Bitcoin’s gradual price increases led the asset to a multi-month peak of over $98,000 yesterday, but it was stopped before even having the chance to challenge the $100,000 mark.

Most altcoins have followed suit today with minor losses, led by 3% declines from AVAX and PEPE.

BTC Stopped at $98K

It was the beginning of the previous trading week when the primary cryptocurrency skyrocketed from $84,000 to over $90,000 within a matter of 36 hours or so. The bulls kept pressing the asset up and this culminated with a surge to a two-month high of $96,000 on April 25.

BTC finally faced some resistance there and was not allowed to go further. In the following week or so, consolidation reigned, and the cryptocurrency remained sluggish within a tight range between $93,000 and $95,000. The lower boundary was tested on a couple of occasions but held strong.

The subsequent bounce-off on Thursday resulted in a price breakout from the upper boundary. The surge drove the cryptocurrency to a new multi-month high of $98,000.

The bears stepped up once again, and BTC couldn’t continue toward a six-digit territory. Just the opposite, it has lost almost two grand since then and now sits inches above $96,000.

Its market capitalization is well above $1.910 trillion on CG, and its dominance over the alts tapped a new four-year high of almost 62% on the same data aggregator. On others, it has risen to 64%, which could actually signal good news for alts soon.

Alts Fall Back

Most altcoins have mimicked BTC’s performance over the past day, with minor losses evident from the likes of ETH, XRP, DOGE, SOL, ADA, SUI, LINK, and XLM. AVAX and PEPE have dropped the most – by around 3% each.

In contrast, TRUMP, KAS, and TAO have jumped by somewhere between 3% and 4%. VIRTUAL has taken the main stage once again, gaining over 6% and trading above $1.7.

The total crypto market cap has shed around $30 billion since yesterday’s peak, but it’s still above $3.1 trillion on CG.

TL;DR

• The market uncertainty and cautious investor behavior, which were evident in Q1 and early April, seem to be behind us, as whales have returned in full force for several big cryptocurrencies.
• In April alone, these large market participants went on an accumulation spree not only for BTC and XRP, but ADA as well.

Data shared by the popular analyst Ali Martinez indicates that whales had accumulated over 410,000,000 ADA in April alone. In terms of USD value, the stash is worth close to $300 million at today’s prices.

Whales accumulated over 410 million #Cardano $ADA in April! pic.twitter.com/8Qa6xCaWtb

— Ali (@ali_charts) May 2, 2025

This was in stark contrast to their behavior in late February and mid-March, when reports emerged left and right about big sell-offs.

The overall market sentiment was a lot less favorable at the time as the trade war initiated by US President Trump struck all financial fields, and crypto was no exception.

Now, though, while the tariff shock seems to be over, investors are gradually returning to the cryptocurrency space with large purchases. As reported earlier this week, whales accumulated $4 billion worth of BTC within just two weeks.

In April, they went on an XRP buying spree as well, purchasing over 900,000,000 tokens. Although the number for ADA is smaller in both absolute terms and USD perspective, it still shows a massive behavior change.

ADA’s price tumbled to a multi-month low of $0.5 in early April. It has recovered about 40% since then and now sits at $0.7. However, similar large purchases from whales are likely to have a positive long-term effect on its price if they continue to accumulate instead of selling.

Altcoin investors who bought XRP 12 months ago are much better off today with their Ripple bags. The asset traded 330% higher on the year to start off May, and here’s why it could go even higher.

XRP Buyers in The Money

Even crypto traders who bought XRP on New Year’s Eve just before the height of the crypto bull run in January were up around 5% to start the month.

But, Ripple’s flagship payments coin didn’t fare as well as Bitcoin during the recovery rally in April. As May got rolling, XRP was up 4% on the one-month view, and BTC was up 13.5%.

Still, XRP didn’t do as badly as Ethereum in April, its other biggest competitor, with ETH down some 3% for the month’s trading. Here are four fresh signals for May that Ripple prices could be about spring.

1. XRP Bullish Inverse Bear and Shoulders Pattern

$XRP looks to be breaking out of an inverse head and shoulders pattern, with a potential upside target between $2.70 and $2.90. pic.twitter.com/TXjQ6zhnND

— Ali (@ali_charts) April 28, 2025

Ripple has a strong bullish chart pattern that showed up on its price graph in April. That could mean that buyers could get a quick boost to their currency exchange rate overnight.

Popular crypto X chart technical analyst Ali Martinez wrote in a post on Apr. 28 that XRP’s price “looks to be breaking out of an inverse head and shoulders pattern.”

Ali Charts, as he goes by on X, identified a possible upside target range for Ripple prices between $2.70 and $2.90. That could represent an increase of over 30% compared to the start of May.

While that may seem staggering by stock market standards, this sort of performance is not unusual for many altcoins like XRP.

2. Eric Trump Slams SWIFT, Banks ‘Could Be Extinct’

⚠️ YOU’RE FRUSTRATED WITH XRP.

We get it.

Private ledgers. Silence. Slow price action.

It feels like being left behind.

But listen to what Eric Trump just said:

“Swift is an absolute disaster… every Friday I wonder if a wire will make it before the 4pm cutoff.”

… pic.twitter.com/MtWeBCCVnz

— All Things XRP (@XRP_investing) April 30, 2025

The crypto-friendly Republican establishment just gave the Ripple community another shot in the arm with the recent comments of President Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump.

Speaking with CNBC’s Dan Murphy at an interview in the UAE, the younger Trump lambasted the traditional finance system.

He tore into the global SWIFT payments system and said realistically, banks “could be extinct” within a matter of years because of cryptos like Bitcoin and XRP.

“SWIFT is an absolute disaster. There’s not a week that goes by that I’m not either trying to send out a wire on a Friday afternoon or receive a wire on a Friday afternoon, and you’re worried if you’re going to hit that 4 o’clock cutoff time, where you might not see whatever funds your supposed to be receiving in the ordinary course of business for another 72 hours.”

SWIFT is potentially Ripple’s greatest competitor in terms of market share for its XRP tokens. If Ripple manages to capture just a fraction of the older system’s trillion-dollar volume, exchange markets would likely reward its payments currency.

3. XRP Futures ETFs Approval, Spot Next?

Would love to hear directly from Atkins, but all good chance of happening. Here’s our latest odds of approval for all the dif spot ETFs via @JSeyff https://t.co/nLhYJJmO9U pic.twitter.com/4AcJVwhics

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) April 30, 2025

In the last week of April, Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, posted an update on the Bloomberg Intelligence team’s odds that the SEC will approve various crypto ETF applications this year. He said there’s a “good chance” of all the applications happening in 2025.

XRP’s odds of approval in Bloomberg’s view went up to 85% in the latest SEC ETF approval forecast. That growing momentum toward trading in regulated Wall Street funds is bullish for XRP prices.

When Bitcoin went live on a host of ETFs in Jan. 2024, its price went on a spectacular multi-month rally to a new historic record high. So institutional adoption at this scale is particularly interesting to capital markets.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is aiming for Jun. 17 to take next steps. So markets will be watching closely for potential XRP news developments around that time.

It could be that a new direction or different timeline for approving a bevy of XRP ETF products may shed new information on current market valuations.

Meanwhile, two issuers received SEC approval to launch futures XRP ETFs in April. That could be a test of Wall Street demand for the new XRP ETFs when they get the green light.

4. XRP Moving Averages ‘Strong Buy’ to Start May

It’s not just chart technical signals, favorable political winds, and regulatory clearance supporting a bullish outlook on Ripple in May. There’s also the market price chart technical signals.

According to TradingView data, XRP is a Strong Buy over the one-month time scale on the basis of all its moving averages. Exponential and simple moving averages for XRP over the 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, and 200 day periods all recommended a “Buy” going into the weekend.

Meanwhile, here’s how much $1,000 invested in XRP in 2018 would be worth today.