Decentral Block Post

The official Arbitrum airdrop page crashed right after the claiming process began around 9 a.m. EST. Some users still managed to claim it through alternative methods like Arbiscan. In the first two hours, the market witnessed a massive sell-off of the token as its price declined from over $10.29 to lows of $1.

At ByBit, the token started trading for $7.50, but dropped to $1.50 within minutes. At the time of writing, the token was trading at $1.33.

Only one address successfully sold the token at $10.29 through the ARB/USDC pool on Uniswap, bagging $64,340 for 6,250 tokens. A few others were able to sell for $4.50, however, the price dropped quickly below $1.50 as more sellers arrived. 

Nansen data shows that out of 6.03 million ARB claimed by “smart money” wallets, $5.01 million were moved to a centralized or a decentralized exchange, most likely to sell. The analytics firm puts “smart money” tags on addresses that trade in significant size and are usually active.

While some smart money accounts added 3.45 million from DEXs. Overall, the amount moved to exchanges was 150% larger than inflows to the wallets, suggesting a massive sell-off.

Litecoin (LTC) emerged as one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies on March 23, surpassing its top-ranking rivals Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). 

Litecoin attracts Bitcoin and Ethereum investors

LTC price rallied 5.5% to reach an intraday high of around $92.50. In comparison, the total crypto market capitalization (TOTAL) has risen 2.25% to $1.14 trillion, with BTC and ETH rising 1.79% and 1.42%, respectively.

The Federal Reserve's 25 basis points (bps) rate hike on March 22 appears to be the key driver behind Litecoin beating its crypto rivals over the past 24 hours.

Notably, LTC price rallied over 15% versus BTC and about 14.5% versus ETH since the Fed announcement.

One reason could be that Litecoin has relatively underperformed the cryptocurrency market in March, dropping over 6.5% month-to-date (MTD) versus the crypto market's 9.35% gains.

Founded in 2015 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, Cardano is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain that is often referred to as the “Ethereum killer,” owing to its superior technology and high level of security and sustainability.

Much like Ethereum, Cardano also allows users to stake its native cryptocurrency, ADA, to earn staking rewards. Cardano allows individuals to stake via staking pool operators and pool their tokens with other users or run their own Cardano staking pool.

Staking pools are frequently operated by those with technical experience and the appropriate hardware for effectively staking on the Cardano network, although anyone can become their own staking pool operator. Users also have complete autonomy to decide which pool they’d prefer to join and can assess each based on pool size, uptime and past performance.

Cardano divides periods of time into epochs, a measure of time used to specify when events in the network are set to occur, such as incentive distribution or validator transaction assignments.

On Cardano, each epoch consists of 432,000 slots, smaller units of time further divided into one-second intervals. One Cardano epoch lasts approximately five days. After each epoch concludes, a snapshot records the distribution of staked ADA tokens. This is used to calculate the rewards each staker will receive.

In Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s latest VORTECS™ Report, the institutional-grade crypto trading platform displayed how its members could have captured a cumulative 113% gain by following five trades based on three different advanced data indicators. The report depicts trading alerts generated between March 5 – 10, 2023. 

The potential gains available to Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers significantly outperform a simple buy-and-hold strategy during the same period, which would’ve yielded holders of Bitcoin (BTC) a loss of 10%.

Cointelegraph Markets Pro uses indicators such as the VORTECS™ Score, NewsQuakes™ and Tweet Volume to provide alerts for subscribers in real time. The past three reports have included alerts with cumulative returns over 100%, showing that this advanced crypto intelligence platform churns out winning trade opportunities each week.

VORTECS™ Alerts

Everipedia (IQ) — 20% gain

Frequent top performer IQ rapidly recovered from the mid-week market plunge. On March 12, a string of strong VORTECS™ scores as high as 92 alerted subscribers of bullish conditions for the token. The asset’s price was $0.005 when the green lights flashed, but just eight hours later it jumped to $0.006, an increase of 20%!

IQ is the native token of Everipedia, an informative knowledge platform built on blockchain technology. The token powers all application and governance processes for the platform.

Arbitrum developers announced an airdrop of its governance token, ARB, to eligible users and DAOs on the Ethereum Layer-2 platform. An average user received around 625 ARB tokens, which corresponds to around $625 to $1,250, according to pre-launch trading prices and popular estimations.

The prospect of earning free money has instilled excitement around users looking to hunt the next airdrop opportunity. The airdrop farming activity also benefits the protocols by attracting liquidity and usage to the platform. The strategy is working well for both protocol developers and users.

Moreover, the team's sale of a protocol’s token invokes securities laws, inducing significant legal risk for the developing teams. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that future protocols will use the same strategy to decentralize their protocols.

Here are five potential airdrop opportunities for this year.

zkSync Era

zkSync Era is a Layer-2 rollup on Ethereum based on the zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology. Experts, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, have argued that zk-based EVM-compatible rollups could be a game-changer technology with high scalability and throughput, leading to mass adoption.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been sustaining above the $25,000 level for the past few days, increasing the likelihood that the bear market may have ended. Generally, in the initial stages of a new bull phase, several analysts remain in a state of disbelief and expect the resumption of the downtrend.

Another group of traders continue to wait for the dip to buy at lower levels but the price does not oblige. Finally, the traders sitting on the fence throw in the towel and buy and that is when the correction is likely to happen. Such a pullback shakes out the weak hands and transfers the asset into the hands of investors with conviction.

When a new trend is getting established, certain events tend to cause a knee-jerk reaction but it is unlikely that the trend is reversed. In Bitcoin’s case too, a drop to trap the aggressive bears is possible but there is a low possibility that the bear market will resume.

What are the important levels to watch out for on the upside and the downside in Bitcoin and altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

After a two-day consolidation, Bitcoin has risen above the $28,500 overhead resistance on March 22. This suggests that the bulls have asserted their dominance.

Cardano (ADA) rallied to its best price level in a month as cryptocurrency investors prepared for the Federal Reserve's looming interest rate decision.

Fed boosts appetite for cryptos like ADA

On March 22, ADA's price surged by as much as 4.58% to $0.388, its highest level since Feb. 24. This bucked the trend as the total crypto market capitalization underperformed the Cardano token, dropping 0.4% on the same day. 

All eyes are on the Fed meeting on March 22 as chairman Jerome Powell tries to balance his anti-inflation campaign versus a flurry of sudden banking collapses.

The U.S. central bank's intervention to safeguard regional banks with emergency lending measures and hopes that it would be less hawkish in the future has helped top-ranking crypto assets, including Cardano, rally in March.

ADA's price is up by a decent 4% month-to-date (MTD) versus top coin Bitcoin's (BTC) 20% gains in the same period.

Crypto executives have expressed irritation over the latest White House economic report — which notably features an entire chapter dedicated to casting doubts on the merit of digital assets.

The Economic Report of the President, released March 20, marks the first time the White House has included a section on digital assets since it first began issuing the annual economic policy report in 1950.

Co-founder of digital asset investment firm Paradigm, Fred Ehrsam, remarked that 15% of the Economic Report was dedicated to “crypto FUD.”

The report includes 35 pages dedicated to debunking the “Perceived Appeal of Crypto Assets” along with a short section on the FedNow payment system and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

The report’s main argument is that crypto assets fail to deliver on their “touted” benefits, such as improving payment systems, financial inclusion, and creating mechanisms to transfer value and intellectual property, stating:

Developers from the Arbitrum Foundation announced the launch of Arbitrum DAO and its native governance token, ARB, on March 16. Eligible users and developers will receive 12.75% of the token’s total supply of 10 billion on March 23, when the token will be deployed. 

Speculation around ARB began soon after the token launch announcement on OTC desks, derivatives exchanges and spot exchanges via IOUs (I Owe You).

BitMEX launched the derivatives contract for ARB June futures on Monday around 11 p.m. EST. The futures contracts were trading at around $1.30 at the time of writing, implying that traders are betting that ARB’s price will be near this amount by June’s end.

The futures contract allows speculators to bet on the token’s price and Arbitrum airdrop receivers to hedge their holdings. Eligible ARB holders can buy a short futures contract to sell ARB tokens at a specific amount, protecting them against the downside in the token’s price post-launch on Thursday.

Some private Discord and Telegram OTC desks are witnessing active trading of ARB tokens for prices between $1 to $1.50. This trade is executed via a transfer of ownership of Ethereum wallets that are eligible for ARB airdrop.

The Crypto.com customer who was accidentally sent $10.4 million from the exchange in 2021 and then allegedly went on a spending spree has been granted bail despite $3.1 million funds still unaccounted for.

In the Victorian County Court, prosecutors on March 20 tried to convince the judge that imprisonment would be the only way to ensure that the accused, Jatinder Singh, would not flee the country.

The blunder by Crypto.com came about when a Bulgarian-based employee accidentally transferred $10.4 million to his account instead of what was meant to be a $100 refund in May 2021. The accused is alleged to have bought four houses and a car with the funds, along with sending a portion overseas.

Prosecutors argued that Singh is financially motivated to flee the country because only $7.3 million has been recovered, according to a report from the Herald Sun.

Of the missing $3.1 million, over $2 million is believed to have been shifted offshore to Malaysia, the court heard.

Ethereum-based lending protocol Euler Finance could be a step closer to recovering funds stolen in a $196 million flash loan attack last week, with private discussions now initiated with the exploiter.

In an on-chain message to Euler on March 20, days after sending funds to a red-flagged North Korean address, the exploiter claimed they now want to “come to an agreement” with Euler.

“We want to make this easy on all those affected. No intention of keeping what is not ours. Setting up secure communication. Let us come to an agreement,” said the exploiter.

Hours later, Euler replied with its own on-chain message, acknowledging the message and asking the exploiter to talk “in private,” stating:

“Message received. Let's talk in private on blockscan via the Euler Deployer address and one of your EOAs, via signed messages over email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or any other channel of your choice. Reply with your preference.”

The takeover of the ailing Credit Suisse bank by UBS boosted European equity markets on March 20 but not everyone is happy with the deal. According to Swiss regulator FINMA, the value of additional tier one (AT1) bonds will be written to zero. This move will wipe out $17 billion worth of investments for AT1 bond investors.

Among the turmoil in the global banking sector, Bitcoin (BTC) has shone brightly. That is because traders seem to have shifted their focus to the alternative available to the legacy banking system. Another thing working in favor of Bitcoin is that it has decoupled from the United States equities markets and is behaving as an uncorrelated asset class.

Bitcoin’s solid rally in the past few days has boosted trader sentiment. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index has soared into the greed zone with a score of 66/100. The next trigger for the markets is the rate hike decision by the Federal Reserve on March 22.

Could Bitcoin reach $30,000 and pull altcoins higher, or is a correction likely in the near term? Let’s study the charts to find out.

S&P 500 index price analysis

The S&P 500 index (SPX) rallied from 3,808 on March 13 and rose above the 200-day simple moving average (3,935) on March 16 but the bulls could not clear the hurdle at the 20-day exponential moving average (3,962).

Bitcoin (BTC) is on track to close the week with gains of more than 23%. The banking crisis in the United States and Europe seems to have boosted buying in Bitcoin, indicating that the leading cryptocurrency is behaving as a safe haven asset in the near term.

All eyes are on the Federal Reserve’s meeting on March 21 and 22. The failure of the banks in the U.S. has increased hopes that the Fed will not hike rates in the meeting. The CME FedWatch Tool shows a 38% probability of a pause and a 62% probability of a 25 basis points rate hike on March 22.

Analysts are divided on the consequences of the current crisis on the economy. Former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan believes that the U.S. will enter a period of hyperinflation while pseudonymous Twitter user James Medlock believes otherwise. Srinivasan plans to wage a millionaire bet with Medlock and another person that Bitcoin’s price will reach $1 million by June 17.

Although anything is possible in crypto markets, traders should be prudent in their trading and not get carried away with lofty targets.

Let’s study the charts of Bitcoin and altcoins that are showing signs of the resumption of the up-move after a minor correction.

The total crypto market capitalization increased by 26% in seven days, reaching $1.16 trillion on March 17. Bitcoin (BTC) was the biggest winner among the top 20 coins, up 31.5%, though some altcoins gained 50% or more during that period.

The surge in cryptocurrency prices occurred as the United States Federal Reserve was forced to lend banks $300 billion in emergency funds. According to PBS News Hour, nearly half of the money went to failed financial institutions Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and was used to pay uninsured depositors. The remaining $153 billion was obtained through a long-standing program known as the "discount window," which allows banks to borrow funds for up to 90 days.

While appearing to protect the banking sector, additional funding for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and credit facilitation using Fed resources ultimately creates a "false sense of confidence," according to activist billionaire investor Bill Ackman.

The $30 billion plan devised by U.S. regulators to avoid a major liquidity crisis in First Republic Bank (FRB) "raised more questions than it answers," said Ackman, who manages the hedge fund Pershing Square. Furthermore, Ackman stated that "half measures don't work when there is a confidence crisis."

Warren Buffett, the billionaire, is on the losing side of the bet

As the banking crisis worsened, Warren Buffett, the largest shareholder and co-founder of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), a $650 billion financial conglomerate, saw his holdings rapidly deteriorate. Berkshire Hathaway, for example, is the largest holder of Bank of America (BAC) stock, which has fallen 15.5% year-to-date. This position alone has cost Buffett's investment vehicle $5.2 billion.

After a recovery on March 16, the United States equities markets are again down on March 17. Investors remain concerned about the vulnerability of the banks in the U.S. and Europe. A silver lining for cryptocurrency investors is that Bitcoin (BTC) has remained decoupled with the equities markets and has risen to its highest level since Jan. 12.

Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Michael Novogratz said in an interview with CNBC that the US and the globe will face a credit crunch as banks lend less to rebuild capital. He said investors should be long on Bitcoin and crypto because these are the times for which it was created.

Quantitative tightening seems to be giving way to a period of quantitative easing. The banks have already borrowed $150 billion from the Federal Reserve, which is more than the amount borrowed during the 2008 financial crisis.

Analysts pointed out that the Fed has added $300 billion to its balance sheet in a week, second only to the $500 billion pumped after the March 2020 crash. The QE in 2020 triggered a rally in Bitcoin that took it from about $4,000 to $69,000.

Will history repeat itself? Could Bitcoin and altcoins sustain the higher levels? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.