Crypto Market Pulse Weekly – 🇦🇪 Crypto.com Dubai Receives Operational Approval; Bitcoin Dominance Reaches 3-Year High

Crypto.com’s Dubai entity receives operational approval. Bitcoin dominance reaches 3-year high. Hong Kong approves BTC and ETH spot ETFs.

Weekly Market Index

Last week’s crypto market price index dropped by -10.00%. Volume and volatility indices increased by +25.94% and +10.42%, respectively.

All tokens in the price index dropped significantly towards the end of the week, which coincided with reports of escalating political tensions in the Middle East at the weekend. US Spot Bitcoin ETFs had a week of net outflows totalling US$83 million, compared to net inflows in the previous two weeks. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF’s (GBTC) weekly net outflow was US$767 million last week (vs US$738 million the week prior).

Chart of the Week

Bitcoin (BTC) dominance reached a 3-year high of 55% on 14 April, based on weekly data from CoinMarketCap. On the day, BTC’s price was near $64,000 after reports of escalating political tension in the Middle East. Prices for most large-cap altcoins decreased more significantly towards the end of last week, causing Bitcoin dominance to increase. 

The last time Bitcoin dominance was at this level was on 11 April, 2021 when Bitcoin price was near $60,000. 

Weekly Performance

BTC and Ether (ETH) fell by -5.7% and -8.1% respectively in the past seven days. The price action for all other selected top market cap tokens was also negative.

All of the selected key categories were down in terms of market capitalisation changes in the past seven days. Layer-1 category experienced the smallest drop.

News Highlights

• Crypto.com’s Dubai entity receives full operational approval and is launching Crypto.com Exchange for institutional investors as its first operational milestone. This follows Crypto.com’s fulfilment of the pre-operational conditions in the Virtual Asset Service Provider Licence in November 2023, and marks a first for a global crypto operator to be operational with fiat in the UAE.
• Hong Kong approved several Spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs on 15 April. This includes ETFs from China Asset Management, Harvest Global Management as well as Bosera Asset Management’s jointly managed ETFs with HashKey Capital. Launch timeline has not been disclosed at the moment. 
• Ethereum‘s Pectra upgrade, scheduled for late 2024 or early 2025, aims to bring smart contract functionality to wallets and upgrades to user experience. The upgrade, EIP-3074, will enable users to recover assets with social logins (instead of seed phrases). It also allows transaction bundling in which users only need to sign once.
• Circle enables USDC transfers for Blackrock’s tokenised fund (BUIDL). BUIDL holders can now transfer their shares for USDC, providing an off-ramp option for the fund. 
• FDUSD and USDe, the fourth and fifth largest stablecoin by market cap respectively, experienced brief depegs on 13 April as the broader crypto market saw significant volatility. At the lowest, FDUSD fell to $0.956 while USDe fell to $0.965 per coin, and has since recovered. 
• Uniswap received a Wells Notice from the US SEC on 10 April. The Wells Notice means the SEC intends to recommend enforcement action against Uniswap, and Uniswap has the chance to provide an explanation on why such action shouldn’t be taken. This followed SEC’s investigations into Uniswap’s main developer, Uniswap Labs, since 2021. 
• US SEC delayed decision on options trading on spot Bitcoin ETFs on the New York Stock Exchange. Proposed options trading on Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) will be impacted.

Recent Research Reports

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• Research Roundup Newsletter [March 2024]: We present to you our latest issue of Research Roundup, featuring our deep dives into staking providers, Bitcoin Ordinals and Runes, decentralised AI, Ethereum L2 activities post-Dencun, and many more.
• Crypto.com Visa Card Consumer Spending Insights 2023: A full break-down of what our community across the globe likes to spend on in 2023.

Recent University Articles

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Catalyst Calendar

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