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💰 Do Kwon set to be released after Montenegro court accepts $436,000 bail: local press
Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is set to be freed from jail pending trial after a court in Montenegro accepted a €400,000 ($436,000) bail, according to a report in local news site Pobjeda. Kwon was arrested in Montenegro in March and charged with using a fake passport to attempt to leave the country. The country's interior ministry says Kwon and fellow South Korean national Han Chang-joon, Terraform's former chief financial officer, attempted to board a private flight to Dubai with false Costa Rican travel documents.
The court also agreed to release Han on a €400,000 bond, according to Pobjeda. The prosecution has three days to appeal the decision. TerraUSD, the stablecoin created by Terraform Labs and often known by its ticker, UST, collapsed a year ago this week — wiping out tens of billions of dollars for investors. The crisis was the first of many to hit crypto markets over the course of 2022, including the bankruptcies of crypto lender Celsius and exchange giant FTX. South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for Kwon in September, saying he breached capital markets laws. Korean prosecutors had reportedly traveled to Serbia, which borders Montenegro, in February to try to track him down.
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📣 Digital Asset Will Start Global Blockchain Network With Deloitte, Goldman Sachs and Others
Financial technology company Digital Asset will start a privacy-enabled interoperable blockchain network designed to provide a decentralized infrastructure for institutional clients, the firm announced on Tuesday. Participants of the network, which is called the Canton Network, include BNP Paribas (BNP), Deloitte, Cboe Global Markets (CBOE), Goldman Sachs (GS), Broadridge (BR), S&P Global, and Microsoft (MSFT), among many others.
“The Canton Network is a powerful answer to industry calls for a solution that harnesses the potential of blockchain while preserving fundamental privacy requirements for institutional finance,” Chris Zuehlke, partner at DRW and global head of Cumberland, another participant, said. “This unique approach, coupled with the ability to execute an atomic transaction across multiple smart contracts, is the building block needed to bring these workflows on chain.” The network connects applications built with Daml, Digital Asset’s smart-contract language, allowing various systems in financial markets to interoperate and synchronize.
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🪙 Circle USDC Continues Circulation Fall After March Crisis
Circle has enough reserves in its treasury to support its stablecoin USDC. Notwithstanding the belief in its stablecoin, USDC underperformed. According to official data, in the past 7 days, Circle issued a total of $600 million in USDC and redeemed $1 billion in USDC, and the circulation decreased by about $400 million. As of May 4, the total circulation of USDC was $30.1 billion, and the reserve was $30.2 billion.
USDC’s substantial reserves, which include a large amount in short-term US Treasury bonds, may help reassure consumers that their holdings are backed by dependable and safe assets. Circle generated 140 million USDC yesterday and transferred it to Coinbase on behalf of a significant buyer, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham. USDC Coin was the most troubled stablecoin when its Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) holdings failed. Notwithstanding the challenges that USDC has experienced, Circle, the stablecoin’s issuer, has continued to profit from its development. US government acts quickly and offers more clarification on the stablecoin area, the market may improve.
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💰 Bitcoin’s Frenzy of Activity Pushes Average Transaction Fee Over $7, Nearly 2-Year High
Bitcoin blockchain involving Ethereum-style tokens and non-fungible token (NFT)-like “inscriptions” has driven up congestion on the network, pushing the average fee rate to the highest in nearly two years while showering miners of the cryptocurrency with extra revenue. For comparison, the rate so far this year had fluctuated between roughly 50 cents and $4, data from BitInfoCharts shows.
Bitcoin’s total transaction fees, which are paid by users to miners, jumped to around 124 BTC or roughly $3.5 million, on May 3, representing a 484% increase in the past 14 days. “This current fee spree is an anomaly,” wrote Colin Harper, head of content at Luxor Technologies, a full-stack Bitcoin mining pool. BRC-20 (a play on Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard), which facilitates the issue and transfer of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, has accounted for about 6% of all Bitcoin activity since its inception in early March, according to pseudonymous analyst and yield farmer Dynamo DeFi. This year has also seen the rise of Ordinals inscriptions, which are similar to NFTs.
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🇺🇸 Biden administration reiterates desire for 30% tax on Bitcoin miners' electricity usage
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration reiterated that it wants all crypto mining operations to pay a new tax priced at 30% of their electricity costs. Proof-of-work crypto mining — which is overwhelmingly dominated by Bitcoin mining — is controversial because it uses vast amounts of electricity to compute and verify transactions on the blockchain. Bitcoin now uses more electricity than Finland, Belgium or the Philippines, according to Digiconomist.
The computational effort involved in mining can be substantial and can therefore require a correspondingly large amount of energy. The increase in energy consumption attributable to the growth of digital asset mining has negative environmental effects and can have environmental justice implications as well as increase energy prices for those that share an electricity grid with digital asset miners. Digital asset mining also creates uncertainty and risks to local utilities and communities, as mining activity is highly variable and highly mobile. An excise tax on electricity usage by digital asset miners could reduce mining activity along with its associated environmental impacts and other harms. Biden's proposals may struggle to make it into law.
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🇳🇬 Nigeria's SEC Mulls Allowing Tokenized Equity, Property but Not Crypto: Bloomberg
Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission is considering allowing tokenized coin offerings backed by equity, debt or property – but “not crypto” – on licensed digital asset exchanges, Bloomberg reported Monday. “We always like to start, as a regulator, with a very simple, clear proposal before we go into the complex ones," Abdulkadir Abbas, head of securities and investment services at the Abuja-based commission, reportedly said.
The regulator is also processing applications for digital exchanges on a trial basis, intending them to undergo one year of “regulatory incubation” with limited services offered and under SEC monitoring to determine the firms' fitness to provide services. According to the report, the SEC will not start registering digital asset exchanges until it reaches an agreement with the nation's central bank, which has blocked local financial institutions from interacting with crypto services providers. Before the central bank doubled down on its restrictive rule, Nigeria was one of the fastest crypto adopters in the region.
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💰 Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev tweets for first time following prison release
Alex Pertsev, the Tornado Cash developer arrested in August 2022, is back on Twitter. Pertsev was released from prison on April 26, as previously reported by The Block, and is subject to ankle bracelet monitoring. The Dutch courts had shot down previous efforts to secure Pertsev's release. Pertsev was arrested in the days after the U.S. government sanctioned Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based transaction mixer frequently used to launder stolen coins.
Law enforcement authorities worldwide have long targeted transaction mixers and most recently seized $46 million in bitcoin as part of an operation against a service called ChipMixer. Pertsev's arrest and subsequent incarceration drew some criticism on the grounds that Pertsev shouldn't be penalized for developing open-source code. The incident also raised questions about the future of law enforcement actions against distributed protocols like Tornado Cash. Tornado Cash developer Alex Pertsev has returned to Twitter following his release from prison in the Netherlands. “Sorry I was afk for a while, what did I miss?” he wrote.
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🇬🇧 UK Allowing Crypto Charity But Warning About Risks
According to the British Charity Commission’s instructions announced on April 26, UK organizations that take cryptocurrency donations must maintain accurate records and follow taxes and money laundering regulations. Authorities have cautioned organizations that receiving assets like BTC or NFTs is risky since they are extremely unpredictable in price, vulnerable to hacking, difficult to identify donations, and of little use.
Nonetheless, the Commission tackles the hazards connected with cryptoassets in addition to authorizing charity contributions in cryptocurrency. These include the volatility of their value, which can fluctuate rapidly, the possibility of fraud or theft by hackers, and the lack of protection compared to traditional currencies or financial products – because cryptoassets are largely unregulated, you are unlikely to have access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) if something goes wrong. Moreover, cryptoasset regulations differ by country; some governments prohibit cryptoassets, while others have extensive regulatory requirements.
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📣 Bitget’s BGB Token Gets New Utilities And Burn Mechanism
Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange, has revised the whitepaper for its native token BGB. The new paper details the advantages that BGB offers as a utility asset on the Bitget platform, such as the BGB lottery, a trial fund for futures trading, a zero withdrawal charge, and special earning opportunities. A BGB repurchase and burn mechanism are also being investigated as part of the token’s economic side in order to limit.
BGB is a utility token having a total supply of 2 billion and a circulating supply of 1.4 billion. It grants users special advantages and rights on the Bitget exchange. The BGB token will provide expanded access to established products like as the native Launchpad and Launchpool, and users can expect to gain more from participation and input. BGB has been steadily increasing in value since February 2023, when it peaked at $0.51 and had a 500% rise in total trading volume – an achievement that presently places it ninth on the Coingecko list of CEX tokens. The latest whitepaper for the BGB token emphasizes this point, highlighting additional capabilities that will catapult the asset into Web3 via tighter integration with the platform’s expanding portfolio of services.
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⬜️ OKX Started The SUI IEO Subscription, OKB Loans Interest Rate Soared To 200%
OKX is the first exchange to open the sale of SUI tokens in the form of IEO. OKX has started the SUI IEO subscription today, and the annual interest rate of OKB loans has risen to over 200%. Originally, the exchange said that the SUI token sale event on OKX Jumpstart would take the shape of a token distribution lottery on April 23. OKB holders may use their OKB to purchase raffle tickets, and winning tickets will allow them to purchase SUI.
An extra appreciation sale will be held only for Sui ecosystem contributors. Users must be formally whitelisted by the Sui Foundation in order to participate in the Gratitude Sale. Whitelisted users may buy up to 1,500 SUI from a total supply of 25,000,000 SUI for only $0.03, and the tokens will be completely unlocked when the mainnet becomes live. Then, during the OKX Jumpstart event, whitelisted users may utilize OKB to buy SUI. The token allocation lottery is still open to participants of this special event. While the Sui Network is in its early phases, it has captured the attention of the wider cryptocurrency sector.
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⚪️ Lido Community Vote On A Treasury Management Committee Has 99.12% Support
The Lido community has begun voting on the proposal to establish a treasury management committee. This proposal seeks approval for a few key Treasury Management Principles (Principles), as well as the formation of a Treasury Management Committee (Committee) to develop Treasury Management Strategies (Strategies) constrained by the Principles, and Treasury Management Actions (Actions) to carry them out using On-chain tools.
According to the Snapshot voting website, the Lido community began voting on the proposal to adopt the DAO fund management principles and permit the formation of a treasury fund management committee early this morning. The current rate of support is 99.12%. The voting period will end on April 28. Proposed treasury management concepts include ETH as the primary unit of account for the platform, Lido DAO money as a source of protocol resilience and future expansion, and the ability to fund initiatives to enhance the protocol’s decentralization and cybersecurity goals. The chance of treasury monies being lost is reduced.
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💰 MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Holding Doesn’t Necessarily Pose a Concentration Risk: Bernstein
Whether MicroStrategy (MSTR) sells its bitcoin (BTC) tokens to pay down debt is closely tied to how the cryptocurrency performs. The position is not large enough to distort prices but it does present a sentiment risk in a down cycle, Bernstein said in a research report Wednesday. The business analytics software company is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin as a balance sheet treasury asset.
The company has about $2.2 billion in debt, with repayments due in 2025 and beyond. It has pledged 15,000 of its bitcoins, Bernstein said. At those levels, MicroStrategy does not “necessarily pose a concentration risk” even if trading volumes fell during a bear market, though it may affect market sentiment. “High BTC prices mean a stronger balance sheet, higher stock prices and easier debt repayment without selling its BTC holdings,” analysts Gautam Chhugani and Manas Agrawal wrote. MicroStrategy holds around 0.7% of total bitcoin in circulation, representing about 20% of daily average traded volume in spot markets, the note said.
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🪙 One million ether has been withdrawn since Ethereum's Shanghai hard fork
The amount of ether withdrawn since Ethereum's Shanghai hard fork has surpassed one million coins. The Shanghai hard fork — part of an upgrade package called Shapella — went live just before 6:30 p.m. EDT on April 12 at block height 6209536. It allowed Ethereum stakers to withdraw their ether rewards for the first time since Beacon-chain deposits began in late 2020. The price of ether remains around $2,100 per coin while staking APR.
The total amount of withdrawn ether currently stands at 1.02 million coins, according to data from token.unlocks. Deposited ether since the Shanghai hard fork, meanwhile, stands at 373,040 — creating a net staking balance of -646,210. Just under 15% of the total ether supply remains deposited (excluding staking rewards). This accounts for 17.30 million ether, worth roughly $36.1 billion. The total amount of ether pending withdrawal (including rewards) fell below $2 billion after topping $3 billion yesterday. Some 877,880 ether is currently queued for withdrawal — amounting to $1.84 billion. An estimated $62.65 million will be withdrawn over the next 11 hours, creating a daily withdrawal average of $125.23 million per day.
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📣 BitPay Already Supports Users To Buy ETH With Apple Pay
BitPay, a cryptocurrency payment service provider, revealed on April 15 that consumers might buy Ethereum (ETH) using Apple Pay. According to its official website, customers may buy Ethereum online using the platform’s self-custody wallet software or the purchasing widget, which is Apple Pay compatible. Users may buy over 60 cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Bitcoin, using the BitPay app, which allows cryptocurrency payments.
Users may buy over 60 cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Bitcoin, using the BitPay app, which allows cryptocurrency payments. © 2021 COINCU Financial Group Inc. Address: Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands. Email us: editor@coincu.com. BitPay was incorporated into Apple Wallet and Apple Pay in 2021, enabling Bitcoin to be consumed online, in retail, and via applications. The Apple Pay connection is part of the company’s bigger aim to capitalize on the recent surge in Bitcoin values. BitPay accepts 14 cryptocurrencies for purchase with Apple Pay, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, USDC, and Dogecoin, and there is no cost.
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🪙 Binance’s VC Arm, With Over 200 Investments, Focuses on 'Explosive' Potential for Web3
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume, may have found itself in the crosshairs of the U.S. regulators, but its venture capital (VC) arm, Binance Labs, continues to invest across the Web3 ecosystem. Despite the looming U.S. regulatory uncertainties and a continued bear market, Binance Labs has been able to grow its assets to $9 billion at the end of the first quarter from $7.5 billion last August.
The VC arm expanded because it believes Web3 is still in its early stages and that blockchain technology has yet to see an “explosive” use case outside of financial instruments, Yibo Ling, the chief business officer of Binance Labs, said during an interview with CoinDesk. “We are very much long-term investors in this space. We're not a fly by night – come in, and try to get a quick hit and move on because our core business is obviously long on the entire industry,” Ling said. He also added that his firm looked for investment opportunities that haven’t been rocked by market conditions or potential regulations.
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🐸 Crypto Whales Accumulate Millions in Pepecoin as Trading Volume Shifts to Binance
Pepecoin (PEPE) traders remain unfazed by the recent price correction and are adding to their holdings in a move that suggests bullish price action for the tokens in the coming weeks. On-chain analytics tool Lookonchain said on Tuesday that three whales, a colloquial term for holders of large amounts of any tokens, started to accumulate pepe tokens earlier this week amid a nearly 50% price cut.
“3 whales started to buy $PEPE after the price dropped,” Lookonchain said in a tweet. “0x50C1 withdrew 1.4T $PEPE ($2.76M) from #Binance when the price was $0.000002054.” “0x2Baa bought 212B $PEPE($429K) with 223 $ETH($412K) at $0.000001942. 0x3AE8 bought 424B $PEPE($864K) with 450 $ETH($831K) at $0.000001957,” the firm added, pointing to each individual wallet holding. The data further shows trading volumes have shifted from decentralized exchange Uniswap to crypto exchange Binance after the latter listed the tokens in its innovation zone last week.
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📣 Web3 Firm Artifact Labs Raises $3.25M From Blue Pool Capital, Animoca, Others
Artifact Labs, a Web3 company that works to preserve records of historical events on the blockchain, has closed a $3.25 million funding round. The round was led by Blue Pool Capital, with Animoca Ventures also participating. Blue Pool Capital, is a fund that principally invests the wealth of Alibaba founders Jack Ma and Joe Tsai. Artifact Labs said in the release it plans to utilize the funds to expand the company's operations.
Artifact Labs was initially incubated by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP). In 2021 the SCMP launched a non-fungible token (NFT) standard called ARTIFACT for recording historical data. Throughout 2021 and 2022, the newspaper had a brisk business of selling NFTs of its historical front pages, including the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, the Avian flu outbreak, the Asian Financial Crisis, and the death of the U.K.'s Princess Diana. Artifact Labs said in a release that it will be releasing NFT collections as a revenue stream for preservation organizations as well as developing and releasing technology to help institutions preserve their archives on-chain.
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🇺🇸 DOJ investigating whether Binance violated U.S. sanctions against Russia: Bloomberg
The Justice Department is investigating whether crypto exchange giant Binance was used to let Russians evade U.S. sanctions, Bloomberg reported. The probe into the world’s largest crypto exchange is tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Justice Department’s national security division is leading the investigation, which is running in parallel to another inquiry by the agency’s criminal division.
“In 2021, Binance launched an initiative to completely overhaul its corporate governance structure, including bringing in a world-class bench of seasoned executives to fundamentally change how Binance operates globally,” Binance said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Our policy imposes a zero-tolerance approach to double registrations, anonymous identities, and obscure sources of money.” Binance messages included in the CFTC complaint show that Binance executives discussed transactions by the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas on the exchange in 2019, for example. Binance officers even acknowledged some of their customers are “here for crime” on the platform, but said, “we see the bad, but we close 2 eyes.”
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🏦 Coinbase Ventures Backs $10M ZkLink Raise Ahead of Mainnet Launch
ZkLink, an infrastructure layer that makes it easier to trade assets across blockchains, raised $10 million in a strategic funding round from a lineup of investors that included the venture capital arm of crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN). The fundraise will help drive zkLink towards its mainnet launch in the third quarter. Crypto venture capital funding rode the bull market of 2021 off a cliff as the bear market and post-scandal turbulence hit.
The race to launch zk-based technology has started to intensify. Polygon and Matter Labs announced in March the mainnet launch of dueling zk-EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) offerings within days of each other. For zkLink, the company will launch a community campaign called “Odyssey” and the “Dunkirk” asset withdrawal test ahead of its own mainnet launch. Still, infrastructure projects proved to be resilient, and noted venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz highlighted the promise of zero-knowledge (zk) technology in its recent annual report on the crypto industry.
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📣 Decentralized Exchange Maverick Rolls Out Liquidity Incentives for Price Stability
Decentralized exchange (DEX) platform Maverick Protocol has unveiled a novel incentive system that can help stablecoins, ether (ETH) liquid staking derivatives keep their price pegs, the protocol said in a press release on Tuesday. The incentive system allows token issuers such as liquid staking protocols or stablecoin issuers to create so-called “boosted positions,” offering extra rewards to liquidity providers.
Maverick is built around an automated market maker (AMM) algorithm, where traders can swap digital assets without any intermediary in liquidity pools. Token holders can also deploy their assets in the pools to provide liquidity for trading while earning a share of the trading fees. The protocol’s latest upgrade comes as DEXs are fiercely competing to attract traders and traffic onto their platforms as crypto investors seek decentralized trading venues after multiple blowups of centralized marketplaces and increasing regulatory stranglehold. Maverick’s tool is more efficient than existing offerings because it allows token issuers to concentrate reward payouts.
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📈 Meme Coins Surge: PEPE, WOJAK, And AIDOGE Increase Over 50% In 24 Hours
Spot On Chain reports significant gains for meme coins: PEPE, WOJAK, and AIDOGE. Meanwhile, the trader who spent 0.125 ETH to buy 5.9T PEPE sold 100B PEPE for 21 ETH. The latest news from Spot On Chain has reported that meme coins are hot again. In particular, PEPE, WOJAK, and AIDOGE have seen significant increases in value, with each coin increasing by over 50% in the past 24 hours.
The report also includes a review of some whales mentioned ten days ago. The PEPE whale 0x4a2C is one of these, having swapped 1.11 billion PEPE to ETH and realized a profit of 356.162K. They still hold 4.8 billion PEPE, with an unrealized profit of 2.3 million. Meanwhile, Lookonchain found the trader who spent 0.125 ETH on buying 5.9T PEPE, making an impressive profit of around 1.14 million in just four days, translating to over 4,500 times their initial investment, sells PEPE every time the price increases, and they recently sold 100 billion PEPE for 21 ETH at 0.0000004007. So far, they have sold 800 billion PEPE, which is 14% of all PEPE, and got 117 ETH, with an average selling price of 0.0000002744.
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📣 Zcash Launched Version V5.5.0, Introducing A Proportional Fee Mechanism
According to a statement by Zcash’s creator, Electronic Coin Corporation, Zcash, a crypto privacy technology, has released version V5.5.0. This version has corrected many problems and implemented a proportional fee structure, which may aid in the future resolution of the problem of heavy transaction load on the blockchain. A proportional fee system is a scheme that guarantees transaction fees accurately reflect the processing expenses needed for completing certain transactions.
Zcash is a blockchain-based payments network that focuses on privacy by using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to shield transactions, keeping the contents of a transaction secret even on a public blockchain. Zcash, which arose from the Zerocash protocol, diverged from the Bitcoin network in 2016. ZEC is the ticker sign for its native token. The blockchain is one of the main digital currency blockchains that aims to solve this growing problem and give its users back control and privacy. ZKPs are the result of a cryptographic approach developed in the 1980s. They let two parties verify information with each other without disclosing the underlying data.
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🔴 Avalanche Activated The Important Cortina Upgrade On The Mainnet
According to the official announcement, Avalanche’s Cortina upgrade went live on the mainnet yesterday around 16:00 UTC. According to previous reports, the Cortina upgrade includes migrating X-Chain to run the Snowman++ consensus, implying that the entire network has been migrated to a single consensus engine, reducing the size of the trusted computing base and increasing the leverage of existing R&D efforts.
The Cortina upgrade also includes batch authorization rewards and a 1500 gas cap on the C-Chain. Protocol improvements in the Cortina update are incompatible with AvalancheGo v1.10.0 versions. Before activating a node on Fuji, verifiers’ software must be upgraded to AvalancheGo v1.10.0. The price of Avalanche, like the rest of the cryptocurrencies, has dropped in recent days, much to the chagrin of many investors ahead of the Cortina upgrade. Following a successful testnet launch earlier this month, the next upgrade went live on the mainnet on April 25, exceeding AVAX holders’ expectations.
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💰 Wrapped Bitcoin Token Goes Live on Cardano Testnet
Wrapped bitcoin token cBTC has gone live on the Cardano testnet as the project’s developers seek to attract bitcoin (BTC) holders to the nascent Cardano decentralized-finance, or DeFi, network. Users can now mint cBTC tokens from the anetaBTC protocol and use the tokens to fund, trade or provide liquidity to Cardano's test network. These wrapped tokens are a 1:1 representation of bitcoin, but on the Cardano blockchain.
Wrapped tokens make it easy to transfer value across blockchains, which otherwise lack interoperability, allowing users to access different DeFi protocols without the native tokens of that protocol. Various DeFi enhancements have aided the rise of such protocols on Cardano since the start of 2023, with the total value locked on Cardano-based platforms rising to over $150 million from less than $50 million. DeFi exchanges such as Minswap, Indigo and Wingriders hold most of the TVL on Cardano, with stablecoin project Djed attracting over $15 million since it went live in early March. The anetaBTC project aims to attract bitcoin liquidity to the Cardano ecosystem.
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🪙 Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade Spurs Institutional Investment Into Staking
Early signs show that Ethereum’s seamless Shanghai upgrade has spurred institutional investors’ interest in staking. Top institutional-grade ether (ETH) staking service providers have already recorded about three times larger inflows in April compared to all of last month, Michiel Milanovic, analyst of Ethereum blockchain developer firm ConsenSys, told CoinDesk.
Ethereum’s highly anticipated tech update, often referred to as the Shanghai or Shapella upgrade, starting April 12 enabled withdrawals of some 18 million tokens, worth $35 billion, previously locked up in staking contracts. After the upgrade, ETH’s price rallied to $2,100, its highest level in 11 months, defying earlier concerns the unlocking could lead to significant selling pressure and a price crash. The token recently has dropped below $1,900, aligning with a broader crypto market decline. Allowing withdrawals also reduced the liquidity risk associated with locking up ETH for staking, which has kept some investors at bay before.
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📣 Biggest bitcoin options exchange Deribit to launch zero-fee spot trading
Deribit, the world's largest crypto options exchange, is entering the spot trading space. The company announced late Wednesday that it is launching a zero-fee spot exchange on April 24. The move comes shortly after rival Binance's zero-fee spot trading campaign ended late last month. At launch, Deribit will offer spot trading with three pairs: BTC/USDC, ETH/USDC and ETH/BTC.
Deribit's entry into spot trading comes seven years after its inception. The exchange is currently the leader in the crypto options market, with over 90% share of open interest in both bitcoin and ether options trading, according to The Block's Data Dashboard. Last year, Deribit had challenging times as it had to liquidate Three Arrows Capital's (3AC's) positions after the now-bankrupt crypto hedge fund failed to meet its margin calls. In turn, Deribit took a "small" hit and later went on to raise $40 million from existing shareholders at a $400 million valuation. The company was valued at $2.1 billion in its previous funding round in August 2021.
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🏦 Coinbase Could Move Away From U.S. if No Regulatory Clarity: CEO Brian Armstrong
Coinbase (COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong indicated that the crypto exchange would consider moving away from the U.S. if the regulatory environment for the industry does not become clearer. "Anything is on the table, including relocating or whatever is necessary" he said after former U.K. Chancellor George Osbourne asked whether he could see Coinbase leaving the U.S. at Fintech Week in London.
Armstrong's comments come weeks after rival exchange Bittrex said it planned to exit the U.S. by the end of April, citing "the current U.S. regulatory and economic environment." Bittrex received a Wells Notice – a statement that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Enforcement Division found evidence of legal violations – in March, general counsel David Maria told the Wall Street Journal. The SEC filed a lawsuit against the exchange on Monday. Coinbase received a Wells Notice from the SEC in March. Armstrong said Coinbase had met with the SEC "30 times" without getting feedback regarding the nature of its business before receiving the notice.
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🇺🇸 US House Committee Publicizes Potential Stablecoin Bill Of 2023
The US House Financial Services Committee unveiled a draft of a potentially historic stablecoin bill that calls for studying a central bank digital currency (CBDC), as well as a moratorium on stablecoins backed by other cryptocurrencies. It establishes definitions for payment stablecoin issuers, using language similar to that used by former Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey (R) when he unveiled his own stablecoin legislation in 2022.
The ban on stablecoins like UST will last until a study can be conducted. The bill also seeks a study of the potential impact of CBDCs issued by the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, a House Financial Services subcommittee will hold a hearing on stablecoins with testimony from Dante Disparte of Circle Internet Financial, which issues USDC, Jake Chervinsky of the Blockchain Association, Columbia Professor Austin Campbell, and Superintendent Adrienne Harris of the New York Department of Financial Services. A day later, the full Financial Services Committee will convene to hear from Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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🪙 Ether’s Post-Shanghai Rally Knocks Bitcoin Dominance From 21-Month High
Ether’s (ETH) fresh rally above $2,000 after the successful Shanghai upgrade late Wednesday, dropped bitcoin’s (BTC) dominance from an almost two-year record high, according to TradingView data. BTC’s dominance rate rose to as high as 49.06% early Wednesday, according to TradingView data, before retreating to 48.12% as ETH’s price rose. The last time the metric was around the 49% level happened in July 2021.
ETH dominance, on the other hand, surged to 19.87% on Thursday, marking a one-month high. The BTC dominance rate is the BTC market capitalization’s share of the total market cap of the cryptocurrency market. The metric is important to assess the relative strength of BTC, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, compared to the broader crypto market, or identify periods when altcoins outperform, also known as an altcoin season. Ether dominance, similarly shows the second largest cryptocurrency’s relative value to the crypto market.
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