Bitcoin Price: US$ 68,327.04 (-1.50%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 3,844.69(-1.27%)
In the first quarter, BlackRock’s income and bond-focused funds, specifically the Strategic Income Opportunities Fund and Strategic Global Bond Fund, invested $3.56 million and $485,000 respectively in the company’s own spot Bitcoin ETF. Although these purchases represent a small fraction of the funds’ total portfolios, they contribute to the global holding of over 1 million Bitcoin in spot Bitcoin ETFs, which is valued at over $68 billion. Meanwhile, US Bitcoin miners have been busy, spending $2.7 billion on electricity in the first few months of 2024 alone, enough to power every electric vehicle in the US 87.52 times or to supply electricity to 1,983,107 households for a year. Despite this high energy usage, Bitcoin mining stands out as the only primary global industry mainly powered through sustainable energy, with the use of sustainable energy in Bitcoin mining reaching a new all-time high of 54.5%. On the corporate front, Semler Scientific made headlines when its stock price soared by 30% following the announcement that Bitcoin would become its primary treasury reserve asset, leading to the company purchasing 581 Bitcoin for a total of $40 million. The company’s board of directors and senior management believe that holding Bitcoin, with its architectural resilience, is the best use of their excess cash, making it a preferable choice over gold.
Polygon Labs, the company behind the Ethereum-linked blockchain network Polygon, has announced a strategic shift with its co-founder and executive chairman, Sandeep Nailwal, assuming the role of Chief Business Officer (CBO). Nailwal’s focus will be on expanding Polygon-developed tools related to zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs and working with Polygon CDK, a ZK-based software toolkit. This development coincides with the crypto infrastructure firm MoonPay launching a platform dedicated to Web3 tools for digital engagement. The platform, which integrates pre-existing services with new tools such as crypto payments, authentication, identity verification, ticketing, tokenisation, and nonfungible tokens (NFT) minting, aims to provide brands with safe and simple solutions for creating more interactive and personalised digital experiences. Amid these advancements, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has asserted that the crypto community has redefined the word “inflation” to mean an increase in the total supply of a currency, suggesting that ongoing global inflation results from the total supply essentially being uncapped.
HTX, formerly known as Huobi, has emerged as a formidable player, surpassing Coinbase in spot trading volumes and handling around $2.4 billion daily, thereby securing its position as the fourth-largest crypto exchange globally. This development coincides with Coinbase grappling with multiple legal challenges in the United States, including a securities violation lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Amidst this, the crypto landscape experienced a potential exploit on the BNB Chain, leading to the loss of approximately $80,000 worth of Bitcoin. Intriguingly, the exploiter interacted with Binance, the world’s largest centralised exchange, hinting at the possibility of a white hat hacker behind the incident. Concurrently, the crypto leverage market is witnessing a memecoin frenzy, with four out of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by open interest (OI) being memecoins. However, despite the surge in the prices of memecoins and the rise in OI, the funding rates for memecoins across crypto exchanges have remained negative, adding another layer of complexity to the ever-evolving crypto narrative.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com
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