Decentral Block Post

With one week to go until the Ethereum (ETH) Shanghai and Capella upgrades on April 12, all eyes are on Ether. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization shrugged off rumors and regulatory action against exchanges to hit a 7-month high of $1,922 on April 5. 

Ether price has momentum and here are three strong reasons why.

Multiple positive price achievements

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, despite market volatility, Ether price has posted gains on the 7-day, 1-month and 3-month timeframes. Ether price gains are also notable on the year-to-date perspective, showing 59% growth.

Ether’s ability to break resistance levels is leading some analysts to believe a $3,000 price target is on the horizon in Q2 2023. The trend shows that whale accumulation remains strong, growing by 0.5% in March according to data from analytics provider Santiment.

The bullish buying activity may prove on-chain data correct that Ether sell pressure after the Shanghai hardfork will be a non-event.

Bitcoin (BTC) remains pinned below the psychologically crucial level of $30,000 as cryptocurrency investors search for positive triggers. That has not stopped business intelligence firm MicroStrategy from adding 1,045 Bitcoin to its kitty, which has now swelled to 140,000 Bitcoin.

Even after the sharp recovery from November 2022 low, monitoring resource Material Indicators believes the current up-move is a bear market rally.

Usually, a bear market rally does not turn around until the last bear has thrown in the towel. This suggests that Bitcoin’s recovery may have some more legs before it turns down to shake out the weaker hands.

A survey conducted by financial services firm Brown Brothers Harriman shows that institutional investors remain interested in the cryptocurrency space despite the crypto winter. It found that 74% of institutional investors were “extremely/very interested” in adding exposure to exchange-traded-funds with cryptocurrency related exposure.

Will Bitcoin continue its northward march and rise above $30,000? Will that move boost the altcoins higher? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Ether’s (ETH) price had been battling the $1,850 resistance level, but it broke through on April 4 when Ether rallied to a seven-month high above $1,900. Recently there has been a lot of speculation on Ether price catalysts. Let’s see if it’s possible to identify any fundamental factors behind the price movement. 

The upcoming Shanghai hard fork could be one factor in Ether’s recent bullish momentum. On April 12, the ability for validators to withdraw their deposits opens, giving staking participants freedom of movement but also creating a sell-off risk for Ether.

There are now 17.81 million ETH staked on the Beacon Chain, though some safeguards have been put in place to prevent a flood of Ether from disrupting the market. For example, because there is a daily limit of 2,200 withdrawals, the maximum daily unlocks are 70,000 ETH.

Scalability and selfish validator risks are still present

The upcoming Shanghai fork, however, does not address some of the most pressing issues currently plaguing the Ethereum network. Scalability continues to be a major issue for most users, as the average transaction fee has hovered around $5 in recent weeks, driving users away from decentralized applications (DApps).

Furthermore, the current consensus mechanism favors rogue miners who outperform other network participants, a phenomenon known as miner extractable value (MEV). They can quickly duplicate all winning deals from the mempool and execute their transactions ahead of others by ultimately deciding which transactions are completed in the block.

Reading blockchain books can be an effective way to understand blockchain technology comprehensively. These books can provide insights into the history and principles of blockchain, and how it works in practice. By reading these books, you can gain a deeper appreciation of the potential of blockchain technology and its various use cases across different industries.

Furthermore, these books can help you understand how blockchain can be used to solve real-world problems and transform existing business models. By staying up-to-date with the latest blockchain developments, you can position yourself for success in this emerging field.

Here are five books to learn about blockchain:

“Mastering Blockchain: Distributed Ledger Technology, Decentralization, and Smart Contracts Explained” by Imran Bashir

This book provides an in-depth overview of blockchain technology, its workings and its various applications. It covers both the technical and non-technical aspects of blockchain, making it suitable for readers of all levels. Moreover, it covers the latest trends and developments in the blockchain industry, making it an essential read for anyone interested in the field.

“Blockchain Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction in 25 Steps” by Daniel Drescher

This book provides a simple and easy-to-understand introduction to blockchain for readers who do not have a technical background. It covers the basics of blockchain, including its history, terminology and potential use cases.

Bitcoin (BTC) headed back toward $29,000 into April 5 as data showed whale orders guiding price action.

Analysis: BTC price push still “bear market rally”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit $28,780 on Bitstamp.

The pair continued a rebound from one-week lows under $27,300 at the start of the week courtesy of rumors around the Binance crypto exchange and its CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.

After reclaiming $28,000, Bitcoin saw fresh momentum as Binance order book data showed large-volume “whale” traders buying.

This was not all as it seemed for bulls, monitoring resource Material Indicators nonetheless warned, as those same traders could be artificially pushing the market higher in order to sell closer to $30,000.

This week on The Market Report, Cointelegraph analyst and writer Marcel Pechman breaks down everything that has been happening between Twitter, Elon Musk and Dogecoin (DOGE). He also covers the Changpeng “CZ” Zhao arrest rumors and Japanese crackdowns on crypto exchanges.

Bitcoin price bounces after CZ arrest rumors as traders eye $30K next

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD dipping to $27,240 on Bitstamp. Its lowest since March 28, the performance followed an outbreak of claims that Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, already under investigation by United States regulators, is now wanted by Interpol. The claims came from an accidental leak of an encrypted tweet by the private Twitter account Cobie, which appeared to lack evidence, resulting in a market rebound. Bitcoin (BTC), however, quickly bounced back and is now trading at over $28,000 and has some investors and industry experts looking toward a pump to $30,000. Could we see this happening anytime soon? Pechman explains the reasoning behind these claims. 

Elon Musk changes Twitter icon to Doge after seeking lawsuit dismissal

On April 3, social media giant Twitter changed its icon to that of the symbol on the popular meme token Dogecoin, which is up sharply in light of the news, with its price surging by more than 22% in an hour to $0.09784. The icon change took place platform-wide and is directly visible by the social media giant’s estimated 360 million monthly active users and visitors to the platform alike. Shortly after the icon change, the Twitter and Tesla CEO tweeted a meme, which appears to imply that the change will be around for some time. Is there anything tangible here, or is it just a nothing burger? Should the crypto industry really be paying attention to such news involving Musk and Dogecoin? Pechman has some strong opinions on the matter.

Arbitrum suffered a big blow during the April 1 to April 2 weekend due to a conflict between the ARB token holders and the Arbitrum Foundation on the allocation of $750 million ARB tokens worth around $900 million.

Data from on-chain analysis firm Arkham Intelligence shows that the transfer of $50.5 million out of the disputed allocation of 750 million ARB tokens. They shared with Cointelegraph that,

“Only 50.5 million of those tokens have been moved. 10 million tokens have been sent to be sold on exchanges, 40 million have been loaned to Wintermute and the remaining 500K remain untouched in a multisig wallet (labeled Gnosis Safe Proxy).”

On April 3 morning, the Arbitrum Foundation conceded to the community's opposition and decided to break up the said proposal in question into multiple proposals for allocating the funds for the project's ecosystem growth.

Another on-chain transfer of 2.694 billion ARB tokens from the DAOs Treasury to 140 addresses spooked the market. The transfers ranged from 100,000 to 71.6 million ARB per address.

The price of Shiba Inu (SHIB) increased over 10% in a day amid broader upside moves across meme cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours. But will SHIB price rally further

SHIB price tails Dogecoin's gains

On April 4, SHIB's price reached $0.00001159 a day after rebounding from its local low of $0.00001049 — a 10.5% increase. Still, the meme-token underperformed most of its rivals, including Dogecoin (DOGE), which jumped over 30% in the same period.

On a year-to-date timeframe, SHIB and DOGE's gains are nearly identical around 38%. 

SHIB price started rallying after Twitter, owned by self-proclaimed Dogecoin supporter Elon Musk, replaced its iconic blue bird logo with Dogecoin's Shiba Inu symbol. SHIB/U has rallied similarly in the past due to Musk's Dogecoin mentions on Twitter.

Interestingly, in October 2021, Musk clarified that he does not hold Shiba Inu.

Dogecoin (DOGE) pared a portion of its massive daily gains on April 4 as investors speculated on the meaning behind Elon Musk’s latest cryptic stunt.

Elon Musk pumps Dogecoin by over 30%

In what appears to be a late April Fool’s joke, Musk-owned Twitter changed its official blue bird logo to mimic Dogecoin’s symbol — a Shiba Inu dog featured in viral memes. Later, Musk tweeted a meme recognizing the change.

Over the years, Musk has influenced the Dogecoin market with his cryptic tweets. The billionaire investor calls himself “Dogefather,” and has earlier discussed the prospect of adding a DOGE payment option for Twitter subscription services. 

His other ventures, Tesla and SpaceX, already accept DOGE for their merchandise products.

Dogecoin rose nearly 33% after Musk’s tweet on April 3, reaching $0.104, its highest level since December 2022. DOGE price has pared a portion of its gains since, dropping to lows of $0.092.

After being robbed of $196 million in a flash loan attack, Euler Finance convinced its hacker within 25 days to return most of the funds. The outcome was a result of numerous to and fro, which eventually led the hacker to do “the right thing.”

On March 13, the Euler Finance hacker carried out multiple transactions, each draining millions of dollars in various tokens, including DAI (DAI), USD Coin (USDC), staked Ether (StETH) and wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).

As a result, Euler’s total value locked inside its smart contracts has dropped from over $311 million to $10.37 million. Ultimately, 11 different decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, including Balancer, Yearn Finance and Yield Protocol, either froze or lost funds.

The next day, March 14, Euler took proactive measures to recover funds, which involved disabling its vulnerable etoken module and donation function as the first course of action. In addition, it worked with auditing companies to analyze the root cause of the exploit.

Parallely, Euler tried contacting the hackers to negotiate a bounty. On March 15, the hacker received an ultimatum to return 90% of the stolen funds and threatened to announce a $1 million reward for information that could lead to the hacker’s arrest. This deal would allow the hacker to get away with $19.6 million.

The dominance of cryptocurrency exchange Binance in trading volume market share has slipped over the past two weeks following a lawsuit from the United States commodities regulator and its decision to halt some zero-fee trading.

In an April 4 newsletter blockchain analytics platform Kaiko reported Binance “lost 16% market share of trade volume,” with its market share at 54% as of the end of Q1.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance on March 27 alleging it flouted regulatory compliance through violations of derivatives laws by offering trading to U.S. customers without registering.

Kaiko said Binance still takes in more volume than the rest of its combined competitors but its March 15 decision to end zero-fee spot and margin trading for 13 trading pairs including BNB (BNB), Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading pairs with multiple fiat currencies and stablecoins largely contributed to the firm’s downfall.

“Overall, Binance’s excess volume largely vanished with the end of zero-fee trading, which was reflected in an even dispersal in market share among the remaining exchanges,” Kaiko reported.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price initially dipped, but then recovered on April 3. The volatility happened after several OPEC+ members announced plans to cut oil production totaling 1.65 million barrels per day until the end of the year. Some analysts expect this move to tighten supply, resulting in higher prices at the pump. That may in turn boost inflation, warranting a continued hawkish stance from central banks.

Initially, the United States dollar index (DXY) rose but it could not sustain the intraday rally. This suggests that the market participants believe the event will not cause any major deviation in the Federal Reserve’s policy. A weaker DXY is generally considered a positive for risky assets.

Cryptocurrencies have remained strong in the face of adverse macroeconomic news and regulatory action against crypto firms in the past few days. When the price of an asset does not crack with negative news, it shows that traders are not panicking and selling their holdings.

Could Bitcoin overcome the obstacle at $30,000 and start a bull run? Will altcoins also join the party? Let’s study the charts to find out.

S&P 500 index price analysis

The S&P 500 index (SPX) picked up momentum after breaking out of the wedge pattern. Buyers will try to push the price to 4,200 which is likely to act as a strong barrier.

Paris Blockchain Week celebrated its fourth edition in spring 2023 against a backdrop of riots, protests and general civil malaise. The builders in the Bitcoin (BTC), crypto, and Web3 spaces were unfazed by protesters chanting and dancing on the doorstep of the conference venue. 

The event took place against the backdrop of ongoing protests in Paris and worsening macroeconomic conditions in France. Many attendees expressed concern about the impact of these factors on the future of the blockchain and crypto industry, particularly in Europe.

Nevertheless, the overall mood at PBW 2023 was optimistic, with many attendees citing the recent surge in Bitcoin's price as a sign of growing mainstream acceptance of the technology. Plus, as Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger, explained to Cointelegraph: “Bitcoin was designed for this.”

“Bitcoin was designed in reaction to Lehman Brothers in the 2008 crisis. It was designed because you can’t trust central authorities. And it’s designed because it’s clear that central authorities will fail. It’s not a question of if. It’s more a question of when.”

However, as protestors marched to the doorstep of the entrance to the “Les Salles du Carousel,” the crypt of the Louvre in which the event was held, there appeared to be a disconnect or rift between the Web3 space and reality.

A new daily all-time high (ATH) has been recorded for the number of Ordinals inscribed on the Bitcoin (BTC) network due to a recently launched “token standard” for the blockchain.

Bitcoin Ordinals reached 58,179 inscriptions on April 2, smashing the previous all-time high (ATH) of 31,692 on March 9 by 83.5% according to Dune Analytics data.

The surge is believed to be driven by the recent creation of "Bitcoin Request for Comment" (BRC-20) tokens on the Ordinals protocol by a pseudonymous on-chain analyst named Domo in early March.

While Ordinals are nonfungible token (NFT)-like “digital artifacts” which carry data in the form of text, JPEG images, PDFs, video and audio formats on the Bitcoin network, the BRC-20 token standard utilizes Ordinal inscriptions to deploy token contracts, mint tokens, and transfer tokens — similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard.

The arrival of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens on Bitcoin were enabled by the Taproot soft fork, which took effect on Nov. 14, 2021.