Alpha Bites market report: Crypto's big week is coming

Alpha Bites is MetaMask's new regular market report. Context, data, signal: not financial advice.

The Number: $8,000

$8,000: How far Bitcoin's price (~$79K) is sitting above a key level where this month's biggest batch of BTC options contracts expires on April 24 (~$71K). With the gap this wide so close to expiry, Friday could get volatile with price swings back and forth. Traders already in position tend to be the ones who catch it. MetaMask Perps and swaps offer tools to take either side from one wallet.

Quick Bites

Ethereum whales aren't selling the weekend. Earlier this week, one trader placed a $90.9M bet that ETH goes up—and borrowed heavily to make it 20x bigger than their own cash on the line. That's the kind of position other traders notice, sized like someone  actually believes the move is coming. Pair that with the big Bitcoin ETFs pulling in $1.29B over three trading days last week, and it seems the deepest-pocketed money is buying in right before next week's wall of market-moving events (see below). 

ETH is live on MetaMask Perps and swappable in-wallet.

Intel's report Thursday after close. INTC drops first quarter earnings when the market closes on April 23. The stock is up 74% year to date on AI hype and Tesla/Google hyperscaler wins, which makes the earnings print a possible referendum on whether the AI infrastructure trade has legs or is running out of runway. INTCon is available as an RWA on MetaMask.

The Setup

What to watch: April 23–26

A quiet-looking weekend on paper with a lot of underlying setup for the week ahead.

Thursday, April 23

• Intel (INTC) Q1 earnings after close 

Friday, April 24

• BTC & ETH monthly options expiry: 08:00 UTC settle. (see above)

• Big chunk of $MON tokens moving to Labs treasury. 

Saturday, April 25

• Champions League semi-final positioning (first leg): PSG vs. Bayern (April 28) and Atlético vs. Arsenal (April 29) draws are set. Polymarket's UCL markets already have Bayern leading overall winner odds at 35.5%, Arsenal at 26.5%, PSG at 24.5%, Atlético at 11.7%. The weekend is the window where traders front-run semi-final pricing before volume arrives next week. 

Sunday, April 26

• Bitcoin 2026 pre-game. Vegas attendees start arriving. The usual run-up trade into Bitcoin Conference has historically been worth watching.

The Big Bite

The most consequential week in crypto starts Monday

Next week we get a Bitcoin jamboree in Las Vegas, the Fed's most closely watched rate decision of the quarter, and a Big Tech earnings supercycle, all colliding in a 72-hour window. It’s an unusual confluence of potential earthquakes lining up in a very short period of time that demands attention in advance.

Bitcoin 2026, Las Vegas (April 27–29). For the first time in the conference's history, a sitting SEC Chair (Paul Atkins) is scheduled to speak. So is the Vice President of the United States (JD Vance). The CFTC Chairman (Mike Selig) will be there. A sitting US Senator (Cynthia Lummis) is on the bill. Add Saylor, Mallers, Ardoino, Back, Tenev, and 40,000 attendees, and this is less a conference than a policy event that happens to sell Bitcoin merch. What gets said on stage tends to become industry narrative for the next quarter. Watch for specific asks from Lummis on a strategic Bitcoin reserve, tone from Atkins on ETF expansion, and anything Vance says about stablecoins or mining. 

FOMC (April 28–29). The rate decision lands Wednesday, as the conference is still in full swing. Kevin Warsh's confirmation hearing on Tuesday reset expectations for what a pro-crypto Fed chair might look like in 2027, and this week's meeting will be read through that new lens. 

Big Tech earnings (starting Monday). Microsoft (MSFTon), Meta ( METAon), Apple (APPLon), and Alphabet (GOOGLon) all report, with Amazon (AMZNon) likely joining the same window. All are live as tokenized RWAs on MetaMask. Spending on AI infrastructure is the narrative through-line. These four companies collectively account for a huge share of what "the AI trade" actually is.

Three catalysts. Three days. Moves made this weekend determine positioning for when it all hits.