Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) price reclaimed the $30,000 support on April 18 after briefly testing $29,130 on the previous day. However, traders question whether the recovery is sustainable given the increased regulatory scrutiny, especially in the United States. 

Rostin Behnam, the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said on April 14 that Binance intentionally broke U.S. rules concerning futures and commodities trading. For example, knowingly allowing U.S. citizens to participate on the exchange through the use of obfuscation tools. The comments stem from the CFTC’s March 27 lawsuit against Binance and its CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao for alleged trading violations.

Also on April 14, in an open meeting with U.S. Securities and Exchange commissioners and staff, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said the agency will be revisiting the proposed redefinition of an “exchange”. The SEC intends to bring certain brokers under additional regulatory scrutiny, and explicitly include decentralized applications.

On April 17, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged crypto asset trading platform Bittrex and former CEO William Shihara for operating an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency. Separately, Bittrex Global is being charged for operating a shared order book with Bittrex.

Bittrex had already announced its intention of closing down U.S. operations on April 30 after reportedly receiving a Wells Notice in March warning about the impending regulatory action.

Solana saw two positive developments this week with the launch of the Saga Android-based smartphone powered by Solana blockchain and the retail trading debut of Grayscale’s Solana Trust shares.

The developments along with bullishness in the broader market, boosted the price of SOL by 29.05% from April 11 to a monthly high of $26.03.

While the mobile launch positively boosts the Solana ecosystem, the Saga phone appears overpriced at over $1,000 apiece. Nevertheless, the smartphone received positive reviews in user experience and quality.

Independent cryptocurrency investor, Amy Wu, noted that “Saga-exclusive dApps, games, and rewards as the phone ships globally, which will also make it easier to justify the $1,000 premium price.” It remains to be seen how the Solana Foundation leads the marketing efforts for the phone against existing giants like Samsung and Apple.

The Grayscale fund has only $2.9 million in assets under management (AUM) in the Solana Fund, which is considerably less compared to the 24-hour daily trading volume of SOL, which surpassed $500 million, to have an impact on price.

MicroStrategy’s bold Bitcoin (BTC) investment strategy is playing out profitably so far into 2023.

Today, MicroStrategy’s stock, MSTR, is up roughly 140% year-to-date (YTD) to $350 per share, its highest level since September last year. It mirrored Bitcoin’s 90% YTD gains, maintaining a strong positive correlation with the top cryptocurrency.

Proxy Bitcoin investment boom

To recap, MicroStrategy is essentially a proxy for direct BTC investment without a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the United States. It holds 140,000 BTC worth $4.26 billion, the most by a publicly traded company as a part of its treasury strategy.

MSTR investors typically get their buying or selling cues from the same catalysts that drive Bitcoin market trends.

As a result, the stock has mirrored the BTC price uptrend so far in 2023, led by rush-to-safety trades amid the U.S. banking crisis and anticipation that the Federal Reserve would stop hiking rates.

Gnosis Builders, developer of blockchain network Gnosis Chain, has announced a $5 million project to increase the number and diversity of validators through incentive mechanisms. The new project is called “Gnosis VIP,” according to an April 18 announcement from the company.

As part of the new project, Gnosis is launching a “Geographic Diversity Program” that seeks to increase the number of countries Gnosis Chain validators are located within.

The network currently has over 100,000 validators spread across 60 countries, and the program’s goal is to increase the number of countries to 180 by year’s end, the announcement said.

According to the program’s official webpage, for each of the 90 countries listed, the first ten validators that start operating within them will receive 388 meta Gnosis (worth $1,368.18 at April 12 prices) over the course of six months. Meta Gnosis (mGNO) is the wrapped and staked version of the network’s native coin, Gnosis (GNO). Each mGNO can be redeemed for 1/32 GNO.

The first payment of 38 mGNO ($134) will be disbursed after the first 30 days the node operates. The size of the payment will increase each month, and the last payment at the end of the six months will be for 98 mGNO ($345.57).