Finishing: Mars Finance
1. Important events have occurred in the industry in the past week
1. Industry
The StarkWare exploration team is working with Giza to create a new AI project, which will be announced at the Starkne event in Berlin on April 23, Starknet said in a post on the X platform.
Merlin Chain announced on the X platform that it has now opened the airdrop query page corresponding to Merlin's Seal points, and users can report related questions within 24 hours.
Ordinals founder Casey Rodarmor said in a Discord community meeting that the Runes protocol only hardcodes rune 0, which is "UNCOMMON•GOODS". The other 9 token names are no longer hardcoded into the Runes protocol due to lack of good ideas.
According to Casey's previous plan, the Runes Protocol would "hardcode" runes 0-9, which are all the first 10 runes.
Tether extends USDT support to the TON network
The Block Pro Headlines posted on the X platform that Tether will extend USDT support to the TON network.
According to the official announcement, Binance has launched a new token issuance platform, Megadrop, where users can subscribe to BNB regular products on the Binance Megadrop platform, and/or complete the tasks of the project team on the Binance Web3 wallet, and directly interact with the project team to obtain airdrop rewards. The first project to list Binance Megadrop is BounceBit (BB).
Project Details Token Name: BounceBit(BB)
Maximum Token Supply: 2,100,000,000 BB
Initial Circulating Supply: 409,500,000 BB (19.5% of the token's maximum supply)
Total Supply: 168,000,000 BB (8% of the maximum supply of tokens)
Binance will list BB after the completion of Megadrop, and the specific listing plan will be announced separately.
The quota information of this Megadrop and the details of the Web3 mission will also be announced at that time.
AI Inu, an AI meme project in the Base ecosystem, announced its first season airdrop. AI Inu will airdrop a total of $1 million in AIINU tokens through three seasons of Airdrop. The first season airdrop is for DEGEN holders and artists created with AI Inu. AI Inu announced that it has locked up over $1 million in LP pools and 55% of the tokens distributed to the community.
According to the official announcement, Tether announced the creation of four new independent business units, including data, finance, energy and education.
Tether Data (strategic investment in the technology sector): focused on the development and strategic investment of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and peer-to-peer platforms;
Tether Finance: The cornerstone of Tether's traditional stablecoin products and financial services, dedicated to advancing technology and democratizing the global financial system;
Tether Power (Sustainable Bitcoin Mining & Energy Sector): Ventures into sustainable Bitcoin mining to ensure the integrity of the world's most robust currency network;
Tether Edu (Digital Education & Advancing Transformation): Dedicated to expanding access to digital skills education worldwide.
CZ revealed a clip of Giggle Academy, a recently launched educational game project on the X platform, which involves lessons in an installable Android software package (Apk). "It's a 'testnet' course," CZ noted. The team is still working on some of them. Don't over-read it. This release is mainly for me to confirm that we have a full team that can actually produce something. ”
Previously, it was reported that CZ's educational game project Giggle Academy is about to launch a beta version and is now open to users to apply for a waitlist.
Merlin Chain announced on Platform X that users can now claim MERL tokens. The airdrop tokens will be unlocked in batches: 50% in the first month, 25% in the second month, and then 12.5/6.25/3.125/3.125 in six months.
In the first 6 months, only users' tokens are in circulation in the market (linear release after 24 months of team locking, which is locked for 24 months + released for another 24 months = 48 months, and institutions also need 24-48 months to unlock; ecological tokens please wait for follow-up event announcements).
After users apply, the team will conduct a token airdrop from 14:00-16:00 on April 19.
It should be noted that users need to enter the airdrop claim page and fill in the EVM receiving address (such as Metamask and other wallets), because the contract account cannot transfer to some CEXs, so please do not apply for tokens to AA addresses.
B² Network, a BTC Layer 2 project, has announced the official launch of its mainnet. At present, users can use the official bridge and meson.fi bridge assets to enter the B² Network, ecological projects and assets will gradually deploy the mainnet, and Buzz activity asset extraction and mining activities will start one after another.
The Snapshot page shows that a financial proposal by Sushi DAO was approved with 98.79% support in the implementation vote. The proposal proposes to transfer more than $40 million in DAO-controlled treasury assets to a new vault managed by Sushi Labs, and ensure that all future airdrops are sent directly to "Sushi Labs" rather than "DAO".
Sushi DAO aims to position Sushi as a leading DEX through Sushi Labs, focusing on innovative products, structured operations, and the following core growth pillars: Sushi Labs will drive innovative product development, bringing value to xSushi and the Treasury through airdrops and fee increases;
Governance will receive updates to outline the responsibilities of Sushi DAO and Sushi Labs, enabling both to operate more efficiently; Provide continuity of leadership and operations team contributors to support Sushi Labs in enhancing its ability to build new products and services.
EigenLayer announced that it has lowered the staking threshold for EigenDA validators from 320 ETH to 96 ETH.
According to EigenLayer, the change will allow more new validators to participate in EigenDA's AVS validation service, re-staking users will also have the option to delegate their tokens to validators with a smaller total amount of staking to increase the decentralization of the network, and Rollups will be able to get better performance support through larger clusters of validators.
UniSat posted on platform X that UniSat Plug-in version v1.3.0 was released, which supports viewing and sending Runes assets on the testnet. In addition, Runes' UniSat OpenAPI has been launched, with features such as retrieving information for a specific Runes, listing the holders of a specific Runes, listing Runes on a specific address, and accessing the full stream of events related to Runes.
According to official information, the Ethereum interoperability protocol Omni Network has opened airdrop claims and staking, and trading on the Binance platform will start at 8 a.m. ET.
The SFC has conditionally approved two virtual asset spot ETFs jointly issued and managed by HashKey Capital and Bosera Fund (International) Limited: Bosera HashKey Bitcoin ETF and Bosera HashKey Ether ETF. The two ETFs are expected to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, track Bitcoin and Ethereum prices respectively, and use a "physical" subscription mechanism that allows investors to subscribe directly to ETF shares using Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Offchain Labs announced on Monday the launch of the Arbitrum BOLD (Bounded Liquidity Delay) testnet, which BOLD originally proposed in August 2023 to enable permissionless verification on the Arbitrum chain, BOLD Allowing users to operate validator nodes and help facilitate the consensus process of the network, it also protects against latency attacks or cybersecurity threats, in which bad actors deliberately delay the normal operation of the system by interrupting the flow of data.
According to the announcement, Offchain Labs expects to present a proposal to activate BOLD on Arbitrum Sepolia in the near future, followed by a vote count. The launch of BOLD on the public testnet is the first step in the roadmap to bring BOLD to mainnet readiness and eventually to Arbitrum One and Nova via DAO voting.
Andreessen Horowitz's latest batch of funds raised $7.2 billion in funding, according to Bloomberg, and the company has created a master fund vehicle that is known to be about half of the target funds for its growth fund. Thereinto:
1. Raised $3.75 billion for the main fund vehicle;
2. Raised $1.25 billion for the AI Infrastructure Fund;
3. Raised $1 billion for funds on AI applications;
4. Raised $600 million for its "American Vitality" strategic fund;
5. Raised $600 million for a second gaming fund.
According to official sources, Safe disclosed the details of SAFE tokenomics, mainly including a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, with an initial circulation of 427,000,000 tokens, and the overall distribution of SAFE covers 5 categories: 15% of core contributors, 15% of the Safe Foundation, 5% of the ecosystem, 5% of users, and 60% of the community treasury, and it is reported that the redemption period of SAFE tokens is up to 8 years.
The SEC has amended its lawsuit against Tron founder Justin Sun, saying that he travels frequently in the United States, giving the courts jurisdiction. The SEC charged Justin Sun and his company with selling unregistered securities through Tron and BitTorrent (BTT) tokens, as well as engaging in manipulative money laundering transactions.
The SEC alleges that Sun spent more than 380 days in the United States between 2017 and 2019, traveling to places like New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Sun said that the token sale was conducted entirely overseas, avoiding the U.S. market, so the SEC does not have jurisdiction over it and the Singapore-based Tron Foundation.
2. Sound
Addresses with at least 0.1% of the Bitcoin supply in circulation increased their holdings of more than 3,000 BTC ($198 million) today, which is far below the net inflow of nearly 80,000 BTC ($5.3 billion) the day after BTC fell below $61,000 on March 20, according to blockchain analytics firm IntoTheBlock's "large holder netflow" metric. According to IntoTheBlock, large wallets or whales are good at timing the market and often choose the best time to accumulate or distribute cryptocurrency.
As a result, tracking the NetFlow indicator provides insight into the minds of large traders and the sustainability of the current trend. The lack of participation of whales in the market rally means that whales may expect prices to slip further. Bitcoin fell more than 5% last week as rising dollar index and Iran-Israel tensions triggered a flow of money from risky assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies to gold. According to IntoTheBlock, the netflow indicator is sensitive to wallets associated with US-listed Bitcoin spot ETFs, and traders should keep an eye on ETF flows on Monday.
Co-Head of Galaxy Mining: This Bitcoin halving will not stop too many miners immediately
Brian Wright, co-head of mining at Galaxy, said that while the last Bitcoin halving took place in May 2020, when the price of Bitcoin rose sharply, the halving is very different now that businesses are operating close to marginal profitability. Brian Wright explained: "Over the past 6 months, the price of Bitcoin has increased by about 120%, with many miners reporting a marginal production cost of around $20,000/BTC. After this month's halving, there will be no increase in the number of miners who need to stop operations immediately. ”
Co-Head of Galaxy Mining: This Bitcoin halving will not stop too many miners immediately
Brian Wright, co-head of mining at Galaxy, said that while the last Bitcoin halving took place in May 2020, when the price of Bitcoin rose sharply, the halving is very different now that businesses are operating close to marginal profitability. Brian Wright explained: "Over the past 6 months, the price of Bitcoin has increased by about 120%, with many miners reporting a marginal production cost of around $20,000/BTC. After this month's halving, there will be no increase in the number of miners who need to stop operations immediately. ”
Markus Thielen, co-founder of 10x Research, said that Bitcoin could fall to $50,000 in the coming weeks as macroeconomic uncertainty looms over the crypto market, saying, "I don't give any credit to the halving because I don't see the halving as the main driver, but the more significant macro factor." "We no longer have the typical drivers that really lift the price from the $40,000 to $70,000 area, and the main reason behind this is spot bitcoin ETFs, which have seen little new inflows over the past few weeks as investors have moved past the initial euphoria of the January launch," Thielen said.
Magic Eden posted on the X platform that it will launch the Runes platform on April 23.
JPMorgan analysts said: "Limiting supply sounds like a move to stimulate a bull market, but it's not that simple, and BTC is already in an overbought phase at the moment. At the same time, analysts believe that the lack of venture capital funding in the crypto space will also lead to a decrease in the value of bitcoin.
In a market insights article, blockchain analytics platform Santiment said that "historically, BTC price movements have been contrary to what mass traders expected," adding that the market could bottom out before or shortly after the halving. Data tracked by Santiment shows that the number of references to a "bull market" or "bull cycle" on crypto social media has been declining since the end of March. At the same time, the number of mentions of "bear market" or "bear cycle" continues to increase.
According to the Coinbase x Glassnode Q2 report, the current market dynamics of Bitcoin have matured significantly compared to past halvings, which may reduce the direct impact of new Bitcoin output on market prices. This change is largely driven by increased institutional demand and widespread adoption of Bitcoin ETFs, with key differences including:
- While miners add about 900 BTC to the market every day, Bitcoin ETFs tend to buy more, significantly impacting supply levels and market liquidity;
In addition, ETFs may generate large inflows and outflows, which can affect market volatility. These changes can greatly affect price stability and market sentiment, often independently of traditional supply and demand constraints. In short, ETF liquidity has had a significant impact on the availability and demand for Bitcoin and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. With these factors in mind, ETFs are key players in the market, and their activity may mask the historical impact of the halving. For traders, this means that ETF trends may provide key data points for making informed decisions, as market behavior may no longer be predictable after the halving.
The report also notes that spot Bitcoin ETFs are the fastest-growing ETFs ever. A small allocation to cryptocurrencies can significantly increase risk-adjusted returns. From April 2019 to March 2024, the traditional 60/40 return is 33.3%. But a 3% increase in crypto increases the return to 52.9%, and a 5% increase in crypto increases the return to 67.0%.
Introducing the 2024-25 Estimates of Expenditure and Work Priorities, the Secretary for the Financial and Treasury of Hong Kong, Christopher Hui, said that the first phase of the multi-CBDC cross-border network (mBridge) is expected to be launched this year, taking the lead in using multiple CBDCs to settle cross-border transactions for enterprises. The pilot scheme of "e-RMB" will also be expanded in Hong Kong to further enhance the efficiency and user experience of cross-border payments. On virtual assets, a series of initiatives are being taken forward to strengthen regulation with a view to promoting the sound and responsible development of Hong Kong's virtual asset market. Specifically, the HKMA launched the Stablecoin Sandbox in March this year to allow institutions interested in issuing stablecoins to conduct tests within a controlled range. A public consultation has been conducted on the regulation of fiat stablecoin issuers and virtual asset over-the-counter trading services, and the comments and suggestions received are being considered, and a bill will be introduced into the Legislative Council as soon as possible, subject to the progress of the preparatory work.
UK Treasury Secretary for Economy Bim Afolami said at the Global Summit on Innovative Finance on Monday that the UK government will introduce legislation for stablecoins and crypto asset staking, exchanges and custody by June or July. "We are now working to pass legislation to put our final recommendations for the regime in place," Afolami said. Once launched, a range of cryptoasset activities, including operating exchanges, custody of client assets, etc., will enter the regulatory scope for the first time. ”
Ethena Labs announces two updates on Platform X:
1. Users can now deposit ENA into Pendle Finance and earn 30x rewards every day, capped at $100 million.
2. The ENA liquidity pool has been locked up close to $200 million, and the pool limit has been immediately increased to $300 million.
Binance is prepared to pay a fine of about $2 million and plans to return to India, according to people familiar with the matter. The exchange will return as an entity registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Ministry of Finance. The FIU oversees the trading of virtual digital assets (VDAs). In addition, Binance will comply with all applicable laws, including the Anti-Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as well as the VDA tax framework. India's stance on global cryptocurrency exchanges "has been very clear – comply with all laws to continue operating in India," officials familiar with the matter said.
Swell posted on the X platform that swETH will be the native gas token of Swell L2. This will bring more utility to the token and optimize user experience and gas payouts, as its holdings will appreciate in value from staking and re-staking rewards over time.
In its latest report, Matrixport said that as geopolitical risks emerged at the end of last week, the price of bitcoin fell sharply, with $2 billion of open interest in bitcoin futures being unwound. Nearly 20% of the $20 billion peak position on April 9 has been closed, with open interest currently standing at $16.7 billion. It's worth mentioning that Bitcoin doesn't seem to offer the safe harbor characteristics that most people expect.
Fed's Williams said that he does not believe that the recent inflation data is a turning point, the market is taking into account the slowdown in the rate of inflation falling, the latest CPI data is an important information that affects the forecast, the monetary policy is in a good state, and I personally believe that interest rate cuts may start this year, and the monetary policy is restrictive. Fed policy has been an important driver of rebalancing, and there is more optimism about potential growth, with everything on the Fed's balance sheet going according to plan.
On April 15, 2024, Bosera International, ChinaAMC (Hong Kong), and Harvest International, Hong Kong companies under the mutual fund, successively disclosed that the issuance of virtual asset spot ETF products has been approved in principle by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. According to reliable sources, the above-mentioned virtual asset spot ETF products are expected to be listed at the end of April at the earliest, and after the successful launch, this will also become the first batch of Bitcoin spot ETFs and Ethereum spot ETFs in Asia. As of press time, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has not officially released the approval information of the above-mentioned series of virtual asset spot ETF products on its website, and according to previous sources, Value Partners Fund has also received approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission to issue virtual asset spot ETF products. (Caixin)
Venture capitalists have poured billions of dollars into the DePIN space, and some of them have put their entire money into the DePIN protocol. Although the total market capitalization of DePIN projects is now in the tens of billions of dollars, the problem facing the industry is that there are relatively few customers. Analysts point out that DePIN projects with great potential are those where the need for the underlying service is clearly discerned, meaning that the customer is already there.
Deutsche Bank (DB) said in a research note on Thursday that it expects the Bitcoin reward halving to be partially priced in by the market in the coming days, and the cryptocurrency is unlikely to see a significant rally after the halving. The analysis notes that Bitcoin prices are expected to remain elevated due to market expectations for future spot Ethereum ETF approvals, future central bank rate cuts, and regulatory changes, in addition to the increased utility of the network with a surge in Layer 2 solutions and DeFi activity, the outlook for the entire Bitcoin ecosystem and the broader crypto space is starting to become unusually favorable.
3. Data
According to CoinShares' latest weekly report, there was a small outflow of digital asset investment products last week, totaling $126 million. Investors seem to be hesitant as the positive price momentum has stalled. Bitcoin saw an outflow of $110 million, but has maintained a positive inflow of $555 million so far this month, while Ethereum suffered the biggest loss, with an outflow of $29 million last week, the fifth consecutive week of outflows. In addition to Solana, which saw an outflow of $3.6 million last week, a number of other altcoins saw inflows, such as Decentraland, Basic Attention Token, and LIDO, which saw inflows of $4.9 million, $2.9 million, and $1.8 million, respectively.
Since the end of 2023, centralized exchanges such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, and others have nearly doubled their monthly trading volume.
According to a report by CoinGecko, NFT trading volume reached $1.5 billion on Q1 Blur, ranking first among all NFT markets, and its market share rose to 27.6% in the quarter, up from 24.9% in the previous quarter. According to the data, Ethereum NFT trading volume on Blur reached $565.6 million in March, ranking first, followed by OpenSea ($163.7 million). In addition, Magic Eden saw an increase in market share in March. CoinGecko data shows that NFT trading volume on the market reached $756.5 million in March, up from $256.9 million in February (Blur traded $530.4 million in the month). CoinGeck said the surge in trading volume at Magic Eden may be largely "due to its introduction of the Diamond rewards program, as well as its Ethereum-based Yuga Labs marketplace." ”
According to QuickNode and Artemis' Q1 on-chain report, total investment in Web3 companies increased by 55% in the quarter, showing a return in VC interest in cryptocurrency. In addition, the number of Web3 VC investment transactions also increased by 36% compared to the previous quarter. Among them, artificial intelligence (AI) and gaming-related Web3 protocols accounted for the lion's share of the investment.
RootData data shows that GameFi projects raised more than $2 billion in Q4 2021, but the amount raised declined for six consecutive quarters after Q1 2022. However, this trend eventually reversed after the third quarter of 2023, and since then the GameFi space has grown for three consecutive quarters and reached $268 million in the first quarter of 2024.
According to Coinglass, the value of long liquidations on centralized exchanges on Saturday was more than $757 million, but the Bitcoin position was only $261 million. While it is true that most crypto assets fall into the "risky" category for traders, Bitcoin is arguably the least risky cryptocurrency, with the largest market cap and a proven track record of institutional adoption. On the other hand, things like Dogecoin are more speculative, with Dogecoin down nearly 30% from Friday's high to Saturday's low. On Sunday, Bitcoin's dominance, which is the share of Bitcoin's market capitalization relative to the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, jumped to 52.86%, the highest level since April 2021.
Venture capital funding for cryptocurrency and blockchain projects has just experienced its first quarterly growth since 2021, according to data released today by Crunchbase. In the first quarter of 2024, Web3 startups raised nearly $1.9 billion through 346 deals, a 58% increase from the last quarter of 2023. But the overall downward trend in crypto venture capital interest continues, down 17% from last year's Q1 data, with about half of the number of deals.
According to Chris Metinko, the report's author, investors who have recently invested in Web3 are more inclined towards "long-term investments", in contrast to some of the more hype-chasing "tourist investors" of the past few years. He added, "They may be in the field of artificial intelligence." Metinko explains, "What you're seeing is an investment in the underlying infrastructure of the decentralized internet, not the crypto wallets and lending institutions that we saw in the heyday of 2021-2022." ”
Arkham posted on Platform X that the team has created a dashboard that lists the 10 richest people who hold cryptocurrencies (only the relevant addresses tagged by Arkham are counted). The top five are as follows:
Justin Sun (about $1.1 billion);
Rain Lohmus（7.93 亿美元）；
Vitalik Buterin(7.82 亿美元);
Stefan Thomas（4.52 亿美元）；
James Fickel（4.46 亿美元）。
CryptoQuant posted on platform X that BTC's exchange withdrawals reached its highest level since January 2023, indicating that BTC has entered an important accumulation phase. In addition, recent data suggests that there is a possibility that the price will rise after the market cools down (BTC has fallen by 10% in the last week). Analysts noted that the open interest in BTC contracts on derivatives exchanges decreased from $18 billion to $14.2 billion, showing a reduction in leveraged trading. This is after a period of high trading activity and could mean that the market has stabilized temporarily.
After geopolitical tensions sparked market turmoil, Bitcoin's market share soared to nearly 53%, a three-year high, and drove other major crypto markets up 6% overall. This market recovery was triggered by an attempted Iranian attack on Israel, which triggered a rapid sell-off and a subsequent recovery. Bitcoin has shown particular resilience and attractiveness in its role as an anti-inflation tool, and its performance as it prepares for a five-day halving against the backdrop of ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty is particularly noteworthy.
According to statistics from Nansen and Arkham, among the top 100 addresses in terms of the number of SAFE airdrop tokens, 59 are clearly marked crypto projects/DAO multisig addresses.
According to Token Unlocks data, Arbitrum will usher in a one-time large-scale unlocking of tokens this week, including:
Starknet will unlock 64 million STRK on April 15, worth about $96 million, or 8.79% of the circulating supply;
Arbitrum will unlock 92.65 million ARB worth about $109 million on April 16, representing 3.49% of the circulating supply;
Axie Infinity will unlock 10.87 million AXS on April 17, worth about $80.11 million, or 7.59% of the circulating supply;
Immutable will unlock 34.19 million IMX on April 19, worth approximately $74.19 million, or 2.4% of the circulating supply.
2. An in-depth article worth reading and re-reading
Hong Kong has become the second jurisdiction to adopt Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, broadening investment channels and providing new vitality for the development of the crypto industry. Hong Kong-listed bitcoin ETFs are expected to attract up to $25 billion in demand, most of which will come from Chinese mainland. Hong Kong's government and institutions are actively deploying in the virtual asset market, which is expected to attract billions of dollars in capital inflows. Although there is still a gap compared to the world's largest exchanges, Hong Kong's crypto industry has great potential and more exchanges are expected to emerge. The market reacted mutedly to the news, but the Hong Kong concept coin sector still has an upward trend.
The crypto market pulled back sharply over the weekend, with mainstream cryptocurrencies generally falling by 30%-50%. Ethena is a new stablecoin project that achieves "delta neutrality" through long spot ETH and short collateral of futures ETH. The recent pessimistic market sentiment has led to selling pressure on USDe, but as the market stabilizes, the Ethena crisis has been temporarily lifted. The price of the US dollar fell, and the price of ENA also fell, but as the market stabilized and the funding rate turned positive, Ethena's performance returned to normal. The bull market may not be over, but for Ethena, the real challenge is yet to begin.
Ethereum's shift to a rollup-centric roadmap has led to an explosion of modular scaling designs. However, this also brings with it a new key problem: state fragmentation. To address this, the modular community has pushed for some middleware solutions, but also for compromises.
Hong Kong approved a Bitcoin spot ETF that is expected to attract $10 billion in funding. It has two major advantages: allowing physical delivery and launching an Ethereum spot ETF. Compared with the United States, Hong Kong has opened up the circulation between currency and money, and between coins, attracting securities firms and institutions. Hong Kong is expected to become the world's second-largest Bitcoin spot ETF market. The move also increases liquidity and arbitrage opportunities, but transaction costs are slightly higher. It is expected to attract between $500 million and $25 billion. The first three months will be an important indicator to gauge its true demand, and it will also test Hong Kong's status as a financial centre.
Hong Kong was the first to launch an Ethereum spot ETF to address margin and price premiums. ChinaAMC has also been approved to issue Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which are expected to attract $25 billion in Chinese funds. The Hong Kong government has demonstrated a clear commitment and support for the virtual asset space, attracting both individual and institutional investors. Vitalik's visit to Hong Kong emphasises policy transparency and public participation in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's policy is stable, and the SFC is ready to accept applications for virtual asset ETFs, indicating that it is open to innovative financial products. Hong Kong's opening of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs is expected to bring more liquidity to the crypto market.
Runes is a new Bitcoin token standard developed by Casey Rodarmor. Unlike BRC-20, each rune is interchangeable and uses Bitcoin's security framework to store balances. Runes 0-9 are hardcoded, each rune name is unique, and each token has a Unicode code point as a currency symbol. It simplifies the token creation process with OP_RETURN and supports open minting, fair distribution, and overall minting. Runes attempt to replace BRC-20 as the primary token standard on Bitcoin, but there are risks. Rodarmor combined the launch of Rune with Bitcoin's halving and hopes it will become a key part of the L2 ecosystem in the future. In general, both Rune and BRC-20 have their own advantages, but BRC-20 must evolve so as not to be replaced.
dYdX has launched the v4 version, which leverages the Cosmos SDK to build the dYdX Chain to achieve a high-performance and customized decentralized exchange. After the tokenomics update, $DYDX becomes a real income token, and stakers and validators receive dividends. The team plans to increase the price of the token through buybacks.
After the Bitcoin halving, the Runes protocol will be launched, and the farm BOB will launch the halving rune transaction. Bearish in the short term, but bullish in the long term. The Rune Protocol features 4 years of free minting and a limit of 1 coin per transaction. The rune hype will cool down, but there will be a second and third wave in 2023. The Rune Protocol solves the problem of NFTs and tokens on Bitcoin with a compelling story. Runes will become an important part of the crypto ecosystem. BRC20 is the new rune protocol that can store bitcoins and rune tokens. The rune game is underway, with multiple pre-run protocols airdropping rune tokens on Bitcoin halving blocks. The Rune series has a market cap of $549 million, with multiple protocols and tools available. BTCFi is still in its early stages, and the opportunities will be plentiful.
Runes is a new Bitcoin fungible token standard that will launch on April 19. It employs Bitcoin's security framework and can be created and traded through regular Bitcoin transactions. Similar to ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum, but simpler. Runes has the advantage of not using witness data, and the use of OP_RETURN fields simplifies the process of creating tokens, making it more network-friendly. It's also more flexible, with open minting, fair distribution, and the option to mint all supply to a single address. Runes has the potential to become a mainstream Bitcoin token standard, especially after integrating with the Lightning Network.
The Bitcoin NFT market has fallen recently, but "runes" are still highly anticipated. Other popular chains only have Base, which is difficult. New projects include Prometheans, Starlight Runes, and Everyday Satoshis, with different artistic and mining methods. The Rosentica NFTs will be distributed to holders, and the Ordinals ecosystem will also receive a portion. Opal Protocol issues benefits to Runestone holders, and KarmaStoneOCM issues its own Token $KARMA. It is recommended to choose Bitcoin NFT projects carefully, focusing on influence and community quality. GGXYZ Studio launches Bitcoin P2E game, details not yet announced. When choosing a rune project, consider the influence and community quality, and cut the UTXO reasonably to avoid missing the project minting time. It is advisable to refer to the documentation and wish you all a great profit in Rune Season.
Paradigm led Monad's $225 million funding round sparked market interest in "parallel EVM". Parallel EVM improves the parallel processing capability of EVM virtual machines through elastic computing and I/O asynchronous operation, and is the infrastructure for the web2 market in the EVM ecosystem. While layer 2 is more suitable for Mass Adoption, it can now only move to the more technical hardcore parallel EVM track. For more industry analysis, subscribe to my Substack column.
Merlin Chain, a Bitcoin Layer 2 project, is open to the native token MERL for airdrop claim, with a total supply of 2.1 billion tokens, which can be used for governance, staking, payment of network fees, etc. Among them, 20% was airdropped to Merlin's Seal event participants, and private equity investors, advisors, and teams accounted for 15.23%, 3.00%, and 4.20%, respectively, with different lock-up periods and release methods. 16.57% is allocated to the community as a reward, and 40% is distributed through ecosystem grants and incentives, which will be released gradually over the next four years.
Bitcoin fell on the Iran-Israel conflict, but remained the only global asset to open for trading over the weekend. The latest data shows that the Bitcoin market is still in a bull market, but it may have peaked. Leverage and speculative bubbles in the derivatives market are healthy, and prices may recover. Bitcoin's fundamentals continue to improve, and the pullback helps clear leverage and short-sighted speculators, making it a welcome pullback for long-term investors.
Inspired by an article by BitMEX co-creator Arthur Hayes, the Ethena project explores the potential and innovative applications of stablecoins in the cryptocurrency market. USDe, developed by the Ethena team, is an Ethereum-based synthetic dollar that generates yield through staking rewards and capital basis, employing diversified hedging strategies and multiple custody solutions for risk management. Compared to Luna, Ethena uses the hedging strategy of traditional finance to stabilize the value of USDe and enhance the decentralization and transparency of the protocol. However, Ethena still faces market, liquidity, technology, legal and trust risks, and needs to continuously optimize and adjust its risk management strategy.
Cross-chain bridges are a special case of DEXs, but their capital efficiency and protocol revenue are much worse than DEXs. In order to solve this problem, the chain abstraction protocol provides a unified multi-chain deployment SDK and full-chain asset standard, eliminating the complex operation of users to manage multiple chains. Four different chain abstraction projects (Omni Network, Cycle Network, Initia, Polymer) accelerate the era of decentralized applications by enabling cross-domain interoperability through a new paradigm of shared security. They leverage a modular approach that combines the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems for security and interoperability.
The Bitcoin halving will come on April 20, but holding Bitcoin isn't exciting. Many traders are looking to gain enhanced upside or downside by holding high beta exposure to Bitcoin, but are not satisfied with the return on Bitcoin. Some new token standards such as Runes and PUPS are likely to continue to rise after the halving. Investors can also choose to invest in Bitcoin's infrastructure, such as Stacks Network and Multibit. Bitcoin miners may face a post-halving dilemma, so it's best to avoid investing in their stocks.
The Iran-Israel conflict has caused gold prices to soar and Bitcoin and Ethereum prices to fall. The Fed's pivot to rate hike expectations and strong U.S. economic data are the main reasons. U.S. stocks were also affected, with senior Fed officials starting to mention interest rate hikes. Bitcoin spot ETFs have had net outflows for 5 consecutive days, and some risk funds have adjusted their positions. U.S. financial data is strong, Treasury yields are climbing, and Wall Street is warning of a possible return to the 5% era. Ethereum took the lead in falling to the 120-day line, and the BTC/ETH weekly line went negative for three consecutive days. Whether Ethereum can hold the trend line and rebound strongly will be key to Bitcoin's subsequent performance.
Binance has launched a new token issuance platform, Megadrop, with the first project being BounceBit, a Bitcoin restaking project. The platform integrates Binance Simple Earn and Binance Web3 Wallet, and users can earn points by subscribing to BNB and completing Web3 tasks, and the proportion of points determines the airdrop rewards. It does not conflict with Binance Launchpool, and users can participate at the same time. The move is aimed at promoting the Binance Web3 wallet, which is not yet live, with more details to be updated.
Friend.tech official Twitter recently posted a post that caused dissatisfaction among community users, saying that its users are all wealthy people, and the official also made mocking remarks. The final apology remained controversial. Recently, the official promotion style has become irresponsible, causing dissatisfaction among users. It is speculated that the official tweet may be to attract attention, because of the recent loss of users and the decline in revenue. However, the operation has sparked controversy, and some people believe that the team may be preparing to issue coins. Despite its success in attracting attention, the future of Friend.tech remains uncertain.