Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) has witnessed a notable increase, climbing 3.5% to surpass $3,630 on March 31.
This rise marks an 18.75% improvement from its recent low near $3,050, observed just over a week ago.
The momentum behind Ether’s recent price uptick is multifaceted.
A significant aspect is its performance against both the U.S. dollar and Bitcoin (BTC).
The ETH/BTC pair, for instance, saw a 2.5% increase on the same day, reaching 0.051 BTC.
This suggests a potential short-term capital shift towards Ether.
Ether’s market dominance has also seen a boost, evidenced by a 2.16% rise in the Ethereum Dominance Index (ETH.D) in the last 48 hours from its March 29 low.
This trend indicates an inflow of investment from other altcoins into Ether, strengthening its dollar valuation.
A key factor in this surge is the behavior of Ether’s largest holders, or “whales,” who have been accumulating more ETH.
Glassnode data shows that entities with 1,000 to 10,000 ETH have increased their holdings by 1.15% in March. Such accumulation patterns have historically preceded significant price rallies.
Furthermore, Ether’s funding rates in the perpetual contracts market have escalated, with the funding rate for Dogecoin perpetual futures reaching 0.0591% per eight hours as of March 31.
READ MORE: Bitcoin Withdrawals Soar as US Spot ETFs Spark Historic Supply Squeeze
This indicates a higher cost for maintaining long positions and suggests an anticipation of further price increases.
Ether’s open interest in derivative contracts has leveled at around $14 billion, following a recent peak.
This stabilization, coupled with rising funding rates, suggests an eagerness among traders to leverage their positions, anticipating further price growth.
Ether’s current trajectory also reflects technical analysis patterns.
After testing its lower trendline in what seems to be a rising wedge pattern, Ether found support at the $3,485 level, corresponding to its 0.236 Fibonacci retracement.
Rising wedges typically indicate a potential price drop; however, if Ether breaks above the pattern’s upper trendline, it could ascend towards $4,000 by the end of April, challenging the 0.0 Fibonacci level.
Conversely, adherence to the rising wedge pattern could see ETH’s price target adjusting to around $3,280.
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In a significant mishap on the Lido liquid-staking platform, approximately $24 million in tokenized staked Solana (stSOL) has been inadvertently trapped due to a glitch in the smart contract.
This incident affects the Lido on Solana service, which had previously offered users a 5% yield on staked Solana before being phased out in October 2023 amidst financial viability concerns and minimal fees.
Following the discontinuation of a user-friendly unstaking option in February, customers were left to navigate the complexities of the Solana command line interface (CLI) for unstaking their tokens.
This technical hurdle proved daunting for many, as reflected in the concerns voiced on Lido’s Discord channel in March.
Solscan data indicates that there remains a substantial $24 million in stSOL spread across 31,588 holders.
Discord users expressed frustration over the unwieldy process, highlighting errors encountered despite adhering to Lido-provided guidelines.
For instance, ericxtang lamented on March 15 that neither of the two solutions on the Lido site facilitated stSOL unstaking.
Similarly, “Number9guy” recounted an unsuccessful attempt to convert stSOL back to SOL, with the tokens remaining immobilized with a validator.
READ MORE: Bitcoin Surges Past $71,000 Amid Legal Turmoil, Whales Shift as Bullish Sentiment Prevails
Clarification came from Pavel Pavlov, a product manager at P2P Validator, formerly associated with Lido on Solana, revealing on March 30 that the withdrawal issue stemmed from a smart contract malfunction, specifically tied to the Rent-Exempt Split logic’s modification.
Despite recognizing the problem, Pavlov disclosed P2P’s inability to directly rectify the situation, prompting outreach to the Lido DAO for potential smart contract adjustments.
Subsequent updates from Pavlov indicated progress, with the deployment of an updated maintainer bot facilitating CLI withdrawals, accompanied by a guide for users.
Despite the challenges in altering the smart contract, efforts to identify alternative solutions continue, without a definitive timeline for resolution.
Pavlov empathized with affected users, assuring them of the team’s dedication to finding a resolution.
Some community members have proposed utilizing the on-chain stability protocol Sanctum or Jupiter, which integrates Sanctum, for converting stSOL into SOL or alternative liquid staking tokens. As of now, Lido Finance has not commented on the situation.
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Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin, has recently achieved a significant milestone by completing a System and Organization Controls 2 (SOC) audit, marking a pinnacle of security compliance as outlined by the American Institute of Certified Accountants (AICPA).
This accomplishment reflects Tether’s dedication to maintaining a secure and reliable platform for its users.
Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, emphasized the importance of this achievement in a statement released on April 1, saying, “This compliance measure assures our customers that their assets and data are managed in an environment meeting the highest standards for data protection and information security.
“This independent validation of security controls is vital for Tether, demonstrating our commitment to being the world’s most trusted and compliant stablecoin.”
In addition to this achievement, Tether has committed to annual SOC 2 audits to continuously verify that its security practices meet rigorous standards.
The company also plans to secure the SOC 2 Type II certification by the end of 2025, a testament to its long-term dedication to internal control efficacy over a 12-month evaluation period.
Tether’s stablecoin, USDT, has witnessed remarkable growth, achieving a $100 billion market cap on March 4 and ranking as the third-largest cryptocurrency, trailing only behind Ether and Bitcoin.
This growth underscores Tether’s significant impact on the crypto market, further highlighted by its plans to expand beyond stablecoins into Bitcoin mining.
READ MORE: Bitcoin Surges to $70,000, Eyes Record Highs Amid Positive Economic Remarks from Fed Chair Powell
The firm has outlined an ambitious $500 million investment strategy to establish Bitcoin mining operations in Uruguay, Paraguay, and El Salvador.
In a Bloomberg interview on Nov. 16, 2023, Ardoino shared Tether’s goal to command 1% of the Bitcoin mining network, alongside detailing plans for expanding its mining capacity to 450 megawatts (MW) by 2025.
This expansion includes considerations for a 300 MW facility and innovative strategies for operational flexibility, such as relocatable containerized facilities to adapt to fluctuating electricity prices.
Ardoino’s cautious yet optimistic approach to mining expansion reflects Tether’s broader strategy of careful growth, stating, “Mining for us is something that we have to learn and grow over time.
“We are not in a rush to become the biggest miner in the world.”
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DogWifHood is a newly launched memecoin on the TON Network, and its market cap is currently around $8.5 million.
DogWifHood (WIF) jumped 20% in the space of two hours today following an announcement that the memecoin would be listed on MEXC – its first centralized exchange (DEX) listing.
DogWifHood, which is a memecoin on the TON Network, currently trades on a couple of decentralized exchanges (DEX), such as Ston.Fi.
It was announced on Thursday that the token will soon be available to buy on MEXC, opening up a new source of demand for this early stage and potentially ultra-lucrative token.
“MEXC is thrilled to launch another session of Kickstarter, a listing campaign initiated by the project team on MEXC before launch where users can commit MX Token to support their favourite project,” the exchange said in an announcement.
“This event is designed to identify high-quality projects and at the same time, bring airdrop benefits to MEXC users,” they added.
This caused the price of DogWifHood (WIF) to almost immediately surge from around $0.00727 to $0.00850, and the bulls continue to hold the advantage.
MEXC also noted that the DogWifHood ticker on their exchange will be renamed WIFT, due to DogWifHat already using the WIF ticker.
DogWifHood (WIF) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) Price Prediction
Shiba Inu has gained around 2.7% in the last 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap data, currently trading at $0.00002737.
SHIB is down almost 15% over the last 7 days, but the popular memecoin is set for another rally once sentiment in the broader crypto market improves.
The SHIB price is expected to breach the $0.00003 barrier before the end of April.
DogWifHood (WIF), meanwhile, has potential for explosive price growth as it has a market cap of under $10 million and could quite easily surge to $200-$500 million, as more CEX listings are announced.
This would provide investors who enter at the current price with a 25x to 60x return on investment – something that larger memecoins cannot offer due to their market caps already being in the billions of dollars.
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Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has introduced an innovative approach aimed at enhancing the platform’s decentralization by implementing penalties for simultaneous failures among validators.
This proposal, shared on the Ethereum Research forum on March 27, aims to create incentives for decentralized staking by introducing “more anti-correlation incentives.”
Buterin’s proposal focuses on imposing harsher penalties on validators that are under the control of a single entity and fail simultaneously, compared to individual failures.
“The theory is that if you are a single large actor, any mistakes that you make would be more likely to be replicated across all ‘identities’ that you control,” Buterin explained, highlighting the risk of correlated failures especially within staking pools due to common infrastructure.
The core of Buterin’s suggestion is to penalize validators based on how their failure rates deviate from the norm.
In scenarios where a significant number of validators fail at the same time, each validator’s penalty would increase, aiming to discourage large stakers from causing widespread disruptions due to correlated failures.
This approach, supported by simulations, could potentially level the playing field between large and small Ethereum stakers.
Buterin’s proposal extends beyond just penalties.
READ MORE: Bitcoin Surges Past $71,000, Signaling Bullish Momentum and Potential for Record HighsC
It advocates for measures that encourage the use of separate infrastructures for each validator and promote the economic viability of solo staking in comparison to joining staking pools.
Additionally, Buterin has floated the idea of exploring alternative penalty schemes and the impact of these measures on both geographic and client decentralization within the Ethereum network.
The discussion around staking decentralization also touches upon the dominance of staking pools and liquid staking services, such as Lido, which currently holds a significant portion of the total ETH supply staked.
This dominance raises concerns about potential centralization and the disproportionate advantages that large pools could have over individual stakers.
Despite the suggestions, Buterin did not address the possibility of lowering the solo staking threshold of 32 Ether, which is a significant financial commitment for individual participants.
This proposal comes amid ongoing discussions within the Ethereum community about the risks of centralization and the need for mechanisms that ensure a more equitable and decentralized network, especially in light of the significant amounts of ETH managed by services like Lido and the potential for “cartelization.”
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On Wednesday, the ARK 21Shares spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) saw an unprecedented surge in interest, recording $201.8 million in inflows, marking a significant spike and nearly five times its average daily inflows.
This remarkable influx came as Bitcoin neared the $72,000 mark, showcasing a notable enthusiasm in the cryptocurrency market.
According to preliminary figures from Farside Investors, this day’s inflow was four times the ETF’s average daily inflow of $43.9 million since its inception on January 11.
It also represented a substantial increase from the $73.6 million inflow observed the previous day, highlighting a growing investor interest in Bitcoin despite the absence of inflows on March 25.
In comparison, other Bitcoin ETFs experienced considerably lower inflows.
The Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF, Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF, Franklin Bitcoin ETF, and VanEck Bitcoin ETF reported inflows ranging from $1.9 million to $5.1 million, all in single digits, with BlackRock’s data pending at the time.
This surge in interest in the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF coincided with Bitcoin reaching a high of $71,670, although it later dipped below the $69,000 support level, closing at $69,698.
Currently, Bitcoin’s price hovers around $69,464.
READ MORE: Bitcoin Surges Past $71,000, Signaling Bullish Momentum and Potential for Record Highs
The investment community’s focus has largely been on Bitcoin’s short-term price movements. However, crypto analysts suggest a broader perspective is necessary.
Crypto researcher Gumshoe emphasized the significance of the overall influx of funds into Bitcoin, criticizing the narrow focus on daily price fluctuations.
“Bitcoin ETFs seeing ATH inflows and people are panicking over the daily close of a candle,” he highlighted.
Matt Hougan, Bitwise’s chief investment officer, pointed out the regulatory challenges hindering professional investors from accessing Bitcoin ETFs, especially in the UK, due to the Financial Conduct Authority’s cautious stance on cryptocurrency.
He predicted a gradual change over the next two years as due diligence processes evolve.
Echoing a positive outlook, Bitcoin Munger suggested that the next $13 billion in inflows could significantly boost Bitcoin’s price.
This optimism is backed by a Cointelegraph report noting that $13.2 billion has been invested in products like spot Bitcoin ETFs since the start of the year, indicating a robust interest in cryptocurrency investment vehicles.
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Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is experiencing a notable surge, trading at $574.84, reflecting a 9.06% increase in the last 24 hours, as the crypto community anticipates the second BCH halving event slated for next week.
This event has sparked significant trading activity, with traders actively adjusting their positions in anticipation.
According to NiceHash, the BCH halving is expected on April 4, leading to substantial movements in the market on March 28, with $190,140 liquidated in short positions and $211,870 in long positions.
Furthermore, Bitcoin Cash futures perpetual contracts reached a historic peak in open interest (OI), hitting $708.75 million, marking an 18.26% rise in a single day and a staggering 165% increase over the week, as reported by CoinGlass.
This surge in interest is a significant jump from May 2021, when OI was at $684.12 million, around the time BCH hit its five-year peak price of $1,399.
Contrastingly, back on the same date in 2020, just before the first BCH halving, futures open interest was significantly lower at $63.29.
READ MORE: Driving Cats NFT Club Drop Begins in Challenge to SHIB, BONK, PEPE and DOGE
During the first halving in April 2020, miner rewards were halved from 12.5 BCH to 6.25 BCH, a change that miners are responding to by ramping up their efforts in anticipation of the upcoming halving.
“DavidShares,” a prominent user on X, highlighted that the Bitcoin Cash hash rate has doubled in the past week. Hash rate, a critical measure of the computational power in a proof-of-work blockchain, reflects the mining and transaction processing capacity.
While Bitcoin is nearing its fourth halving on April 21, amid record highs, Bitcoin Cash’s price remains well below its all-time high of $4,355, achieved in December 2017, as noted by CoinMarketCap.
The earlier scheduling of the BCH halving, relative to Bitcoin’s, stems from a temporary algorithm adjustment made by Bitcoin Cash in 2017.
This adjustment expedited the block creation process, setting the stage for the earlier halving event compared to Bitcoin, scheduled for April 21.
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AI Pepe King (AIPEPE) is currently 240% up in the last 24 hours, according to Bitrue data.
AI Pepe King (AIPEPE) has witnessed a meteoric rally in the last 24 hours, benefitting from Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) investors pouring funds into this new coin in search of 10x-100x gains.
AIPEPE has rallied 240% in the last 24 hours, according to Bitrue data, but its market cap is currently just $5 million, meaning it has massive potential for further growth.
It is therefore not surprising that many memecoin investors, including SHIB and DOGE holders, are continuing to invest in AIPEPE.
AI Pepe King (AIPEPE) Price Prediction
AIPEPE is currently trading around $0.000000001025 on Bitrue, and the token is expected to breach the $0.000000002 mark in the next 72 hours.
Looking further ahead, if AI Pepe King is able to reach a market cap of $500 million – a relatively conservative estimate – it would deliver a 100x return to investors who buy in at the current price.
Shiba Inu, meanwhile, is currently trading around $0.000027 – down 2% in the last day – giving it a market cap of approximately $15 billion.
As for Dogecoin, it is down over 15% in the last 24 hours, trading around $0.175.
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In the latest market update, Bitcoin‘s price trajectory aimed for higher levels during the week’s closing Wall Street session, showcasing the bullish sentiment undeterred by prevailing market uncertainties.
Tracking the Bitcoin (BTC) price movement, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView highlighted a significant rebound as the cryptocurrency crossed the $71,000 threshold.
This resurgence came after a tumultuous previous day marked by sharp fluctuations.
The volatility was primarily driven by the legal tussle between Coinbase, a major U.S. exchange, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which saw Bitcoin dip below the crucial $69,000 support level.
Despite this, the market’s resilience was on display as buyers propelled a recovery, aiming to reclaim positions near record price levels.
Amid these dynamics, Skew, a recognized trader, cautioned followers about potential deceptive price movements, attributed to manipulative liquidity strategies.
Notably, a sudden influx and subsequent withdrawal of bid support in the $70,200 to $70,600 range on the Binance platform exemplified these tactics.
With Bitcoin’s all-time high still serving as a formidable resistance, trader Daan Crypto Trades speculated on the possibilities of price exploration beyond current records.
“Break all time high and low $80Ks should follow shortly afterwards I think,” he advised on X, pointing to immediate trendline support highlighted by the 200-period simple and exponential moving averages on 4-hour charts.
Further insights into the Bitcoin market dynamics were provided by Ki Young Ju, CEO of the on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant.
His analysis shed light on a notable shift in ownership among Bitcoin’s largest holders.
According to Ki, long-established Bitcoin whales are distributing their holdings to new institutional investors, rather than to retail market participants.
This transition is underscored by the substantial daily acquisition of BTC by U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), effectively reducing the circulating supply.
“Old whales are selling Bitcoin to new whales(TradFi), not retail investors,” Ki remarked, presenting on-chain data to support his observation.
He also linked these ownership changes to historical precedents of price rallies towards all-time highs, similar to those seen in the 2017 and 2021 bull markets.
Despite reaching new heights, mainstream interest in Bitcoin has seen a decline, a trend reported by Cointelegraph amidst the cryptocurrency’s breakthroughs.
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In a stark demonstration of the escalating threat posed by phishing scams within the cryptocurrency sector, recent data has revealed a significant uptick in stolen funds on the Ethereum layer 2 solution, Base.
According to Scam Sniffer, a blockchain anti-scam platform, there was an alarming 18-fold increase in losses due to phishing in March compared to January.
The figures are staggering, with approximately $3.35 million reported stolen in March alone.
This marks a 334% surge from February, which saw losses of $773,900, and a shocking 1,880% increase from January’s $169,000, as per Dune Analytics data compiled by Scam Sniffer.
The issue isn’t isolated to Base; Binance’s BNB Smart Chain also experienced a surge in phishing scams during the same period, highlighting a broader vulnerability in the crypto ecosystem to such types of fraud.
The overall impact across all chains was profound, with $71.5 million lost to phishing scams from 77,529 victims, eclipsing the losses recorded in January and February, which stood at $58.3 million and $46.8 million, respectively.
Scam Sniffer identifies phishing links from fraudulent social media accounts as a predominant method of scamming, with over 1,500 incidents detected in March.
These scams are increasingly prevalent despite a notable decline in crypto hack thefts, which fell 48% to $187.2 million in March, as reported by blockchain security firm PeckShield.
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Notably, of the total losses, $98.8 million was recovered, largely thanks to efforts surrounding the $97 million Munchibles exploit, with prominent cryptocurrency sleuth ZachXBT playing a key role in the recovery efforts.
The surge in phishing activities coincides with a memecoin craze on Base, significantly boosting its total value locked to over $3.2 billion, a 370% increase in 2024, according to L2Beat.
This growth occurs even as significant losses have been reported from smart contract exploits, including a $40 million loss from Curio’s MakerDAO-based contract and an $11.6 million hack of Prisma Finance, with ongoing negotiations for the return of the stolen funds.
This landscape underscores the complex challenges and risks present in the rapidly evolving crypto market.
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