Join our group Telegram to stay up to date with the latest live crypto news.
Hello Cryptonauts 🚀. Wonderful week for bitcoin, the psychological threshold of $30,000 is being breached. The most probable scenario remains, in our opinion, that of a continuation of the upward movement, in trend. An investor can thus consider staying invested in bitcoin, to aim for the resistance zone of 33,000 dollars!
Contents of our weekly recap:
The 5 key news of the week
1 – Shanghai and Chapella, two successful updates for Ethereum
▶ L’information : Ethereum’s Shapella update has been successfully rolled out, allowing users to remove staked (immobilized) tokens to secure the network. Of the $34.56 billion in ETH deposited on the Beacon Chain smart-contract since November 2020, only 1.84% (335,000 ETH or $703 million) has been withdrawn by validators on time. where we write these lines. Shapella finalizes the transition of Ethereum to a less energy-intensive model initiated by The Merge last September.
▶ Why it matters : Success of the Shapella update is the culmination of a revolution for the Ethereum network. The limited withdrawals of staked tokens indicate high investor confidence in the longevity of the network and the stability of the Ethereum blockchain. This update confirms Ethereum’s successful move to a “Proof of Stake” model, which is potentially more attractive to environmentally conscious investors.
2 – Ethereum crosses $2,100 in style and the whales change their behavior
▶ L’information : Ethereum price rose above $2,100 on Wednesday, a level it had not reached since August 2022. Optimists believe that the rise could continue and exceed $2,300. Entities holding more than 10,000 ETH have shown signs of changing behavior, visibly going into “accumulation” mode. On the ETH/BTC pair, the price is hovering between 0.06 and 0.08 BTC, and seems to want to finally break a downtrend line.
▶ Why it matters : Rising Ethereum price and changing behavior of whales indicate renewed interest in cryptocurrency, especially after the recent Shapella update. If the trend continues, it could benefit altcoins that have struggled to speak up recently. Investors should carefully watch market developments and technical signals to determine if this bullish momentum is confirmed and buyers regain control for good.
3 – Twitter and eToro are teaming up to facilitate access to stock and cryptocurrency trading
▶ L’information : Twitter announced Thursday a partnership with the broker eToro. Twitter users will now be able to view trading charts, buy stocks or cryptocurrencies directly via eToro, and access real-time prices using the feature cashtag. Searching for a $Cashtag symbol, such as $AAPL, will display Apple’s live stock price and a chart on the Twitter feed, with the ability to click through to the eToro platform for more information and to invest.
▶ Why it matters : It is a partnership between two giants. A major social network (326 million) and a historic broker (20 million customers). This partnership strengthens the integration of cryptocurrencies in mainstream platforms. It also shows Elon Musk’s desire to create an “everything app”, where users can access various features and services without leaving the app. A development that could attract a wave of new investors for web3.
4 – The NFT market returns above 17 billion in capitalization (8.44 million ETH)
▶ L’information : This week, the market capitalization of NFTs fell from 8.64 million ETH to 8.44 million ETH, a decrease of 2.31%. But interestingly, if we translate these numbers into USD, the NFT market capitalization increased from $16.07 billion to $17.61 billion in the same period, an increase of 9.6% thanks to the Considerable rise in ETH prices this week.
▶ Why it matters : because behind this growth, OpenSea Pro is gaining ground! Over the past week, the new and improved NFT market aggregator has seen its NFT trade market share rise from 9.3% to 16.2%, while Blur’s trade market share has increased from 41, 3% to 35% over the same period. Consequently, OpenSea Pro overtakes Blur at the top of NFT marketplacesalthough Blur continues to dominate trading volume levels at the moment.
5 – The Banque de France is considering mandatory KYC for DeFi
▶ L’information : The Banque de France recently published a report proposingintegrate decentralized finance (DeFi) into the European regulation MiCA and to impose an identity verification (KYC) process on all DeFi-related intermediaries and web interfaces.
▶ why it matters : If these provisions are passed, this would mark the end of pseudonymization in DeFi, because decentralized applications such as AAVE or Uniswap would be directly affected by the Banque de France’s proposal. Only a few users, mainly programmers, could circumvent this regulation by interacting directly with DeFi protocols without going through a web interface or an intermediary.
Other important news
▶ METAMASK. Users can now buy ETH and stablecoins with a bank card directly in the app.
▶ DECENTRALLAND. Decentraland Metaverse Fashion Week saw attendance drop to 26,000 visitors this year, from 108,000 in 2022.
▶ AMAZON. The e-commerce and cloud giant launched Bedrock AI to compete with ChatGPT (OpenAI & Microsoft) and Bard (Google).
▶ YEARN FINANCE. The famous decentralized finance protocol of Ethereum was stolen more than 11.6 million dollars by a hacker.
▶ UNISWAP. The decentralized finance protocol has finally managed to get its free crypto wallet validated on the App Store.
▶ ADIDAS. The German giant has just launched its new collection of NFTs.
▶ FTX. The exchange could be revived after recouping $7.3 billion to date.
The Market Point of the week: $31,000 as an immediate obstacle
Bitcoin is on the rise. Since our weekly recap of March 12the king of cryptocurrencies bounced off the major support zone formed by the 150- and 200-day moving averages (the two lower blue curves, which play the role of important supports for the medium-term trend)
▶ The trend : This week has been particularly positive for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, with BTC/USD crossing the major psychological threshold of $30,000 at the start of the week. This key signal prompted the market to invest more in Bitcoin, taking the crypto to a 2023 high at $30,948 Friday morning !
▶ Macroeconomics: The rise in BTC this week is mainly due to the evolution of Fed rate expectations, due to the US consumer price index and the producer price index coming out below the consensus. Investors, including those positioned in Bitcoin, have been betting on an end to the Fed’s rate hike. However, some better than expected US statistics released on Friday have changed expectations.
▶ What to expect? Bitcoin failed to confirm the crossing of the $31,000 threshold, tested briefly on Friday morning. However, this does not rule out further gains in the cryptocurrency as early as Monday, as the trend remains bullish and the weekend’s reduced liquidity increases the likelihood of big moves.
Technically, the $31,000 threshold is an immediate hurdle ahead of the next psychological threshold of $32,000. On the downside, $30,000 is the first potential support, but a break below the upper boundary of the previous range, at $29,400, would be much more technically significant. In this case, $28,000 will be the first downside target to consider.
ICO of the week: Love Hate Inu (LHINU)
Launched on March 8, the presale of the meme corner Love Hate Inu is a real success. After several impressive leaps in funds raised, the meme coin’s ICO hit the $3 million mark at the start of the week, then settled at 4.3 million at the time of writing.
The Love Hate Inu project aims to create a voting platform, where the Vote to Earn LHINU token rewards users for participating in polls. The LHINU is a token Stake to Vote et Vote to Earn, which can be acquired through the Ethereum network, in ETH or USDT. Being the first such project, investor interest in Love Hate Inu continues to grow.
Projects of the week
👉 Liquid staking protocols (Lido, RocketPool, Coinbase)
The liquid staking industry has seen tremendous growth as early as April 2021 following the update called Berlin. Users have discovered protocols such as Lido, who supported staking ETH for their users on the Beacon Chain. In total, liquid staking (LSD) protocols have managed to attract over $14.5 billion in total value locked (TVL), representing 42% of all ETH currently tied up on the network.
In return, a protocol like Lido issues a liquid staking derivative (LSD), stETH, an ERC-20 token that symbolizes a claim on staked ETH and allows its holders to receive rewards while being able to use their capital in DeFi. Lido and its popular stETH are not alone in this lucrative market, as they were soon joined by players such as Coinbase et Rocket Pool.
stETH can be used by anyone to generate income. It is beneficial for validators to keep staked ETH in order to enjoy double profit from both ETH and stETH. Lido’s stETH and Coinbase’s cbETH are in high demand, as they can be invested on protocols such as Curve and Balancer to generate returns. Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade eliminates the risks associated with staking as the underlying ETH is no longer locked!
personality to watch
👉 Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX)
On Friday, Aptos’ APT price jumped sharply by more than 7% after a tweet from Elon Musk stating “AI APT THERE!”, before rapidly falling back to its initial course. In this specific context, the initials “APT” were simply an acronym for Advanced Persistent Threats. Elon Musk therefore did not speak of the Aptos token at all and deleted the tweet an hour later.
Elon Musk founded a new company named X.AI with the aim of creating its own model of artificial intelligence (AI). AI experts have been hired for this project, including Igor Babuschkin et Manuel Cross, who both worked at DeepMind (Google). Additionally, Musk has reportedly entered into talks with investors in his SpaceX and Tesla businesses to inject capital into them.
This article does not represent investment advice in any way. The information provided here should not be used as the basis for making financial decisions. Investing in cryptocurrency involves risk and can lead to significant losses. You should only invest what you can afford to lose and do your own research before making any investment decisions.
