Hodler’s Digest, April 14-20 – Cointelegraph Magazine

This week's main news

Gray Area Bitcoin ETF ‘Halfs' Before BTC Declines

Major Bitcoin investor Greyscale Investments has cut its BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) holdings by 50% ahead of the expected Bitcoin halving event.

On April 16, Bitcoin holdings in the Greyscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) halved from 619,220 BTC on the first day of trading on January 11.

The spot Bitcoin ETF held 309,871 BTC on the 66th trading day, down 50% from the amount since the start of trading, according to GBTC data.

The GBTC “halving” came two days before the highly anticipated Bitcoin halving, which reduced the mining reward by 50% from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

Once every four years or once every 210,000 blocks, the Bitcoin halving is a major event and is often associated with ongoing rallies in the crypto market.

The two events aren't related, but they do create another coincidence in the chronology of Bitcoin-related events.

Worldcoin is launching its own ‘human-centric' blockchain network

WorldCoin, an identity coin startup founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is taking a “human-centric” approach to the Web3 space with its new blockchain network, World Chain.

On April 17, Worldcoin announced WorldChain, a new blockchain initiative designed to prioritize human users, improve efficiency, and increase real-world utility in Web3 applications.

WorldCoin recently reported 10 million global IDs created and 75 million transactions completed, reflecting the rapid expansion of the project.

Its own network is designed to scale with the wider Ethereum network as layer 2 to meet the needs of the project.

Cointelegraph spoke with Thiago Sada, Head of Operations at WorldCoin, to better understand the project's intentions with the network and how it plans to keep humans at the center.

Sada said that while technically the world chain acts similarly to Ethereum and any other L2, the difference is that it prioritizes people over bots, while blockchains often experience congestion due to bot activity.

“Usually the way it works is every account is fighting for block space. Usually, because bots move so fast and can outnumber people, networks get flooded with all the bots' transactions, and people have leftovers – often they can't even get in.”

Andreessen Horowitz Raises $7.2B for New Venture Fund

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) says it has raised $7.2 billion to invest in a variety of tech sectors, including gaming and artificial intelligence — but it's not putting more into crypto.

The company's “growth” venture strategy — which funds a variety of early-stage startups — will earn the most at $3.75 billion.

Its “infrastructure” and “applications” strategies will earn $1.25 billion and $1 billion, respectively, a16z said in an April 16 statement.

Its “infrastructure” strategy focuses mostly on funding groups in the AI, computing and data industries, while its “applications” funds focus on consumer, enterprise and fintech application developers.

The remaining $1.2 billion will be split equally between “Games,” a gaming-focused fund, and the new American Dynamism Fund, which focuses on startups and companies that support America's national interest in aerospace, defense, security, education and manufacturing.

$4.5 billion in crypto-focused funds received no additional funding.

Cyprus has suspended FTX Europe's license until September

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission has extended the suspension of FTX Europe's license, preventing the firm from operating until September.

The Cyprus Securities Regulator made the news public on April 16, stating that FTX Europe must continue to take necessary steps to comply with investment services and activities and regulatory market legislation.

As part of the regulatory decision, FTX Europe is banned from providing investment services and from entering into any business transactions with any person or accepting any new clients.

According to the advertisement, the company is prohibited from promoting investment services.

Token holders approved the $7.5 billion AI merger

Token holders of SingularityNET, Fetch.ai and Ocean protocols have approved a $7.5 billion merger that will create the combined Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI) project.

The Fetch.AI (FET) token will be an ASI token with a total supply of 2.6 billion.

Meanwhile, SingularityNET (AGIX) and Ocean (OCEAN) tokens will convert to ASI at a ratio of 0.43:1, with ASI tokens worth a combined $7.5 billion after the merger, according to an April 16 announcement.

ASI is scheduled to launch on May 24.

“Our mission is to create decentralized AI infrastructure at scale, ensuring ethical and trustworthy practices,” said Humayun Shaikh, CEO of Fetch.ai.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) at $63,444, Ether (ETH) at $3,072 and XRP (XRP) at $0.49. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap is $2.28 trillion.

Among the largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the three best performing altcoins of the week were Ondo (Ondo) with 6.79%, UNUS SED Leo (Leo) with -0.33% and OKB (OKB) with -1.63%. The week saw ORDI (ORDI) -39.37%, Athena (ENA) -36.72% and Bittensor (TAO) -33.85%.

Be sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis for more information on crypto prices.

The most memorable quotes

“I always tell people that if you buy bitcoin and you're trying to predict what the price will be in an hour or a day, a week or a month, it's probably a fool's errand. What you should think about instead is ‘this is a saving technology'.

Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner at Pomp Investments

“With only 2 million bitcoins remaining, assuming $500 million flows into Bitcoin Spot ETFs daily, that leaves the equivalent of 7,142 bitcoins in daily currency reserves, suggesting it will take just nine months to use up all remaining reserves. “

Bybit, cryptocurrency exchange

“Don't expect a lot of flow – I've seen one crazy estimate of $25b. We think they will be lucky to get $500 million.

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg

“Unfortunately, a modest fee for new user write access is the only way to stop the constant onslaught of bots.”

Elon Musk is the owner of X and CEO of Tesla

“AI and Gaming have garnered an incredible surge of venture capital enthusiasm across categories.”

FastNode, a blockchain development platform, and Artemis, an on-chain analytics provider

“We may have reached a tipping point for risk assets, with the bond market now projected to be less than three times lower and the 10-year Treasury yield above 4.50%.”

Marcus Thielen, founder of blockchain analytics firm 10x Research

Forecast of the week

Bitcoin miners can throw away $5B in BTC after the halving

Bitcoin miners could wipe out $5 billion worth of BTC after the halving, 10x Research head, Markus Thielen, calculated in an April 13 analyst note.

“The overlap from this sale may last four to six months, which is why Bitcoin will go sideways for the next few months – as it has done following the previous halves,” he added.

Thielen said the same thing could happen again, adding that crypto markets “could face a big challenge during the six-month ‘summer' break.”

In the five months following the 2020 halving, bitcoin prices have remained in the $9,000 to $11,500 range.

FUD of the week

Bitcoin price falls below $62k amid fluctuating BTC ETF demand

Bitcoin prices fell 3% as crypto investors entered the emergency mode that halted demand for ETFs.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed a price drop of domestic BTC on Binance to $61,709 shortly after the opening on Wall Street on April 16.

Bitcoin joined U.S. stock indexes on the day as the U.S. dollar index hit a six-month high of 106.17.

On April 15, capital flows into the space. The net flow of Bitcoin exchange funds was recorded at $36.7 million, according to data from Farside Investors.

He was found guilty of exploitation of the mango market after a jury trial

A jury has found Avraham “Avi” Eisenberg, the crypto user who exploited decentralized exchange Mango Market for $110 million, guilty of fraud and market manipulation.

In an April 18 verdict in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, a jury found Eisenberg guilty of wire fraud, securities fraud and securities fraud.

The decision followed hours of deliberations after closing arguments on April 17.

During the two-week trial, Eisenberg's legal team contended that it did not commit any crime but developed a “successful and legitimate business strategy” that generated about $110 million from the mango market.

It returned about $67 million after the exploit, but retained more than $40 million in a management vote by the community.

Prosecutors argued that Eisenberg's actions constituted fraud.

The head of the IRS investigation expects significant growth in crypto tax fraud this year.

The United States Internal Revenue Service has announced that it is preparing for a significant increase in crypto tax delinquency cases as the deadline for US citizens is April 15.

Speaking to CNBC at a Chinalysis Links event in New York, IRS Chief of Criminal Investigations Guy Fico said the agency is preparing to combat tax evasion and related fraud.

“There will be many more lawsuits going forward this year and Title 26,” he said.

Title 26 of the tax code refers to citizens who evade paying taxes by lying or hiding their reporting documents.

Ficco said in the past that crypto has been used as a tool in financial crimes such as fraud, embezzlement and money laundering – however, the agency has recently noticed a sharp increase in “pure crypto tax crimes” and expects more. coming soon.

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Cointelegraph magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.