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Bitcoin’s Active Addresses Gather Steam; 1.7M In 8 Weeks

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Bitcoin’s on-chain metrics such as the Active Address count [AA] have been growing steadfastly, despite the current market turmoil.

Active Addresses is a metric that includes all addresses sending and receiving BTC, providing a look at how active market demand is.

According to market intelligence firm, Santiment, in the last two months, the total amount of BTC addresses has grown by 1.71 million, an increase of nearly 4% in a relatively short period.

Following a year of subpar development, the number of AAs dramatically increased starting on March 18, as shown in the graph below. The most recent instance of this expansion occurred between March and June of last year.

Around 45 million addresses have already been created for Bitcoin, showing that the network is currently thriving.

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Bitcoin's Active Addresses Gather Steam; 1.7M In 8 Weeks 2

Even with its 50% price increase, Bitcoin’s lackluster growth in Active Address this year worried many experts.

One such analysis took into consideration the on-chain volume and active address factors that characterize bull markets.

In a blunt assessment of the 2023 BTC price rebound, on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant deduced that Bitcoin might be weaker than it appears.

“You can see that Active Addresses increased both during the 2019 bull market turnaround and when coming out of the 2020 COVID-19 shock,” Yonsei_dent, of CryptoQuant added.

“I am concerned that this 2023 rally did not show any rise in Active Addresses.”

But, the most recent spike in network activity during a turbulent moment has revived hopes that all is not yet lost.

It needs to be told that Bitcoin‘s value staged an astounding comeback after falling to new two-month lows beneath the $20k mark last week.

Bitcoin Cross $26k In 8 Months

This occurred after a series of crypto-friendly banks went under. However with a combination of bullish factors, which included the launch of a new bank liquidity program.

This helped USDC, a crucial component of the crypto market’s plumbing, recover back to its $1 peg, and analysts’ expectations that the risk of a banking crisis would prevent the Fed from undertaking significant further rate hikes, were other reasons, analysts believe that the market is currently up.

The coin reached the mid-$26,000s, its highest level since last June the mid-$26,000s earlier this week.

At the time of writing, BTC has mildly retraced back from its previous high to trade at $24303.

FTX/Alameda’s $69M USDT Transfer To Coinbase, Binance, & Kraken Sparks Controversy 

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In a recent tweet by LookOnChain, it was reported that three addresses related to FTX/Alameda had transferred a whopping $69.64 million USDT to the address “0xad6e”.

Interestingly, $43 million USDT was transferred to three of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken. In addition, $75.94 million USDC was transferred to the Coinbase Custody Wallet.

According to sources, these transactions were made after the FTX/Alameda crash, which led to the consolidation of all assets at the three addresses mentioned in the tweet.

The transfer of such a huge amount has raised several questions among the crypto community. While some members believe that FTX is bullish on the market, others are skeptical about the intentions behind the transfer.

One member stated that the exchange’s latest activity suggests that they are dumping ETH, which seems to contradict the bullish sentiment. Another member criticized its alleged manipulation and questioned when they would face liquidation on leverage again.

There were also comments speculating about the person behind the transfer. Some speculated that it could be FTX’s CEO, Sam, who is known for his trading skills. They believe that Sam is trying to win back what was lost in the recent FTX/Alameda crash.

Nonetheless, the tweet has sparked a lot of interest and debate among crypto enthusiasts, with many eagerly awaiting further information.

Shaq Evading Service In FTX Class-Action Lawsuit

In other FTX-related news, Shaquille O’Neal, the former NBA star and celebrity endorser, is reportedly evading being served papers in a class-action lawsuit involving the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX. 

The suit, filed in November by Oklahoma resident and the exchange retail investor Edwin Garrison, alleges that FTX deceived investors and that celebrity endorsers, including Shaq, failed to do their due diligence before promoting the company’s products. 

According to the report, Lawyers have had trouble reaching Shaq, who appeared in the exchange promotions and hosted a music festival sponsored by the platform. The plaintiff’s lawyers have sent multiple emails to Shaq, who has reportedly managed to evade them for almost four weeks.

An email from Garrison’s lawyers stated:

The sole remaining Defendant to accept service of the complaint is Defendant Mr. Shaquille O’Neal, who we know has discussed the existence of this case, but is apparently still actively evading service, refusing to answer his home door when approached by our process servers.

Related Reading | Crypto-Friendly Bank Seized By Regulators Amid Financial Turmoil

Cardano Founder Throws Shade At Crypto Critics: Defends Crypto Firms’ Resilience

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Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, has taken a dig at critics of the cryptocurrency industry in a recent tweet. In his tweet, Hoskinson compared the operations of major cryptocurrency firms like Circle, Paxos, and Tether to those of banks, emphasizing that these firms have been able to endure under conditions that have caused banks to fail.

Hoskinson pointed out that firms like Circle, Paxos, and Tether hold collateral mostly in cash and T-bills, yet the government deems cryptocurrency as super risky. In contrast, banks hold collateral mostly in longer-dated traditional finance bonds, and when they fail, the government still blames cryptocurrency.

Members of the cryptocurrency community weighed in on Hoskinson’s tweet, with some expressing their support for his sentiments. One member highlighted that the Federal Reserve Board eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions, which suggests that the government is not completely transparent about handling the financial system.

Others pointed out that while crypto is risky because centralized stablecoins still depend on traditional finance and fractional reserve banks, Cardano and other decentralized finance projects like $Djed can fix this issue. Another member joked that it is a good thing that Hoskinson and Cardano are keeping investors on their toes and keeping their investments safe.

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The sentiment among the cryptocurrency community is that traditional finance is not as reliable as it once was, and decentralized finance is the future. As one member put it, they cannot stop the slowly evolving ability of investors to hold traditional finance institutions accountable for their games.

However, Hoskinson’s tweet is a reminder that the cryptocurrency industry is here to stay and that traditional financial institutions need to adapt to the changing times. Decentralized finance projects like Cardano and $Djed are paving the way for a more transparent and reliable financial system that can withstand market pressures and government regulations.

Cardano Founder Supports Algorithmic Stablecoins 

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, recently expressed his belief in the long-term importance of algorithmic stablecoins in fully realizing the original vision of Bitcoin. 

Hoskinson’s comments came in response to a recent tweet by Jesse Powell, the co-founder, and CEO of Kraken, who noted that the USDT stablecoin had “depegged” to the upside, currently worth 1.06 USD, while USDC had dipped to 0.89 USD.

Hoskinson responded to Powell’s tweet, stating that he still firmly believes that algorithmic stablecoins are the essential research stream to fully realize the original vision of Bitcoin. 

He further commented that banks will always let you down as long as they are fractional reserves, indicating his belief that traditional financial institutions may not be reliable in the long term.

Related Reading | Crypto Chaos Looms: IMF Warns G-20 Of Dangers In Widespread Adoption

Ethereum Whales Adds $600M ETH In Recent Market Dip

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Large-scale Ethereum holders have been covertly adding 400k ETH tokens, each worth over $600 million, to their portfolios despite the current market downturn.

Last week, the crypto market was rocked by the events of the collapse of Silver Valley bank and Silvergate Capital, sending Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC prices to utter chaos.

The price of both the tokens has recovered much of its losses incurred last weekend after the U.S. government intervened to stop a potential banking crisis from spreading, while Circle’s USDC stablecoin has reclaimed its dollar peg.

Amidst all these, whales holding between 1,000 to 10,000 Eth units seemed unperturbed by the market turbulence, and continued their accumulation spree, as noted by crypto analyst @Ali_charts.

It is believed that this acquisition, played a key role in the current increase in Ethereum’s price.

At the time of writing this post, Ethereum is up by over 6% in the last 24 hours and over 8% in the weekly index. The 2nd ranked crypto is exchanging hands at $1689, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Meanwhile, the ETH community has another reason to rejoice as the ecosystem is edging closer to its latest milestone.

The latest significant upgrade to the smart contract blockchain protocol will enable Ethereum’s Beacon Chain to accept withdrawals of ether.

Ethereum Inches Closer To Its Latest Milestone

The soon-to-be-launched modifications would include two updates that would happen simultaneously and be combined to cover every aspect of the upgrade.

Shanghai alludes to changes made to Ethereum’s execution layer, primarily making it possible to deposit staked ETH to execution layer wallets. The Beacon Chain, now known as Capella, must adapt concurrently with the Shanghai hard fork.

Explaining more on the combined upgrades at the execution and consensus layers, Justin Florentine, a staff protocol engineer for Hyperledger Besu at ConsenSys, said,

“It is doubly named because it is the first simultaneous upgrade of ETH’s execution layer and consensus layer, and is highly anticipated because it will enable staked ETH withdrawals.”

The highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade is slated to go live on the Ethereum mainnet in early April. The Shapella upgrade was completed on March 14 on the Goerli test network, which enables development testing prior to mainnet deployments, pushing the original timeframe from March 2023.

Crypto Market Depth Takes A Hit: Kaiko Report

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The market depth of major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Gemini, Coinbase, Binance.US, and Binance Global, has been affected due to USD payment channel disruptions and crypto bank failures, according to a recent report by Kaiko. 

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The research showed that Gemini’s market depth fell by 74%, Coinbase by 50%, BinanceUS by 29%, and Binance Global only by 13%. This decline in the USD fiat entry could result in more volatility in the cryptocurrency market.

USDC De-Peg & Crypto Market Impact

In their blog post, Kaiko researchers provided a detailed analysis of the chaos that gripped the crypto markets in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. The post-mortem report is divided into three parts: USDC’s de-peg and its impact on the market, the state of crypto liquidity, and Monday’s market recovery.

The report revealed that after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, news emerged that Circle, an issuer of the USDC stablecoin, held $3.3 billion of reserves in the bank, leading to fears that the stablecoin was no longer fully backed. 

It sparked chaos in both centralized and decentralized markets. The report explained that USDC is relatively illiquid on centralized exchanges, but these exchanges played a significant role in the weekend’s market chaos. Traders had only one thing in mind: where to liquidate their USDC holdings.

There were only a few USDC-USD trading pairs on CEXs, which determined the dollar exchange rate. Despite hitting an all-time high of $600 million, the order books couldn’t handle the influx of sell volume, resulting in a plummeting USDC exchange rate. Most traders preferred offshore exchanges with USDC-USDT pairs, but Binance had delisted all USDC trading pairs. 

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However, Binance re-listed the USDC-USDT pair by midday Saturday, causing USDC to trade at a discount. Trade volume for USDC-USDT pairs hit an all-time high of $9.9 billion, resulting in a premium Tether trade compared to both the dollar and USDC due to the overwhelming number of sales.

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The report links illiquid centralized spot markets, USDC derivatives, and viral screenshots to the de-pegging event, which triggered a narrative frenzy similar to a bank run in DeFi.

USDC’s de-pegging hit DeFi hard, as the stablecoin provides stability to lending protocols and serves as a significant reserve for decentralized stablecoins. This weekend, Uniswap and Curve saw record trade volumes as traders swapped USDC for ETH and other stablecoins, including USDT.

Nevertheless, the report warns that the crypto market is vulnerable to disruptions in USD payment channels and crypto bank failures, which could cause increased price volatility. It highlights the importance of ensuring that stablecoins are fully backed and that decentralized oracles should be used to determine liquidation levels.

Related Reading | Crypto Chaos Looms: IMF Warns G-20 Of Dangers In Widespread Adoption 

TRON Founder Optimistic About Asian Economy Despite SVB Collapse

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Justin Sun, the founder of TRON blockchain, shared his thoughts on Twitter about the effects of the SVB crash on the Asian markets.

Sun expressed confidence in the limited impact on the Asian economy following the collapse of the two main crypto-focused banks, the other being Silvergate Capital.

Previously, the TRON founder emphasized the value of stablecoins to the ecosystem and supported the notion of establishing a banking system to bridge the divide between conventional finance and cryptocurrencies.

During the weekend, the failure of the crypto banking trifecta had an impact on the market for digital assets, particularly stablecoins.

To recall, USDC issuer Circle recently admitted to having $3.3 billion reserves with the beleaguered SVB after the second-most liquid U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin – lost its peg, dropping below 87 cents at one point.

Given USDC’s domineering influence, major stablecoin ecosystems followed suit in de-pegging from the U.S. dollar.

The supply of TRON’s algorithmic stablecoin USDD decreased as well, practically halving from $1.03 billion at the beginning of March to a little over $530 million as of March 12.

USDD reacted negatively to the USDC sell-off with a nearly 7.5% drop to trade at $0.98 at press time.

On the other hand, as panicked investors sought out alternatives, the other stablecoins surprised everyone by taking over the platform. Tether [USDT], the largest stablecoin in the world, now has a supply of over 40 billion.

According to Tronscan data, the supply of USDT increased significantly after Paxos stopped minting BUSD, the second stablecoin under pressure in the ecosystem.

Notwithstanding the repercussions, Tron published a blog post recently detailing the status of some of the significant projects that were based on the ecosystem.

Upcoming Projects In TRON Ecosystem

Blockbank, a platform for financial services, was one of the significant projects in the pipeline. TRON and Blockbank teamed up to develop credit cards that can be loaded with TRX and used much like Visa cards.

TRON team also talked about the Unifi protocol, a platform for smart contracts created to support the growth of decentralized finance [DeFi].

At the time of publication, TRX’s price had risen by about 12% on CoinMarketCap, with a staggering 116% spike in trading volume.

Bitcoin Jumps 15% As Market Gets Much-Needed Respite

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Bitcoin bounced back from $19697 to over $22600 in a few days, thanks to the steps taken by USD Coin [USDC]-issuer Circle and the U.S authorities following the closure of Silicon Valley Bank [SVB] on 10th March.

It needs to be mentioned that Silicon Valley Bank, the 18th largest bank in the nation, collapsed due to a bank run, just two days after raising capital.

Its problems began more than a year ago when the bank made significant investments in long-term gov bonds. Like other banks, Silicon Valley Bank held onto a tiny portion of the deposits and invested the remainder in the hopes of making a profit.

But bonds have an inverse relationship with interest rates.

The Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates last year in an effort to reduce inflation, which put pressure on many of the bank’s customers, who then started to withdraw money.

Silicon Valley Bank was forced to sell off some of its interests at a time when their value had decreased in order to satisfy those requests. The bank announced its unexpected loss on a few days earlier, saying it was close to $2 billion.

After regulators shuttered SVB, stablecoin prices swung wildly and gas fees soared as investors scrambled to move money.

Note that the bank has ties to crypto as it was the second crypto-linked bank to go under this week after Silvergate.

To make things further worse, Circle, the issuer of the world’s second-largest stablecoin has over $3 billion of reserves tied up at SVB which is why USDC massively depegged from its intended $1 price.

Bitcoin too fell below the $ 20k range amidst the widespread sell-offs.

Federal officials stated that SVB depositors will have access to all cash beginning Monday morning after the U.S. Open, although Circle stated the day before that it would make up for any shortfall in reserves in order to stop contagion from spreading like wildfire.

Bitcoin Recoups Its Weekend Losses

After the news, USDC has since made a modest recovery, but its main rival USDT saw its price surge to $1.06 momentarily on Kraken against the dollar as investors appeared to pull their funds out of USDC.

On the other hand, Bitcoin is up by over 7% in the last 24 hours at press time, regaining all the losses it incurred following the unprecedented event.

TRON Founder Sets Up $100M Fund To Backstop Liquidation

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Justin Sun, the founder of the TRON blockchain, has delivered on his pledge to send $100 million USDC at around 11:30 am Hong Kong time, into the Huobi exchange’s newly established liquidity fund.

After recent sharp declines in the price of the exchange’s native token HT, the move is an attempt to increase the HuobiGlobal platform’s multi-currency liquidity.

The trading platform was in the limelight after a research report published by Kaiko revealed that Huobi’s market share dropped dramatically, falling from 22% in 2020 to just 4% in 2022. 

Additionally, digital assets tied to China-born crypto billionaire Justin Sun experienced some of the biggest dips during the market’s major sell-off, raising doubts about what caused the drops.

In particular, TRON’s native token TRX and Huobi’s HT have fallen by over 14 and 20% respectively in the past 24 hours, data from coinmarketcap showed.

Sun tweeted that “leveraged liquidation on the market driven by a few users” was what led to the quick decline and subsequent comeback.

“We will continue to improve the liquidity depth of main cryptocurrencies and HT token, strengthen leverage risk warnings and liquidity capabilities,” Sun tweeted.

Sun’s close ties to Huobi have in the past given rise to numerous rumors, as the founder of Tron remained tightlipped about his precise position there.

As reported by TronWeekly, Sun was just recently publicly acknowledged to be more than merely a member of the Global Advisory Council.

In the latest attempt to broaden the adoption and usage of the TRX token, the team behind the project partnership with the Commonwealth of Dominica.

According to the official statement, the Dominica Digital Identity [DDID] and Dominica Coin [DMC] efforts will be run by TRON’s first Caribbean Digital Identity Initiative, which will also establish the Dominica Metaverse.

Another instance of a comparable pace of growth and greater adoption was also observed in terms of TRON’s network performance.

TRON Hit A New Milestone

In fact, TRON just reached a new milestone by completing 5 billion transactions successfully, demonstrating the network’s dependability and widespread usage.

TRX, however, performed poorly on the price front due to the market’s predominately pessimistic sentiment.

The 14th-ranked token has decreased by more than 12% during the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. Its price, at the time of writing, was $0.05.

Bitcoin-Backed NUSD: A New Stablecoin Proposal By BitMEX Founder

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Arthur Hayes, the founder of BitMEX, has proposed a new stablecoin mechanism in his Medium blog post. Hayes stated that using Bitcoin as a financial asset and easily swapping between it and a fiat currency like USD is not easy, as exchanges require a bank account for the USD leg of a transaction. 

Hence, he proposed a new stablecoin called NUSD, which would be worth $1 of Bitcoin + short 1 Bitcoin/USD inverse perpetual swap. To create 1 NUSD, traders need to deposit 1 BTC on a derivatives exchange and short 1 XBTUSD swap.

Hayes argued in a Medium blog post that traditional exchanges require users to have a bank account to trade between Bitcoin and fiat currency. It is a significant hurdle for crypto companies that aim to create a parallel financial system that does not rely on banks. 

Stablecoins like Tether (USDT) have emerged as an alternative to traditional exchanges, allowing traders to move between fiat and cryptocurrency without the need for a bank account.

NUSD: A New Stablecoin Proposal Leveraging Bitcoin’s Potential

The proposed NUSD stablecoin aims to bridge the gap between centralized and decentralized finance, allowing users to swap between Bitcoin and fiat currency without the need for a bank account. 

Hayes believes that stablecoins are not meant to serve as a decentralized store of value but rather to provide a fiat tokenization service that banks refuse to offer.

Hayes argues that overcollateralized stablecoins like MakerDAO/DAI and algorithmic stablecoins like TerraUSD are fundamentally unnecessary. Instead, stablecoins like NUSD are intended to solve a real pain point in the crypto capital markets, allowing traders to quickly move between fiat and crypto.

The problem with current stablecoins, according to Hayes, is not centralization but rather the lack of reputable, established banking institutions launching their own stablecoins. 

If commercial banks like JP Morgan were to launch their own stablecoins, they could put existing stablecoins like USDT, USDC, and BUSD out of business immediately.

While the proposed NUSD stablecoin is still in the conceptual stage, Hayes’ idea has garnered significant attention from the crypto community. 

If successfully implemented, NUSD could provide a more efficient way for traders to swap between Bitcoin and fiat currency without relying on traditional exchanges or banks.

Related Reading | Binance Leads the Way with PoR Upgrade & Range-Bound Launch

Shiba Inu On The Move: ETH Whale Snaps Up 131 Billion SHIB

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Crypto whale “BlueWhale0073” has made a massive purchase of a whopping 131,477,192,339 Shiba Inu ($1,481,747), as reported by crypto data tracker WhaleStats via Twitter yesterday. The purchase comes at a time when the SHIB price reached a key support level of $0.00001092 on March 3rd.

https://twitter.com/WhaleStats/status/1631756898478305281

The value of Shiba Inu has declined due to Silvergate Bank’s financial issues, causing concern in the market. Over the past day, the price has fallen by 5%, while over the last week and 30 days, it has dropped by 13% and 3.5%, respectively. Unfortunately, Shiba Inu has been unable to avoid the general market’s downturn.

SHIB 7D graph coinmarketcap 1
Source: CoinMarketcap

As of now, the meme token has rebound a little to $0.00001132, but both weekly and daily charts are still in red with drops of 9.05% and 0.46%, respectively. In addition, 24-hour trading volume is also down by 55%, according to CoinMarketcap’s data.

Shiba Inu Rise Among ETH Whales

WhaleStats, a platform that tracks the activities of crypto whales, has also tweeted that SHIB is back on the top 10 list of purchased tokens among the 100 biggest ETH whales in the last 24 hours.

https://twitter.com/WhaleStats/status/1631951325578534912

Along with SHIB, the list includes GRT, XCN, $FTM, YFI, and CVX. The meme token also ranked sixth on the list of top 10 purchased tokens by the 1000 biggest ETH whales today, with other tokens such as USDC, USDT, WETH, and others making it to the list.

This latest purchase by BlueWhale0073 has sparked much interest in the crypto world, especially for SHIB token holders. The purchase comes at a time when SHIB has been experiencing significant price fluctuations, making it difficult for investors to predict the future of the cryptocurrency.

Some experts in the crypto world believe that this purchase signals that Shiba Inu is on the rise and may experience significant growth in the future. Others, however, remain skeptical about the future of SHIB, citing its high volatility and lack of solid fundamentals.

Regardless of experts’ opinions, it is clear that SHIB continues to be a popular cryptocurrency among investors. The recent purchase by BlueWhale0073 is just one example of the activity that continues attracting investors to the crypto world.

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