📈 General Bitcoin Market News
Fear and Greed Index
- Current Value: 57
- Change Since Last Week: -19
Bitcoin Price Update
- Current Price: $62,911.64
- Weekly Percentage Change: -10.2%
Market Sentiment
- After some scary headlines about rising tensions between Iran and Israel, Bitcoin corrected just over 10% leading to more fear in the market.
- Net ETF Outflows at -$6.2b seem to confirm the increased levels of fear.
Source: Real-Time Bitcoin ETF Fund Flows - Monitor BTC Market Sentiment (btcetffundflow.com) - The market seems to be a cocktail of concern over the potential for world war mixed with optimism coming from Bitcoin maxis and crypto natives on the effect the halving may have on the price of Bitcoin and wider market.
- The federal funds rate (FFR) is steady at 5.33.
BTC Liquidations
- Total Shorts Liquidated: $258,940,000
- Total Longs Liquidated: $616,407,000
🌐 Bitcoin Ecosystem Updates
Stacks News
Nakamoto is approaching fast, with the rollout having already begun on April 16th and is set to complete during the Activation Window: May 15-29. This grand upgrade to the network will usher in fast block times and transactions secured by 100% Bitcoin finality.
Key Changes with the Nakamoto Upgrade
- Fast Block Production: The upgrade will decouple block production from cryptographic sortition, allowing for faster production of blocks. This change will enable miners to produce more blocks simultaneously while stackers help validate, eliminating the need for sortition.
- Bitcoin Finality: Transactions on the Stacks blockchain will become as irreversible as those on Bitcoin, enhancing the immutability and security of the network.
- Elimination of Forks: The upgrade aims to prevent the Stacks blockchain from forking on its own, ensuring more stability and consistency.
- Fair Play in Mining: Adjustments to the sortition algorithm will reduce the advantage that Bitcoin miners currently have over Stacks miners, aiming to minimize Miner Extractable Value (MEV) manipulation and ensure fair competition.
- Tying Block Production to Bitcoin: Stacks block production will be tied directly to Bitcoin block production, leading to synchronized and faster block times while maintaining security and preventing forks.
The Nakamoto Upgrade is designed to address various issues within the Stacks ecosystem, including slow block times and challenges in miner cooperation, by implementing significant technical advancements to enhance speed, security, and fairness in mining practices.
Stacks Ecosystem Update
- Following the recent exploit, Zest Protocol has announced pausing the protocol for further auditing to be performed by Thesis Defense (original auditors of Stacks) in addition to two white hat hackers with top-15 positions on the global Immunefi leaderboard are reviewing the contracts. They both won critical Clarity bounties in the past. Coinfabrik is also doing a full review of the contracts with an updated process. Zest Protocol is now set to open in the week of May 5.
- Luganodes the first to join Stacking DAO signers network. Stacking DAO's infra reduces costs for Stacks Signers, ensuring their network relevancy & best track to Stacks chain via its delegation program. Stacking DAO already has a TVL of about 120M+ with 33M+ STX stacked in just 4 months.
- Arkadiko and Stacking DAO partner to enable self repaying loans. Learn more.
- Velar announce that you can now convert your earned Velar Points into $VELAR tokens. Head over to the points page and hit 'claim'. Velar farming is LIVE for more rewards. New trading pairs announced April 12.
- Ordz Games partners with Alex Lab and its Bitcoin bridging technology XLink to enable BRC-20 $ORDG to bridge to Runes, EVM and beyond. Runes are coming to Alex.
- Lisa Lab introduces Nakamoto StackFest.
Top Bitcoin Ecosystem Highlights
- Learn about Arch Network origins from their founders in this interview.
- BOB | Build on Bitcoin
- Coinbase Ventures has joined BOB's $10m seed round.
- Announces Conduit as rollup deployment partner. BOB will leverage Conduit's best-in-class platform to provide a secure & efficient hybrid layer for the Web3 economy.
- BOB Fusion Highlights:
- 12K+ participants
- $219.3M TVL lockedHighlights:
- $114.67M in BTC assets
- $31.07M in ETH assets
- $21.57M in stablecoins
- $44.96M in eSOV
BOB Ecosystem Map
- Merlin Chain:
- Umoja Protocol together with Merlin Chain are launching $USDb: the world’s first high-yield synthetic dollar on Bitcoin.
- $MERL is listed on 2 CEXs: Hashkey Global and OKX.
- Rootstock:
- OKU Trade offering up to $10,000 in $RBTC for participants: Galxe quest.
- Dega Realms Publishing is now live on Rootstock. DEGA builds advanced Web3 tools that simplify and speed the development process of Web3 Games and Metaverse products.
Merged Mining Insights Report: Q1 2024
- Sovryn:
- Celebrates 3rd birthday since launch of $SOV on April 13, 2021. Happy birthday Sovryn!
- Study Bitcoin OS. A superlayer of interoperable rollups turning Bitcoin into a global operating system.
- Will support the launch of Runes, and promises the experience to be fast and seamless.
- POWA Points program officially ended April 17, giving early supporters access to the $POWA token on Runes Protocol post-Halving.
- As of April 18, there are 5 more days to get Sovryn Runes & Extra Spice Points: deposit here.
Runes Ecosystem
Upcoming Events
- Bitcoin Unleashed
- Virtual Event
- Date: April 25th, 10am ET
Closing Thoughts
This edition of our newsletter captures a broad spectrum of Bitcoin-related activities and market dynamics, reflecting both the challenges and innovations shaping the cryptocurrency landscape. As global tensions influence market sentiments and developers push forward with significant protocol upgrades, such as the Stacks Nakamoto Upgrade, the crypto community continues to adapt and evolve. The upcoming weeks are crucial as these developments unfold, potentially setting new directions for both market trends and technological advancements in the blockchain space. Stay tuned for more updates and ensure you're part of the evolving digital currency era.