- Bitcoin’s Dominance Rate Runs Into Familiar Resistance, Hints at ‘Altcoin Season’ Ahead
The increase in bitcoin’s (BTC) dominance rate, or the largest cryptocurrency’s share of the market, has halted, hinting at the potential outperformance of alternative tokens (altcoins) ahead.
Data from TradingView show the dominance rate rose to 48% from 42% in the first quarter and has struggled to surpass that level so far this month.
The metric has oscillated between 38% and 48% for almost two years, with declines from 46%-48% coinciding with outsized gains in altcoins.
- New ‘Pepe the Frog’ Crypto Token Becomes Sixth Largest Meme Coin by Market Cap
Doge and the other dog friends in the meme economy have a new companion, but this time, the newcomer is a frog, specifically Matt Furie’s Pepe the Frog. The coin pepe (PEPE) has not been around for long, appearing on the scene on April 18, 2023. According to current statistics, PEPE is up more than 400% from the coin’s all-time low on the day it started trading. Two days later, on April 20, PEPE’s market valuation reached a high of $165 million. The number of pepe tokens in circulation is 420.69 trillion, and at the time of writing, there are 29,756 PEPE holders.
So far, the crypto asset has recorded 122,368 transfers. Out of the 29,756 PEPE owners, the top ten wallets command 17.25% of the entire supply. Additionally, according to PEPE’s rich list statistics, the top 100 PEPE holders own 44.51% of the entire token supply. On coingecko.com, PEPE is ranked #245 out of 10,755 crypto assets, and the web portal’s meme coin economy page shows that PEPE is the sixth-largest meme coin asset in terms of market capitalization size. On coinmarketcap.com (CMC), PEPE is ranked #2,605 out of 23,473 listed cryptocurrencies on the website.
- Bitcoin Drops to $28,000 as Macro Pressures Bite
Bitcoin’s price continued its downturn for a third day, dropping below $28,000 briefly on the morning of April 21. The last trading price of Bitcoin, per CoinGecko data, was $28,070, down 2.7% over the last 24 hours.
Bitcoin’s decline dragged the rest of the market with it, with the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies slipping by 2.2% to $1.24 trillion during the same period. Ethereum lost 1.7% on a 24-hour scale to trade around $1,920, down 4.5% on the week.
The seeds for the market slump were sown last week when U.S. Federal Reserve officials hinted at one more quarter-point interest rate hike in the upcoming May policy rate meeting. The Fed’s move caused a decline in Bitcoin and gold prices, while the dollar surged up on expectations of higher yields.
https://decrypt.co/137449/bitcoin-drops-to-28000-as-marco-pressures-bite
- Shiba Inu Decreases More Than 3% Within 24 Hours
Shiba Inu’s (CRYPTO: SHIB) price has decreased 3.38% over the past 24 hours to $0.000011, continuing its downward trend over the past week of -5.0%, moving from $0.000011 to its current price.
The chart below compares the price movement and volatility for Shiba Inu over the past 24 hours (left) to its price movement over the past week (right). The gray bands are Bollinger Bands, measuring the volatility for both the daily and weekly price movements. The wider the bands are, or the larger the gray area is at any given moment, the larger the volatility.
Shiba Inu’s trading volume has climbed 47.0% over the past week along with the circulating supply of the coin, which has increased 0.06%. This brings the circulating supply to 589.36 trillion. According to our data, the current market cap ranking for SHIB is #15 at $6.25 billion.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7515637
- $190B Ontario pension says no to crypto after FTX investment loss
Onatario Teachers’ Pension Plan has decided to steer its investment away from cryptocurrencies.
The decision comes after the OTPP — which manages over $190 billion in assets — lost the entirety of its $95 million investment in crypto exchange FTX after it went bust in November 2022.
OTPP was one of the many backers of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange and had invested twice: Once during the bull market in 2021 and again during exchange’s Series C funding round in early 2022.
OTPP chief executive Jo Taylor said in an interview with the Financial Times that it’d be unwise for the pension fund to rush into another crypto investment. Taylor said that they are still processing what happened with the exchange, and they would be much more cautious before investing in emerging assets like digital currencies. The pension fund is responsible for offering pensions to over 330,000 teachers and school workers.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/190b-ontario-pension-says-no-to-crypto-after-ftx-investment-collapse
- EU Crypto Industry Applauds MiCA – But Looks to What’s Next
European Parliament’s landslide vote in favor of new crypto licensing rules was largely met with applause from the industry, but now attention turns to the details that need to be colored in.
A long-awaited, if expected, approval of the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulation means the landmark law intended to protect consumers and ensure financial stability could take effect from mid-2024, and the initial reaction has been warm.
Shortly after the vote, crypto exchange Coinbase tweeted that the vote is a “pivotal moment for crypto regulation,” as the law, requiring exchanges and wallet providers to seek a license and stablecoin issuers to hold appropriate reserves, will “give crypto organizations the confidence to invest and grow in the region.”
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/04/21/eu-crypto-industry-applauds-mica-but-looks-to-whats-next/
- Fugitive Crypto Exchange Founder Faruk Ozer Extradited to Turkey
Faruk Fatih Ozer, founder and CEO of failed crypto exchange Thodex, was extradited to Turkey by the Albanian Ministry of Justice acting on the order of the country’s Supreme Court. A plane carrying Ozer landed in Istanbul on Thursday morning, Turkish media informed.
According to a report by the Anadolu Agency, the Istanbul Airport Police Department took custody of Ozer on arrival. The 27-year-old man was then taken to a police station and is expected to undergo a health checkup.
Ozer fled Turkey after the sudden collapse of Thodex two years ago. The exchange had attracted around 400,000 users during the crypto boom in the country. He was last seen on footage from Istanbul Airport and was believed to have left for Albania with a reported $2 billion of investor money.
https://news.bitcoin.com/fugitive-crypto-exchange-founder-faruk-ozer-extradited-to-turkey/
- Tether mints another billion USDT on Ethereum as its stablecoin dominance grows
Late last night, stablecoin issuer Tether minted one billion USDT tokens on the Ethereum network.
According to Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino, the minting represented an “inventory replenish.” He added that it was “an authorized but not issued transaction, meaning that this amount will be used as inventory for the next period [of] issuance requests and chain swaps.”
USDT is the crypto industry’s most-popular stablecoin, pegged to 1:1 to the United States dollar. It is commonly used to facilitate trading on large exchanges that don’t accept fiat currencies.
https://www.theblock.co/post/227529/tether-another-billion-usdt-stablecoin-ethereum
- Russia to Mine Crypto for Cross-Border Deals, Says Bank of Russia
The Bank of Russia is currently working on a bill that would allow it to use cryptocurrencies exclusively in export-import deals. This is according to the head of the regulatory agency, Elvira Naiullina.
Naiullina added that while the Bank of Russia will use cryptocurrencies to settle cross-border transactions, crypto trading and payments within Russia will still be banned.
The Russian government is currently working on a bill that would establish a national agency to license and supervise cryptocurrency platforms operating in Russia. This is according to Sergei Altukhov, a member of the Russian parliament’s economic policies committee.
Altukhov further stated that a new tax code would be introduced for miners as a part of the regulation.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7514185
- SEC’s ‘brute force’ crypto regulation attempt is ‘bad policy’ — Paradigm
Criticisms of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission are mounting as the agency remains unrelenting in its war on crypto.
On April 21, Web3 venture capital firm Paradigm published a policy piece on the problems with SEC registration.
It claimed that SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s “attempt to brute force crypto assets that may not even constitute ‘securities’ into an ill-fitting disclosure framework is bad policy.”
The firm, which invests hundreds of millions into crypto and Web3 startups, said thythe SEC fails to provide crypto asset users and investors with the information they need.
It also denied the SEC’s claims it offers crypto entrepreneurs a viable path to compliance.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-s-brute-force-crypto-regulation-attempt-is-bad-policy-paradigm
