Daily News | Market Fluctuates Upwards; Stacks Begins the “Nakamoto Reform”; PayPal Incentivizes “Green Miners”; Neura Releases Public Testnet

Crypto Daily Digest: Stacks begins the “Nakamoto Reform”; PayPal proposes a “Green Miner Incentive Plan”; Ankr’s Layer1 Network Neura Releases Public Testnet

First, let’s take a look at the trading activity of Bitcoin ETFs. According to Farside Investor data, on April 22, Grayscale spot ETF GBTC funds flowed out of $35 million; Meanwhile, iShares Trust Bitcoin spot ETF (IBIT) inflow of $19.7 million; Fidelity Bitcoin spot ETF (FBTC) inflow of $34.8 million, Bitwise Bitcoin spot ETF (BITB) inflow of $2.2 million, and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin spot ETF (ARKB) inflow of $22.6 million.

Stacks blockchain is about to undergo a major reform called “Nakamoto,” which is a tribute to the anonymous creators of Bitcoin. The reform will start from the height of the Bitcoin block at 840,360 and will be divided into two steps, expected to be completed in late May. This reform aims to decouple Stacks’ block production plan from Bitcoin’s.

According to Muneeb Ali, the creator of the Stacks network, CoinDesk, although the Layer 2 network’s transaction throughput is higher than that of Bitcoin (processing about seven transactions per second), according to the initial design, Stacks had the same block output speed as Bitcoin, which caused congestion issues.

Presently, the value of STX staked on the chain is approximately $1.3 billion, accounting for one-third of the total circulating supply of $4.2 billion, making it one of the largest interest-bearing capital pools related to Bitcoin. In the past 24 hours, the price of this token has increased by more than 16%, entering the top 25 tokens in market value for the first time.

PayPal and EnergyWeb are collaborating to develop a solution that rewards Bitcoin miners for using low-carbon energy in their operations.

PayPal stated on Monday’s blog that their blockchain research team has collaborated with the non-profit organization EnergyWeb to develop a clean energy verification platform for monitoring and rewarding lower energy-intensive Bitcoin mining businesses. The development of this solution comes at a time when Bitcoin mining is putting enormous pressure on local power grids and taxpayers in the United States.

Bitcoin mining is a process in which miners use large, energy-consuming computers. The solution proposed by PayPal will distribute Bitcoin to “green” Bitcoin miners, who use low-carbon energy in mining operations. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States states that using low-carbon mining methods can limit carbon emissions and slow global warming.

The Ankr team of Protocol Village announced that their AI Layer 1 chain “Neura” has been released to the public testing network. This test network is built on the Cosmos SDK and is compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Neura aims to provide a platform for developers who want to develop dApps that integrate artificial intelligence and Web3.

Neura has addressed key AI startup challenges, such as ensuring funding, acquiring GPU resources, and effectively storing data through innovative technology combinations. Neura’s “Road To Mainnet” program will include a developer competition, with top projects receiving $100,000 in funding. In addition, Neura will also provide rewards to ANKR token holders, including unique benefits such as the opportunity to invest in new artificial intelligence model tokens.

Market Trends: The crypto market is fluctuating upwards, and Meme coin is performing strongly

Today, the crypto market shows a volatile upward trend, with the Meme and LSD sectors leading the market in performance. In the contract market, both BTC and ETH rates show negative values, indicating that market sentiment may be overly pessimistic, which may indicate a potential turning point in market trends.

Regarding macroeconomics, the US stock market has rebounded after six consecutive declines. Still, the performance of the financial reporting season is not ideal, which may have a certain impact on the sentiment of the crypto market.

Market Hotspots:

The Meme sector saw significant gains: tokens such as PEPE, MOG, SLERF, and FOXY all saw significant increases. As the engine of the previous round of the Meme market, PEPE has once again taken the lead in launching, indicating that it may drive a new round of the Meme market. In addition, Slerf has completed a million-dollar refund to token pre-sales, which has stimulated a significant increase in its price.

Liquidity staking tokens have also shown strong performance: PENDLE, ANKR, SSV, and other tokens have significantly increased. On-chain data indicates that many PENDLEs have been withdrawn from exchanges recently, with a total value of over $11 million. This large-scale cash Flow may indicate long-term Optimism towards these tokens.

Solana on-chain Meme token craze: MANEKI achieved a 300-fold price surge shortly after its launch, with a market value exceeding $100 million. The Meme token of the cat image has been frequently hyped up in the market recently, and the Maneki project has significantly increased its attention on social media.

The BTC eco has performed poorly: both the rune project and BTC Layer2 have not performed as expected, and the entire BTC eco has generally experienced a sharp decline in recent times. As the BTC halving event passes, the market focus may shift towards other more promising hot areas.

Although the market shows a fluctuating upward trend, there is a clear differentiation among different sectors. The Meme sector and some liquidity staking projects have demonstrated strong market activity and investor interest, while the BTC-related eco faces significant pressure. Investors should consider diversifying risks when participating in the market and pay attention to the potential impact of market sentiment and macroeconomic factors on the crypto market.

Macro: Global markets have shown initial rebound since a week of downturn

On April 22, the Wall Street stock market closed higher as investors focused on the quarterly results of major companies this week to understand the health of the US economy. Regarding closing, the Dow Jones index rose 0.67%, the Standard&Poor’s index rose 0.87%, and the Nasdaq index rose 1.11%.

Large tech stocks performed well before announcing quarterly results this week, driving up the Nasdaq index. Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple’s stock prices rose between 0.5% and 1.5%, while Nvidia rose 4.4%, rebounding from the 10% decline in the previous trading day.

In addition to monitoring the profitability of top companies, the market is still waiting for the release of US GDP data and March personal consumption expenditure data later this week. These data are crucial for determining the trajectory of monetary policy, especially its impact on the Federal Reserve.

On the European front, the Italian Minister of Economy stated that the European Central Bank is expected to start cutting interest rates in the second half of 2024. This news has had a certain impact on the market, especially on the flow of bank credit.

On April 23rd, supported by the recovery of technology stocks, calm fixed-income markets, and cooling geopolitical tensions, global stock markets opened positively on Monday, and Asian stock markets are expected to rebound on Tuesday. Affected by Wall Street, Asian stock markets continued their upward trend today. The focus of this week has shifted to the profitability results of US technology giants, with the US dollar remaining strong in terms of currency, causing the Japanese yen to fall to a 34-year low.

With the continuous popularization and development of artificial intelligence applications, technology companies such as TSMC may benefit from this trend, thereby driving the rebound of stock prices. TSMC’s stock price is expected to rebound from Friday’s 6% decline and recover from Monday’s 1% decline. According to official data from Taipei, the growth rate of export orders in March was lower than expected. However, the government still has confidence in the surge in demand for artificial intelligence applications, which will drive future growth in demand for high-tech products in Taiwan.

With the continuous popularization and development of artificial intelligence applications, technology companies such as TSMC may benefit from this trend, thereby driving the rebound of stock prices.

Tuesday’s economic calendar is quite rich, with purchasing managers index reports from Japan, Australia, and India, consumer inflation reports from Singapore and Hong Kong, producer inflation reports from South Korea, and industrial production reports from Taiwan.

Regarding commodities, as investors continue to uate the situation in the Middle East, oil prices recovered from significant declines overnight. Brent crude oil futures rose 0.2% to $87.16 per barrel, while US crude oil futures rose 0.2% to $82.06 per barrel.

After falling 2.7% overnight, gold prices continued to fall by 1% to $2,295.9 per ounce.