The Daily: Suspicious bitcoin transaction sparks Monero price spike, Standard Chartered sees BTC rally to $120,000 in Q2 and more

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

I hope you had a good weekend, folks! Analysts were sounding bullish this morning, with expectations for new bitcoin all-time highs just around the corner — though serious macro concerns still linger.

In today’s newsletter, onchain sleuth ZachXBT says the laundering of an apparent $330 million bitcoin theft is behind Monero’s price spike, Standard Chartered says now’s the time to buy BTC amid a potential second-quarter rally to $120,000, Strategy acquires another $1.4 billion worth of the foremost cryptocurrency and more.

Meanwhile, global crypto funds attract their third-largest weekly inflows of $3.4 billion as “investors seek alternative safe havens,” according to CoinShares.

Let’s get started.

Suspicious bitcoin transaction sparks Monero price spike

A suspicious transfer of around 3,520 BTC ($330 million) was made late on Sunday, according to onchain sleuth ZachXBT, who says the transaction may be the result of a theft.

• ZachXBT flagged the transaction moving funds from a potential victim’s wallet to an address starting with “bc1qc.”
• Shortly afterward, the alleged thief quickly laundered the BTC through more than six exchanges, converting the funds into Monero (XMR) to try and obfuscate the activity, ZachXBT said.
• The substantial XMR buying spree over such a short timeframe helped trigger a sharp 50% spike in the cryptocurrency’s price to around $347 due to thin liquidity on the platforms.
• XMR subsequently fell back to $263 but remains 15% up over the past 24 hours, according to The Block’s Monero price page.

Standard Chartered sees bitcoin rally to $120,000 in Q2

Standard Chartered Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick says the time to buy bitcoin is “now,” predicting a rally to $120,000 in Q2 while maintaining his $200,000 year-end target.

• Kendrick sees strong whale accumulation, U.S. investor rotation into bitcoin after President Trump’s tariff reprieve and safe-haven reallocation from gold into bitcoin ETFs as key bullish signals.
• He argues bitcoin is a better hedge than gold against financial system risks thanks to its decentralized nature and growing institutional support.
• Kendrick expects bitcoin’s gains to accelerate through the summer, boosted by potential pension and sovereign wealth fund buying, upcoming 13F Bitcoin ETF disclosures and stablecoin legislation.

‘Stay humble, stack sats’: Strategy can’t stop buying bitcoin

Strategy scooped up another 15,355 BTC for $1.42 billion over the past seven days, according to an 8-K filing with the SEC on Monday — taking its total bitcoin holdings to 553,555 BTC, worth around $52 billion.

• The company funded the latest bitcoin buys by selling $1.4 billion of its class A common stock, MSTR, and $37.5 million of its STRK preferred shares.
• Strategy’s growing stash now represents more than 2.6% of bitcoin’s total 21 million supply, implying around $14 billion in unrealized gains on paper.
• Strategy co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor again hinted at the likelihood of another bitcoin acquisition filing ahead of time, sharing its bitcoin purchase tracker chart on Sunday, stating, “Stay humble, stack sats.”

Ethereum researcher proposes 100-fold gas limit boost to help scale the base layer

Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist proposed EIP-9698 to boost the gas limit 100-fold over four years through a predictable growth schedule starting in June.

• If approved, the plan would raise Ethereum’s gas limit — a cap on the total computational effort included in a single block — from 36 million to 3.6 billion, potentially pushing Layer 1 throughput to 2,000 transactions per second.
• Feist argued gradual increases, aligned with expected advancements in hardware and protocol efficiency, would give developers time to optimize, despite concerns over node stress and longer block propagation times.
• The move could help Ethereum compete with faster Layer 1s by scaling its base layer directly instead of relying solely on Layer 2 rollups.

Coinbase and Ledger unveil new crypto yield products

Both Coinbase and Ledger are pushing new ways to generate crypto yields, targeting a growing demand for compliant and user-friendly passive income solutions.

• Coinbase Asset Management is launching the Coinbase Bitcoin Yield Fund on May 1 to offer 4% to 8% BTC-denominated annual returns to non-U.S. institutional investors through cash-and-carry arbitrage, which profits from price differences between bitcoin’s spot and derivatives markets.
• Meanwhile, a new Kiln integration within Ledger Live will let Ledger hardware wallet users earn 5% to 9.9% annually on USDC, USDT, USDS and DAI stablecoins directly from self-custody, aiming to simplify access to DeFi while maintaining security.

In the next 24 hours

• It’s quiet on the economic calendar front.
• EigenLayer will unlock 1.29 million EIGEN tokens worth $1.25 million — 0.49% of its circulating supply.

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