Analysts at investment research firm Bernstein have reaffirmed their prediction that bitcoin (BTC) would hit $150,000 in this bull cycle despite the asset’s retracement in recent weeks.
According to a recent report, Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra said Bitcoin metrics show the network is in a healthy cycle still in its early stages. Notwithstanding the latest dip, the leading cryptocurrency is far from done.
Bernstein Reiterates BTC $150K Prediction
Bernstein first predicted that BTC would rally to $150,000 next year in November 2023 due to optimism surrounding the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) in the U.S. Now, the ETFs have been greenlit, BTC has hit $73,700 and fallen to $60,000, but the firm is not deterred in its prediction.
In

Earlier this week, the largest stablecoin issuing company, Tether, revealed that it made more than $4.52 billion in net profit in the first quarter of 2024. With the firm having expanded its operations recently, a substantial portion of the profits came from its long-standing businesses and not the newly formed divisions.
Tether revealed in an attestation report that roughly $1 billion of the profit in Q1 2024 came from entities in charge of issuing stablecoins and managing related reserves.
Tether Made $4.52B in Profit Last Quarter
In mid-April, Tether announced that it was expanding its framework beyond stablecoins. The firm unveiled new divisions, including Tether Edu, Tether Power, and Tether Data, which would handle digital skills education, sustainable Bitcoin mining

A former executive of the European arm of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has bought a gold pocket watch recovered from the Titanic wreck for £1.175 million ($1.5 million), the largest sum ever spent on any piece from the memorable incident.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, German fintech entrepreneur and former head of FTX Europe Patrick Gruhn bought the 14-karat gold watch last Saturday from the English auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, a leading seller of Titanic memorabilia.
Former FTX Exec Buys Titanic Gold Watch
The pocket watch belonged to American property mogul John Jacob Astor IV, who sank with the ship after his pregnant wife, Madeleine Astor, was rescued in a lifeboat. Astor, the richest passenger aboard the Titanic, was returning from a

Over time, the United States government, through its regulatory agencies, has filed cases against several crypto firms, demanding compliance for their products and services.
While the list is extensive, some cases have stood out, like lawsuits against decentralized protocols like Uniswap, crypto mixing platforms like Tornado Cash, and big firms like Binance and Coinbase.
The U.S. Fights Crypto
The U.S. government’s fight against crypto entities became more intense last year. Within 48 hours in early June, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Binance and Coinbase, the largest crypto exchanges globally and in the country. The allegations against the entities were similar: failure to register as brokers, national securities exchanges, clearing agencies, and

While the crypto market witnessed significant bloodshed in April, layer-2 networks recorded substantial developer activity, signaling a strong belief in these projects despite the latest slumps in the value of their native tokens.
A tweet by crypto data analytics platform Santiment revealed that the top ten layer-2 networks were selected by counting each project’s non-redundant GitHub activity and averaging their daily activity over the past 30 days.
According to Santiment, analysts obtained the projects’ GitHub activities from their repositories through a back-tested process to ensure that only the teams’ efforts to improve and innovate were included. A project’s GitHub activity can be used to determine whether the team is actively working on the protocol. High developer

Financial technology conglomerate Block, owned by X co-founder Jack Dorsey, has decided to invest 10% of all profits made from bitcoin-related products in monthly BTC purchases.
Speaking to shareholders in a Q1 2024 earnings report, Dorsey outlined several reasons for the decision, addressing investors’ concerns about why Block is so focused on the largest cryptocurrency.
Block to Invest in Bitcoin Monthly
Dorsey explained that bitcoin is the best and only candidate for a decentralized open protocol for money, which the world needs. BTC would eventually become the native currency of the internet and help serve users worldwide faster without the need to customize hundreds of payment schemes and intermediaries.
Block also intends to make BTC more usable for everyday

CryptoQuant analysts have found that Bitcoin miners have increased their selling activity in the last month amid slow demand growth for BTC.
According to the latest CryptoQuant weekly report, the decrease in BTC demand is evident in low Bitcoin whale demand, fewer purchases from spot exchange-traded funds in the United States, and the Coinbase premium falling below zero.
Miners Increase Selling Activity
Miners have sent a large amount of BTC to spot exchanges, creating an imbalance in the market. Since the halving was completed on April 19, miners’ revenue has decreased significantly following the reduction of block rewards by 50%.
Presently, mining entities are selling their holdings to cover operational costs; however, if the trend continues and miners’ profitability

The largest American cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, has added support for the Lightning Network on its platform to enable faster and cheaper payments.
According to a blog post, the Lightning Network integration on Coinbase will reduce the cost of sending bitcoin (BTC) globally by 20x compared to the 2% charged on United States credit card transactions and the $30 paid for wire transfers.
Coinbase Integrates Lightning Network
Coinbase’s Lightning Network integration was spearheaded by Lightspark, a lightning infrastructure provider led by David Marcus, the co-founder of payments giant PayPal. The crypto exchange entered a partnership with Lightspark earlier this month when it announced plans to move forward with the Lightning integration.
The high cost and delay of

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged and arrested Roger Ver, an early BTC investor known as Bitcoin Jesus, for evading taxes of up to $50 million.
According to an official release, the DOJ unsealed the indictment against Ver on April 29 and ordered his arrest in Spain during the weekend.
U.S. DOJ Charges Ver for Tax Evasion
The DOJ’s indictment accused Ver of filing false tax returns, committing mail fraud and tax evasion between 2011 and 2017 through his computer and networking equipment companies MemoryDealers Inc. and Agilestar Inc.
Ver began purchasing thousands of bitcoins (BTC) for himself and his firms in 2011. At the same time, he became known for promoting BTC, earning the alias Bitcoin Jesus.
By February 2014, Ver and his companies had

DYDX, the native token of the dYdX Chain, has evolved from a governance-only coin to a dynamic, multifaceted asset within six months of its launch.
According to a blog post by the dYdX Foundation, DYDX has become the powerhouse of the layer-1 blockchain, enabling decentralized governance and allowing users to stake their tokens for rewards.
A Timeline of DYDX’s Launch
DYDX was launched in October 2023 alongside the dYdX Chain. Before that, the dYdX Foundation had launched DYDX (now ethDYDX) in August 2021. ethDYDX serves as a governance token for the Ethereum-based layer-2 protocol dYdX v3.
In September 2023, the dYdX community voted to adopt DYDX as the native token of the dYdX Chain. To this effect, a wethDYDX smart contract was deployed to serve as a bridge for token

The portion of Bitcoin miner revenue coming from transaction fees has fallen significantly after surging on the day of the last halving event.
A CryptoQuant report revealed that transaction fees now represent 35% of total miner revenue, a significant decline from the 75% recorded on April 19.
Transaction Fees Surge During Halving
The fourth Bitcoin halving, which took place last Friday, slashed miner block rewards by half to 3.125 bitcoins (BTC), resulting in daily issuance falling from an average of 900 BTC to 450 BTC.
On the halving day, daily miner revenue spiked to $100 million, stemming from a notable spike in transaction fees. Daily fees on the Bitcoin network surged to 1,258 BTC ($80 million), a level never seen before, representing 75% of the total revenue for that

Bitcoin whales appear to be realizing their profits from BTC’s latest rally, as on-chain analysts have identified a surge in inflows to centralized crypto exchanges.
According to a CryptoQuant Quicktake by anonymous crypto analyst Phi Deltalytics, BTC whale inflows to exchanges currently constitute a substantial portion of overall flows to trading platforms.
Whales May Be Taking Profits
A separate Quicktake from analyst Woominkyu on April 25 revealed that the unrealized profits of long-term bitcoin whales had gotten high, especially with BTC hovering above $60,000. Analyzing the chart in his post, Woominkyu explained that whales were seeing an increase in their profits, but they had not cashed out yet.
The analyst identified a spot on the chart that indicated a significant

Since the bear market in 2022, bitcoin (BTC) has witnessed substantial pullbacks, losing up to 23% of its value on some occasions. Understanding the depth of these declines could help investors maximize their returns, as rebounds from these drops usually yield substantial gains.
According to a tweet by crypto trader and analyst Rekt Capital, accumulating BTC after a pullback of approximately 20% could fetch investors good money as the crypto asset resumes its upward trajectory.
Bitcoin’s Pullbacks in This Cycle
2022 was a tough year for BTC as the asset suffered the pangs of the bear market. The collapse of the TerraLuna ecosystem, with the contagion that ensued, wiping out roughly $40 billion and dragging many crypto firms into bankruptcy, and the crash of FTX, one of the

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX is looking to offload its remaining Solana native tokens, SOL, via an auction this week.
According to a Bloomberg report, people familiar with the matter said the bankruptcy estate would auction an unspecified amount of SOL in the hopes of receiving a higher price than that which they would have gotten through direct sales.
FTX to Sell SOL Via Auction
The blond auction represents a shift from the fixed-price sales the bankruptcy estate has engaged in over time. Notably, most creditors have expressed dissatisfaction with the direct sales approach as it undermines the value of the FTX’s assets, minimizing creditors’ potential recovery.
Since FTX began offloading its SOL via direct sales, it has attracted the interest of major crypto firms

Data from IntoTheBlock revealed that investors withdrew approximately half a billion ETH from centralized exchanges last week, the highest the asset has seen since February.
$500M ETH Leaves CEXs
The withdrawal of large amounts of ETH from centralized exchanges signals investor confidence in the long-term price trajectory of the asset. Market participants usually withdraw their cryptocurrencies from centralized trading platforms to hold the assets in their private wallets or cold storage in anticipation of higher prices.
Such large withdrawals have been considered an indicator of bullish sentiment and holding attitude among investors. Most of the time, ETH has recorded substantial gains in the weeks following large withdrawals from exchanges.
Anticipation for higher ETH

Bitcoin’s fall to $61,000 over the weekend was a result of market participants reducing their exposure to the digital asset ahead of the halving slated for April 20, according to the latest CryptoQuant weekly report.
Analysts said traders closed their long positions to take profits, and now, the volume of sell orders in the perpetual futures markets is dominating buy orders. This is evident in the Buy Sell Ratio, which has declined below one. The ratio rallies above one when buy orders dominate sell orders.
Traders Decrease Exposure to Bitcoin
As traders decreased their exposure to Bitcoin, total open interest fell from 250,000 BTC to approximately 220,000 BTC. Short-term holders (entities holding BTC for less than six months) offloaded their assets to realize high-profit

The neutralization of funding rates in crypto perpetual markets following the drawdown suggested that the correction was healthy and that volatility may eventually decline.
With the Bitcoin halving a few days away, the amount of BTC leaving centralized exchanges has risen to levels not seen for more than 15 months. At the same time, the number of BTC that have not moved in over a year has declined significantly.
According to the Bitfinex Alpha report, these on-chain activities come as Bitcoin recovers from a two-day plunge that triggered a massive liquidation cascade over the weekend.
BTC Exchange Outflows Surge
The net amount of BTC that exited exchanges on April 12 was the highest seen since January 2023. Bitfinex analysts found that investors transferred 6,767 BTC on

Decentralized blockchain network Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) has successfully implemented threshold-Schnorr signatures to harness the potential of Bitcoin-based decentralized finance (DeFi) and web3.
According to a release seen by CryptoPotato, the new cryptographic signature scheme will enable ICP smart contracts to etch the Bitcoin token standard, Runes, and trade BRC-20 tokens.
Implementing Threshold-Schnorr Signatures
Threshold-Schnorr is a digital signature scheme that enables the secure signing of transactions and messages on-chain by facilitating the common ownership of a private key by a group of network participants.
ICP said combining threshold-Schnorr-BIP340 with its integration with the Bitcoin network gives rise to new possibilities for decentralized

Bitcoin (BTC) could be worth $91,000 at the bottom of the bear market and $650,000 at the top of the bull cycle upon the full deployment of the cryptocurrency’s exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the coming years.
According to a tweet by Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo, the digital asset can achieve these price targets if investors fully deploy Bitcoin ETFs according to the recommendations of asset management firms.
Bitcoin’s New Price Targets
To substantiate his claim, the Bitcoin analyst elaborated some calculations based on allocation recommendations, self-custody inflows, and market value to realized value (MVRV), which is the ratio between the market value of BTC and its realized value.
Woo explained that asset managers like Fidelity are advocating for modest crypto portfolio

A miner wallet from the early years of the cryptocurrency market has awoken from a long slumber, moving its assets to a centralized exchange.
According to a tweet by Lookonchain, the wallet moved 50 BTC worth over $3.28 million to the crypto exchange Coinbase in the early hours of the Asian trading session.
Miner Wallet Moves 50 BTC
The wallet address 15sxzZ earned the BTC after validating a block on April 23, 2010, and has held the cryptocurrencies since then. At the time, Bitcoin’s value hovered around $0.04, and the stash was worth roughly $2.
On October 25, 2020, the address received 547 satoshis worth $0.36, possibly to settle gas fees when the time to move the coins arrived. By this time, Bitcoin’s value had increased to $13,100, and the 50 BTC stash was worth more

Crypto market analytics platform CryptoQuant believes the effects of Bitcoin halvings have been diminishing and that the upcoming event will have an even smaller impact on BTC’s value.
In the latest edition of the firm’s weekly crypto report, analysts said the effect of the halving has been reducing because the new issuance of BTC keeps getting smaller in relation to the number being sold by long-term holders, signaling that demand will be the key driver of prices post-halving.
Bitcoin Halving Effect on a Decline
According to the report, Bitcoin monthly issuance has fallen to 4% of the total BTC supply available. Before the first, second, and third halving events, Bitcoin issuance represented 69%, 27%, and 10% of the available BTC supply. Last year, Bitcoin issuance

A CryptoQuant analyst has revealed that Bitcoin (BTC) still faces the risk of a deeper price correction even as the halving event draws near.
According to a Quicktake by Gaah on the on-chain analysis platform, the crypto market is still hot as it is in a dangerous price region for leveraged traders. Significant pressure could trigger a correction that would break bitcoin’s current price structure.
BTC Faces Correction Risk
At the time of writing, open interest for Bitcoin hovered around the middle range, signaling that investors have a neutral sentiment in their interest in new positions. Regardless, the price of BTC remains in the region of the last top-created positions in March.
The open interest range is also volatile in the upper region, meaning there is room for more

Bitcoin’s (BTC) rally back to $70,000 has caused the value of meme coins to increase, making them the most profitable group among altcoins.
According to a tweet by Santiment, the meme coin sector has experienced remarkable growth over the past week, regardless of their apparent lack of utility and the crypto community’s unfavorable stance on their existence.
Meme Coins Dominate Altcoin Sector
Santiment explained that speculative asset growth, as seen in the meme coin space, has been one of the main themes of the crypto sector in 2024, dispelling beliefs that pumps targeted at projects with minimal development are red flags.
Such dramatic rises in value have been deemed signals that the cryptocurrencies in question are nearing their peak. However, Santiment believes the

The team behind the Wilder World metaverse has entered a partnership with technology giant Samsung to bring its multiplayer virtual world to a wider audience through the company’s smart TVs.
According to an announcement sent to CryptoPotato, the collaboration will leverage Samsung’s extensive distribution network to introduce Wilder World to millions of households.
Wilder World Taps Samsung for Metaverse Integration
Wilder World’s integration into the Samsung ecosystem will begin with the inclusion of the metaverse’s assets and information on the company’s platforms and non-fungible token (NFT) gallery. The alliance focuses on Samsung’s launch of its Gen3 initiative, which is geared toward bringing web3 to its devices and gadgets.
The metaverse creator will also

Richard Teng, CEO of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, believes the trading giant is past the cultural issues after it settled criminal charges from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) with a $4.3 billion fine.
During an interview with CNBC, Teng said Binance had moved past the early stage of its development, where there were no clear rules, and it had to operate in a certain way to stay relevant.
Binance Has Moved Past Cultural Issues
In November 2023, the DOJ unsealed a criminal indictment against Binance, accusing the firm of willfully floundering the Bank Secrecy Act and failing to implement a strong anti-money laundering program to prevent the platform from becoming a hub of illicit activities.
The exchange’s founder, Changpeng Zhao,

For the first time in history, a cryptocurrency firm has used blockchain technology to select an athlete for a brand ambassador sponsorship deal.
According to a press release sent to CryptoPotato, the Polkadot community just passed a vote to sponsor IndyCar racing star Conor Daly as Polkadot brand ambassador for the upcoming Indianapolis 500, an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Daly as Polkadot’s Indy 500 Ambassador
The Indy 500 race is slated for May 26, and the tournament will mark the beginning of a year-long collaboration between Polkadot and Daly. The deal will extend beyond the racetrack as Polkadot will host interactive community events and digital initiatives to engage Daly’s fans and introduce them to the cross-chain network.
The

In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin (BTC) has rallied roughly 5%, surging past $72,000 in an attempt to retouch its all-time high. This upward trajectory has significantly reduced the number of addresses holding the digital asset at a loss.
According to data on IntoTheBlock, there are currently zero BTC addresses at a loss as the cryptocurrency hovers around $72,600.
Zero BTC Addresses at a Loss
A few hours before writing time, a tweet by IntoTheBlock revealed that over 30,000 Bitcoin addresses were at a loss, with a volume of 10,540 BTC. However, BTC’s continuous climb has eliminated the losses, placing the addresses at the money.
With zero addresses out of the money, roughly 99.6% of Bitcoin addresses, comprising 51.82 million wallets, are in profit, leaving over 183,000

The first quarter of 2024 turned out to be Bitcoin’s (BTC) third-best in the past three years, according to a report from crypto data analytics platform Kaiko.
It revealed that the leading digital asset recorded over $1.4 trillion in trading volumes between January and March 2024.
A Surge in Bitcoin Trading Volume
Q1 2024 was Bitcoin’s best quarter in a year as the network witnessed a surge in trading volume. The $1.4 trillion traded in the quarter was the largest cumulative amount the network had seen in more than two years, representing a 107% increase from the $674 billion recorded in Q4 2023.
The last time Bitcoin recorded similar trading volumes was in Q1 and Q2 2021, when the network traded over $1.93 trillion and $2.16 trillion, respectively. A similar but smaller

With the fourth Bitcoin halving approximately 15 days away, miners are focused on increasing their profitability before their block rewards are significantly reduced.
Although some Bitcoin mining companies have increased their selling activity, they still face challenges like lower transaction fees, increasing mining competition, and the need for higher computing power to produce the same amount of BTC.
Miners Struggle to Sustain Profitability
The reduction of Bitcoin block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC will significantly affect miners. Their revenues will be slashed by 50%, and they will need higher BTC prices to sustain their profitability.
CryptoQuant’s latest weekly crypto report revealed that the mining industry’s daily revenue reached record levels in 2024 due

Price feed oracle and market data provider Pyth Network has released new price feeds for two blockchain tokens: W and USDB.
According to a press release shared with CryptoPotato, both price feeds have become available on roughly 50 blockchains that have integrated Pyth in their protocols.
Pyth Launches Price Feeds For W And USDB
W is the governance token for Wormhole, a cross-chain messaging platform that allows developers to build interoperable decentralized applications. Although Wormhole launched its protocol three years ago, the platform released W on April 3, with an initial circulating supply of 1.8 billion and a maximum supply of 10 billion.
Around 82% of W are currently locked and will be unlocked over a four-year vesting period, according to a Token Release