The crypto market has faced a massive correction over the past month – and new investors are proving incapable of stomaching the volatility.
Blockchain data show that 2024 Bitcoin buyers, who entered a raging early-year bull market in which Bitcoin (BTC) surged to a new all-time high, are now panic selling at a loss as the asset’s price reverses course.
Paper Hands Bitcoin Buyers
According to Glassnode, on-chain “realized losses” have surged over the past two months during periods of high volatility, one of which includes today.
Realized losses are tracked by examining the price at which coins are moved on a specific day, compared to when those specific coins were last moved. The discrepancy is presumed to represent a capital gain or loss depending on how Bitcoin’s current

The Federal Reserve decided to maintain its benchmark interest rate of 5.25%% to 5.5% at the highly anticipated Federal Open Market Committee Meeting (FOMC) on Wednesday, following a fearsome 6% drawdown in Bitcoin’s price earlier that day.
Within five minutes of the announcement, Bitcoin’s price rose from $57,300 to $57,700
Per a press release, the central bank said it also plans to slow down the rate at which it sells US Treasury securities starting in June, reducing its monthly redemption cap from $60 billion to $25 billion.
Market participants overwhelmingly expected the Fed to maintain its interest rate at 5.25% heading into the meeting, expecting cuts to potentially take off in Q4.
However, words from the central bank confirmed market fears that the central bank may

Changpeng Zhao (aka “CZ”) – the founder and former CEO of crypto exchange giant Binance – has been sentenced to 4 months in prison after a hearing in a Seattle courthouse on Tuesday.
The sentencing follows CZ’s guilty plea to running afoul of know-your-customer and anti-money laundering requirements at his exchange in November.
During the hearing, Judge Richard Jones acknowledged tht CZ had “accepted responsibility” for his actions, and that his actions at Binance were of a “mitigating nature.”
“There’s no evidence that the defendant was ever informed [of illegal activity at Binance]” the judge said, as reported by journalist Nikhilesh De.
Jones was immediately skeptical of the Department of Justice (DOJ), for arguing that CZ should be sentenced to three years – twice the

Bitcoin miners are beginning to feel the adverse effects of the latest halving, with industry revenues at their lowest point since early 2023.
The tighter profit margins raise questions about which industry firms can stay afloat during Bitcoin’s next halving epoch, as well as how Bitcoin’s market price might be impacted.
Steep Decline In Miner Revenue
According to data shared by on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, Bitcoin’s “Puell Multiple” plummeted sharply immediately after the halving between April 19 and April 20.
The Puell Multiple is a ratio that compares the value of daily BTC issuance in USD terms to the 365-day moving average of that same metric. Since the number of new BTC issued to miners has fallen from 6.25 BTC per block to 3.125 BTC per block, the Puell

Is the Bitcoin bear market already starting to rear its head? One new piece of market data suggests this could be the case.
As of Monday, Bitcoin is entering what could be its fifth negative weekly close in a row. Historically, Bitcoin has never closed five consecutive weeks in the red outside of a bear market environment.
A Slow But Steady Pullback
Twitter user MisterCh0c took notice of the pattern on Monday, and was quick to receive backlash from more bullish followers.
Some noted that the severity of the drawdown, which has persisted throughout April, is mild compared to previous bull markets. Closing at a weekly high of roughly $71,400 on March 31, the coin closed this Sunday at roughly $63,000 – about a 12% drop.
Lead Glassnode analyst James Check backed that

On-chain sleuth ZachXBT has published a report on the history of Lazarus Group – the infamous North Korean hacking group responsible for some of the largest crypto thefts in the industry’s history.
The article tracks 25 hacks affecting individuals and companies in crypto through which Lazarus laundered $200 million from digital assets to fiat between 2020 and 2023.
Lazarus Group’s $200 Million Money Trail
The analyst examined several six-figure crypto wallet hacks over the past several years, including hacks on several crypto exchange hot wallets in 2020. That includes $370,000 in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) stolen from former Canadian exchange Coinberry in August 2020, and $750,000 stolen from CoinMetro in October 2020.
Funds from Coinberry, CoinMetro, and others were

The Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer has published a whitepaper with new details about its soon-to-launch Eigen token, which will be airdropped to community members next month.
According to the Eigen Foundation’s website, season 1 of the airdrop will distribute 5% of the token supply. Eligible airdrop recipients include those who staked directly with EigenLayer, and those who staked using Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs).
Meanwhile, people who interacted with EigenLayer-related DeFi positions may be eligible for airdrops in season 2.A total of 15% of the EigenLayer token supply will go out to stakers over the long term. Another 15% will go to community initiatives and another 15% to ecosystem development.
That leaves 29.5% of the token supply allocated to investors,

Bitcoin could be headed to $1 million after a tsunami of newly printed cash drives up all asset prices, according to Strike CEO Jack Mallers.
The executive, whose payments app lets people remit fiat currency around the world on Bitcoin rails, said in a Friday interview that money printing will be required to bail out the U.S. bond market, which he claims is “in trouble for the first time in modern financial history.”
A Recipe For Money Printing
According to Mallers, the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have two options: either let the banking system fail, or print their way out of the mess.
“I think historically, governments and empires have picked inflation running hot,” he said. “I expect inflation to run hot, and the currency to be debased.”
The CEO claimed that

Crypto.com has produced a new commercial with the famous rapper Eminem that’s due to showcase during the NBA playoffs this weekend.
The ad follows similar television marketing efforts from Coinbase, indicating that major sports leagues may be rewarming to the crypto industry.
Crypto.com’s New Sport Ad Campaign
As shared on the famous rapper’s Twitter page on Friday, the ad begins with a bird’s eye view of the Crypto.com Arena – the multi-purpose sports arena in downtown Los Angeles formerly known as the Staples Centre.
The arena is scheduled to host the basketball competition during the 2028 Summer Olympics, as well as the Los Angeles Lakers versus Denver Nuggets playoff game on Saturday, where its ad will first air.
“They ignored your potential, dissed your achievements,

Blockchain developers have come one step closer to launching rollups on Bitcoin, enabling “unlimited smart contract functionality” and scaling once foreign to the OG crypto network.
On Friday, BitcoinOS published the whitepaper for “BitSNARK and Grail”, a system for bridging Bitcoin to layer 2 rollups and blockchains in a trust-minimized way.
Rollups On Bitcoin: Is It Possible?
The new rollup system is an outgrowth of BitVM – the Bitcoin-based computing paradigm discovered by Robin Linus last year.
Among BitVM’s most notable applications was its ability to verify “Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge” (SNARKs) on Bitcoin. By extension, this opened the possibility for Bitcoin Rollup Bridges, and scaling technologies similar to Optimism or Arbitrum on Ethereum.

Crypto industry experts believe Ethereum (ETH) spot ETFs will likely be denied approval for public trading by regulators next month.
A denial would likely mean U.S. investors receive no product of the sort until December 2024 at the earliest, putting the digital currency well behind Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of adoption by Wall Street.
Why Are Ethereum ETFs Unlikely?
Sources contacted by Reuters say the few meetings between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and aspiring Ethereum ETF issuers have been one-sided.
Staff from the agency have not discussed substantive details about the proposed products, despite the deadline for applications sent by VanECK and ARK being due in less than one month.
That’s a stark contrast from internal conversations preceding Bitcoin

Balaji Srinivasan – the popular venture investor and Coinbase’s former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – believes Bitcoin Maximalism is due to gain steam as a philosophical and economic belief system.
In a Twitter post on Wednesday, the entrepreneur argued why faith in the existing financial system is bound to erode over time as the U.S. dollar inflation pushes a new generation into Bitcoin.
Unstoppable Inflation
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, twelve-month consumer inflation in the United States rose to 3.5% in March, now having stayed substantially higher than the nation’s 2% target for three years straight.
While the Federal Reserve has raised its policy interest rate substantially to fight higher prices, Balaji claims this method brings harsh side

The creator of the popular ‘Bitcoin Power Law’ has unveiled a chart detailing his price model’s exact BTC price targets for the next several market cycles.
The model predicts that Bitcoin will reach $218,875 at its cycle peak in November 2025, before descending to $96,677 at its bottom in December 2026.
What Is The Bitcoin Power Law?
The Bitcoin Power Law is a long-term price model that forecasts Bitcoin’s future market value as if it were bound by the laws of physics. The man behind the model – Giovanni Santostasi – is a former physics professor, who believes Bitcoin’s long-term price trajectory follows a “power law” relationship with time.
“Price is a power law, hash rate is a power law, adoption is a power law,” wrote Santostasi to Twitter on Monday. “We even understand

Jack Dorsey’s fintech company Block Inc. announced on Tuesday that it has completed the development of its advanced Bitcoin mining chip, marking an important milestone for the firm’s mining project.
Decentralizing Bitcoin Mining
Per a statement shared by Dorsey over Twitter, Block’s three nanometre (3mn) Bitcoin mining chip is now in the process is completing its full design tapeout with a leading semiconductor foundry.
“Our mining chip will utilize the most advanced semiconductor process currently available and will deliver the performance required for mining operators of all types to survive and thrive in the fifth mining epoch (the period following the recent 4th halving of the block subsidy) and beyond,” wrote Block.
The fifth mining epoch officially began last Friday

Terraform Labs (TFL) and its founder, Do Kwon, are under pressure to pay $5.3 billion in cumulative damages for fraud related to their now-defunct Terra blockchain.
In a filing dated April 19, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requested that Kwon and his company be ordered to pay ~$4.2 billion in disgorgement and ~$546 million in pre-judgment interest after losing its lawsuit against the regulator on all counts earlier this month.
The Largest Crypto Fine Ever?
The agency requested that Terraform and Do Kwon pay a $420 million and a $100 million civil penalty, respectively, in addition to the disgorgement charges.
The order also stipulated that monetary remedies imposed against the firm could not be discharged in bankruptcy, and that the order would bar Kwon

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has released a survey questioning market participants about round-the-clock stock trading, signaling potential interest in opening its trading venue beyond traditional market hours.
The update would bring the stock exchange up to date with today’s major cryptocurrency exchanges, which operate at all hours including weekends.
All Hours Stock Trading On NYSE
According to the Financial Times, NYSE’s survey asked participants whether all-hours trading should also take place on the weekend, alongside how overnight sessions should be staffed, and how investors should be protected against large price swings.
It also asked if “time spent thinking about overnight trading would be better spent on regular market hour trading”.
The survey was put out

Bitcoin’s fourth halving, a highly anticipated event occurring every four years in the cryptocurrency realm, has finally occurred.
This event, reducing the Bitcoin block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, marks a crucial moment in the industry. As a result, the daily issuance of Bitcoin has been slashed in half, now standing at around 450 Bitcoin compared to the previous approximately 900. This reduction will continue until around 2140, when the final BTC is mined.
Why Does Bitcoin Halving Matter?
The fourth halving, affecting Bitcoin at block height 840,000, holds significance due to its impact on BTC’s volatility, which tends to intensify after each such event. This is primarily because the available supply diminishes, subsequently driving up the value of yet-to-be-mined

With the Bitcoin (BTC) halving only hours away, analysts are at odds over whether the one-in-four-years event is already “priced in” to the crypto market.
According to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, the answer is yes – but it comes with some important nuance.
The Bitcoin Halving And Efficient Markets
In a Twitter thread posted on Friday, Hougan acknowledged that the halving is both “well-known” and predictable for all market participants.
Specifically, at block 840,000, the newly created BTC attached to each Bitcoin block will fall from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, reducing its daily supply issuance by roughly 450 BTC per day.
Since this change has been programmed into the network’s code since its creation, the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH) would suggest that Bitcoin’s current

Public interest in the ‘Bitcoin halving’ is gaining steam as Google searches for the term have now risen to their highest level in history.
According to Google Trends data, interest in the term began steadily ramping up at the start of 2024. Beginning with a score of 9 in January, interest in the “bitcoin halving’ keyphrase is now at 100, meaning it has never been higher.
The Bitcoin Halving Approaches
The last time the Bitcoin halving became a popular search term was at the last Bitcoin halving in May 2020, at which point search interest was roughly one-third as high as today’s. Now, four years later, the next halving dwells just around the corner, estimated for April 20 according to nicehash.com.
The Bitcoin halving is a mechanism within the Bitcoin network that’s

Two of America’s largest banks are urging crypto investors to remain cautious around the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which analysts believe may not play out much like prior cycles.
In a Wednesday report, JPMorgan predicted that Bitcoin’s price will not rise following the event, and is more likely to resume declines that began earlier this month.
Could The Halving Be Bearish For Bitcoin?
The bank’s outlook remains consistent with its relatively bearish forecasts throughout the year, refusing to be swayed by growing optimism around Bitcoin spot ETFs or the halving.
“We do not expect bitcoin price increases post-halving as it has already been priced in,” wrote analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou. “In fact, we see a downside for the bitcoin price post-halving for several

While crypto has long been highly affected by the broader financial market, the price of Ethereum (ETH) appears especially impacted by its movements.
According to recently published data from IntoTheBlock, the correlation between ETH and several traditional market indexes is now far higher than those between its larger rival, Bitcoin (BTC), and the same markets.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Stocks
The firm’s figures show a correlation coefficient of 0.7 between ETH and the DAX – a stock index tracking 40 over the largest and most liquid German companies traded on the Frankfurt exchange. The equivalent correlation for BTC is 0.63.
A larger discrepancy is found with both the S&P 500 and tech-focused Nasdaq 100. ETH’s correlations to both indexes are 0.77 and 0.7 respectively,

Bitcoin’s price crashed by over 5% below $60,000 on Wednesday amid a market selloff impacting the broader crypto and stock markets.
Bitcoin (BTC) began the day trading for roughly $63,700 per coin. Its price began sinking drastically starting at 1:40 PM UTC, and has plummeted to $59,950 as of 4:45 PM UTC. It trades for $60,475 at press time.
Meanwhile, the price of Ethereum (ETH) has slid back under $3000 to just $2950 at writing time. The S&P500 and Nasdaq 100 have declined 0.68% and 1.27%, respectively.
According to Coinglass, the selloff has triggered $216 million in liquidations across the crypto market in the past 24 hours. That includes over 67,000 affected traders, including one trader who lost $5.4 million on an ETH-USD swap.
Many suspect the market selloff has

Bitcoin’s price may be due for another correction despite a strong recovery from its weekend dump to $61,000, according to analysts at CryptoQuant.
In a community “quicktake” posted on Monday, Bitcoin and Ethereum trader GAAH noted that the prevailing bullish market sentiment may be getting too hot based on information from the perpetual futures market.
Is Bitcoin Still Overheated?
As the analyst noted, average 30-dy funding rates remain high for Bitcoin, even after its latest price dump. Their current level mirrors that during Bitcoin’s 2021 all-time high, which today serves as the digital currency’s “greatest resistance ever.”
“The price is in a defined channel with around 20% expansion/retraction, an ideal scenario for large players to set up large positions,” wrote

Despite venture capital activity declining across the board, funding for Bitcoin startups more than quadrupled in 2023, according to a new report.
Research from Trammell Venture Partners (TVP) shows that the number of Bitcoin-native pre-seed deals ballooned 360% last year, while the number of funded Bitcoin companies rose by 56.9%.
VC Funding Explodes On Bitcoin
As explained in TVP’s Friday report, a “Bitcoin native company” is a firm whose product’s success is mutually aligned with that of the Bitcoin network and which is founded on the principle that BTC is the “global monetary asset of the future.”
That includes early-stage startup companies but discounts late-stage firms, Bitcoin miners, and “crypto” oriented companies.
While the absolute number of Bitcoin venture

One week before the halving, the Bitcoin network is faced with another wave of hot demand, with some coming from a now familiar source: Ordinals traders.
As of Thursday, data from mempool.space shows that Bitcoin users are paying over 90 sats/vByte of block space, placing the average cost of a transaction at $8.50 apiece.
Ordinals Make Their Comeback
The surge in fees has corresponded with an uptick in daily Ordinals inscriptions, which tallied over 162,000 on Thursday compared to a monthly average of 90,280. Meanwhile, the “daily inscription fee spend” reached $1.24 million, its highest level in the past month.
The vast majority of network fees were contained to regular transactions, however. Some suspect that on-chain trading activity is ramping up in advance of the

U.S. regulators will likely reject Ethereum (ETH) spot ETFs – and crypto won’t put up much of a legal fight for it, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.
The analyst’s latest take is a discouraging sign for Ethereum bulls and stands in stark contrast to his former optimism about Bitcoin spot ETFs preceding their January approval.
Are Ethereum ETFs Worth Fighting For?
In a Wednesday tweet, Balchunas addressed a common theory that the crypto industry will sue the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) if it refuses to approve ETH spot ETFs by May, which is its final deadline to deliver a verdict for several applicants.
“I would question this as Ether futures only ETFs have 4% of the assets that bitcoin futures have,” Balchunas wrote. “That’s a lot of time and

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is cracking down on another corner of the crypto industry, this time targeting one of the biggest players in decentralized finance (DeFi).
On Wednesday, the regulator issued a Wells Notice against Uniswap Labs, the company behind the world’s largest decentralized exchange (DEX).
Uniswap To Be Sued By SEC
Uniswap Labs publicly confirmed the news in a press release on Wednesday, and assured followers that the team is “ready to fight.”
“This is the latest political effort to target even the best actors in crypto like Uniswap and Coinbase,” the team stated, referring to the SEC’s June 2023 lawsuit against the nation’s largest centralized crypto exchange.
“All Uniswap products and the Uniswap Protocol are unaffected,” they

Though Bitcoin (BTC) spot ETFs launched by BlackRock and others have been all the rage in crypto, there’s a slightly older Bitcoin fund that’s also seen exponential gains in the past few months.
The 2X Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITX) has quadrupled its Bitcoin exposure since January, now reigning as one of the largest Bitcoin futures ETFs in the United States.
Institutions Increase Bitcoin Leverage
According to Volatility Shares’ website, BITX held net assets worth $1.58 billion as of Tuesday. By comparison, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) – the first Bitcoin futures ETF to ever launch in the U.S. – held $2.82 billion as of Tuesday, making BITX one of its only noteworthy rivals in the futures ETF market.
In a post to X on Wednesday, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric

U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs have absorbed $12.3 billion of net inflows since launching three months ago. Just how much have they impacted the broader Bitcoin market?
Lead Glassnode analyst James Check provided analysis on Wednesday measuring the effect of Bitcoin ETFs next to the asset’s existing futures and spot markets – using on-chain data.
Grayscale And Long Term Holders
The analyst began by examining the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) – the sole new Bitcoin ETF that’s suffered massive and consistent outflows since January 11.
The fund has lost roughly 300,000 BTC since that time, close to half of its total holdings. However, the rising value of the existing BTC on its balance sheet has meant its net asset value has only declined from $28.7 billion to $23.1 billion, leaving

Following in the footsteps of Michael Saylor, yet another publicly traded company has decided to make Bitcoin its savings vehicle of choice.
Metaplanet, an investment and consulting company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, announced on Monday that it has purchased 1 billion JPY ($6.5 million USD) worth of Bitcoin for its corporate treasury.
Metaplanet’s Bitcoin Strategy
Per a company tweet, Metaplanet has chosen to “embrace Bitcoin as the core treasury asset of the company.”
“This strategic pivot is not just about embracing digital assets but also about pioneering a future where finance meets innovation at its core,” the firm wrote.
According to its website, Metaplanet is focused on “building bridges” between Japan and the rest of the world in both “Web2” and “Web3”