Crypto Rallies As Visa & Mastercard Push Stablecoin Adoption

Bitcoin

BTC

PRICE (14D)

$150,497.00
(14%)

Ethereum

ETH

PRICE (14D)

$2,890.00
(17%)

Solana

SOL

PRICE (14D)

$237.00
(17%)

Prices in AUD and as of 10:30pm AEST on May 1, 2025

Bitcoin Reclaims Support Above Long-Term Momentum Indicators

Amid this latest rally, Bitcoin returned above a trio of long-term momentum indicators—those being the 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages (MAs)—for the first time since early February. Historically, during bull markets, Bitcoin spends a significant amount of time trading above these three key MAs.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy Keeps Buying As Competitor Emerges

Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, announced it purchased another 15,355 BTC—worth $2.22B ($1.42B USD)—between April 21 and 27. The company, co-founded by Michael Saylor, currently holds 553,555 BTC—or 2.64%. All indications suggest that Strategy will continue to accumulate over the coming weeks and months.

Meanwhile, last week saw the emergence of perhaps the most credible rival to Strategy to date, Twenty One Capital. The newly formed company is backed by Cantor Fitzgerald, a Wall Street financial services firm, stablecoin issuer Tether, and others. The venture will start with over 42,000 BTC under management, making it the third-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin.

Twenty One Capital is being led by co-founder and CEO Jack Mallers, a seasoned builder in the Bitcoin ecosystem who has meaningfully contributed to Bitcoin’s adoption by institutions, corporations, and governments worldwide.

“Our mission is simple: to become the most successful company in Bitcoin, the most valuable financial opportunity of our time. We’re not here to beat the market, we’re here to build a new one”
– Jack Mallers, CEO & Co-Founder of Twenty One Capital

Bitcoin ETFs: Strongest Week Since December

Increased demand for U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs has coincided with this latest market rally. Last week, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $4.85B ($3.1B USD) in net inflows, the most in a single week since December last year.

Further, earlier this week, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF recorded $1.52B ($971M USD) in net daily inflows, its second-largest daily total since launching in January 2024.

AI Agent Sector More Than Doubles In Three Weeks

The AI agent sector has been among the best-performing sectors amid this latest market rally. As per data platform cookie.fun, the combined market cap of all AI agents is approximately $14.9B ($9.53B USD), a gain of more than 120% since April 7. Among those leading the recovery are Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUALS) is among those to lead the recovery.

Read more: AI Agents Shaping Crypto’s Future

New Stablecoin Announcements From Mastercard & Visa

This week, Visa and Mastercard, the two largest payment card network processors, announced expansions into stablecoins.

Visa partnered with Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure provider acquired by Stripe, to launch a pilot program for stablecoin-linked Visa cards in six Latin American countries: Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Chile.

As for Mastercard, it unveiled an end-to-end stablecoin infrastructure to support transactions from wallets to merchant checkouts. Merchants now have the option to receive their payments in stablecoins such as Circle’s USDC, regardless of how a consumer chooses to pay.

Commenting on the release, Jorn Lambert, chief product officer at Mastercard, said the following: “We believe in the potential of stablecoins to streamline payments and commerce across the value chain. Unlocking this is core to how we navigate the rapidly changing world, giving people and businesses the freedom they want by providing the choices they deserve.”