Bitcoin Recovers Above $70,000 to Close April as Gulf Ceasefire and US Legislation Shift Market Outlook
Bangkok | May 4, 2026
Bitcoin closed April 2026 above $70,000 after a volatile month that included a dip to $65,834 on April 3 before recovering strongly. The month was shaped by two convergent catalysts: a ceasefire agreement in the Gulf that reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, and a US legislative breakthrough on stablecoin regulation. On-chain data shows institutional accumulation at levels not seen since 2013, while retail participation remains subdued, a combination that analysts say sets up a potential short-squeeze rally in the weeks ahead.
Price Action and the Gulf Catalyst
Bitcoin fell to $65,834 on April 3 as geopolitical risk pricing in energy markets peaked amid Gulf conflict fears involving Iran and US military posturing. The recovery came swiftly after April 17, when Iran announced it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz under a ceasefire arrangement. Oil prices pulled back, risk appetite improved across asset classes, and Bitcoin broke above $77,000 in mid-April. According to FinanceFeeds, a massive cascade of short liquidations accelerated that move; derivatives data showed rising open interest paired with negative funding rates (meaning leveraged traders were predominantly betting on a price decline) before the breakout. Market observers cited by the Bangkok Post characterized sentiment as reflecting growing confidence that the Gulf conflict is "entering its final phase." FinanceFeeds also noted that Bitcoin is increasingly decoupling from tech stock correlations and acting more as a macro leading indicator, a structural shift that amplifies its sensitivity to geopolitical events like the Hormuz reopening.
US Stablecoin Law Edges Forward
Two days before the Hormuz announcement, on April 14, Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the White House Presidential Advisory Committee on Digital Assets, announced a compromise on the long-stalled CLARITY Act.
The bill, which passed the House 294 to 134 in July 2025, had been blocked in the Senate over a dispute about whether stablecoins (digital tokens pegged to a currency like the US dollar) could pay interest to holders. Under the compromise, passive holding yields remain prohibited, but activity-based rewards tied to payments or transfers are permitted. "A major milestone, this removes the bill's biggest obstacle," Witt said.
A White House Council of Economic Advisers report found that banning stablecoin yields entirely would increase US bank lending by just $2.1 billion, or 0.02%, weakening the banking industry's case against the measure.
Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, saw its stock jump roughly 12% on the news. The Senate Banking Committee markup session on the CLARITY Act was scheduled for late April 2026; as of the filing of this article, the outcome had not been publicly confirmed.
Institutional Accumulation at Historic Scale
On-chain data compiled by CryptoQuant shows whale addresses (wallets holding at least 1,000 BTC) net-bought 270,000 BTC in the 30 days to late April 2026, the largest monthly accumulation figure since 2013.
Exchange reserves have dropped to 2.21 million BTC, a seven-year low representing just 5.88% of total supply, with a net outflow of 48,200 BTC over the same period. The broader holder picture reinforces the trend: 43% of BTC is currently held at an unrealized loss, and the Long-Term Holder supply share has reached a multi-year high of 78.3%, indicating that long-term holders are retaining rather than distributing their coins.
The MVRV Z-Score, a metric that compares current market value to realised value and is used to identify undervalued or overvalued conditions, sits at 1.2, a level historically associated with undervaluation. According to an analysis by SpotedCrypto citing the CryptoQuant CEO, "exchange whale ratio decline with accelerating outflows signals large holders shifting from distribution to accumulation."
BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) held 788,927 BTC with $54 billion in assets under management at the end of Q1 2026, while cumulative US spot ETF net inflows have surpassed $53 billion. Strategy Inc. (formerly MicroStrategy, Nasdaq: MSTR) has outpaced the entire ETF sector in 2026 through its STRC preferred share instrument, which pays an approximately 11.5% annual variable yield backed by the company's Bitcoin treasury. STRC-linked purchases totalled roughly 77,000 BTC year-to-date, approximately 10 times the combined BTC purchases of all US spot ETFs over the same period. Strategy now holds over 761,000 BTC, about 3.6% of total supply, making it the fourth largest BTC holder globally.
Regional Stakes: Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa
Bitcoin's April performance carries specific weight for users and investors outside the United States. In Thailand, where crypto adoption stands at 18% and the country ranked 10th globally in the Chainalysis 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, investors who entered during the 2024 bull run remain in profit at current price levels. Thailand has introduced comprehensive licensing for crypto exchanges and taxes trading profits, creating a regulated on-ramp for both institutional and retail participants. Southeast Asia Blockchain Week is scheduled for Bangkok from May 18 to 24, and the region's crypto market is projected to reach $10 billion in 2026. The holding behaviour of Thai investors mirrors the global exchange outflow data described above.
India, ranked first globally in the Chainalysis Crypto Adoption Index, saw on-chain transaction volumes decline just 6% year-over-year in Q1 2026, against a global average decline of 20%. Bitcoin's resilience during a Gulf conflict matters in South Asia, where oil price swings carry outsized economic consequences. Indian market participation is shaped by structural friction points, notably a 30% capital gains tax on crypto and a 1% tax deducted at source on all transactions, measures that reduce turnover and disproportionately affect short-term traders. Beyond investment activity, Bitcoin's price stability also improves the unit economics for Indian crypto startups building on Bitcoin Layer 2 and Lightning Network infrastructure.
In Africa, Sub-Saharan on-chain value received exceeded $205 billion in the year to June 2025, up 52% annually. Nigeria alone accounted for $92.1 billion of that figure. Ghana formalised crypto trading under its Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill 2025, and South Africa published draft crypto-inclusive capital flow regulations on April 17, seeking to update exchange control rules that date to 1961 with explicit crypto provisions, a significant step in the continent's regulatory modernisation. The CLARITY Act stablecoin compromise in the US also carries direct downstream implications for Africa: clearer US stablecoin rules tend to accelerate adoption of dollar-pegged stablecoins across the continent, which already dominate regional crypto transaction volumes.
For African users who rely on Bitcoin and stablecoins for remittances, a stable BTC price floor reduces the risk that value erodes between the time a transfer is sent and when it is settled. Blockradar, an Africa-founded stablecoin startup, processed roughly $300 million in transactions in 2025 across approximately 100,000 wallets, illustrating the scale and concreteness of that use case.
What to Watch
Bitcoin is trading near the $70,027 level that approximates the average cost of mining one coin, a threshold that puts pressure on miners in high-energy-cost markets. The network's hash rate stands at 974 EH/s, down 5.8% quarter-over-quarter, and hash price has fallen to an all-time low of $27.89 per petahash per second per day. Those figures quantify the economic stress facing miners at current prices. A sustained move above $80,000 would meaningfully improve miner economics and could follow if Senate Banking Committee markup sessions on the CLARITY Act proceed on schedule.
April also brought a notable risk signal for the broader digital asset ecosystem. The KelpDAO hack on April 20 triggered a $14 billion exodus from decentralized finance protocols, even as Bitcoin itself bounced above $76,000 in the immediate aftermath, according to CoinDesk. The episode underscored Bitcoin's relative resilience compared with DeFi assets under stress conditions.
Daily active addresses on the Bitcoin network stand at 623,382, below the six-month average, indicating retail participation has not yet caught up with institutional positioning. That gap, combined with the short-heavy derivatives setup, is what analysts at Bangkok Post and FinanceFeeds point to when describing the conditions for a disbelief rally: a price rise that catches most traders positioned for a decline.