the proposal’s fate. Over the past year, Selig has repeatedly backed prediction markets: In February, he threatened to sue any state interfering with CFTC oversight; in March, he released compliance guidelines and sought industry input; this month, he warned pushing prediction markets offshore could trigger an FTX-like collapse. But the “single-decision maker” dynamic is drawing scrutiny. Analysts caution that moving forward without f

Bitcoin dropped below $76,000 on April 29, per HTX market data, down 0.02% over the past 24 hours.

April 29 Crypto markets have extended their downturn over the past four hours. Per Coinglass data, total liquidations across the network hit $109 million in the period—$93.385 million tied to long positions and $15.137 million to short positions. Globally, 90,576 positions have been liquidated over the past 24 hours, totaling $278 million. The largest single liquidation was on Binance’s ETH/USDT pair, valued at $6.6561 million.