Tether to Buy BTC With Profits, Lightening Labs Updates Taproot Assets
Market Update
- Stocks are rising as investors anticipate a potential agreement between congressional leaders and President Joe Biden regarding the U.S. debt ceiling. The S&P gained 1.19%, while the Nasdaq is up 1.2%. Leaders on both sides of the aisle made positive comments following negotiations. House Speaker McCarthy stated it's "possible to get a deal by the end of the week," President Biden said he was "confident" about a deal resolution. BTC is underperforming, down 0.5% over the last day, while ETH 4.43% is down 1.0%. XRP (+4.6%) and DOGE (+3.4%) are outperforming the top 10. XRP is seeing positive momentum in its court battle with the SEC. Judge Torres denied the SEC's request to seal key documents from a speech where former SEC director Bill Hinman stated Bitcoin and Ether were not securities. Dogecoin's network recently hit a new record high for daily transactions, following a rush to mint DRC-20 tokens, a mechanism that emulates the recent craze seen with Bitcoin BRC-20.
- Tether, the stablecoin issuer, plans to allocate 15% of its net realized operating profits to purchase Bitcoin and reinforce its already substantial reserves. Tether's CTO, Paolo Ardoino, expressed confidence in Bitcoin's resilience and long-term value, citing its limited supply, decentralized nature, and widespread adoption. This move aims to reinforce Tether's reserves, including $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, in addition to corporate bonds, gold, and other investments. However, concerns have been raised about the transparency of Tether's reserve claims, to which the company has strongly refuted allegations of using fake documents and shell companies. Tether's recent financial update showcased significant success with net profits of $1.48 billion in the first quarter and all-time high reserves. The regular purchases of Bitcoin will amount to approximately $220 million per quarter based on Q1 profits.
- Lightning Labs has released an updated version of the Taproot Assets Protocol, aiming to improve the efficiency of the Bitcoin blockchain and reduce network congestion. This development comes as the Bitcoin network has faced congestion issues since the introduction of the BRC-20 token standard. Lightning Labs suggests incorporating BRC-20 assets into Lightning could address these concerns. The current method of inscribing assets on the blockchain is deemed inefficient by Lightning Labs, and the new protocol allows for embedding asset metadata directly into block space. Currently, most BRC-20 tokens are created using JSON inscriptions, which incur higher transaction fees. The Taproot Assets Protocol has been praised as a superior solution by the developer behind the BRC-20 standard, who previously criticized the use of JSON data. While the total value of BRC-20 tokens briefly exceeded $1 billion on May 9, it has since declined by nearly 50% to $500 million.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
OKB token has begun to stabilize in recent days following its pullback to challenge the lows of its three-month triangle pattern. Daily OKB charts show the rapid runup from last Fall into February of 2023 before its recent range-bound consolidation. Structures of this sort are traditionally bullish and are resolved by a breakout of the triangle pattern to the upside. Key resistance lies at $56-$56.71, with the upper part of this band representing April highs. The ability to break this upper border should fuel a larger rally up to the high $60's initially. Momentum indicators like MACD have made bullish crossovers and look more attractive. Only a decline back under $42.96 would serve to postpone the rally.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of May 17, 2023 1:34 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $523B | $27,009 | ↓ -0.32% | ↑ 63% | |
 ETH | $218B | $1,812 | ↓ -0.89% | ↑ 51% | ↓ -12% |
 ADA | $13B | $0.3711 | ↑ 0.99% | ↑ 50% | ↓ -13% |
 DOGE | $10B | $0.0743 | ↑ 2.89% | ↑ 5.94% | ↓ -57% |
 SOL | $8.2B | $20.69 | ↓ -0.32% | ↑ 109% | ↑ 46% |
 MATIC | $8.0B | $0.8622 | ↑ 2.22% | ↑ 13% | ↓ -50% |
 DOT | $6.3B | $5.29 | ↓ -0.16% | ↑ 22% | ↓ -41% |
 LINK | $3.4B | $6.65 | ↓ -0.35% | ↑ 20% | ↓ -43% |
 NEAR | $1.5B | $1.67 | ↑ 1.28% | ↑ 31% | ↓ -32% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -40% | $14.72 | ↑ 0.62% | ↑ 78% | ↑ 15% |
| BITW | ↓ -57% | $10.27 | ↓ -0.58% | ↑ 91% | ↑ 28% |
| ETHE | ↓ -53% | $8.36 | ↑ 0.60% | ↑ 76% | ↑ 13% |
| BTCC | ↑ 0.10% | $4.95 | ↓ -0.20% | ↑ 63% | ↑ 0.33% |
News
QUICK BITS
CoinDesk Investors Track Pepecoin Whales to Cash In on Meme Coin Mania as Wider Market Stagnates Crypto investors are attempting to capitalize on the latest wave of meme coin mania by tracking the movements of early pepecoin (PEPE) buyers. |
TrustNodes Tether Bought $1.5 Billion Bitcoin, Will Buy More Tether has announced they will be consistently buying bitcoin out of their profits after revealing $1.5 billion holdings. |
MARKET DATA
CryptoSlate Binance’s share of Bitcoin spot market falls more than half since February peak of 85% Binance’s market share of the Bitcoin spot market continues trending downwards — suggesting the war on crypto is taking its toll on the world’s largest exchange... |
The Block Tokens built on Dogecoin results in all-time high in daily transactions Dogecoin network’s daily transactions hit a record high, peaking at over 719,000 with users minting meme tokens via an Ordinals-like system. ... |
REGULATION
Decrypt.co DeFi Project Bancor Hit With Lawsuit Over Impermanent Loss Protection Promises Investors claim promises fell short, adding that Bancor’s DAO was centralized and its liquidity pools operated as unregistered securities. |
CryptoPotato Ripple Vs. SEC: Judge Denies The Sealing of Hinman’s Speech Once Again The speech by Ripple’s Division of Corporate Finance Director is a key piece of Ripple’s defense in court. |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
CryptoSlate Ripple acquires crypto custody firm Metaco in $250M deal Ripple has announced the acquisition of Metaco – making it the sole shareholder of the Swiss-based crypto custody firm. The $250 million deal will expand Ripple... |
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