Halving Day Arrives, Excitement Builds Over Runes Launch
Market Update
- Happy Halving Day to all. It has been another volatile 24 hours for crypto markets, with war-related headlines sending risk assets lower overnight. BTC 0.05% briefly dipped below the $60k mark but has since recouped all its losses and is now trading above $64k. ETH 0.91% followed BTC's initial drop, trading below $2900 last night, but it has now rebounded to above $3000. SOL 3.70% has shown remarkable resilience amid the turmoil, now trading above $145 after briefly falling below $130. Other standout performers today include JTO, the native token of Jito Labs—a liquid staking and MEV infrastructure network on Solana—as well as TIA 1.61% , the native token of the data availability layer Celestia, and AR 9.43% , the native token of the storage network Arweave. Meanwhile, traditional markets are mixed, with the tech-heavy QQQ down 1.5% today and the SPX down 0.50%. Yields have moved lower today, likely reflecting a risk-off mentality rather than for inflation-related reasons, as the VIX has climbed back above 18. In just a few hours, the Bitcoin network will undergo its fourth halving, reducing the block rewards from 6.25 BTC per block to 3.125 BTC per block—a decrease in the annual inflation rate from roughly 1.8% to 0.9%.
- The story on flows remains mixed, with ETFs posting another day of negative flows—albeit a minor outflow day—while stablecoins, in aggregate, continue to show net growth.
Source: Farside Investors, Fundstrat
Source: DefiLlama, Fundstrat
- Bitcoin block 840,000, coinciding with the block reward halving on April 19th, will also see the debut of Runes, a new standard for issuing fungible tokens directly on Bitcoin, developed by Casey Rodarmor of Ordinals fame. Runes is positioned as an alternative to the BRC-20 tokens, which are dependent on off-chain indexers and the Ordinals inscribing method. Unlike BRC-20, Runes operates through embedded scripts in Bitcoin transaction outputs, called "runestones," which utilize the blockchain's UTXO system to store balances and facilitate transactions. This allows Runes to integrate with the Bitcoin Lightning Network for faster and cheaper transactions. Runes are one of the many reasons that investors are excited about bitcoin over the coming quarters. Transaction fees on BTC have spiked recently, likely caused by individuals speculating on BRC-20 tokens ahead of the Runes launch, or simply moving funds on chain in anticipation of a burgeoning DeFi ecosystem.
Source: Glassnode, Fundstrat
- Tether has announced plans to expand the use of its USDT and XAUT tokens on The Open Network (TON), aiming to enhance peer-to-peer transactions among Telegram's estimated 900 million users. This initiative is designed to better integrate these tokens within the TON ecosystem, potentially increasing their utilization in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. This strategic move is intended to boost liquidity and activity on TON, which now operates independently after separating from Telegram due to regulatory issues. The integration also merges fiat and crypto transfers efficiently. Complementing this expansion, Tether has introduced a recovery tool that allows for the migration of USDT across different blockchains.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Mark is out today, and therefore, we are resharing his analysis form from yesterday.
Following a near complete roundtrip to its run-up into March, BONK is looking increasingly attractive following recent consolidation down under $.000017. While counter-trend buy signals of exhaustion are not yet in place, these should be evident by next week on any further decline and the risk/reward looks increasingly quite attractive. To have evidence that BONK has achieved a meaningful bottom that could lead back to highs, it's essential that price reclaim the area at $.00002126 which lines up with a former base of support. Surpassing this should allow for a meaningful move up to $.00002950 and eventually up to test all-time highs just above $.000040. The area near February lows two months ago should serve as solid support to any further weakness over the next couple weeks, but BONK looks excellent to consider buying dips after its recent decline.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of April 19, 2024 1:54 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $1.28T | $64,765 | ↑ 3.10% | ↑ 53% | |
 ETH | $371B | $3,086 | ↑ 1.64% | ↑ 36% | ↓ -18% |
 SOL | $65B | $146 | ↑ 6.11% | ↑ 44% | ↓ -9.39% |
 DOGE | $22B | $0.1534 | ↑ 3.27% | ↑ 72% | ↑ 19% |
 ADA | $17B | $0.4714 | ↑ 4.84% | ↓ -20% | ↓ -74% |
 DOT | $9.8B | $6.81 | ↑ 1.81% | ↓ -16% | ↓ -69% |
 LINK | $8.2B | $13.97 | ↑ 3.04% | ↓ -6.65% | ↓ -60% |
 MATIC | $6.7B | $0.6795 | ↑ 1.15% | ↓ -29% | ↓ -83% |
 NEAR | $6.0B | $5.60 | ↓ -0.44% | ↑ 56% | ↑ 2.30% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| BITW | ↓ -32% | $32.75 | ↑ 1.17% | ↑ 41% | ↓ -13% |
| ETHE | ↓ -26% | $21.74 | ↑ 0.45% | ↑ 12% | ↓ -41% |
News
QUICK BITS
The Block MicroStrategy’s Saylor nets $370 million selling company shares: report Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor's announced plan to sell 400,000 of his MicroStrategy shares is almost complete. |
The Block Tether brings USDT and gold stablecoins to the TON blockchain Tether is expanding support for its USDT stablecoin and its gold-backed stablecoin XAUT to The Open Network (TON). |
MARKET DATA
CoinDesk Avail Confirms Token Airdrop Plans, a Week After Leaked Screenshots Avail shared in a blog post that 354,605 wallet addresses are eligible to claim the 600 million tokens in their “unification drop.” |
CoinDesk Polymarket Traders See 32% Chance of No Fed Rate Cuts This Year The hawkish shift in the market sentiment could dampen the demand for risk assets, including cryptocurrencies and technology stocks. |
CoinDesk Bitcoin Spot ETFs Register Five-Day Withdrawals Streak Ahead of Halving GBTC again led the outflows, while inflows into BlackRock's IBIT continued to slow, provision data from Farside show. |
The Block Crypto liquidations spike in pre-halving market volatility Market volatility has resulted in a substantial $152 million in cryptocurrency liquidations over the past 24 hours. |
REGULATION
CoinDesk Sen. Lummis: It'll Pay to 'Choose Circle Over Tether' Under U.S. Stablecoin Proposal Circle Internet Financial would have a distinct advantage over global stablecoin leader Tether under U.S. regulations along the lines being suggested by new leg... |
WEB 3.0
The Block During its pre-alpha on the popular online gaming store, “Nyan Heroes” attracted a lot of attention from gamers. |
