[News Brief] Apr 22, morning | Trump Announces Peace Agreement with Iran and Reopening of the Strait of Hormuz

Watcher.Guru reported that President Trump announced a peace agreement with Iran has been officially completed and that the Strait of Hormuz has reopened.

The Strait of Hormuz is a critical shipping route for Middle Eastern oil exports. Previously, concerns over passage through the strait had intensified amid geopolitical tensions, contributing to higher volatility in global oil prices and financial markets.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $316 million in net outflows last week, extending their streak of capital withdrawals to five consecutive weeks.

Odaily, citing SoSoValue data, reported that from June 8 to 12 U.S. Eastern Time, spot Bitcoin ETFs saw total net outflows of $316 million.

The largest net outflow came from BlackRock's IBIT. IBIT posted weekly net outflows of $355 million, while its cumulative net inflows stood at $62.11 billion.

Grayscale's GBTC recorded net outflows of $87.9141 million last week. GBTC's cumulative net outflows reached $26.85 billion.

Meanwhile, Fidelity's FBTC posted net inflows of $55.6961 million, making it the spot Bitcoin ETF with the largest inflows for the week.

The total net asset value of spot Bitcoin ETFs was $79.65 billion, and the ratio of ETF net assets to Bitcoin's total market capitalization stood at 6.26%. Cumulative net inflows were tallied at $53.62 billion.

According to Odaily, the Bitfinex Alpha report said Bitcoin defended its $59,200 low amid easing Middle East tensions and expectations of a U.S.-Iran ceasefire, then rebounded 3.54% this week to close at $65,655.

The report analyzed that this rise was driven more by the exhaustion of selling pressure than by fresh demand. Open interest in futures had fallen significantly from its May peak, while short-term holder selling and declining exchange balances suggested the market had entered a deleveraging phase.

However, ETF fund flows remain in net outflow territory, and corporate treasury buying has also slowed, the report noted. It added that many short-term holders are still sitting on unrealized losses of around 17% to 19%, leaving overhead supply pressure in place.

Bitfinex said Bitcoin is currently trapped between a realized price support zone near $54,000 on the downside and a short-term holder breakeven supply zone near $68,000 on the upside, describing the structure as one where "selling pressure has paused, but buying demand has yet to be confirmed."

On the macro environment, the report said U.S. inflation for May rose to 4.2% due to higher energy prices linked to Middle East conflict, while growth slowed to 1.6%, heightening stagflation concerns. However, it added that if energy supply shocks ease due to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, that could support risk assets.

The report also said institutional participation continues. BlackRock has filed for a Bitcoin yield-enhanced ETF, major Japanese banks are reviewing a joint issuance of a yen-denominated stablecoin, and Strategy purchased an additional 1,550 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 845,256 BTC.

Kraken has launched CFTC-regulated perpetual futures products for U.S. traders, Odaily reported.

The new products allow U.S. traders to access perpetual contracts within a regulated framework, aligning with the broader expansion of the legal crypto derivatives market in the United States.

According to Whale Alert, 3,986 BTC was transferred from PayPal to an anonymous wallet.

The transfer was worth about $262.61 million. Large on-chain movements can indicate changes in ownership or custody wallet transfers, so the market is closely watching for any short-term impact.

Panews reported on the 15th, citing Beacon Chain data, that about 2,884,100 ETH is waiting in Ethereum's validator entry queue for staking.

Assuming 256 validators are processed per epoch, the estimated wait time for new validators to officially join staking is about 50 days and 2 hours.

The withdrawal queue contains about 89,800 ETH, with an estimated exit wait time of about 1 day and 13 hours. After that, automatic fund withdrawals take an average of about 7.7 days.

Ethereum currently has about 888,000 active validators, with roughly 39.5 million ETH staked, representing about 32.45% of total supply. The annual staking yield was reported at around 2.74%.

The validator queue is used as an indicator of Ethereum staking demand and network participation.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies purchased an additional 76,881 ETH last week, Odaily reported.

According to the company filing, its current crypto holdings total 5,620,754 ETH and 204 BTC. It also holds an $88 million stake in Eighthco Holdings and a $180 million stake in Beast Industries.

Bitmine's staked ETH remained unchanged at 4,718,677 ETH. The company valued this at about $8.1 billion based on an ETH price of $1,718.

According to Odaily, on-chain tracker Lookonchain said a large wallet, geministar.eth (0x49C...F1f2), purchased 21,136 ETH from Binance.

The purchase was worth about $37.05 million. The transaction was recorded as a large-scale buy involving a transfer from an exchange to an external wallet.

According to Odaily, on-chain analyst Yu Jin said the controlling address of SIREN sold 680 million SIREN tokens across multiple addresses over the past two days.

The amount represented about 94% of the total supply. Following the sales, the SIREN price plunged 96%, from $1.3 to $0.05, and the proceeds were estimated at about 64.8 million USDT.

In terms of fund flow, about 200 million SIREN was moved to centralized exchanges including Binance wallets, Gate, and KuCoin. A significant portion of the remaining supply was bought by hundreds of on-chain addresses after the price fell below $0.1.

Yu Jin added that the controlling SIREN address currently holds about 39.1 million USDT on-chain.

It was reported that Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network are now available on GCash, the Philippines' largest fintech app.

According to @pete_rizzo_, GCash's 94 million users can now make payments using Bitcoin through the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network is a Layer 2 scaling solution that enables fast, low-value Bitcoin payments.

GCash is a leading e-wallet service in the Philippines, and this support is seen as an example of expanding Bitcoin's real-world payment use cases.