Bitcoin Newsletter Week 17 2024

Weekly update on all things Bitcoin

May 02, 2024

TL;DR

  • Bitcoin Options Valued at $6.3B Reach Expiration

  • Samourai Wallet Executives Money Laundering Charges

  • Africa Lead Sub $1,000 Bitcoin Transactions

  • Stacks Sets the Nakamoto Makeover in Motion

  • Runes Constitute 68% of all Bitcoin Transactions Since Launch

  • Strike Launches Lightning in Europe

  • Block Introduces 3-nanometer Bitcoin Mining Chip

  • PayPal Launches Green Keys Incentive For Extra Bitcoin Rewards

  • Bitcoin Miners Lead Renewable Energy in Africa

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Bitcoin Price

Crypto is stagnant this week, with BTC being down 0.8% sitting at around $64k, while ETH is up 1.0%!

Bitcoin dominance has been decreasing over the week as a result, starting at around 52.1%, topping at 52.12% and ending the week around 51.3%. Capital often starts to flow into ETH and other altcoins as the price is increasing for more risk-on assets as well, causing a lower Bitcoin dominance as we have started to see over the course of multiple weeks.

It’s going to be interesting to see whether this trend will continue in the short term, as capital in crypto tends to flow initially to BTC and then further out on the risk-curve, starting with altcoins like ETH and then into mid- or low-cap coins.

The Bitcoin halving is coming up this week. If history is any guidance we will continue to see BTC dominance climb up until after Bitcoin halving, whereafter people start to look for higher return moving further on the risk curve entering altcoins. This typically starts with ETH, and then on to mid- and low cap coins. Other coins being moved into are typically “ETH killers” like SOL, AVAX and other other L1s. Yet ETH is still the king amongst altcoins, as price action this week also shows.

With BTC dominance decreasing and the ETH price decreasing more compared to BTC, the BTC/ETH ratio is trending up or and stay stagnant around 20.5 ETH per BTC, underlining that BTC continues to be king in crypto, but alts like ETH are gaining momentum.

Financial News

Around $9.4 billion worth of cryptocurrency options expired Friday on the Deribit derivatives exchange.

The bulk of these expiring options are bitcoin contracts, totaling a notional value of $6.35 billion. The put-call ratio before Friday's end-of-month expiration stands at 0.68, indicating an increase in put volume compared to calls compared to the previous week.

Ether options, valued at $3.08 billion, are also approaching expiry. However, the ratio of puts to calls for ether contracts is notably lower than that of bitcoin. Prior to Friday's expiration, the put-call ratio for ether contracts is 0.49. A ratio below one suggests that call volume surpasses put volume, indicating bullish sentiment in the market.

Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill face charges for running Samourai Wallet, an unlicensed Bitcoin transmitting service. Samourai allegedly facilitated over $2 billion in illicit transactions and laundered more than $100 million in criminal proceeds.

Chainalysis research indicates that Sub-Saharan Africa leads in Bitcoin transaction volume regionally. A striking 70% of all Bitcoin transactions under $1,000 either originate from or conclude on the African continent.

Adoption News

Following extensive research and development, the Stacks blockchain is undergoing a significant transformation. The implementation of the largest upgrade to date for this prominent Bitcoin scaling layer commenced at Bitcoin block height 840,360, marking the beginning of a two-phase process expected to conclude in late May. Dubbed Nakamoto in homage to Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, the upgrade aims to separate the Stacks block production schedule from that of Bitcoin.

Nakamoto will implement a fresh approach to generating Stacks blocks, enhancing its unique proof-of-transfer consensus algorithm. Beginning today, new block "signers" will gradually begin validating transaction "tenures." Initially, until the upgrade is fully operational in May, this process will serve as a form of "practice."

Since its launch following the Bitcoin network's halving event on April 20th, Runes, a new token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain, has dominated transaction activity. Over 2.38 million Runes transactions have been processed, constituting 68% of all Bitcoin transactions. This data comes from a Dune Analytics dashboard shared by blockchain research firm Crypto Koryo, which includes ordinary peer-to-peer Bitcoin transactions, BRC-20s, Ordinals, and Runes in the total transaction count.

Strike has expanded its services to Europe, enabling users to utilize the Lightning Network for sending Euros to other countries.

Mining News

Block, the payments startup founded by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, has revealed the successful development of its 3-nanometer Bitcoin mining chip and outlined its intentions to build a comprehensive Bitcoin mining infrastructure.

PayPal suggests incentivizing miners who use sustainable energy with "green keys," granting them preferential transaction routing and extra Bitcoin rewards.

According to CNBC, Bitcoin miners are boosting the feasibility of renewable energy in Africa, benefiting both energy providers and users.

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