Arbitrum Backtracks on Governance Proposal and Bittrex winds down U.S. Operations
Market Update
- After a choppy weekend, $BTC and $ETH are flat on the day, down 0.68% and up 0.06%, respectively. SPX is down 0.02% at the time of writing, and NDQ is down 0.92%. Most altcoins have underperformed BTC and ETH—$SOL is down 1.32%, $OP is down 1.82%, and $ATOM is down 1.12%. Ethereum Layer 2, Arbitrum, was hit the hardest this weekend after the team backtracked on a governance proposal (which we discuss in more detail below). $ARB is down 3.38% today and has declined nearly 20% from its highs last Friday. An exception to the altcoin underperformance is the Liquid Staking Derivatives, which have been rising since last week leading up to Ethereum's Shanghai upgrade on April 12th. $LDO is up 2.61%, and $RPL is up 0.55% today. Another standout today has been none other than $DOGE, which has risen 25.57% after Elon Musk integrated the Dogecoin logo into Twitter.
- There was controversy over the weekend surrounding Arbitrum after the Ethereum Layer 2 backtracked on a governance proposal. The Arbitrum foundation proposed AIP-1, which outlined several actions regarding the ARB token and the structure of the ArbitrumDAO. The controversy stemmed from a part of the proposal that stated that 750M $ARB tokens (worth nearly $1 billion) would be transferred to the Administrative Budget Wallet controlled by the Arbitrum Foundation. Arbitrum holders took issue with this and voted 83% against it. Despite the vote against the proposal, the Arbitrum foundation sold 10m ARB tokens for administrative and operational costs and loaned 40 million tokens to market maker, Wintermute before the vote's conclusion. This led to backlash from the community, questioning the legitimacy of Arbitrum's governance as the ARB token declined nearly 13%. Arbitrum responded to criticism and justified their actions, claiming that AIP-1 was a "ratification and not a request." Arbitrum also addressed the community's response in a Twitter thread, stating that AIP-1 in its current form is too large and will now be split into parts, the 750M ARB sent to the Arbitrum Foundation will be voted on in its own AIP, transparency reports will be posted as to how the funds are spent, and the Special Grants program will be renamed the Ecosystem Development Fund.
- Crypto exchange, Bittrex, is shutting down its operations in the U.S., citing regulatory uncertainty as the reason. Co-founder and CEO Richie Lai stated, "It's just not economically viable for us to continue to operate in the current U.S. regulatory and economic environment. Regulatory requirements are often unclear and enforced without appropriate discussion or input, resulting in an uneven competitive landscape." Also contributing to the shutdown in U.S. operations is a significant decline in Bittrex's U.S. volume, which now accounts for less than 1% of the market. This shutdown comes amid increased regulatory scrutiny of the crypto industry as a whole in the U.S., in what many are referring to as Operation Choke Point 2.0.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
0x has proven to be one of the stronger cryptocurrencies all year with YTD performance of over 90 heading into April. Last week's surge to the highest levels since last fall is considered constructive to the bigger picture, and should drive prices higher to test last August's peak near $0.40 . While momentum did get briefly overbought last week on the sudden push higher from under 0.22 to over 0.35 in a short period of time, the recent consolidation looks appealing to buy into for higher prices in the weeks to come. Daily $ZRX charts show the huge increase in volume last week on this recent breakout. Dips likely should prove to be buyable at $0.255-$0.27 and appear unlikely to undercut the most recent swing high at $0.255 from back on 3/19. Overall, a breakout to multi-month peaks on above-average volume makes this quite appealing to own on pullbacks and it's thought that higher prices will likely be back to last August's peaks in the month of April 2023.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of April 3, 2023 2:11 PM
All Funding rates are on bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $541B | $27,993 | ↓ -0.77% | ↑ 69% | |
 ETH | $217B | $1,800 | ↓ -0.11% | ↑ 50% | ↓ -19% |
 ADA | $13B | $0.3849 | ↑ 0.71% | ↑ 56% | ↓ -13% |
 DOGE | $13B | $0.0954 | ↑ 19% | ↑ 36% | ↓ -33% |
 MATIC | $9.9B | $1.09 | ↓ -0.71% | ↑ 44% | ↓ -25% |
 SOL | $7.8B | $20.27 | ↓ -1.76% | ↑ 105% | ↑ 36% |
 DOT | $7.5B | $6.36 | ↑ 0.40% | ↑ 46% | ↓ -23% |
 LINK | $3.8B | $7.29 | ↓ -0.78% | ↑ 31% | ↓ -38% |
 NEAR | $1.7B | $1.94 | ↑ 0.24% | ↑ 52% | ↓ -17% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -37% | $15.98 | ↓ -2.32% | ↑ 93% | ↑ 24% |
| BITW | ↓ -57% | $10.61 | ↓ -3.11% | ↑ 98% | ↑ 29% |
| ETHE | ↓ -52% | $8.27 | ↓ -3.50% | ↑ 74% | ↑ 4.76% |
| BTCC | ↑ 0.28% | $5.16 | ↓ -1.90% | ↑ 70% | ↑ 1.32% |
News
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