Written by: The DeFi Investor
Compiled by: TechFlow TechFlow
Today’s article contains the following content:
Major Cryptocurrency Drivers in April
This week’s on-chain Alpha
Latest developments in DeFi
Major Cryptocurrency Drivers in April
April will be a big month for cryptocurrencies.
The highly anticipated Bitcoin halving is about to happen.
Not only that, there are several well-known projects that are about to release their tokens or undergo major upgrades.
Here are four important cryptocurrency events to watch over the next month:
1. Bitcoin Halving
The next Bitcoin halving is expected to occur in approximately 22 days.
Once effective, it will reduce the number of new Bitcoins in circulation by 50%.
However, it is worth noting that the current inflation rate of Bitcoin is already very low (less than 2% per year).
So from a fundamental perspective, I don't think the halving is a big deal. But from a psychological perspective, this is not the case.
As many people know, Bitcoin has historically performed extremely well in the months following each halving event. Therefore, they are likely to buy crypto assets again soon, expecting history to repeat itself.
In addition to this, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission is expected to approve the first launch of a spot Bitcoin ETF in Hong Kong in the second quarter.
All events paved the way for Bitcoin.
2.Stacks Nakamoto upgrade
Stacks is a second-layer solution for Bitcoin that makes smart contracts and dApps more powerful.
Stacks’ Nakamoto upgrade has been in development for a long time and appears to finally be rolling out on mainnet starting next month.
The Nakamoto upgrade will:
Allowing the use of sBTC (an asset pegged to BTC) in DeFi on Stacks
Reduce network block time from 10 minutes to seconds
Increase Stack L2 scalability
This upgrade may trigger a new wave of Bitcoin L2 craze.
Stacks token $STX can also be considered a beta version of Bitcoin.
Stacks is by far the most popular project built on Bitcoin.
3.Solana airdrop season
Last year, the massive airdrop announced by Jito revived the Solana ecosystem. In April, several other well-known Solana dApps will launch tokens:
All these protocols will be airdropped.
This list only contains airdrops that have been officially confirmed, so there may actually be some that are unannounced.
Large-scale airdrops can have a huge positive impact on the ecosystem as they inject more liquidity into it. For example, here's what happened after $JTO was announced in November 2023 $SOL:
Considering that SOL's market cap is now over $80 billion, I think it's unrealistic to expect SOL to grow another 2-3x in the short term.
However, Solana will likely benefit greatly from these ecosystem airdrops, as it has in the past.
4. Eigenlayer mainnet launch + potential token launch
It is possible that the Eigenlayer token will go live in late April or early May.
There are several reasons for this:
The Eigenlayer mainnet is confirmed to be launched in the next few weeks (this may be the best time for Eigenlayer to launch a token at the same time)
Many early investors say the token will launch in late April or early May
In addition, April may also be the month when the first Eigenlayer Active Verification Service (AVS) goes online. Altlayer is a popular example of AVS, a decentralized protocol for rollup.
The protocol that chooses to "rent" security from Ethereum via Eigenlayer is called AVS (can be an oracle, sidechain, L2, etc.)
Many of these AVS projects may conduct airdrops for Eigenlayer users, just like Altlayer did when it launched its token a few months ago.
According to the Etherfi team, 8 AVS will soon begin distributing points or token rewards to EtherFi’s eETH liquidity re-staking token holders.
Alpha on the chain
$86 billion of institutional money flowed into Bitcoin over the past 6 months
As the chart above shows, institutional inflows into Bitcoin have increased dramatically since the launch of the spot Bitcoin ETF.
This got me thinking about what will happen to Ethereum’s institutional adoption if a spot Ethereum ETF is also approved later this year.
It is becoming increasingly clear that institutions are starting to realize that cryptocurrencies are indispensable.
Latest developments in DeFi
CTFC reconfirms ETH is a commodity , increases likelihood of approving spot Ethereum ETF
Ethena announced that the $ENA token will be launched on April 2nd . 5% of the $ENA supply will be airdropped to early adopters
Optimism allocates $3 billion in grants across Optimism Collective & Superchain
The NEAR Protocol introduces Chain Signatures , which enable NEAR accounts to sign transactions for any blockchain. The goal is to improve cross-chain user experience
Circle released its cross-chain transfer protocol on Solana . USDC holders can now transfer USDC across 8 chains with 1:1 capital efficiency
Zero1 launches Keymaker , a marketplace related to decentralized artificial intelligence. Keymaker aims to become the largest decentralized artificial intelligence ecosystem
Ankr launches Neura , a blockchain built for artificial intelligence. Neura will leverage Bitcoin’s security with Babylon to secure its network
Polygon has launched dApp Launchpad , developers’ portal into the Polygon ecosystem. The goal of dApp Launchpad is to improve the Polygon developer experience
Angle Protocol launches USDA , a yield-generating and RWA-backed USD stablecoin. USDA will have several anti-decoupling mechanisms and have the same liquidity as USDC
PancakeSwap announced the launch of MancakeSwap , PancakeSwap’s first Mantle network affiliated DEX. Mancake will pay 60% of its revenue to Pancakeswap
Liquity demonstrates the key feature of Liquidity V2 , user-set interest rates, designed to create an efficient market between borrowers and stablecoin holders
EtherFi has released Points Season 2 . The second quarter allocation is 5% of the total ETHFI supply and will end on June 30
Munchables, a popular protocol on Blast L2, suffered a $63 million hack . Fortunately, the hackers have returned the funds
