Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) price maintained the $30,000 support as lower-than-expected U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) data was released on April 12. The official inflation rate for March increased 5% year on year, which was slightly less than the 5.1% consensus. It was the lowest reading since May 2021 but is still significantly higher than the U.S. Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

The data suggests that inflation is no longer the driving force behind Bitcoin’s rally, and investors’ focus has shifted from the impact of inflationary pressure to potential recession risks after the banking crisis revealed how fragile the financial system was following the Federal Reserve’s 12-month hike in interest rates from 0.10% to 4.85%.

Aside from the Silicon Valley Bank bankruptcy and the government-backed sale of Credit Suisse to UBS, several warning signs of a macroeconomic downturn have emerged.

The most recent ISM Purchasing Managers Index data fell to its lowest level since May 2020, indicating an economic contraction. According to Federal Reserve documents released on April 12, the aftermath of the U.S. banking crisis is likely to push the economy into a “mild recession” later this year. Because of the crisis, some have speculated that the Fed will hold off on raising interest rates, but officials affirmed that more effort is needed to keep inflation under control.

According to a Moody's Analytics report, commercial real estate prices fell 1.6% in February, the most since the 2008 financial crisis. Furthermore, the national office vacancy rate reached 16.5%, indicating the severity of the economic difficulties that businesses are currently facing.

Arbitrum’s ARB token has emerged as one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies following Ethereum’s long-awaited Shanghai upgrade.

Notably, ARB price gained 4.28% to hit $1.36 on April 13, its highest level in two weeks. This also amounts to 18% gains from its $1.15 low a day prior when the Shanghai upgrade enabled staking withdrawals on Ethereum.

To summarize, Arbitrum is an Ethereum layer-2 (L2) scaling solution that aims to reduce network transaction congestion and transaction fees. As a result, the market typically perceives Ethereum’s growth as a boon for L2 chains.

Here are three reasons why ARB could continue its bull run in Q2 to retest its record high of $1.60.

More utility for ARB

Arbitrum generated $2.5 million in profits in March 2023 via sequencing, according to Messari.

Bitcoin (BTC) preserved $30,000 support at the April 12 Wall Street open as more United States macroeconomic data boosted bulls.

PPI hints further inflation drops to come

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hovering near $30,250 on Bitstamp.

Amid a slowdown in volatility, U.S. Producer Price Inflation (PPI) data provided a timely hint that inflation was slowing faster than expected.

Headline PPI came in at 2.7% year-on-year versus market expectations of 3% — an encouraging result for risk assets.

Financial commentary resource The Kobeissi Letter was among those noting that the month-on-month drop in PPI values was the largest since the peak in March 2022.

The price of Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) token edged toward $2,000 a day after the launch of the network’s long-anticipated Shapella upgrade.

Ethereum ducks sell-the-news fears

On April 13, Ether’s price gained roughly 4% to reach an intraday high of $1,996 on Coinbase, ignoring the potential sell-off pressure the Shapella upgrade could potentially bring to the market.

To recap: The Shanghai hard fork, also known as “Shapella,” enables users to withdraw their ETH from Ethereum’s proof-of-stake smart contract.

As of 9:00 am UTC on April 13, over 98,000 ETH worth around $194.8 million has left Ethereum’s voting balance reserves since the Shanghai launch a day ago, according to Nansen. In other words, nearly $200 million in potential selling pressure has entered the market.

But Ether’s price rise since Shanghai suggests that the market has had no problem absorbing any selling pressure arising from this event so far. It’s also possible that most users have decided to hold onto their ETH staking rewards rather than sell them in anticipation of further gains.

Bitcoin (BTC) price action is right on track when it comes to sealing new all-time highs, new data suggests.

A suite of price metrics from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode released on April 11 hints that Bitcoin’s current halving cycle is playing out in classic style.

BTC price closely resembles prior halving cycles

With BTC/USD up over 70% in 2023 and far from its $15,600 lows in November 2022, analysts are already considering the role of next year’s block subsidy halving.

Set to cut the amount of BTC miners “mint” per block from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC; the upcoming halving represents an emission decrease exactly like others that preceded it.

Bets are therefore increasing over the impact on Bitcoin price performance, likewise copying past halvings, with the event itself acting as a springboard for all-time highs.

The Ethereum network’s planned Shanghai hard fork is nearly here. Planned for April 12, this is the first major upgrade since The Merge in September 2022. The “Shapella” upgrade (a combination of the two major proposals Shanghai and Capella), includes EIP-4895 which enables validators to withdraw staked ETH from the Beacon chain (Consensus layer) to the EVM (execution layer). The execution layer is the fun and friendly Ethereum users have come to know and love. 

Why is this a big deal? With just over 18 million ETH currently staked (valued at just over $33 billion at the time of writing), some of which has been locked up for years, the possibility of these tokens flooding an already teetering market is enough to get some holders ready to sell the news once withdrawals are enabled.

For holders who are both long and short ETH post-withdrawals, it’s likely to be a significant event, and on-chain activity suggests many feel the same: activity around liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) can be a useful gauge for what the market might do post-unlock.

Liquid Staking Derivatives could exert influence over Beacon Chain unlocks

What are liquid staking derivatives? They are a relatively new financial instrument born of DeFi that function like bearer instruments for staked ETH. Similar to how borrowing and lending protocols give users a share token to represent locked collateral (think Aave’s a-tokens), staking ETH generates a wrapped asset used to claim the equivalent amount of Ethereum from the staking platform. When a staker deposits ETH with major platforms like Lido, Rocketpool, Frax, Stakewise and now Coinbase, they receive a platform-specific flavor of LSD. Because staked tokens are illiquid, these wrapped assets allow stakers to continue earning rewards while securing the network without completely giving up the opportunity to participate in other activities within DeFi.

Liquid staking derivatives aim to solve these problems by allowing staked assets to be traded on secondary markets. This means that stakers could access the value of their staked ETH before the Shanghai upgrade enables withdrawals or, in the future, while maintaining their staked position. For example, a staker could use their wrapped ETH as collateral on another platform, or cover an unexpected expense by selling their LSD on a secondary market.

Ether (ETH) price has increased by 58% year to date, but it has far underperformed the market leader Bitcoin (BTC). In fact, the ETH/BTC price ratio has dropped to 0.063, its lowest level in 9 months. 

Analysts believe that the majority of the movement can be attributed to the Ethereum network's upcoming Shapella hard fork, which is scheduled for April 12 at 10:27 p.m. UTC.

The Ethereum network upgrade will allow stakers to unlock their Ether rewards or stop staking entirely. By April 11, over 170,000 ETH withdrawals were requested, according to the analytics firm Glassnode. However, the total staked on the Beacon Chain exceeds 18.1 million ETH, which has traders fearful until more information on ETH’s potential selling pressure becomes available.

Is the price impact of the Shapella fork already priced in?

The staking unlock was widely known and expected, so traders could have anticipated the movement. Some analysts have gone so far as to call the hard fork a "buy the news" event.

Using a meme, trader @CanteringClark is likely expressing dissatisfaction with the theory, but to invalidate the hypothesis, one must investigate potential reasons for ETH’s underperformance other than the much anticipated hard fork.

LayerZero is a communication method that facilitates cross-chain applications. Its low-level messaging capabilities enable the development of omni-chain functionalities on top of it, such as decentralized exchanges, money market protocols and numerous other DeFi applications that can benefit from cross-chain liquidity provisions.

The LayerZero platform was launched in September 2021 with Stargate Finance, a cross-chain bridge, as the first application built on it. The project raised $261 million in three funding rounds, doubling its valuation from $1 billion to $2 billionfrom March 2022 to March 2023.

Data analytics firm Nansen reported that decentralized applications (Dapps) built on LayerZero are some of the top-used entities across blockchain platforms like Aribtrum, Optimism, Ethereum, Binance Chain and Polygon.

In the first week of April, LayerZero-powered applications like Stargate and Radiant Finance were most used on Arbitrum and Optimism. On Polygon, Binance Chain and Ethereum, LayerZero and its applications ranked between 7th and 30th concerning user activity.

The primary motivation for the increasing adoption is the speculation around the native token airdrop of LayerZero. The team has included a mention of the ZRO token in their source code on Github, which makes an airdrop toward early users likely.

The Ethereum network’s Shapella upgrade, scheduled for around 10:30 pm UTC on April 12, has induced significant uncertainty among traders, according to a report by Kaiko. 

The upgrade will enable staked Ether (ETH) withdrawals from the Beacon Chain for the first time since its launch in December 2020. According to previous estimates, the upgrade will add nearly 1.2 million to 3 million worth of ETH selling pressure in the first few weeks. This is one of the main reasons traders appear to be taking a cautious stance ahead of the upgrade.

Kaiko’s report shows that ETH is lagging behind Bitcoin (BTC) in spot and futures trading volumes, while options market data shows traders are actively adding short-term hedging positions.

Ethereum’s market share in U.S. dollar trading volume compared to Bitcoin declined to March 2021 lows near 30%, per Kaiko data, showing that Ether has “struggled to maintain pace” with Bitcoin spot volumes. During Ethereum’s last big upgrade, the Merge, its market share relative to Bitcoin reached a high of 53%.

Similarly, the relative increase in the open interest (OI) volumes for Bitcoin has surpassed Ethereum considerably with the April 10 price surge above $30,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) spiked higher prior to the April 12 Wall Street open as United States inflation data outperformed market forecasts.

CPI offers "great inflation print" for risk-on bulls

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it neared new ten-month highs on Bitstamp.

Widely-predicted volatility entered immediately following the release of Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for March. This broadly conformed to expectations, with the year-on-year increase undercutting assumptions by 0.2%.

"The all items index increased 5.0 percent for the 12 months ending March; this was the smallest 12-month increase since the period ending May 2021," an accompanying press release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed.

This was nonetheless enough to spark some optimistic upside on crypto markets ahead of the Wall Street open, with potential further upside in line with equities to come.

Bitcoin (BTC) traced $30,000 on April 12 as looming United States macroeconomic data heightened nerves.

Analyst warns markets "discounting significance" of CPI

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hovering near the significant psychological level after overnight lows of $29,875 on Bitstamp.

Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March are due at 2.30pm Eastern time, followed by minutes from last month’s meeting of the Federal Reserve Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), at which policymakers confirmed a 0.25% interest rate hike.

“Today is US CPI day, and for the first time in a long while, it feels like the market is discounting the significance of this event…,” analytics account Tedtalksmacro wrote in part of Twitter commentary.

“Trader positioning leading into today is nowhere near as conservative/risk-off as we typically would observe.”

Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) token continued its losing streak versus Bitcoin (BTC) for the fifth day in a row as BTC’s price jumped above $30,000 for the first time since June 2022.

ETH/BTC bullish reversal fails midway

On April 11, the ETH/BTC pair dropped nearly 1.6% to 0.0634 BTC to retest multi-month lows.

The ETH/BTC level is down 6.75% from its local peak of 0.0679 BTC set six days ago. It is also just 2% above the pair’s local low of 0.0622 BTC from March 20, showing that Ether’s bullish reversal attempt versus Bitcoin is near failure.

Interestingly, institutional interest also appears to gravitate more toward Bitcoin than Ethereum, according to CoinShares’ weekly report. It shows that the Bitcoin-focused investment funds witnessed inflows worth $56 million in the week ending April 7.

In comparison, the Ethereum-based funds received only $600,000 despite the hype around its long-awaited Shanghai hard fork on April 12.

Bitcoin (BTC) price has finally broken the $30,000 level after the key price zone lasted as a ten months resistance level. BTC price rallied 6.5% on April 10 and the much-awaited price gain ended an agonizing 12-day period of extremely low volatility, which saw the price hovering close to $28,200. Bulls are now confident that the bear market has officially ended, especially considering the fact that BTC price has gained 82% year-to-date.

Another interesting note is, Bitcoin's decoupling from traditional markets has been confirmed, after the S&P 500 index presented a mere 0.1% gain on April 10, and WTI oil traded down 1.2%. Bitcoin traders are likely anticipating the Federal Reserve's interest rate policy to reverse sooner than later.

Stagflation risk could be behind the decoupling

Higher interest rates make fixed-income investments more attractive, while businesses and families face additional costs to refinance their debts. The reversal of the U.S. central bank's recent tightening movement is deemed bullish for risk assets. However, the fear of stagflation — a period of increased inflation and negative economic growth — would be the worst-case scenario for the stock market.

Fixed-income traders are betting that the Federal Reserve probably has one more interest-rate hike because the latest economic data displayed moderate resilience. For instance, the 3.5% U.S. unemployment rate announced on April 7 is the lowest measure in half a century.

The U.S. treasuries market suggests a 76% chance that the Federal Reserve will bolster the benchmark by 0.25% on April 29, according to Bloomberg. There's also the added uncertainty of the banking crisis's impact on the sector, with JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup scheduled to report first-quarter results on Friday.

Bitcoin (BTC) got busy testing $30,000 as new support at the April 11 Wall Street open after hitting new 10-month highs.

$30,000 surge decimates liquidity

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD coming down from an overnight peak near $30,500.

The pair had spent most of the day bouncing from the $30,000 mark after finally passing it in a short squeeze weeks in the making.

Major misgivings from some market participants accompanied the move, with fears centering on a potential correction to $25,000 or even lower.

Takes became more optimistic on longer timeframes, however. The $30,000 push, for instance, cemented popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital’s conviction that Bitcoin had abandoned a bearish double top formation from Q1.

Ronin Network’s native token RON recorded 5x gains since the start of the year thanks to its plans to shift to a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism and expand its gaming portfolio beyond Axie Infinity.

The gaming-focused layer-2 Ethereum blockchain will change its current Proof-of-Authority to the DPoS consensus mechanism on April 12.

The previous mechanism had around six to nine participants securing and validating transactions on the network, which put the network at a centralization risk. It was the leading cause of the $650 million hack from the Ronin network on March 29, 2022.

The new DPoS consensus mechanism allows RON stakers to earn from the network’s fees and vote on the set of validators operating the network.

Additionally, Sky Mavis, the team behind Axie Infinity and the Ronin Network, is also working on expanding the gaming portfolio of the Ronin Network. On March 30, they announced that four new gaming studios are building on the Ronin Network, including Tribes Studio, Bali Games, Directive Games and Bowled.io.

XRP (XRP) rose 2.1% to $0.52 on April 11, extending its daily gains from $0.50 alongside a broader cryptocurrency market rally, with traders pinning hopes on easing inflation data into April 12.

XRP price: lackluster volumes raise risk of 25% correction

XRP’s upside move brought it closer to breaking out of its prevailing bull pennant range, with a price target of $0.65.

However, lackluster volumes accompanying XRP’s gains hinted at a potential price correction in the future. That could mean a short-term pullback toward the pennant’s lower trendline near $0.51 in April or a broader correction altogether invalidating the bullish continuation setup.

The extended sell-off scenario is best visible on the weekly chart below, wherein a key resistance-turned-support line has limited XRP’s upside prospects.

If the fractal plays out again, XRP’s price will risk falling toward its multimonth ascending trendline support near $0.40 by May, down about 25% from current price levels.

Bitcoin (BTC) held $30,000 as support before the April 11 Wall Street opening, with fresh doubts emerging over the rally’s strength.

BTC price finally tackles $30,000 resistance cloud

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit 10-month highs of $30,438 on Bitstamp.

Almost one month in the making, the final surge to $30,000 delighted many traders who considered the move to be a matter of time.

Having uploaded a roadmap showing BTC/USD continuing to gain, Crypto Kaleo argued that Bitcoin was still the best investment allocation for capital, rather than cash or altcoins, at current prices.

“Bitcoin is breaking out, of course all of the USD charts are going to look decently bullish,” part of the day’s Twitter commentary stated.