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Bitcoin (BTC) returned above $30,000 on April 18 as volatility preceded the day’s Wall Street open.

Bitcoin erases intraday losses

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as the pair suddenly added $500, delivering daily gains of more than 3%.

The pair had previously worried traders, who watched as $30,000 support looked set to remain as longer-term resistance.

Before crossing the $30,000 mark, Binance order book activity was a focus for monitoring resource Material Indicators, which identified bid liquidity moving closer to spot price.

“Some has already started moving closer to the active trading zone. Watching to see if more of it follows or if price drops back into the $28s to fill,” part of accompanying commentary read.

Ethereum blockchain underwent a successful Shapella upgrade on April 12, making way for validators to withdraw their staked Ether (ETH) from the Beacon chain after three years. After seeing over a million ETH in withdrawals in the first week, the amount of staked ETH has now surpassed the number of ETH being withdrawn for the first time after the Shapella upgrade.

Data from the on-chain analytic firm Nansen suggests that there are more ETH being staked at present than withdrawal requests. As of April 17, the ETH staking volume ETH staked 124,000 ETH exceeded the withdrawal volume of 64,800 ETH for the first time. In the last 24 hours, the amount of staked ETH was 94,968 against 27,076 in withdrawals. The first round was mostly partial withdrawals from Lido and old validators. It takes approximately three days to get into the withdrawal queue.

Shapella upgrade was being projected as the make-or-break situation for the Ethereum blockchain as millions in unlocked ETH posed a risk of mass selling of the token. However, contrary to popular belief, the majority of the validators are re-staking their unlocked Ether. Crypto exchange Binance will open withdrawals on April 19.

Related: Ethereum price metrics hint that ETH might not sell off after the Shapella hard fork

Out of the 1 million withdrawn ETH, 3 addresses re-staked ETH with a total of 19,844 ETH. 3 addresses transferred ETH to Centralized exchanges after withdrawal, with a total of 71,444 ETH sent to different exchanges. Other whales did the same with some sending it to Huobi staking address and few other to CEX, according to data shared by Lookonchain.

A four-year-old video of United States Securities an Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Genser giving praise to smart contract platform Algorand (ALGO) is circulating on Twitter following the SEC declaring ALGO is an unregistered security.

In the video, Gensler referred to Algorand as a “great technology” while he was contemplating whether a “high performance” smart contract network would be capable of integrating an Uber or Lyft-like application on its platform.

ALGO is one of six tokens that Gensler claimed was an unregistered security in the SEC’s lawsuit against crypto trading platform Bittrex on April 17 that took issue with the Algorand Foundation's initial coin offering (ICO) of ALGO in June 2019.

Cryptocurrency researcher Mason Versluis was one of the first to highlight the video in an April 17 tweet criticizing Gensler for “shilling” ALGO, with others calling out the SEC chair for his apparent hypocrisy.

Gensler’s praise of Algorand was heard by an audience at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) “Fintech Beyond Crisis” conference held on April 25, 2019.

Pullbacks are a part and parcel of uptrends. They not only help shake out the weaker hands but also offer an opportunity for traders to add to their position or make fresh entries. Currently, Bitcoin (BTC) is witnessing a correction as bulls and the bears battle for control, but is this a buying opportunity or the start of a trend reversal?

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has risen to 69, indicating that traders have started to get greedy again. When this happens, it is time to become cautious in the near term because when new traders begin chasing prices higher, experienced traders sell into strength and buy on dips.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood said in a recent interview that Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) are being considered as safe haven assets like gold. Meanwhile, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio does not consider Bitcoin to be “an effective store hold of wealth or a medium of exchange.” He called it “a very, very poor alternative to gold.” This shows that some legacy investors are still uncertain about the future prospects of Bitcoin.

Will traders buy the dip in Bitcoin and the major altcoins or could the correction deepen further? Let’s study the charts to find out.

S&P 500 index price analysis

The S&P 500 index (SPX) has been gradually moving toward the overhead resistance at 4,200. The price action of the past few days has formed an ascending triangle pattern, which will complete on a break and close above 4,200.

On April 17, the price of Solana (SOL) crept lower in the wake of similar price moves across the top-ranking cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

SOL's price dropped over 4% under $24.50 despite rising to $26 — a two-month high — earlier in the day.

In comparison, BTC's and ETH's prices dropped 3.5% and 3%, respectively, hinting at a bearish start to the week.

SOL price in a technical correction

The SOL/USD selloff on April 17 started after it entered its 2023 resistance range.

Notably, the $25-27 price area has capped Solana's upside attempts since January 2023. Testing it as resistance has preceded 25-40% corrections on multiple occasions this years, as illustrated below.

Tether (USDT) has emerged as a clear winner amid the ongoing banking crisis and crypto crackdown in the U.S.

On April 17, the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin's circulating market valuation reached nearly $81 billion, just 1.5% below its record high of $82.29 billion from a year ago. It has grown about 20% year-to-date (YTD) already and is now eyeing new all-time highs.

Tether rivals hit new yearly lows

USDT's growth came as Tether ate up the market share of its stablecoin rivals, USD Coin (USDC) and Binance USD (BUSD). That is due to crypto traders' belief that Tether's operations have no exposure to the potential banking crisis contagion.

For instance, the circulating market capitalization of the USD Coin, the second-largest stablecoin, has dropped over 25% YTD to $31.82 billion, its worst since October 2021, primarily due to its exposure to the failed Silicon Valley Bank. 

BUSD, on the other hand, has witnessed a 60% drop in market capitalization in 2023 to $6.68 billion, its lowest since April 2021, as the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) ordered Paxos, a regional crypto firm, to stop its mint and issuance. 

Blockchain technology needs a benchmark communications standard that can be easily integrated by every network in order for a complete transition from Web2 to Web3 to occur, industry commentators say.

Many expect there will be multiple blockchains and such an ecosystem requires communication protocols similar to the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) used on the internet.

Ryan Lovell, director of capital markets at crypto price oracle solutions firm Chainlink Labs told Cointelegraph that blockchains without interoperability are like what computers are without the internet — isolated machines which cannot transfer data and value across networks.

“To realize a fully interoperable blockchain ecosystem at scale, there needs to be an open communication standard analogous to the TCP/IP, which currently serves as the internet's defacto connection protocol.”

Lovell believed a similar standard for blockchain networks would “pave the way for a seamless, internet-like experience” for the platform and their applications.

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) are trading above the psychologically important levels of $30,000 and $2,000 respectively. This suggests that the crypto winter may be on its last legs. 

Some analysts are calling for an altseason to begin but it may be too early for that. When most of the crypto bears turn bullish, Bitcoin is likely to turn down sharply and catch the late entrants off guard. That could hurt sentiment in the short term and cause a sell-off in altcoins. After the weak hands are shaken out, the crypto markets may stabilize and begin a sustained uptrend.

Data from on-chain intelligence platform Glassnode suggests that there are significant similarities between the current having cycle and the previous ones. However, Ecoinometrics warned that an economic recession could alter things. 

Let’s watch the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to spot the important resistance levels that may start a pullback.

Bitcoin price analysis

The bears tried to stall the up-move on April 12 but the bulls did not give up. They resumed their purchase on April 13 and cleared the hurdle at $30,550 on April 14.

Ethereum (ETH) is witnessing a price breakout on the back of the successful Shanghai and Capella (Shapella) upgrades. The increased bullish sentiment after the upgrade led Ether price to hit a year-to-date high of $2,123 on April 14.

The Ethereum decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem received more daily fees, growing 30% in 24-hours on April 14 in tandem with Ether’s price growth. With the increase in Ether fees, the Ethereum proof of stake (PoS) token economics have turned deflationary and revenue is up 32% in the past 24-hours. 

Although the Ethereum network is showing positive momentum, regulators are trending toward taking swift action against the crypto sector. Debates on whether Ether is a security token under the Howey test continue combined with privacy concerns that an Ethereum researcher says staking reveals IP addresses. 

Let’s review a few of the reasons for Ether’s newfound strength.

Ethereum Shanghai was a success

The long-awaited Shapella upgrade was officially executed to mainnet on April 12.

Ethereum’s long-anticipated Shanghai and Capella upgrade was activated on April 12 and the total withdrawals in the first 40 hours after the Shapella upgrade stood at 142,425 ETH, per Nansen data. This falls in line with previous estimates. 

For a brief moment on April 12, when Shapella was activated, the deposits to ETH staking contracts outpaced withdrawals. However, deposits have slowed down come April 13 while the withdrawals are going strong.

ETH moved for withdrawals

The validators are required to update their staking software clients with withdrawal credentials changed to 0x01 from 0x00 and point to a valid Ethereum address. Once validators do that, the partial withdrawals, i.e. the withdrawals of rewards above 32 ETH, will be processed automatically.

Over 70.1% of validators have changed to 0x01, with 407,851.20 worth over $850 million set for withdrawal.

Additionally, 875,325 ETH worth $1.85 billion are waiting for full exit. Adding to the amount already processed in the first 40 hours, over 1.42 million ETH will be withdrawn from the staking contract.

Bitcoin (BTC) broke through $31,000 on April 14 as bulls hoped that altcoins would soon follow.

Analyst eyes potential dip under $30,000 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView captured new ten-month highs of $31,035 for BTC/USD on Bitstamp.

The pair had risen gradually the day prior after a consolidatory period around new macroeconomic data prints from the United States.

These had furthered the bullish risk asset narrative, with both the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Inflation (PPI) prints showing inflation slowing faster than expected.

While Bitcoin did not react immediately, the latest uptick reinforced market participants’ convictions over continued strength and a break with the long-term downtrend.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap is seemingly set to launch on the new zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) roll-up solution from scaling solution provider Polygon.

While Uniswap (UNI) token holders have until April 14 at 9:05 pm UTC to vote on the proposal to launch Uniswap v3 on the zkEVM, the 40 million vote threshold needed for the proposal to pass it has already been reached — with over 42.4 million votes recorded in favor of the integration.

All 191 Ethereum addresses voted in favor of the proposal with financial modeling platform Gauntlet and Ethereum infrastructure provider ConsenSys leading the voting tally with over 7 million votes each according to Tally, a voting dashboard for decentralized finance projects:

The author of the proposal, Polygon Business Development Lead Jack Melnick, explained that now is the “right moment” to make Uniswap v3 available on Polygon’s zkEVM because it is “EVM equivalent” — meaning that there is no need to recompile EVM smart contracts:

“There’s significant value in Uniswap being available on an EVM compatible ZK rollup. Deploying early on zkEVM helps solidify Uniswap’s place as the number one DEX and a thought leader.”

Arbitrum (ARB) has emerged as one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies after Ethereum's long-awaited Shanghai upgrade.

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

To recap, 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.

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 6:30 pm EST on April 12, has induced significant uncertainty among traders, according to a report by Kaiko. 

The upgrade will enable staked-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 BTC in spot and futures trading volumes, while options market data shows traders are actively adding short-term hedging positions.

Ethereum market share in USD 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.