Biweekly Headlines 2024 Mar W5 – Apr W1
“If you can’t hold now, you have no chance of holding when the bear market comes. Think of now as practice.” – Jimmy Song
Biweekly News Roundup
1. Bitcoin and Market Performance
● Overview of Bitcoin’s price movements, including record highs and retracements
– Bitcoin hit a record high above $73,500 about three weeks ago and then quicklyretreated to the $61,000 area and retraced to the current $67,600.
– BTC rose 16.6% in March and over 68% in the first quarter.
– Grayscale says multiple metrics make it clear that Bitcoin is in the “middle of the bull run” as BTC once again traded above its 2021 peak.
● The increase in derivatives and spot trading volumes
– The CoinDesk 20 Index jumped over 50% in the first three months.
– Derivatives trading volumes surged by 86.5% to a record high of $6.18T.
– Spot trading volume jumped 108% to $2.94T, the highest monthly volume since May 2021.
– The combined spot and derivatives trading volume increased 92.9% to a record $9.12T.
● Bitcoin’s historical performance during U.S. election years
– BTC tends to perform well during U.S. election years, historically advancing 100%-200%.
2. Ethereum’s Growth
● Ethereum’s earnings in Q1 2024 and its substantial growth in fees and revenues
– Ethereum tripled its earnings in Q1 2024 on a quarter-over-quarter basis, reaching $369M. The amount accounted for a 210% increase year-over-year from $119M in Q1 2023.
– Ethereum Q1 2024 fees and revenues increased 79% and 85% quarter-over-quarter, respectively.
● Ethereum’s revenue from transaction fees
– Ethereum racked up $1.2 billion in revenue from transaction fees in Q1 2024, which is 155% more than in the first quarter of last year.
3. Altcoins and Memecoins
● The profitability of the memecoin sector and specific examples like Dogecoin
– CoinGecko dubbed the memecoin sector the “most profitable crypto narrative” during the year’s first quarter with 1,312.6% returns on average, the highest among the top tokens by market capitalization.
– The dogecoin price surged to its highest level since December 2021 on Mar. 28, with trading volumes and futures open interest rising significantly.
● CryptoPunks NFT sales as an indicator of the NFT market’s health
– CryptoPunks record another $16 million NFT sale in March.
4. Decentralized Exchanges (DEX) and Uniswap
● Uniswap’s trading volume milestones and its position as the largest DEX
– Uniswap took 42 months to breach the $1T trading volume milestone — doubling to $2T just 24 months later, larger than Australia, Brazil and South Korea’s GDP.
– Uniswap remains by far the largest DEX by trading volume, having amassed $21.6B over the last week alone.
5. Tokenized Assets and Treasury Markets
● The growth in the tokenized Treasury market
– The tokenized Treasury market has mushroomed over the past year, growing nine-fold from $100M in early 2023.
● Notable entries by BlackRock and Franklin Templeton
– BlackRock’s tokenized fund quickly rakes in $245M, right behind Franklin Templeton’s older offering.
The market value of Treasury notes tokenized has crossed above $1B for the first time. The tally has risen nearly 10-fold since January 2023 amid elevated interest rates worldwide.
● The potential for Ether to avoid being designated as a security
– JPMorgan says Ether could avoid designation as a security with centralization risk easing.
6. Bitcoin ETFs and Cryptocurrency Funds
● Growth of IBIT and other related financial products
– IBIT, BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, is the fastest-growing ETF in the history of ETFs, averages a little over $260M in inflows per trading day.
– IBIT has nearly $18B in assets under management and took only two months to reach the $10B mark — a milestone that took the first gold ETF two years to reach.
– BlackRock has added Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, UBS, Citadel Securities and ABN AMRO as authorized participants for the iShares Bitcoin Trust. This brings the total number of APs to nine.
● Fidelity’s application for a spot Ether ETF
– Fidelity filed an S-1 application with the SEC on March 27 to create a spot Ether ETF.
● The anticipation of an Australian Monochrome spot Bitcoin ETF
– Australian Monochrome spot Bitcoin ETF is expected to launch within 2 months.
7. Regulation and Crypto Exchanges
● The London Stock Exchange’s plans for crypto ETNs
– The London Stock Exchange will accept applications for trading bitcoin and ether crypto exchange traded notes (ETN) from April 8 and will roll out a market for BTC and ETH ETN on May 28.
● The UK’s regulatory adjustments aimed at becoming a crypto hub
– Regulators have been moving to make the country more crypto-friendly following several announcements from the U.K. government to make the country a crypto hub.
● Coinbase’s acquisition of a Canadian license
– Coinbase achieved Canadian license that makes it Canada’s biggest registered crypto exchange.
8. Legal and Institutional Moves
● Sam Bankman-Fried’s sentencing and FTX’s plans to sell its Solana holdings
– On March 28, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison and fined $11B on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.
– FTX will sell its balance of 41 million Solana, worth $7.65B at the time of publication, to institutional investors at around $60, or a 68% discount to its current market price.
● BTIG’s revised Microstrategy price target
– BTIG raised its Microstrategy price target to $1,800 from $780 with the shares’ outsized gains up 155% year-to-date.
April 6, 2024