News recap: USDT strengthens its dominance among stablecoins

Crypto market in numbers

Between 14th and 18th April, the crypto market capitalisation stood in the $1.25-$1.29 trillion range, according to CoinMarketCap. However, between 19th and 22nd April, the indicator fell by 10.7%, gaining a foothold in the range of $1.15-$1.18 trillion. On 25th April, capitalisation increased by 7% to $1.230 trillion. Then, due to a volatility surge observed on 26th April, it first dropped to $1.16 trillion, and then sharply increased to $1.2 trillion.

In mid-April, trading activity increased considerably. Average daily trading volumes stood at around $60 billion with rare drawdowns up to $30 billion. But on 27th April, amid high market volatility, the indicator rose to $72 billion, which is 100% higher compared to 25th April.

The Cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index fluctuated between the “Greed” and the “Neutral” zones. Between 14th and 17th April, the indicator rose to 69 points. It then began to decline, dropping to 50 points on 21st April. Following this, the index rose slightly and stood at 59 points on 27th April.

The volatility of cryptocurrencies varied. Between 14th and 27th April, Bitcon’s 30-day volatility index fell by 2.5%, from 1.94% to 1.89%. On the contrary, the same indicator for ETH, increased by 21.8%, from 1.88% to 2.29%.

On 13th April, the crypto market began correcting. The main reason behind this was local overheating of the market, as well as profit-taking by medium-term and short-term traders. However, most coins managed to find support at key levels and began to recover.

From 26th April to 27th April, a significant collapse of cryptocurrencies was observed. This was mainly caused by a fake notification about the sell-off of bitcoins seized by the US government from the hacked Mt.Gox exchange. The mass sale of coins probably took place due to algorithms tuned to react to such information reported in the media. As a result, total liquidations per day exceeded $350 million.

Losers (14th – 26th April)

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Most traded coins (14th – 26th April)

Top crypto market driving factors

Overall crypto market

▲ 17.04.2023 – WSJ: Banks in Hong Kong, including the local unit of a big Chinese state-owned lender, Bank of Communications, are taking on crypto companies as new customers.

▼ 19.04.2023 – More than $174 million in long positions were liquidated in just four hours.

▼ 19.04.2023 – The total crypto liquidation exceeded $300 million in the last 24 hours.

▲ 22.04.2023 – Tether stablecoin’s (USDT) dominance surged. Its market share among stablecoins now stands at 63%.

▲ 23.04.2023 – According to the Dune analytics platform, stablecoin transaction volumes sank by 19.2% over the past week.

▲ 24.04.2023 – The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe plans to introduce a gold-backed digital currency as legal tender in a bid to stabilise its local currency.

▲ 24.04.2023 – Public sector employees in Changshu will soon start receiving their entire paychecks solely in the form of digital yuan.

▲ 24.04.2023 – Hong Kong High Court has ruled that cryptocurrencies satisfy the definition of “property” and are capable of being held on trust.

▼ 24.04.2023 – CoinShares: digital asset investment products saw outflows totaling $30 million between 15th and 21st April, ending a six-week run of inflows.

▲ 25.04.2023 – According to the latest report by CoinGecko, spot trading volume across crypto exchanges increased by more than 18% from Q4 of 2022 and stood at $2.8 trillion for Q1 of 2023.

▲ 25.04.2023 – House Republicans proposed stablecoin legislation that would shift authority over stablecoins from the SEC to federal and state banks and credit union regulators.

▲ 25.04.2023 – Visa, the global payment giant, is expanding its crypto division with new software engineer hires.

▼ 25.04.2023 – According to data from Crunchbase, venture capital funding into Web3 startups plummeted 82% year-over-year.

▼ 27.04.2023 – Amid high market volatility, roughly $362 million was liquidated from over 80,000 traders in the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin (BTC)

▲ 17.04.2023 – According to a Bloomberg report, Galaxy Digital CEO and founder, Mike Novogratz, expects Bitcoin to reach $40,000, if the Federal Reserve cuts rates.

▼ 18.04.2023 – The Block: Intel announced that it will stop manufacturing all of its known bitcoin-mining Blockscale chips.

▲ 20.04.2023 – As a result of the latest recalculation, Bitcoin mining difficulty has increased by 1.72% to 48.71T, reaching a new all-time high.

▲ 20.04.2023 – Tesla’s Q1 2023 report reveals that the value of digital assets held by the company at the quarter’s end was $184 million. Bitcoin holdings stand strong at approximately 11,950 BTC.

▼ 20.04.2023 – CryptoQuant notes that the withdrawal of BTC from exchanges has reduced significantly.

▲ 24.04.2023 – The latest data from Glassnode reveals that the Bitcoin Lightning Network is around 1,000 times cheaper than MasterCard and Visa.

▼ 24.04.2023 – According to Santiment, at the price level of $27,000-$28,000, short-term traders sell BTC at a loss three times more often than at a profit.

▼ 24.04.2023 – Glassnode noted the surge of BTC inflows to exchanges.

▲ 24.04.2023 – Raoul Pal, a former executive of the investment bank Goldman Sachs and Real Vision TV CEO, expects the number of crypto users to increase from 300 million to 1 billion as part of the next bull cycle.

▼ 26.04.2023 – Bitcoin miners’ reserves dropped by 6,145 BTC over the last week alone.

▲ 27.04.2023 – According to Santiment, Bitcoin’s trading volume has hit a five-week high.

Ethereum (ETH)

▼ 17.04.2023 – According to Token Unlocks, more than 1 million ETH has been withdrawn since the Shapella upgrade, while only 370,000 ETH have been deposited during this period.

▲ 18.04.2023 – Staked ether deposits (94,968 ETH) have surpassed withdrawals (27,076 ETH) for the first time following the successful Shapella upgrade.

▲ 21.04.2023 – After the network’s transition to Proof of Stake, the supply of ether has reduced by 105,143 ETH (~$202,2 million).

▲ 24.04.2023 – Ethereum network’s gas fee grew by 73% compared to the previous week, skyrocketing to a new multi-month high. Gas fee increase usually leads to more active burning of ETH.

▲ 25.04.2023 – Experts from Dune reported that Ethereum staking saw record weekly inflows following the Shapella hardfork activation. Between 17th and 23rd April, users staked around 571,950 ETH worth more than $1 billion.

Ripple (XRP)

▲ 25.04.2023 – Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, said the crypto company will leave the US and move to another country that is “friendly towards crypto” if it loses its legal battle with the SEC.

Solana (SOL)

▲ 24.04.2023 – Solana has launched a real-time carbon emissions tracker to monitor its blockchain.

▲ 26.04.2023 – Solana Labs has created a ChatGPT plugin that will make it easier to interact with the Solana blockchain, even enabling NFT purchases.

▲ 26.04.2023 – Solana Foundation is launching a $1 million fund for small-scale grants exploring the intersection of the Solana blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Litecoin (LTC)

▼ 19.04.2023 – Litecoin Visa card owners in the US will no longer be able to use it as of 1st May 2023, as Litecoin’s banking partner stopped supporting crypto businesses.

▲ 24.04.2023 – There are just 100 days left until the next Litecoin halving.

▲ 25.04.2023 – The Litecoin network has processed over 151 million transactions.

Toncoin (TON)

▲ 18.04.2023 – The TON Foundation announced the rollout of a two-way bridge that will facilitate the transfer of Ethereum ERC-20 tokens into the TON ecosystem.

Stellar (XLM)

▲ 25.04.2023 – American investment giant, Franklin Templeton, has teamed up with Stellar to launch its flagship crypto product.

EOS (EOS)

▲ 14.04.2023 – The EOS Network Foundation launched the beta version of its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that will improve the interoperability between the two blockchains.