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Bitcoin's latest 'all-time high'
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Bitcoin’s mining difficulty hits new all-time high as correction looms
Key points:
Mining Bitcoin is now more difficult than ever.
Mining difficulty has been on an uptrend since the start of the year.
News - With Bitcoin’s price hiking significantly in 2024, its mining difficulty wasn’t too far behind. As BTC hit $70,000 on the price charts again, its mining difficulty peaked to its all-time high - In continuation of its consistent uptrend over the last 4 months
According to BTC.com’s stats, figures for the same climbed as high as 86.39 trillion hashes on the charts. Simply put, more computing power than ever before is being used right now to mine Bitcoin - A sign that the network is as secure as it ever has been.
An exodus incoming? - The aforementioned peak corresponded with BTC climbing to $70,000 again, with many hoping the cryptocurrency will go past its latest ATH on the charts. However, metrics aren’t so certain, hence, confidence levels are on the lower side in the short-term.
For instance, Cryptoquant data revealed that long-term holders have been selling for profits recently. While 80% of the total circulating supply was in the hands of LTHs when the year began, figures for the same have now fallen to as low as 73%.
Here, it’s also worth noting that these long-term holders have been selling their BTCs to ‘weak hands’ or newer market entrants.
More bad news - That’s not the only metric supporting the possibility of a correction. For example, at the time of writing, weighted sentiment for the world’s largest cryptocurrency was in the negative zone.
Similarly, its net deposits on exchanges were higher than its 7-day average - A sign of the selling pressure in the market.
‘Short Ethereum, go long on Bitcoin’ - Singapore-based firm’s latest advice
Key points:
Market advice comes on the back of ETH recording gains of 8% over the week
Not the first time the firm has made contrarian market predictions this year
News - ETH, the world’s largest altcoin, is up by over 8% on the weekly timeframe. However, its recent gains aren’t significant enough for Singapore-based crypto-services firm Matrixport.
According to the same, ETH should be shorted against Bitcoin longs. The firm made this assertion on the back of Ethereum’s market dominance falling from 19% to 16% in the aftermath of the much-anticipated Dencun upgrade.
What’s Ethereum up to now? - For its part, ETH has done well lately, despite the selling pressure exerted by some whales profit selling over the week. In fact, it’s also worth looking at the impact on the altcoin soon after the release of the CPI report.
According to Santiment, for instance, the social volume for buy calls dominated that of sell calls. Similarly, outflows had the edge as far as net exchange flows were concerned.
What this means is that despite some whales selling, the CPI report was followed by some intense buying activity in the altcoin’s market.
Not the first time - This isn’t the first time the firm is in the news for contrarian predictions like this, however. Earlier this year, it warned its readers that a spot Bitcoin ETF may never be approved in the U.S owing to political risk factors.
Soon after, the firm also suggested that Bitcoin’s corrections in February - March would be way more severe than what and how they turned out to be eventually.
CEO resigns after Solana-based MarginFi’s outflows go past $180M
Key points:
While Solana’s network has generally done well this year, its lending sector has struggled a little
MarginFi’s recent struggles, culminating in the CEO’s resignation, is a case in point
News - Market confidence in Solana’s MarginFi tanked over the last 48 hours after users withdrew funds totalling almost $200M at press time. These outflows corresponded with an increasingly ugly public battle between the lending protocol’s execs and its competitors, with the latter accusing MarginFi of spreading lies.
The aforementioned developments culminated in the resignation of CEO Edgar Pavlovsky who said, “I resigned from mrgn today. From working on marginfi, from the research arm, from it all.”
A public affair - Issuing his resignation on X (Formerly known as Twitter), Pavlovsky claimed that he doesn’t “agree with the way things have been done internally or externally.” This, on the back of rumours that MarginFi has been struggling to cope with internal power struggles too.
On the external front, both SolBlaze and SolEnd have publicly criticized MarginFi too. Here, the former accused the lending protocol of failing to replenish BLZE token emissions for its users. On the other hand, the latter accused MarginFi of “blackballing” it by spreading wildly inaccurate information.
For its part, MarginFi has hit out against these accusations.
Even outside of these issues though, the lending protocol has been in the news for a month now thanks to concerns with its withdrawal function and its new points program.
Solana still holds fort - To its credit, Solana itself is doing well, with the network signing off Q1 of 2024 on a high note after facilitating over 2.4 billion transactions - A figure that dwarfed those of the next nine protocols, combined.
Similarly, Q1 also saw the number of users participating in the network surge, with the numbers hiking from over 400K in February to 920K in March.
Reserve Bank of Australia survey finds little support for retail CBDC
Key points:
Australia is one of the many countries now exploring the feasibility of a CBDC
RBA’s survey comes on the back of general resistance and disinterest in CBDCs among the general public
News - The Reserve Bank of Australia has finally released the findings associated with its study which looked into whether the Australian public would place any value on a retail CBDC if it is released in the near future.
For the purposes of the study, the RBA claimed that such a purely hypothetical CBDC could perhaps be even safer than commercial bank deposits.
Contrary to the RBA’s expectations though, the study found that there is not much support for this idea at this time.
What’s more? According to the study, while Australians value privacy and understand the credit risks associated with deposits in commercial banks, they’d rather not share their data with the RBA.
These findings are completely contrary to the RBA’s study on a wholesale CBDC, with the latter finding more support among the general populace.
In fact, one can argue that Australians have a trust deficit when associated with the RBA, a deficit that doesn’t quite exist with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre or any commercial bank
More stories from the crypto ecosystem
Crypto scams uncovered
Sohrab Sharma and two others were arrested, tried, and convicted after their company - Centra Tech - was found to have deceived investors by falsely claiming that the start-up would offer cryptocurrency products and services. The company also lied about having a partnership with Visa, with Centra Tech claiming that its ‘Centra Card’ will allow card purchases at Visa establishments.
Between 2014 and 2019, BitClub Network fraudulently solicited funds worth over $722 million from clueless investors, in exchange for supposed shares in crypto-mining pools. According to the U.S Justice Department, investors were also rewarded if they could bring additional new investors into the scheme.
Back in 2021, Ameer and Raees Cajee absconded after they were accused of defrauding investors via their crypto-platform Afriscrypt. According to reports, over $3.6 billion went missing from the platform. At the time, the brothers claimed that Afriscrypt had been hacked. However, the incident soon instigated an investigation by South Africa’s Financial Crimes division.
Top 3 coins of the day
ONDO
Key points:
ONDO appreciated on the price charts, pushing it into the market’s top-100 cryptos.
Key indicators leaned bullish, but future remains uncertain.
What you should know - ONDO traded within a tight range for a month after a significant period of appreciation in the first half of March. Over the last 72 hours, however, the altcoin has attempted to break out of this range, with gains of over 10%. This surge corresponded with news that Ondo Finance will be testing instant conversion from Circle’s USDC to BlackRock’s BUIDL. The indicators, however, remained on uncertain ground, even if they were leaning bullish. While the Parabolic SAR’s dotted markers were well above the price candles, the RSI and Signal line were converging on the charts at press time.
Fantom (FTM)
Key Points:
FTM hiked by 27.5% on the charts, before correcting again.
Despite bearish pressure, market momentum was slightly bullish.
What you should know - It’s been an interesting week for Fantom (FTM), with the altcoin appreciating by over 27% on the charts, before falling again. Simply put, FTM’s price action seemed to ape the general market’s volatility. Despite recent corrections, however, the indicators projected bullish momentum. The Moving Average, for instance, was well under the price candles - A bullish sign. Similarly, the Awesome Oscillator’s histogram flashed green and was well into the positive zone.
Toncoin (TON)
Key points:
TON has been one of the market’s biggest gainers over the last 7 days
Indicators suggest its price action is unlikely to record a major correction anytime soon
What you should know - TON’s price action of the past month and a half has been extraordinary, with the altcoin hiking by 35% in the last 7 days alone. In fact, such has been the crypto’s performance that it flipped Cardano and AVAX in the top-10. TON’s recent surges followed news of Telegram contemplating plans to integrate the crypto with the messaging platform. As far as the indicators are concerned, each one of them were flashing green at press time. For instance, the MACD was well above the Signal line - A bullish sign. In light of the scale of the altcoin’s price appreciation, the mouth of the Bollinger Bands were wide around the price candles too - A sign of incoming volatility.
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