WuBlockchain Weekly: Bitcoin Halving and Top10 News

1. Bitcoin Witnesses Its Fourth Halving This Week link

Bitcoin is expected to undergo its fourth halving when the block height reaches 840,000, anticipated to occur around April 20th at 8:10 (UTC+8).

Interest in “Bitcoin halving” on Google has surged to its highest historical level, with forecasted data indicating that this interest will be more than double that of the last halving in 2020, reaching 45 points and projected to reach 100 points by the end of this month. Despite recent cooling in Bitcoin’s price trend, some market analysts suggest that based on historical price patterns, Bitcoin may experience a significant rally in the months following the halving.

2. Grayscale Bitcoin Holdings Reduced by 50% link

This week, Bitcoin spot ETFs have experienced net outflows for five consecutive days, with total net outflows reaching $223.49 million as of the drafting of this report. Currently, GBTC has seen historical net outflows totaling $16.59 billion, while IBIT has historical net inflows of $15.37 billion, and FBTC has historical net inflows of $80.5 billion.

According to Grayscale’s disclosures as of Monday, since the launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF on January 1st, the amount of Bitcoin held has subsequently decreased by approximately 50% to 311,621 coins. Based on Bitcoin holdings, GBTC’s market share has declined to 37%, with BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC being the major accumulators.

3. Several Funds Announce Approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum Spot ETFs by Hong Kong SFC link

On April 15th, Huaxia Fund announced receiving approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to issue an ETF product that can invest in spot Bitcoin and spot Ethereum. Bosera Fund, in collaboration with HashKey Capital Limited, also announced conditional approval from the SFC for two virtual asset spot ETFs, introducing an innovative holding subscription mechanism. In addition, CSOP International announced that the SFC has provisionally approved products investing in the two major digital asset spot ETFs.

Bloomberg ETF analyst estimates that the inflow scale of the Hong Kong spot Bitcoin ETF could reach $500 million due to several factors: the small size of the Hong Kong ETF market, totaling only $50 billion; the relatively smaller size of the three approved issuers (Bosera, Huaxia, CSOP) without large institutions like BlackRock involved; lower liquidity/efficiency in the underlying ecosystem, potentially leading to larger spreads and premium discounts; and transaction fees that may range from 1–2%, higher compared to U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. Nonetheless, overall this development appears bullish for Bitcoin.

4. Federal Reserve Chair Powell: Recent Data Doesn’t Provide Confidence that Inflation is Progressing Toward Central Bank’s 2% Target link

Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, during a moderated discussion at the Wilson Center on Tuesday, indicated that recent data has not given us more confidence that inflation will move towards the central bank’s 2% target. There are signs suggesting that achieving this confidence may require more time than expected, considering the strong momentum in the labor market and the progress in inflation so far. Powell emphasized that it is appropriate to allow restrictive policies more time to take effect and to let data and evolving outlook guide us.

According to a report from China International Capital Corporation (CICC), the consecutive outperformance of U.S. non-farm payrolls and CPI in March has closed the window for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in the short term. Considering the resilience of the U.S. fundamentals and the deepening yield curve inversion, two conclusions can be drawn: firstly, this round does not require significant interest rate cuts; secondly, the Federal Reserve does not need to wait for a significant economic downturn before cutting rates, but rather needs to find an appropriate inflation window to cut rates slightly several times to address the yield curve inversion issue and loosen financial conditions from restrictive levels.

5. US Senators Propose New Stablecoin Legislation, Aim to Prohibit Algorithmic Stablecoins Without Reserve Backing link

U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis have introduced a stablecoin bill that would require stablecoin issuers to hold one-to-one reserves of cash or cash equivalents to support their tokens, prohibiting algorithmic stablecoins without backing. The bill also asserts that issuers and users cannot use stablecoins for illegal or unauthorized purposes such as money laundering. Additionally, the legislation aims to establish federal and state regulatory regimes for stablecoin issuers to maintain a dual banking system, granting federal and state entities authority over stablecoin charters and enforcement.

6. Germany’s Largest Federal Bank to Offer Cryptocurrency Custody Services link

Germany’s largest federal bank, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), plans to collaborate with the Bitpanda exchange to offer cryptocurrency custody services. In a joint statement, LBBW and Bitpanda announced that they will begin providing cryptocurrency custody services to institutional and corporate clients starting from the second half of 2024. Jürgen Harengel, Managing Director of Corporate Banking at LBBW, stated that the demand for digital assets among our corporate clients is continuously increasing.

7. UK to Introduce New Cryptocurrency and Stablecoin Legislation by July link

UK Treasury Minister Bim Afolami announced on Monday at the Global Innovations in Finance Summit that the UK plans to introduce new legislation regarding stablecoins and cryptocurrency custody, trading, and transactions by June or July of this year. Legislation is currently being finalized to regulate a range of crypto asset activities, including operating exchanges and custodial services for client assets, for the first time.

8. Ernst & Young plans to launch a contract management solution on Ethereum and migrate to Layer 3 link

The “Big Four” accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) has announced the launch of EY OpsChain Contract Manager (OCM), which is a blockchain-based contract management solution. This solution operates on the Ethereum public blockchain. However, EY’s zk rollup solution called Nightfall, designed for managing business contracts, is actually running on the Polygon PoS (Proof of Stake) network. EY’s blockchain lead informed Blockworks that EY Blockchain plans to migrate Nightfall back to Ethereum and then further migrate it to Layer 2 in the next upgrade.

9. Telegram Founder: Strengthened Government Surveillance Will Lead to Secure Communication Devices Inspired by Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallets link

Telegram Messenger’s founder, Pavel Durov, predicts that increased government surveillance will lead to the emergence of secure communication devices inspired by cryptocurrency hardware wallets, fostering innovation around secure communication hardware. Regarding company ownership, Pavel Durov expressed a desire to avoid venture capital (VC) investments to prevent external influences on Telegram’s operations. He also disclosed that he holds “hundreds of millions of dollars” in fiat currency and Bitcoin, enabling him to launch projects and companies with 100% ownership.

10. CoinGecko: Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Rose by 65% in Q1 2024 link

CoinGecko’s cryptocurrency industry report for the first quarter of 2024 indicates that the total cryptocurrency market capitalization continued to rise by 65%, reaching a peak of $29 trillion in March. As of April 2nd, the assets under management (AUM) for US Bitcoin spot ETFs reached $55.1 billion. Centralized exchange (CEX) spot trading volume reached $42.9 trillion, the highest quarterly volume among the top ten CEXs since December 2021. Additionally, Ethereum’s decentralized exchange (DEX) trading share hit a historic low of 30% in February 2024.

Fundraising

Layer1 public chain Berachain’s Series B funding has increased to $100 million. link
Ethereum staking protocol Puffer completed a $18 million Series A funding round. link
RWA lending protocol Centrifuge announced the completion of a $15 million Series A funding round. link
Merlin Chain secured new funding, led by Spartan Group and Hailstone Labs. link
Stablecoin startup Usual Labs announced the completion of a $7 million financing round. link
Bitcoin AMM protocol Runes DEX completed a $2 million seed round of funding. link
Bitcoin Ordinals retrieval platform Ord io completed a $2 million pre-seed financing round. link
Thruster, valued at $70 million, completed a $7.5 million seed round of financing led by Pantera Capital. link
Crypto gaming studio Avalon raised $10 million in funding, with Bitkraft Ventures and Hashed as co-leads. link
Arbitrum ecosystem DEX CVEX secured $7 million in funding. link
Aligned Layer announced the completion of a $2.6 million seed round of financing led by Lemniscap. link
The DePIN project, SendingNetwork, raised $7.5 million in funding. link
Blockchain and ZK research organization Nebra secured $4.5 million in funding. link
Perpetual DEX Aark raised $6 million in funding. link
Account abstraction application Plena raised $5 million in funding. link
Layer 2 protocol Saakuru Labs completed a $2.4 million private funding round. link
Citadel-backed Hidden Road Partners is raising a Series B equity financing with a valuation of $1 billion. link

Learn more, check out crypto-fundraising.info.