This Week’s Top 10 News
1. Bitcoin
Bitcoin welcomes its fourth halving this week
According to OKLink data, Bitcoin completed its fourth halving at block height 840,000 on April 20 at 8:00 Beijing time. The price of Bitcoin at the halving was $63,000. After the halving, the BTC block reward decreased from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Mempool data shows that block 839,999 was mined by SBI Crypto, block 840,000 was mined by ViaBTC, and a total of 3,050 transactions were included, with a block reward (including fees) of 40.751 BTC. Currently, the priority transaction fee in the Bitcoin network has increased to 1159 sat/byte, and the average block time is about 9.8 minutes.
Coinbase
In a research report on Thursday, Coinbase stated that although the fundamentals of cryptocurrencies are still strong, the direction of the digital asset market after Bitcoin’s halving is more likely to be influenced by various macroeconomic factors, including escalating geopolitical tensions, rising interest rates, inflation, and increasing national debt. The growth of investors using Bitcoin as a macro hedge has reduced the volatility of this cycle. Coinbase’s research indicates that overall, some inflationary increases may be more of a concern than expected. However, with the potential release of ETFs and the upcoming Bitcoin halving, the outlook for the entire second quarter remains constructive. The acceptance of Bitcoin as a form of “digital gold” continues to increase, which may stimulate demand from new groups of investors in this market system.
A Glassnode article pointed out that compared to previous halvings, the market dynamics of Bitcoin have significantly matured, which may reduce the direct impact of new Bitcoin issuance on market prices. ETFs are key participants in the market, and their activities may overshadow the historical impact of halvings. Although miners add about 900 BTC to the market every day, Bitcoin ETFs frequently purchase more Bitcoin, significantly affecting the supply level and market liquidity.
Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital, a cryptocurrency mining company, said that the upcoming Bitcoin halving event later this month, although seen as a catalyst for further price increases, the market may have already anticipated it to some extent. Fred Thiel said in an interview, “I think the approval of ETFs is a huge success that attracts capital into the market and essentially achieves price appreciation that we usually see three to six months after halvings.” Thiel estimated that after the halving, the breakeven point for the company would be about $46,000 per Bitcoin to remain profitable.
Arthur Hayes
In a recent blog post, Arthur Hayes expressed his personal belief that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices will generally plummet before and after halvings. This is because halvings occur when the liquidity of the US dollar is tighter than usual, which adds momentum to the frenzy of selling cryptocurrencies. However, after May 1st, the pace slows down and returns to regular planning, initiated by the financial shenanigans of the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury’s asset inflation.
FalconX research director David Lawant and others stated that Bitcoin broke through its all-time high before the halving, causing concerns that ETFs may be driving the demand. It is possible that we may hover at current levels for a while. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin ETFs have acquired a significant amount of BTC, mitigating the impact of the halving on the supply. Due to strong demand from investors, the halving may not affect ETF flows, at least not in the short term. Regardless, the market may need to be prepared for short-term volatility in Bitcoin trading and potentially for the flow of ETFs after the halving.
Hashrate Index stated that the fourth Bitcoin halving will occur at approximately 13:30 UTC on April 19, 2024. It is expected that about 3%-7% of Bitcoin’s hashrate will go offline after the halving. If the current trend continues, it is expected that there will be a slow growth in hashrate in the next year. If the price of Bitcoin drops to around $48,000, it is estimated that about 16% of Bitcoin’s hashrate will go offline, and by the end of the year, the hashrate will be between 639 EH/s and 674 EH/s.
OKX’s Web3 wallet, Runes, is now officially open, supporting users to mint and trade relevant assets on the Runes marketplace with zero platform fees. In addition, UniSat has also announced that Runes is officially launching on UniSat, with main features including Runes etching, Runes minting, Runes marketplace, and Runes management.
2. Bitcoin spot ETF has experienced five consecutive days of net outflows, Grayscale’s Bitcoin holdings decreased by 50%
This week, the Bitcoin spot ETF has experienced five consecutive days of net outflows, with a total net outflow of $227.78 million. As of the time of writing, the historical net outflow of GBTC is $16.68 billion, the historical net inflow of IBIT is $15.39 billion, and the historical net inflow of FBTC is $8.09 billion.
According to Grayscale’s disclosure as of Monday, since the launch of the spot BTC ETF on January 1, its Bitcoin holdings have subsequently decreased by about 50% to 311,621 coins. In terms of Bitcoin holdings, GBTC’s market share has decreased to 37%. IBIT from BlackRock and FBTC from Fidelity are the main buyers.
3. Jia Shi, Huaxia Fund, and Boshi Fund announce approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETF by Hong Kong SFC
On April 15, Huaxia Fund announced that it has obtained approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to issue ETF products that can invest in spot Bitcoin and spot Ethereum. Boshi Fund announced that the two virtual asset spot ETFs jointly applied with HashKey Capital Limited have received conditional approval from the SFC, introducing an innovative subscription mechanism. Jia Shi International announced that the SFC has given preliminary approval to the products that invest in the two major digital asset spot ETFs.
Bloomberg ETF analyst estimates that the inflow of funds into Hong Kong’s spot Bitcoin ETF may be $500 million for the following reasons: the Hong Kong ETF market is small, with only $50 billion; the three approved issuers (Boshi, Huaxia, Jia Shi) have smaller scales and no major institutions like BlackRock are involved; the liquidity/efficiency of the underlying ecosystem is low, which may result in larger spreads and discounts for these ETFs; transaction costs may be 1-2%, higher than the US spot Bitcoin ETF. However, everything is still positive for Bitcoin.
4. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell: Recent data does not give us more confidence that inflation will move towards the central bank’s 2% target
Federal Reserve Chairman Powell stated on Tuesday during a moderated discussion at the Wilson Center that recent data clearly does not give us more confidence that inflation will move towards the central bank’s 2% target. There are signs that achieving this confidence may take longer than expected, considering the strength of the labor market and progress in inflation so far. It is appropriate to allow restrictive policies more time to work and let data and evolving outlook guide us.
China Securities News report: The non-farm payroll and CPI in the United States in March exceeded expectations, leading to the disappearance of the window for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in the short term. Combining the resilience of the US fundamentals and the deep inversion of the yield curve, two conclusions can be drawn: first, this round does not require too many interest rate cuts; second, the Federal Reserve does not need to wait for a significant deterioration in the economy before cutting interest rates. Instead, it only needs to find a suitable window of inflation to slightly cut interest rates a few times to address the problem of yield curve inversion and free the financial conditions from the restrictive zone.
5. US Senators propose new stablecoin legislation, aiming to ban algorithmic stablecoins without reserve backing
US Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis have proposed a stablecoin bill. The bill would require stablecoin issuers to hold a one-to-one reserve of cash or cash-equivalent assets to back their tokens, prohibit algorithmic stablecoins without backing, and state that neither issuers nor users can use stablecoins for illegal or unauthorized purposes such as money laundering. The bill also intends to establish “federal and state regulatory regimes for stablecoin issuers to maintain a dual banking system” and grant federal and state entities the authority to grant and enforce stablecoin charters.
6. Germany’s largest state-owned bank to offer cryptocurrency custody services
LBBW, the largest state-owned bank in Germany, plans to collaborate with the Bitpanda exchange to provide cryptocurrency custody services. The two companies stated in a joint statement that LBBW and Bitpanda will start providing cryptocurrency custody services to institutional and corporate clients from the second half of 2024. Jürgen Harengel, Managing Director of LBBW Corporate Banking, said that the demand for digital assets from our corporate clients is continuously increasing.
7. UK to introduce new cryptocurrency and stablecoin legislation before July
UK Treasury Economic Secretary Bim Afolami stated at the Innovate Finance Global Summit on Monday that the UK will enact new legislation on stablecoins and regulate the pledging, trading, and custody of cryptocurrencies before June or July this year. The legislation is currently being finalized to bring trading platforms, custodianship of client assets, and other activities related to cryptocurrencies under regulation for the first time.
8. “Big Four” accounting firm EY plans to launch contract management solution on Ethereum, and plans to migrate to Layer 3
“Big Four” accounting firm EY announced the launch of EY OpsChain Contract Manager (OCM), a blockchain-based contract management solution. This solution runs on the Ethereum public blockchain. However, Nightfall, developed by EY for managing business contracts, actually operates on Polygon PoS. EY’s blockchain leader told Blockworks that EY plans to migrate Nightfall to Ethereum and then to Layer 3 in the next upgrade.
9. Telegram founder predicts secure communication devices inspired by cryptocurrency hardware wallets will be born due to increased government surveillance
Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram Messenger, predicts that increased government surveillance will lead to the emergence of secure communication devices inspired by cryptocurrency hardware wallets, driving innovation in secure communication hardware. When discussing ownership of the company, Pavel Durov said that avoiding venture capital (VC) investments prevents external influences on how Telegram operates. He also revealed that he holds “hundreds of millions of dollars” in fiat currency and Bitcoin, which allows him to launch projects and companies with 100% ownership.
10. CoinGecko: Cryptocurrency market cap increased by 65% in Q1 2024
CoinGecko’s Q1 2024 cryptocurrency industry report shows that the total cryptocurrency market cap continued to rise by 65% in Q1 2024, reaching a high point of $29 trillion in March; as of April 2, the assets under management (AUM) of US spot Bitcoin ETFs reached $55.1 billion; CEX spot trading volume reached $4.29 trillion, the highest quarterly trading volume for the top ten spot CEXs since December 2021; Ethereum’s DEX trading share hit a record low of 30% in February 2024.
Key Financing Events
– Layer1 public chain Berachain’s Series B financing increased to $100 million
– Ethereum re-staking protocol Puffer announces completion of $18 million Series A financing
– RWA lending protocol Centrifuge announces completion of $15 million Series A financing
– Merlin Chain completes a new round of financing, led by Spartan Group and Hailstone Labs
– Stablecoin startup Usual Labs announces completion of $7 million financing
– Bitcoin AMM protocol Runes DEX announces completion of $2 million seed round financing
– Bitcoin ordinal retrieval platform Ord io announces completion of $2 million pre-seed financing
– Thruster completes $7.5 million seed round financing at a valuation of $70 million, led by Pantera Capital
– Crypto game studio Avalon completes $10 million financing, co-led by Bitkraft Ventures and Hashed
– Arbitrum ecosystem DEX CVEX completes $7 million financing
– Aligned Layer announces completion of $2.6 million seed round financing, led by Lemniscap
– DePIN project SendingNetwork completes $7.5 million financing
– Blockchain and ZK research organization Nebra announces completion of $4.5 million financing
– Perpetual DEX Aark announces completion of $6 million financing
– Account abstraction application Plena announces completion of $5 million financing
– L2 protocol Saakuru Labs announces completion of $2.4 million private round financing
– Citadel-backed Hidden Road Partners is raising Series B equity financing at a valuation of $1 billion
For more industry financing events, please visit crypto-fundraising.info.
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Tags:
Arthur Hayes
Coinbase
ETF
Wu Shuo Blockchain
Source link:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NDgqtI4ez626PeUvTlAobg
Note: The views expressed in the above article are solely those of the author and do not constitute investment advice.
Original article link:
https://www.bitpush.news/articles/6627054
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