Technicals Suggest Another Leg Higher in BTC Dominance, ConsenSys Sues the SEC
Market Update
- Major equity indices are rallying on the back of solid earnings, with both the SPX and QQQ -0.07% up over 1%. Meanwhile, crypto markets are churning lower, which is understandable as we should not expect crypto to rally alongside equities during an earnings-driven market. Crypto remains an apparently undecided market ahead of next week's FOMC meeting and the Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA), evidenced by another day of ETF outflows and a persistent discount on Coinbase. Fears over a hot Core PCE were quelled with today’s report, which showed a 0.3% monthly growth—aligned with analyst expectations and likely below market expectations following yesterday’s GDP print. Naturally, yields are moving lower on the day, but the DXY 0.00% is maintaining its strength, likely attributable to the Bank of Japan's reluctance to hike rates yesterday evening. BTC -1.31% has fallen to $63.5K, while ETH -1.61% , currently trading just over $3,100, is down slightly less on a relative basis following the Consensys lawsuit yesterday. SOL -2.35% has dropped to $142. Among the top 50 coins, the "dino coins" appear to be holding up the best, with LTC -1.87% and ETC -3.02% both up approximately 3%.
Source: Farside Investors, Fundstrat
- Ethereum developer ConsenSys has filed a lawsuit against the SEC, challenging the regulator's authority over Ethereum and its associated services. The lawsuit seeks to affirm that ETH is not a security and that MetaMask, a product of ConsenSys, does not fall under the definition of a broker, nor does its staking service violate securities laws. The complaint, filed in the Northern District of Texas, stems from a Wells Notice received from the SEC on April 10th, indicating potential enforcement action against ConsenSys for its MetaMask wallet. ConsenSys argues that the SEC’s actions contradict previous designations of Ethereum as a commodity and violate Constitutional protections, including the Due Process Clause, and encroach on the scope defined by Congress, particularly citing the "major questions doctrine." The broad consensus, no pun intended, is that going on the offensive in a potentially favorable jurisdiction is a savvy strategic move.
- Stripe, the fintech giant, is set to reintroduce crypto payment options later this year, focusing initially on Circle's USDC stablecoin across the Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon (MATIC -3.53% ) blockchains. This move comes after a hiatus since 2018 when Stripe ceased supporting Bitcoin due to its volatility and impracticality as a medium of exchange during the first crypto winter. Stripe's resurgence in the crypto payments field aligns with their previous explorations into crypto transactions since 2014 and recent endeavors like the fiat-to-crypto payment project launched in 2022. The reintroduction aims to provide a much-improved user experience in handling crypto transactions, leveraging enhanced transaction speeds and reduced costs. This initiative by Stripe offers yet more evidence that stablecoins have achieved product market fit and are indeed one of crypto's killer use cases.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Bitcoin's dominance chart shows some settling post the halving two weeks ago but remains quite bullish in thinking BTC -1.31% relative strength can likely continue. The recent breakout in the dominance chart of the lengthy four-month triangle consolidation is considered quite bullish for Bitcoin's prospects to show further outperformance, and the recent consolidation has not violated any key uptrends which might warn that Bitcoin could be on the verge of turning down, relatively speaking. Overall, i view this minor pullback in the Dominance chart as setting up an attractive risk/reward opportunity to own BTC -1.31% for a push back up to new all-time highs in the weeks and months ahead.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of April 26, 2024 12:18 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $1.25T | $63,677 | ↓ -1.53% | ↑ 51% | |
 ETH | $381B | $3,118 | ↓ -1.02% | ↑ 37% | ↓ -14% |
 SOL | $64B | $143 | ↓ -2.29% | ↑ 41% | ↓ -9.83% |
 DOGE | $21B | $0.1483 | ↓ -1.66% | ↑ 67% | ↑ 16% |
 ADA | $17B | $0.4660 | ↓ -1.16% | ↓ -21% | ↓ -72% |
 DOT | $9.8B | $6.80 | ↓ -1.40% | ↓ -16% | ↓ -67% |
 LINK | $8.6B | $14.61 | ↓ -0.09% | ↓ -2.41% | ↓ -53% |
 NEAR | $7.5B | $7.03 | ↓ -1.24% | ↑ 95% | ↑ 45% |
 MATIC | $7.0B | $0.7055 | ↓ -1.37% | ↓ -27% | ↓ -77% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| BITW | ↓ -32% | $32.94 | ↓ -1.94% | ↑ 41% | ↓ -9.41% |
| ETHE | ↓ -24% | $22.19 | ↓ -1.57% | ↑ 14% | ↓ -36% |
News
QUICK BITS
CoinDesk Franklin Templeton Upgrades $380M Tokenized Treasury Fund to Enable Peer-to-Peer Transfers The feature helps to expand the utility of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund's BENJI token and make it more interconnected with the digital asset ... |
CoinDesk Stripe Brings Back Crypto Payments Via USDC Stablecoin Six years after dropping support for bitcoin and, thus, crypto payments altogether, Stripe is bringing back the service later this summer, though initially only... |
The Block Pantera acquires additional discounted Solana tokens in FTX bankruptcy auction: report Pantera was among the investors who won the bids for solana tokens at the FTX estate’s auction, Bloomberg reported. |
MARKET DATA
The Block USDT’s exchange balance hits highest level in a year and keeps rising The 7-day moving average of the change in Tether's USDT held by exchanges reached $568 million — its highest level in a year. |
REGULATION
CoinDesk Consensys, a Target for the SEC’s Assault on ETH, Is Fighting Back |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
CoinDesk Bitcoin-Linked Stablecoin Firm OpenDelta Raises $2.5M The startup is one of the first to build tokenized tech for Bitcoin's Runes era. |
MINING
The Block Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital targets its hash rate to double in 2024 Marathon expects fully hash rate to reach around 50 EH/s by the end of 2024, double from the year's start. |
The Block Runes generate over $135 million in fees in first week on Bitcoin network The Runes protocol has generated over $135 million in transaction fees on the Bitcoin network within its first week. |
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