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- 🟣 Was that the pre-halving correction?
🟣 Was that the pre-halving correction?
Blink and you missed it — the corn crashed and caught a bid
Dip buyers rejoiced at the sudden explosion of volatility in yesterday’s trading session.
Bitcoin ever-so-briefly exceeded its prior all-time high price — just enough to trigger headlines — before a violent 14% flush to the downside, followed by a sharp bounce.
That wiped out a lot of leverage in the system as evidenced by the funding rate reset — a healthy correction in an uptrending market.
ETF inflows continue to be stellar, with Blackrock’s IBIT adding a record $788 million on Tuesday, en route to one of the best days we’ve seen for net inflows at $648 million. Grayscale’s GBTC outflows have been way up over the past week — now topping $9.6 billion in total — but it doesn’t seem to matter given the overall demand for bitcoin.
Other than whipsaw WIF, the top gainer today is Ribbon Finance’s RBN, a precursor to the now-imminent AEVO token from the Aevo derivatives exchange, which is preparing to launch the token via the Binance launchpool.
Afterward, RBN will be convertible 1:1 into AEVO, indefinitely. Binance launchpools have a certain cachet that is presumably redounding to RBN’s benefit.
There is also notable outperformance by Starknet’s STRK, up 20% and making it the most valuable Ethereum layer-2 on a fully-diluted valuations basis at $25 billion.
In the “DeFi 1.0” camp, Uniswap (UNI) took an impressive 18% leg up today, extending its rally initiated by late February’s fee switch proposal.
Funding rate reversal.
Forgive us for double-dipping on the funding rate heatmap, but the contrast from yesterday could not be more stark.
Like a polar vortex sweeping down from the north, this abrupt switch from red-orange to green is what a 14% drop over a 4-hour period will do to derivatives markets.
Traders wonder if the days of routine 20-30% bull market corrections are over.
With the spot BTC ETF behind us, the market can now turn its attention to ETH. With a potential ETF approval in May, the Dencun upgrade in two weeks, and a huge surge in demand for restaking/LRT protocols, with EigenLayer hitting $10 billion in TVL, ETH looks to be positioned for a strong Q1 close heading into Q2.
The month's big news was the staggering amount of net inflows into BTC ETFs, while total AUM and daily volume continued to make new highs. Ordinal prices continue to increase as BTC nears its ATHs, all while Bitcoin ecosystem activity and “TVL” of L2s continue to increase.
DCG and Silbert said the suit was an attempt to find a “headline-worthy scapegoat.”
Bitcoin has given crypto free rein to run wild, even if its run has stalled.
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The insights, views and outlooks presented in the report are not to be taken as financial advice. Blockworks Research analysts are not registered broker/dealers or financial advisors. Blockworks Research analysts may hold assets mentioned in this report, further outlined in the Firm’s Financial Disclosures.
