While bitcoin’s performance over the last couple of years has been nothing short of spectacular, the latest analysis suggests that the world’s largest cryptocurrency has failed to attract safe-haven flows.
This was evident in the case of an increased demand for such assets following the escalating conflict in the Middle East, according to Kaiko.
Bitcoin Struggles to Capture Safe-Haven Status
While gold and the US dollar have rallied, bitcoin’s value dropped by 6% in April. One potential reason for this could be the Bitcoin halving, which typically leads to short-term volatility.
However, BTC’s performance after major market events, such as the US banking crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, indicates other factors at play. During these two events, bitcoin saw a notable

Bitcoin halving concerns triggered the 11th consecutive week of outflows from the blockchain equities.
According to data compiled by CoinShares, blockchain equities experienced $9 million in withdrawals as investors worried about halving the impact on mining companies because it can affect their profitability and, subsequently, the value of their investments in those firms.
The latest halving saw the mining reward slash to 3.125 BTC. If mining becomes less profitable as a result, it can lead to reduced revenue and potential financial struggles for mining operations, which in turn could affect the value of stocks in those companies.
Interest Wanes in Digital Asset Investments
Digital assets investment products recorded outflows for the second week in a row, totaling $206

Animoca Brands reported $558 million in digital assets on its balance sheet, as per its latest unaudited financial disclosures.
Since December 2023, the company has acquired an additional $266 million in digital assets through various recent investments and token launches.
According to the official announcement released earlier this week, the Hong Kong-based Web3 giant disclosed a cash and stablecoin balance of $291 million.
Off the balance sheet, Animoca Brands’ Web3 subsidiaries hold token reserves totaling around $1.8 billion, consisting of approximately $1.3 billion in highly liquid tokens and $542 million in such with lower liquidity.
It’s worth noting that the latest figures do not include the value of Animoca Brands’ approximately 400 minority investments in Web3

Prominent global agencies have flagged a newly-emerged ransomware group named Akira, estimated to be just a year old, for its widespread cyber intrusions, breaching over 250 organizations globally and raking in nearly $42 million in ransom payments.
Investigations led by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have revealed that Akira has been actively targeting businesses and critical infrastructure across North America, Europe, and Australia since March 2023. Initially focused on Windows systems, Akira’s threat landscape expanded with the discovery of its Linux variant by the FBI.
Akira Ransomware Crisis
In response to this escalating threat, the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), and

Hong Kong authorities have arrested over 70 individuals linked to the HK$1.6 billion JPEX cryptocurrency scandal that shook the city-state.
According to the latest report by SCMP, approximately HK$230 million – worth around $29.37 million – in assets has been frozen, as disclosed by Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee.
Hong Kong Authorities Crack Down on JPEX
In an update provided to the legislative body, Siu also revealed that the number of arrests in connection to the case has risen to 72, with around HK$228 million under the freeze.
The lawmakers were also informed that the police have received 2,636 reports concerning the case, and the amount stands at approximately HK$1.6 billion. Notably, among the previously detained individuals were social media influencers,

Riding in the coattails of a broader market resurgence, the NFT trading space witnessed in 2024 Q1, with volumes across the top 10 marketplaces soaring to $4.7 billion.
According to CoinGecko’s latest report, Blur maintained its stronghold as the leading NFT marketplace during this period. During the first quarter of 2024, Blur recorded $1.5 billion in volume while at the same time, capturing a 27.6% market share, up from the previous quarter.
Closely following behind is Magic Eden, which has emerged as a major competitor, surpassing Blur in March. The growth is primarily driven by its Diamond reward program as well as the launch of its royalty-enforced Ethereum marketplace with Yuga Labs, which raked in over $0.76 billion in trading volume.
Magic Eden’s trading volume

Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan remained entangled in a legal battle with Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with his bail application hearing being postponed yet again.
The Federal High Court in Abuja adjourned his case after the EFCC’s lawyer requested more time to respond to new issues Gambaryan’s defense team raised.
Gambaryan’s Appeal Adjourned
According to a local news report by Nairametrics, the presiding judge, Justice Emeka Nwite, consented to postpone the proceedings at the request of the EFCC’s lawyer, E. Iheanacho.
During the court session, Iheanacho explained that he needed more time to address new points Gambaryan’s defense team raised while citing a new affidavit from the exec’s defense. He said,
“Our right to a fair hearing should

The cryptocurrency market endured massive volatility this week. Amidst geopolitical instability, this price action triggered billions in liquidation and left many wondering if Bitcoin could be used as a hedge against chaos. However, certain cohorts of Bitcoin holders remained unfazed.
This is evident by the fact that Bitcoin appears to be entering an accumulation phase as withdrawals from exchanges surged to levels not seen since January 2023.
Bitcoin Investors Prepare for Surge
The ongoing accumulation of BTC suggested a significant uptick in investor activity, coinciding with a recent cooldown in the market following a 10% price drop last week. The emergence of such a trend also points to the possibility of price hikes in the near future.
With the highly anticipated

Arkham’s latest data revealed that the top five identified crypto whales with publicly known wallet addresses collectively hold approximately $3.5 billion in digital assets.
A few sit on a digital treasure trove but have no way to access it.
Locked Out of Crypto Fortune
This list features some of the most prominent names in the industry, with figures like TRON’s Justin Sun, LHV Bank’s Rain Lõhmus, Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin, German-born programmer and former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas, and crypto venture capitalist James Fickel standing at the forefront.
However, a significant portion of this wealth is currently inaccessible. Rain Lõhmus and Stefan Thomas find themselves in a peculiar position, unable to tap into their massive holdings due to lost passwords to their digital

Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) – Germany’s largest federal bank – is poised to offer digital asset custody services and has teamed up with the crypto exchange Bitpanda.
The main goal is to meet the increasing demand for digital asset management among institutional and corporate clients and it is scheduled for release in the latter half of 2024.
According to the official announcement, LBBW will leverage Bitpanda Technology Solution’s advanced “Investment-as-a-Service” (IaaS) infrastructure to provide cryptocurrency custody and procurement services to its corporate clients.
Bitpanda said that the pilot for custody and procurement of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets will be further developed in the next couple of months.
Commenting on

With increasing cryptocurrency-related crimes in Hong Kong, Bitrace has ramped up its efforts to tackle the problem.
The prominent data analysis company has reportedly conducted training sessions on on-chain fund tracking for members of the Hong Kong Police Force.
Bitrace Bolsters Efforts to Combat Crypto Crimes
The latest initiative is part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility efforts that aim to improve law enforcement’s understanding of blockchain technology, particularly in light of Hong Kong’s growing prominence in the cryptocurrency hub.
According to the blog post, these training sessions were specifically organized for the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau (CSTCB) and Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB) which involved sharing of insights and methods

Bitget experienced significant growth across its trading volumes and user base in the first quarter of 2024, riding the wave of widespread market resurgence.
The Seychelles-headquartered exchange revealed that its futures trading volume soared to around $1.4 trillion, marking a 146% increase, while spot trading volume surged by 113% to exceed $160 billion.
Bitget saw its most significant growth in derivatives market share in March, with a rise of 2.4%. This enabled it to secure the position of the third-largest derivatives trading platform by volume and marked the first time since December that Bitget had achieved this ranking.
The platform currently boasts over 25 million users worldwide, according to its Q1 2024 Transparency Report.
Meanwhile, Bitget’s native token, BGB,

Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions have gained significant traction this year but have also drawn their fair share of criticisms. Mempool founder Mononaut has strongly criticized them and pointed out several drawbacks from a technical standpoint.
Interestingly, Mononaut’s stance gains support as Bitcoin Ordinals founder Casey Rodarmor.
Bitcoin Layer 2 Under Fire
The main objective of Bitcoin Layer-2 networks – which serve as secondary protocols built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain – is to improve scalability and transaction efficiency. This is achieved by offloading transactions from the main blockchain, leading to faster transaction processing and decreased congestion, ultimately resulting in lower fees across the Bitcoin network.
Layer 2s also enable developers to integrate

The highly anticipated Dencun fork on March 13th has significantly boosted the adoption of Layer 2 solutions on Ethereum. This was evidenced by the surge in increased activity post-upgrade.
Intotheblock’s latest analysis revealed a similar trend as it noted a surge in the number of transactions on Ethereum’s layer 2 solutions after the Dencun upgrade. The statistics indicate a staggering 196% rise in transactions settled on the leading layer 2 platforms, climbing 5.67 million transactions.
Among these, Base has emerged as the primary contributor, handling approximately 57% of the transactions. Following closely are Arbitrum and Optimism, processing 31% and 11%, respectively.
This substantial uptick not only highlighted the growing adoption and demand of Layer 2 scaling

Despite network outages, Solana has witnessed a flurry of projects launched on top of its blockchain. Such a trend typically depicts a growing demand. But the latest report paints a different picture.
These fraudsters were found to be capitalizing on users’ heightened risk appetite, fueled by FOMO amidst a market-wide resurgence.

In a report shared with CryptoPotato, blockchain security company Blockaid revealed that 50% of recent pre-sale token launches on Solana have been malicious. The strategies employed by fraudsters within the popular Layer 1 ecosystem closely resemble those observed in other cryptocurrency platforms.
This includes leveraging social engineering platforms such as Telegram, Twitter, and Discord to trick users into engaging with malicious addresses or

Over the past decade or so, countries around the world have resorted to seizing cryptocurrencies. The United States government stands at the forefront, boasting crypto holdings of almost $15.27 billion.
This substantial stash includes 212.847k BTC and 45.654k ETH.
US Leads with Holdings of $15.27B
Silk Road is perhaps the most infamous case where the US government seized approximately 144,336 BTC in 2013. Silk Road was an online black market known for facilitating the sale of drugs and other illegal goods using Bitcoin.
Another popular darknet marketplace called AlphaBay was targeted by the US authorities in 2017. While the exact amount of seized cryptocurrencies is not known, it was previously reported that the stash included Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero, among other

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon has faced a new legal setback after Montenegro’s Supreme Court once again approved the extradition.
With this decision, the previous extradition ruling by the High Court has been reversed, thereby resetting the whole process. The final decision now rests in the hands of the Minister of Justice, Andrej Milovic, who had previously expressed willingness towards extradition to the US.
Do Kwon’s Extradition
According to a local report, the court based its decision on legal requirements for extradition to both South Korea and the US.
While Kwon’s legal team still has the option to appeal within three days, reports suggest a higher possibility of extradition to the US, given the Minister of Justice’s previous statements favoring the country.
In

Fintech firm and stablecoin issuer Circle has announced that native USDC is now available on the leading layer 2 rollup, zkSync, thereby making it accessible to developers and users without the need for bridging.
With the latest inclusion, USDC is now supported on a total of 16 blockchain networks.
USDC on zkSync
In its official blog post on April 9th, Circle revealed that numerous prominent ecosystem applications and DeFi protocols are anticipated to embrace native USDC on zkSync for various purposes, such as payments, trading, borrowing, lending, and beyond.
Among these is Koi Finance, which is one of the prominent zkRollup defi platforms built on zkSync Era, along with the decentralized exchange SyncSwap and the lending protocol ZeroLend.
“We’re excited to announce that

Fintech company Circle has announced support for Web3 services on the Layer 1 blockchain network, Solana.
Circle said that the latest move highlighted the growing significance of stablecoins such as USDC in aiding a more inclusive financial landscape.
The company aims to facilitate accessibility to USDC for both enterprises and developers while emphasizing the importance of providing the necessary tools to integrate the stablecoin seamlessly into various applications.
With the integration of Web3 Services on Solana, Circle said that businesses can leverage APIs to embed secure wallets, manage on-chain transactions or smart contract interactions, and ensure a frictionless user experience through onboarding and transaction flows.
The official tweet read,
“With a thriving

Several sectors within the crypto market are seeing a resurgence. AI and Big Data, Liquid Staking, and DeFi projects managed to secure the most gains in the past week.
According to their weekly returns, artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data, which comprised 100 projects, topped the chart with a strong performance and a notable increase of 8.65%, as noted by blockchain intelligence platform Santiment’s latest analysis.
The collective market cap of AI and Big Data currently stands at a staggering $39.3 billion.

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The Southern District of New York announced that Irina Dilkinska was sentenced to four years in prison by US District Judge Edgardo Ramos for her involvement in the extensive OneCoin fraud scheme.
Dilkinska served as OneCoin’s former legal and compliance officer who was caught and extradited from Bulgaria to the United States in March 2023.
Sentencing
According to a statement from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Dilkinska participated in its day-to-day operations and engaged in money laundering for OneCoin instead of ensuring compliance with the law. This included orchestrating the transfer of $110 million in fraudulently obtained OneCoin proceeds to a Cayman Islands entity.
Dilkinska pleaded guilty to charges linked to wire fraud and money laundering

Ethereum and its Layer 2 scaling solution, Polygon, attracted the most new users by far in the first quarter of 2024.
The latest report by Flipside revealed that these two blockchain platforms have garnered the most cumulative new users among observed EVM chains since the beginning of the year.
Polygon boasted 12.3 million new users, and Ethereum had 13.4 million – roughly 70% of new users this year across all observed chains as of March 27. Next up was Arbitrum, recording the most new users (4.7 million) during the same period.
Taking into account Ethereum and Polygon’s extensive history compared to most EVM chains, it’s not surprising that they hold significant dominance. In relative terms, the growth in new user volume for Ethereum and Polygon was only 298.3% and

Cathie Wood has been one of the biggest proponents of Bitcoin. Interestingly, the investor’s financial company accidentally owns a Bitcoin Puppet.
Arkham’s latest update revealed a fascinating twist involving the investment management firm’s inadvertent ownership of a Bitcoin Puppet valued at $15,000. The Bitcoin Puppet in question found its way into a custody wallet associated with their ARKB ETF, sparking curiosity about its origins.
The Puppet’s history traces back to January 4th, when it was inscribed by bc1psg and subsequently transferred through two related Ordinals wallets.
On February 5th, a Quantum Cat was minted by wallet bc1pcw, inadvertently using the Puppet’s inscribed satoshis as payment.
The Puppet then passed through several wallets associated with

As per Coin98’s Ethereum Q1 2024 Financial Report, the blockchain network clocked in a massive surge in income statement metrics.
Fees and revenue witnessed a 1.8 times increase quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), while earnings tripled over the same period. This financial momentum is essentially aligned with significant advancements in network and ecosystem metrics.
Ethereum’s network recorded over 107 million transactions in Q1, accompanied by the creation of almost 9.7 million new addresses, indicating increasing user activity and adoption.
Moreover, ecosystem metrics portrayed a flourishing landscape, with total value locked (TVL) surging over 1.8 times QoQ, coupled with the creation of over 4.8 million NFTs.
Additionally, the report highlighted USDT’s dominance as the

Hong Kong authorities captured three teenagers and rescued a 19-year-old who had fallen victim to a harrowing ordeal involving assault and unlawful detention last month.
The police are actively hunting the remaining six individuals – comprising four males and two females – suspected to be involved.
Hong Kong Teen Assaulted Over Crypto Profits
According to a report by SCMP, the victim was lured under the guise of meeting people and trading crypto assets. Upon arrival in a room at the Harbour Grand Kowloon Hotel on Tak Fung Street, however, the suspects demanded HK$180,000 (worth approximately $23,000) in profits from crypto trading.
The victim was then subjected to threats and brutal assault with baseball bats by two of the nine suspects present at the scene.
The

Bithumb Korea’s fiscal performance for the year 2023 took a significant hit as it remained unfazed by the improvement in the trading volume that the platform witnessed throughout the year.
With a more than 57% decline in annual revenue, dropping from 3.201 billion Korean won in 2022 to 1.358 billion won in 2023, Bithumb’s disappointing figures can be attributed to several factors, including a controversial trading policy to woo retail traders.
According to a report by the Korean news platform Newdaily, Bithumb Korea’s net profit plummeted by 74.5%, reaching 243 billion won compared to 954 billion won in the previous year, even while maintaining a surplus for the fourth consecutive year.
The primary factor contributing to these financial woes was the depreciation of crypto

The Solana network has been grappling with a significant surge in transaction failures, with approximately three-quarters of all transactions experiencing issues amidst the frenzy of activity sparked by the recent meme coin craze.
Market players believe that the current crisis is an “existential moment as big as the FTX collapse.”
Solana’s Failed Transaction Climbs 75%
According to the latest data from Dune Analytics on April 4, over 75% of “non-vote” Solana transactions failed, marking the highest negative rate recorded.
This increase in transaction failures has been accompanied by a growing outcry from Solana users on social media platforms, who are expressing frustration over unsuccessful transactions and a decline in user experience.
Popular pseudonymous trader Altcoin

Tether Treasury has been actively minting USDT tokens amidst choppy market conditions.
In the latest development, $3 billion worth of USDT tokens were mined by the Tether Treasury within a period of three days, according to an update by Lookonchain.
The tokens were then distributed across the Ethereum and TRON blockchains. This surge in USDT minting has sparked curiosity regarding the destination.
Since April 1st, approximately $2.55 billion USDT has flowed into prominent crypto exchanges, including Binance, Bitfinex, Kraken, and Coinbase.
Notably, Bitfinex received $1.018 billion USDT, while Kraken and Binance witnessed an inflow of $824.1 million and $614.6 million worth of the largest stablecoin. Meanwhile, Coinbase received $93.8 million USDT during the same period.

Coinbase’s Layer 2 network – Base – has been dominating the L2 landscape. March has been particularly lucrative for the scaling solution gaining significant traction as a result of increased meme coin frenzy as well as airdrops in recent weeks.
With approximately 890,000 daily active addresses, Base has yet again taken the lead, indicating a significant user base engagement, according to IntoTheBlock.
‘Base Spring’
The on-chain intelligence platform also found that Base’s transaction volume has surged past an impressive $1.6 billion mark, towering nearly threefold over Optimism’s figures. The network’s processing power echoed a similar bullish trend, having handled 2.63 million transactions on April 2nd alone.
With such metrics in play, ITB speculated that it could be

Digital asset investment products experienced a positive shift in sentiment during the last week of March, with inflows reaching $862 million, nearly recovering from the previous week’s record outflows of $931 million.
Despite this encouraging rebound, CoinShares revealed that ETF activity appears to be slowing down. In fact, the latest data shows that the daily trading turnover now stands at $5.4 billion, representing a 36% decline from its peak three weeks ago.
However, this figure remains significantly higher than the 2023 average of $347 million, indicating a moderation in the initial market frenzy.
Solana Dominates With Over $6M Inflows
Bitcoin continued to lead the pack, observing inflows of $865 million last week, according to the latest edition of CoinShares’