When Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple had the idea to make the documentary film Vitalik: An Ethereum Story, they were actually filming another documentary, and over the course of their filmmaking journey, they ended up capturing both a deeper, human look at the world of crypto and an end product that serves as a use case for the future of crypto filmmaking.

When crafting a documentary, filmmakers will typically start with a vision of what they’d like to explore, a vision often saddled with a set of assumptions, only to shatter that vision once filming begins, creating an entirely new direction for the project.

It’s a creative evolution that filmmakers Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple also experienced while making the documentary feature This Is Not Financial Advice, during which they realized they had an entirely different film on their hands.

“While we were making that film, we wanted to interview Vitalik Buterin,” Ingrasci said to me during a recent interview. “We got connected to him, but as soon as we met him, we were really inspired by his unique form of tech optimism and how he broke stereotypes we’d had of the crypto space. He was a billionaire but very humble, funny, quirky and truly committed to his values of decentralization. That was very inspiring for us — so much so, we thought we should make a piece about Vitalik or about the Ethereum community at large.”

Temple and Ingrasci (left to right) while filming their PBS feature “Five Years North.” Source: Optimist

But Ingrasci and Temple weren’t crypto-native filmmakers — rather, they were individuals interested in technology and communities using technology in new ways, and Vitalik and Ethereum just happened to check both of those boxes.

The human touch in tech

Ingrasci and Temple then went out and launched a non-fungible token (NFT) crowdfunding campaign, raising almost $2 million in 50 hours, allowing them to get started quickly in the summer of 2021 during the height of the NFT boom.

“It allowed us to own the film without being beholden to any stakeholder, platform or middleman who would otherwise be directing the content of the film,” Temple said. “It was an amazing opportunity to spend over two years following Vitalik — a global nomad — all around the world.”

Temple and Ingrasci followed Buterin to Ukraine, Montenegro, Toronto and Colombia, trying to understand the man behind the technology. They even spent time with Buterin’s father and his family members, diving into the history of his family emigrating from Russia to Canada.

“We wanted to understand how Vitalik’s upbringing had affected his values,” Temple said. “We spent time talking with folks in the Ethereum community, with Vitalik’s friends and others, trying to paint this deeper picture and understand how the creators of crypto technologies affect the end product. How are they coding their values, blindspots and interests into the end result?”

‘Vitalik: An Ethereum Story’ premiered globally on April 15. Source: Optimist

From the beginning, Temple and Ingrasci’s main goal was to create a piece that would be accessible to a mainstream audience, one that could help translate some of the values and interesting things they were seeing in the Ethereum community in a way that a non-crypto native person could understand.

But they didn’t really know what that meant or what it would lead to initially since they were following different stories and different people within the Ethereum ecosystem. As they were editing the documentary together, they started testing it with people who knew nothing about crypto, who, as expected, were very confused.

“It’s so difficult to create a documentary that’s accessible and entertaining for people who know nothing about the crypto space, but we saw very clearly in the feedback from these early screenings that when people could connect to someone — especially Vitalik, who is so likeable and inspiring — it creates an entry point to then get into these more abstract concepts,” Ingrasci said.

“We did not set out to make the film only about Vitalik, and I don’t think the film is only about Vitalik,” Ingrasci told Cointelegraph.

“Vitalik is our human hook, our human story about someone who is going to surprise you, break your stereotypes about crypto, and leave you a little more excited than you thought you would be after watching this film.”

According to Ingrasci, Buterin’s favorite scenes in the film were when he was drinking tea or making breakfast — being his normal, quirky, funny self.

“That’s what makes this film entertaining, watchable and human,” Ingrasci said. “When someone is willing to be natural on camera with us as filmmakers, it creates a much more human story rather than this very intellectual version of Vitalik that we were already very aware of.”

Related: Institutions break up with Ethereum but keep ETH on the hook

Developing a crypto use case for film

During the filming of Vitalik, Buterin’s father talked to the filmmakers about how, growing up, Buterin’s favorite toy was the computer, and his favorite thing was to play with Excel. 

“When he was seven years old, he actually built a 100-page manifesto that was an imaginary world for bunnies,” Temple said. “It had their financial systems, energy systems and was full of graphs and tables — an amazing creation for a seven-year-old’s mind. I think to so many of the people we shared this with, it helps people connect to the world of Ethereum as a new world being built. If you can imagine Vitalik as a seven-year-old building this whole new imaginary world, that’s what he’s trying to build again with Ethereum.”

It’s all part of Buterin’s hope for Ethereum creating real utility in the world, something Ingrasci felt was epitomized when Buterin visited Ukraine.

“When he went to Ukraine, he was talking to the vice prime minister, Fedorov, and it quickly became apparent that the banking system at the beginning of the war was in shambles,” Ingrasci said. “Without crypto, thousands of lives in the military would have been lost because crypto was able to get money very quickly to the front lines and was able to mobilize across borders, raising over $130 million for Ukraine to resist this invasion. When Vitalik was there visiting Kyiv during the war, he got to see this thing he helped create being used in this incredibly important way, and that’s where that world-building came into reality. It was an emotional moment to witness just how powerful it was.”

In many ways it’s because Buterin is simply a child at play, tapping into his inner youthful creativity, only now with an adult mind and body and the relationships and resources to execute on his ideas.

“Vitalik has said he’s a builder and a thinker first and foremost,” Temple said. “An interesting tension for him during filming was how people looked to him to be something more, to be this leader and representative of the entire crypto movement. Throughout the film, he wrestles with how much to use his voice, how much to become a leader and how much to speak out against things he doesn’t always agree with. He eventually does decide to speak out against speculation and say that he doesn’t think Ethereum was designed to trade million-dollar monkeys and that there’s a lot more we can do to fix systems and help people.”

It’s a humanizing element of a pedestaled tech founder, epitomizing how at times we all struggle with speaking up on our values — especially when those values are different or run counter to the dynamics of our own social circles and society at large.

And that’s the power of Vitalik. The film is not just about crypto; it’s about the human stories that can resonate beyond the immediate environment the film is in — crypto just happens to be the backdrop.

Quite a bold story to tell by a couple of “non-native” crypto filmmakers.

“We’ve actually used crypto for a lot of elements in the distribution process for this film, which is exciting because the documentary space is broken,” Ingrasci said. “For an independent documentary to happen, it’s just so difficult these days. A lot of streamers have a lot of control over the film you ultimately make, but because we were able to crypto-crowdfund in the beginning on Mirror, we were able to have creative control over the film.”

Related: Dark Knight & Superman writer launches AI-powered crypto film universe

Ingrasci and Temple executed a movie trailer drop through Zora and an early onchain release of the film this past September on Bonfire, both powered by Web3, which helped raise the funds the duo is currently using to market the documentary to mainstream audiences.

“A lot of independent filmmakers have zero marketing budget; there’s very little money in documentaries. But instead [because of our crypto-crowdfunding], we’re able to really make sure the trailer, the message and the film gets out there.”

In this way, Ingrasci and Temple have created a sub-narrative around the making of a film using crypto-native tools, providing a real-world use case for other filmmakers on how they, too, might find success by utilizing blockchain platforms for the creation of their own film projects.

“I think there’s so much potential for these tools to have a big impact on filmmakers, though we’re still at the beginning,” said Ingrasci. “It’s still difficult to understand, and the complexities are not abstracted away enough. The short initial onchain release of the film — while a testament — was very difficult for people who were not in crypto to access it.”

But ultimately, the decentralized theatrical release of the film occurred in 24 countries and 30 cities all around the world, all on the same night.

“At the premiere in New York where we were, somebody came up to me and was, like, ‘I feel like I can share this with someone, and they’ll finally understand what I do for a living and why I do it,’” Temple said. “Those kinds of reactions — the ‘I feel seen’ and ‘I feel understood as a technologist’ — as a filmmaker, hearing those reactions from people who are trying to build new systems is the dream.”

Ingrasci, producer Jenna Kelly, co-producer Linda Xie, producer Carrie Weprin, and Temple at the premiere in New York. Source: Optimist

For Ingrasci and Temple, the dream continues to evolve, with their film now available all around the world on mainstream platforms such as Apple and Prime Video.

“If the goal is to be able to make a film you can send to your mom — while she might not understand what Ethereum is, she’ll understand why you’re interested in this thing — so I think we did that,” Ingrasci said.

“Vitalik believes technology can be used to make our lives better, especially today when there’s a lot of polarization and cynicism surrounding blockchain tech and questions around if it’s worth it. If we use these technologies in good ways and invest the energy into finding real use cases for them, it can make our lives better, and Vitalik showed us these are questions worth asking.”

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The planning commission of Vilonia, Arkansas, unanimously rejected a proposal to establish a cryptocurrency mining facility within the city limits, following strong opposition from residents.

According to local reports, the decision came after weeks of community pushback, where citizens voiced concerns over potential noise pollution, increased energy consumption and the overall environmental impact associated with crypto-mining operations.

During public meetings, Vilonia residents expressed concern that the mining operation could disrupt the town’s quiet atmosphere and strain local infrastructure.

Many pointed to examples from other regions where similar facilities led to rising electricity costs and constant noise from mining rigs.

“I just want to ask, like, did we make a mistake moving here? We’re not asking these people to come here. I grew up here. I graduated from Vilonia, and we [are] Arkansas, the natural state, not Arkansas, the Bitcoin state,” one community member told THV11.

Vilonia community members oppose a new crypto mine in their town. Source: YouTube

Related: Crypto startups no longer welcome in Nvidia’s accelerator program

Vilonia has a history of rejecting crypto mining

Vilonia has confronted the prospect of crypto mining before. In previous years, residents expressed disinterest in hosting miners, citing long-term sustainability concerns and minimal local economic benefits.

In 2023, the city’s planning commission denied Vilo AR permission to build a crypto mine in town and revoked its permit permanently.

The same year, Vilonia residents voiced strong opposition to a crypto-mining facility proposed by Green Digital near residential areas, citing concerns over constant loud noise from powerful mining computers and potential ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

In 2024, the Arkansas State House passed two bills that restrict cryptocurrency mining within the state.

Related: Bitdeer turns to self-mining Bitcoin, US operations amid tariff tumult — Report

In January, Arkansas lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban crypto mining operations within 30 miles of any US military facility in the state.

Senate Bill (SB 60) was introduced by Senator Ricky Hill and House Speaker Brian Evans, aiming to amend the Arkansas Data Centers Act of 2023 to keep crypto mining facilities away from military installations. 

However, the Arkansas Senate’s City, County and Local Affairs Committee eventually rejected the bill.

The opposition to crypto mining centers in Arkansas follows a broader trend across various US municipalities where crypto-mining initiatives have faced increasing scrutiny.

In October 2024, a group of residents in Granbury, Texas, filed a lawsuit against Marathon Digital, alleging that its mining facility generated too much noise.

The lawsuit claimed that residents were experiencing physical symptoms from the noise, including fatigue, headaches, nausea, hearing loss, memory issues and even psychological problems.

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More than 19,800 CloneX digital avatars developed by non-fungible token firm RTFKT Studios have reappeared after Cloudflare blacked out the NFTs for apparently violating its terms of service.

“This content has been restricted. Using Cloudflare’s basic service in this manner is a violation of the Terms of Service. Please visit cfl.re/tos to learn more,” the message read on April 24.

RTFKT’s head of tech, Samuel Cardillo, has refuted claims that it missed a payment, attributing the issue to changes happening with RTFKT’s “current Cloudflare setup.”

NFT content creator Wale Swoosh earlier speculated that RTFKT may have subscribed to an inadequate Cloudflare plan for high-traffic image serving. Cloudflare offers a range of web infrastructure services.

Source: Wale Swoosh

Most of the CloneX NFTs have started to reappear, according to Cardillo, who added that Cloudflare has fixed the issue.

However, the incident sparked considerable outrage from some CloneX holders, including one NFT holder who spent $1.25 million on a CloneX NFT.

Source: mOpO680

The issue prompted Cardillo to find a more decentralized solution to host the NFTs.

“I am working closely with ArDrive to decentralize both CloneX and Animus to ensure that post-30 April, no downtime of your favorite art ever happen again.”

In a separate post, Cardillo said CloneX would specifically move to the decentralized data storage platform Arweave.

Cardillo is RTFKT’s last man standing since the firm shuttered in January

RTFKT — which pioneered virtual sneakers and was bought out by Nike in December 2021 — has largely been a one-man show since the shoe maker shuttered its operations in January.“Keep in mind that I am the last man standing and therefore I am doing it all myself,” Cardillo said in response to a flood of complaints shortly after the incident occurred.

RTFKT confirmed its closure with an ambiguous letter, claiming it “isn’t ending” and would become what it has always meant to be — an “artifact of cultural revolution.”

No substantial developments at RTFKT have come about since the December announcement.

Related: Polygon NFTs overtake Ethereum collectibles in 7-day sales

Several NFT marketplaces have also shuttered in recent months.

DraftKings, GameStop and crypto exchange Bybit all closed their NFT marketplaces, with Bybit citing falling NFT trading volumes in its April 8 announcement.

X2Y2 also recently announced that its NFT marketplace would shut down on April 30 as the firm looks to pivot into artificial intelligence.

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to drop its unregistered securities lawsuit against blockchain firm Dragonchain in the agency’s latest crypto-related backdown. 

In a joint stipulation filed with Dragonchain on April 24 in a Seattle federal court, the SEC said it “believes the dismissal of this case is appropriate,” citing the work of the agency’s Crypto Task Force in helping “develop the regulatory framework for crypto assets.”

“The Commission and the Defendants stipulate that this Litigation be dismissed with prejudice […] and without costs or fees to either party,” the filing reads.

The SEC sued Dragonchain, Inc.; its backer, the Dragonchain Foundation; The Dragon Company; and Dragonchain’s founder, Joseph Roets, in August 2024, claiming they raised $16.5 million through a crypto token that was an unregistered securities offering.

According to the SEC, the Dragonchain (DRGN) tokens raised $14 million in an August 2017 presale and an initial coin offering (ICO) that ran in October and November of that year. At the time, it said the company needed to register as the tokens were investment contracts under securities laws. 

The SEC said a further $2.5 million worth of DRGN was sold between 2019 and 2022, which it alleged was used to cover business expenses and develop the firm’s tech. 

The suit was stayed in October after Dragonchain made a settlement offer to the SEC, which was extended in January after the agency said the case should remain paused due to US President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order earlier that month calling for the country’s “leadership in digital assets.”

Meanwhile, the DRGN token has jumped 95% over the past day to over 8.5 cents on news of the SEC’s planned dismissal, but it’s still down around 98.5% from its $5.46 peak in January 2018, according to CoinGecko.

Dragonchain’s token jumped after the SEC filed to dismiss its lawsuit. Source: CoinGeckoSEC backs off crypto under Trump

It’s the latest case involving crypto that the SEC has abandoned under the Trump administration.

The SEC spun up a Crypto Task Force in January, the day after Trump re-entered the White House, to lead the regulator’s engagement with the crypto industry.

Related: SEC task force met with Trump-supporting firms to discuss crypto regulation 

An agency memo shows its task force met with Dragonchain representatives on March 24 to discuss how the SEC should approach handling crypto.

The SEC has also dismissed some of its most high-profile lawsuits against crypto firms, including its actions against Coinbase, Ripple and Kraken.

It’s also dropped investigations into other crypto firms, including OpenSea, Crypto.com and Immutable, with no further action planned.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered 

Ethereum core developers are considering a four times increase in the layer 1 gas limit as one of the key features for the next hard fork after Pectra, known as Fusaka.

The devs are proposing to test a raise in Ethereum’s gas limit to 150 million by the Fusaka hard fork, according to Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 9678, introduced on April 23 by Sophia Gold, a developer on the protocol support team at the Ethereum Foundation. 

During the last All Core Devs Execution (ACDE) meeting, there were discussions to make the gas limit increase a “key feature” of Fusaka, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko said in an April 24 meeting summary. 

“To align on client defaults and keep this as a priority, we’ve drafted an EIP. It’s a bit unconventional, but not unprecedented (see EIP-7840). We plan to get it merged early next week and formally SFI it on the next ACDE,” Beiko said. 

“As we continue this work, we expect to identify changes that need to be made in-protocol to support a higher gas limit. This implies adding more EIPs to Fusaka, even though the fork scope is final.”

Source: Tim Beiko

The next Ethereum upgrade, Pectra, is scheduled to go live on the mainnet in May. Fusaka has been flagged as possibly going online in late 2025.

Gas limit increase a priority ahead of Fusaka

As part of the motivation for increasing the gas limit, the developers said there was great interest in scaling layer 1 execution and that it could likely be done without implementing any new features.

However, the move requires guidance from execution layer developers because “we expect to find bugs in clients at higher gas limits than currently used on mainnet,” which will “require time from client developers both to test and to fix any bugs that arise, therefore it makes sense to include as an EIP in a hard fork to commit to this.”

The developers behind the EIP say client developers will need time to test and fix any bugs that arise while increasing the gas limit. Source: GitHub

“While the gas limit is ultimately set by validators, we agreed that having an EIP to coordinate client defaults would help keep this a priority and ensure all clients update their defaults by the time Fusaka goes live,” Beiko said.

Related: Vitalik Buterin says the app layer needs ‘good social philosophy’ most

The average Ethereum gas limit was around 30 million after increasing in August 2021, according to data on Ycharts. 

Validators supported raising the network’s gas limit on Feb. 4, increasing the maximum amount of gas used for transactions in a single Ethereum block. It’s just under 36 million at the moment, Ycharts data shows. 

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Key takeaways:

Crypto market sentiment hit a two-month high with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index returning to “Greed” territory on April 23.

Despite Bitcoin’s price hold, the sentiment score is gradually declining, and analysts are expressing doubt over the rally’s sustainability.

The crypto market remains Bitcoin-heavy, with its dominance above 64%, strong ETF inflows and a low altcoin season score.

Bitcoin’s several-day surge above $90,000 pushed crypto market sentiment to its highest point in more than two months on April 23, but it’s gradually tapering off again as analysts air concerns about the sustainability of Bitcoin’s rally.

On April 23, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index clocked a score of 72 out of 100, putting it in the “Greed” zone as Bitcoin (BTC) returned above the $90,000 level. However, as of April 25, the score has fallen to 60 despite the relatively stable price.

Crypto sentiment at two-month high 

The last time the index hit this score was on Feb. 4, around the same time US President Donald Trump introduced tariffs and Bitcoin fell below $100,000. Bitcoin has since reclaimed the $90,000 price level for the first time since March 6. 

Bitcoin is trading at $93,130 at the time of publication. Source: CoinMarketCap

However, despite Bitcoin trading between $91,800 and $94,304 over the past two days, sentiment within the “Greed” territory has been gradually cooling off, with the index falling to April 24 and 60 on April 25.

The slight pullback follows warnings from several crypto analysts who remain cautious about the Bitcoin rally, including 10x Research’s head of research, Markus Thielen, who isn’t yet convinced of a rally.

“Given that our stablecoin minting indicator has yet to return to high-activity levels, we remain cautious about the sustainability of the current Bitcoin rally,” Thielen said on April 23.

Meanwhile, Bitfinex analysts said on April 24 that while Bitcoin’s relative strength against US equities “appears real,” it is yet to be confirmed as structural.

However, others are more bullish. MN Trading Capital founder Michaël van de Poppe said on April 24 that “buyers are likely going to step in, and then we’ll be continuing our path toward a new [all-time high].”

Related: Bitcoin ‘short squeeze’ or $87K dip next? BTC price predictions vary

CoinMarketCap’s altcoin season index indicates that the market is still heavily favoring Bitcoin over altcoins, with the altcoin season score sitting at a lowly 17 out of 100. It comes as Bitcoin Dominance is sitting at 64.39%, according to TradingView data.

Bitcoin sentiment has gained momentum since it touched the mid-$80,000 price range. On April 17, crypto analytics firm Santiment pointed out that the tone of Bitcoin-related social media posts has flipped to bullish.

Meanwhile, crypto analyst Trader T pointed out in an April 25 X post that US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs have, so far to April 24, seen their third-best week of inflows since launching in January 2024. Over the past four trading days, the spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen $2.6 billion in net inflows.

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This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Regulatory changes could be the catalyst to spark significant adoption of stablecoins and blockchain tech in 2025, according to investment banking giant Citigroup.

“2025 has the potential to be blockchain’s ‘ChatGPT’ moment for adoption in the financial and public sector, driven by regulatory change,” a team of Citigroup financial analysts said in an April 23 report. 

A combination of growing regulatory support and adoption by financial institutions has set the stage for the stablecoin market cap to fly as high as $3.7 trillion by 2030, or in a base case, $1.6 trillion.

“The main catalyst for their greater acceptance may be regulatory clarity in the US, which could enable greater integration of stablecoins specifically, and blockchain more widely, into the existing financial system,” Citi said in its report. 

“The tailwinds of regulatory support and the increased integration of digital assets into incumbent financial institutions are setting the scene for increased usage of stablecoins.”

On the heels of US President Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly administration assuming power earlier this year, lawmakers are weighing stablecoin legislation, such as the GENIUS Act, which seeks to regulate US stablecoins, ensuring their legal use for payments. 

A US regulatory framework for stablecoin would also support demand for dollar risk-free assets inside and outside the US, according to the report. 

“The stablecoin issuers will have to buy US Treasuries, or comparable low risk assets, against each stablecoin as a measure of having safe underlying collateral,” Citi said. 

“Stablecoin issuers could hold more US Treasuries by 2030 than any single jurisdiction today.” 

Stablecoin issuers could have significant holdings of US Treasuries by 2030. Source: Citigroup US will continue to dominate stablecoins 

In the future, Citi predicts the stablecoin supply will remain US dollar-denominated, with non-US countries promoting national currency or a central bank digital currency.

In April, the stablecoin market cap had crossed $230 billion, an increase of 54% since last year, with Tether (USDT) and USDC (USDC) dominating 90% of the market. 

“While the dollar’s dominance may evolve over time, with the euro or other currencies being promoted by national regulations, stablecoins may be viewed by many non-US policy makers as an instrument of dollar hegemony,” Citi said. 

“Geopolitics remain fluid. Should the world continue to drift into a multi-polar system it is likely that policymakers in China and Europe will be keen to promote central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) or stablecoins issued in their own currency.” 

Related: Russia finance ministry official floats country making own stablecoins: Report

However, there are still some challenges ahead for the market. The stablecoin market cap could settle around $500 billion if “adoption and integration challenges persist.” 

Depegging has also been flagged as a potential issue, with 1,900 instances in 2023, according to Citi, including the major USDC depeg following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

“A major depegging event would likely dampen crypto market liquidity, trigger automated liquidations, impair trading platforms’ ability to meet redemptions, and potentially have broader contagion effects for the financial system,” the firm said. 

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Billion-dollar asset manager ARK Invest has raised its “bull case” Bitcoin price target from $1.5 million to $2.4 million by the end of 2030, driven largely by institutional investors and Bitcoin’s increasing acceptance as “digital gold.”

ARK’s “bear” and “base” case scenarios for the price of Bitcoin (BTC) were also bumped up to $500,000 and $1.2 million, ARK research analyst David Puell said in an April 24 report.

The new bear and base targets were bumped up from ARK’s $300,000 and $710,000 Bitcoin price predictions on Feb. 11.

ARK’s price projections were modeled on Bitcoin’s total addressable market (TAM), penetration rate — the percentage of Bitcoin’s TAM that it could capture in certain cases — and Bitcoin’s supply schedule.

ARK’s bear, base and bull case price targets for Bitcoin by Dec. 31, 2030. Source: ARK Invest

“Institutional investment contributes the most to our bull case,” said Puell, who estimated that Bitcoin would achieve a 6.5% penetration rate into the $200 trillion financial market in a best-case scenario (that figure excludes gold).

Bitcoin’s acceptance as “digital gold” was also a major contributor to the lofty estimate, with Puell estimating that it could capture up to 60% of gold’s $18 trillion market cap (2024 figures) by the end of 2030 in a bull scenario.

Bitcoin becoming a “safe haven” in emerging markets was the third-largest contributor to ARK’s $2.4 million bull case prediction at 13.5%.

“This Bitcoin use case has the greatest potential for capital accrual,” Puell said, pointing to Bitcoin’s ability to protect wealth from inflation and devaluation in developing countries.Nation-state and corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies and Bitcoin financial services were also factored into ARK’s Bitcoin price projections.

Bitcoin use cases contributing to ARK’s Bitcoin price targets. Source: ARK InvestARK’s Bitcoin predictions are bold

A $2.4 million Bitcoin price tag would send Bitcoin’s market cap to $49.2 trillion, assuming that Bitcoin’s total supply will have reached 20.5 million by the end of 2030.

A $49.2 trillion valuation would be almost larger than the current gross domestic products of the US and China combined.

It would also put Bitcoin in a good position to overtake gold as the world’s largest asset, which currently boasts a market cap of $22.5 trillion.

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Even ARK’s bear and base targets of $500,000 and $1.2 million would mean Bitcoin needs to increase at a compounded annual growth rate of 32% and 53% by the end of 2030 — a return that isn’t achieved too often for assets that have already notched trillion-dollar valuations.

Since then, Bitcoin has recovered from a 2025 low of $75,160, soaring back up to the $94,000 range, while the Trump administration established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

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The Italian municipality of Fornelli in the Molise region of Italy will be dedicating a monument to pseudonymous Bitcoin (BTC) creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

In an April 23 Facebook post from the municipality, Fornelli said it plans to unveil the Satoshi artwork on May 1. Details surrounding the monument were unclear in the announcement, but the municipality said it had been designed by artist Mattia Pannoni and financed by the local government. 

“It is important, indeed fundamental, as an administration, to take into consideration all the new ideas that come from our young people,” said Fornelli Mayor Giovanni Tedeschi.

According to the local government, Fornelli has the “highest density of Bitcoin adoption in the world” among its roughly 1,800 residents. Other regions have attempted to use BTC or other cryptocurrencies to attract visitors, including the Bitcoin Beach area of El Salvador and the Swiss city of Zug, which accepts crypto payments for many local goods and services. 

Portraying a faceless individual through art

The identity of Satoshi, whether a single individual or a group of people, remains one of the biggest mysteries in the crypto space since the publication of the Bitcoin white paper in 2008. 

Related: Italy finance minister warns US stablecoins pose bigger threat than tariffs

Many artists, both crypto investors and otherwise, have released artwork attempting to represent the pseudonymous creator through statues and digital images. A common theme in these pieces is showing Satoshi without any clearly defined facial features, sometimes wearing a hoodie or working on a computer. 

According to the announcement, the monument will be unveiled in the Piazza Umberto I area of Fornelli on May 1.

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed a decision on whether to approve a proposed exchange-traded fund (ETF) holding Polkadot’s native token, regulatory filings show. 

According to an April 24 filing, the regulator has extended its deadline for a final ruling until June 11, nearly four months after the Nasdaq sought permission to list Grayscale Polkadot Trust on Feb. 24.

Grayscale’s ETF filing adds to a roster of roughly 70 proposed ETFs awaiting SEC approval, including funds holding altcoins, memecoins, and crypto-related financial derivatives, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.  

Asset managers are pitching ETFs for “[e]verything from XRP, Litecoin and Solana to Penguins, Doge and 2x Melania and everything in between,” Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas said in an April 21 post on the X platform. Asset manager 21Shares is also awaiting permission to list its own Polkadot ETF.

Polkadot is a layer-1 blockchain network launched in 2020. Its native token, DOT (DOT), has a market capitalization of approximately $6.6 billion as of April 24, according to CoinMarketCap.

Polkadot’s price over time. Source: CoinMarketCap

Related: Institutions break up with Ethereum but keep ETH on the hook

Altcoin ETF pipeline

Grayscale is among multiple asset managers seeking regulatory clearance to list altcoin ETFs in the US. The company is already behind several crypto funds, including spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETFs. 

The asset manager has also asked for permission to launch ETFs holding tokens such as Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), XRP (XRP), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Cardano (ADA).

Crypto ETFs scheduled for SEC review. Source: Eric Balchunas/Bloomberg

The pipeline of proposed fund listings comes as more than 80% of institutional investors say they plan to boost allocations to crypto in 2025, according to a March report by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon. 

However, analysts caution that demand for altcoin ETFs is likely to be much more limited than for funds holding core cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether. 

“Having your coin get ETF-ized is like being in a band and getting your songs added to all the music streaming services,” Balchunas said. 

“Doesn’t guarantee listens but it puts your music where the vast majority of the listeners are.”

Magazine: Altcoin season to hit in Q2? Mantra’s plan to win trust: Hodler’s Digest, April 13 – 19