Tether Will Block Addresses of Sanctioned Institutions

Audy Castañeda
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Tether Will Block Addresses of Sanctioned Institutions

The statement came in response to a recent Reuters news story about Venezuela’s use of USDT.

Tether, the crypto company that issues the USDT stablecoin, will block the addresses of any actor sanctioned by the United States. A spokesperson for the company told a media outlet that they will crack down on illicit activities linked to trading in their token.

The decision comes after Reuters reported that the Venezuelan oil giant would be close to turning towards cryptocurrencies in the face of the reiterated imposition of sanctions against it. The company would begin to receive payments with USDT in exchange for crude oil shipments.

A spokesperson for Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, reported that the company will proceed with the freezing of accounts linked to entities sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in Venezuela.

In the last six months, Caracas and Washington have eased their historic tensions by reaching a preliminary agreement. This pact established a political dialogue between the Venezuelan government and opposition forces in exchange for lifting some sanctions imposed on the country’s oil industry. However, tensions escalated again this month, leading the United States to announce that it will not extend relief from imposed sanctions.

The latter means that the country is once again banned from accessing payment systems to trade goods and services. Hence, the search for alternatives would be active from Caracas at this time and USDT would present itself as a candidate to avoid sanctions.

Tether’s Statements

As mentioned above, after Reuters published a report in which they revealed Venezuela’s intention to increase the use of cryptocurrencies in its operations to avoid the sanctions imposed by the United States, a Tether spokesperson reported that the accounts related would be frozen.

At the same time, the spokesperson stated that, consistent with Tether’s respect for OFAC’s SDN (Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) list, the issuing company would maintain its commitment and collaboration with funds blocking processes.

Reuters’ Report

The report by Reuters particularly points out that Venezuela’s intention to use digital assets in its transactions includes crude oil and fuel exports, since this sector is one of the most affected by US sanctions.

After the political disqualification of María Corina Machado, one of the opposition leaders with the greatest support in the Latin American country, the US accused Venezuela of not respecting the provisions of the Barbados Agreement.

In the aforementioned agreement, celebrated in October 2023, various pacts were established regarding the rights of political actors, electoral guarantees and the holding of presidential elections in 2024, which would have been violated with the political disqualification of Machado, as well as also the successive events that made it impossible for her standard bearer to participate in the next elections.

Effects in Venezuela

Based on the complaints made, the US resumed sanctions against Venezuela, so the Treasury Department required customers and suppliers of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state crude oil company, to settle any pending transactions before May 31.

Due to the sanctions, sources close to PDVSA indicated that the company would be adapting its operations to increase the use of cryptocurrencies as a payment method, particularly Tether’s USDT, since it is a stablecoin that maintains 1:1 parity with the US dollar.

In turn, the Reuters report indicated that the agreements for the payment of crude oil in spot for 2024 would have been altered to convert them into contracts that require advance payment in USDT, in addition to only considering new clients who have funds in cryptocurrencies.

By Audy Castaneda

SEC Requests Comments on BlackRock Ethereum Spot ETF

Leonardo Perez
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SEC Requests Comments on BlackRock Ethereum Spot ETF

The SEC is seeking public comments on BlackRock’s Ethereum spot ETF. The new proposal moves from an ether-based exchange model to a cash-based one. Skepticism persists about the chances of approval of cryptocurrency ETFs.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened the public comment period on recent modifications to BlackRock’s proposed Ethereum spot exchange-traded fund (ETF).

This request comes after Nasdaq submitted an updated proposal on April 19, refining previous submissions to better align with regulatory expectations.

BlackRock Ethereum Spot ETF Under Analysis

Called the iShares Ethereum Trust, the BlackRock ETF aims to accurately reflect the price of Ethereum. Initially presented in November 2023, the ETF proposal has undergone modifications to its structure, particularly with regard to its creation and redemption processes.

Unlike its original version, which involved direct exchanges with Ethereum, the revised proposal suggests a cash-based transaction model. This shift to a cash-back strategy reflects a cautious regulatory approach, reminiscent of debates around spot Bitcoin ETFs last year.

Those models, which later received approval in January, similarly favored cash transactions over in-kind exchanges, possibly setting a precedent for Ethereum ETFs.

The SEC’s request for input signals a critical review phase, which will allow interested parties. Furthermore, the public influence the final decision. Responses to the proposal must be submitted within 21 days of the announcement, as indicated on the SEC’s official website.

The overall outlook for cryptocurrency ETFs remains uncertain. Notable entities like Fidelity and Grayscale have also overhauled their Ethereum ETF applications, integrating staking provisions and cash-based models.

Chances of Approval of Ethereum Spot ETFs Decrease

Despite these efforts, market analysts remain skeptical. Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas recently downgraded the likelihood of Ethereum ETFs gaining approval before May:

“We keep the line at 25% probability, although, to be honest, it is a very pessimistic 25%. The lack of commitment appears to be intentional in the face of procrastination. There are no positive signs or information anywhere. Personally, I hope they approve it, but it doesn’t look good.”

As the deadline for other cryptocurrency-related decisions approaches. Including those regarding the Franklin Templeton and Grayscale proposals, the SEC appears to be taking a methodical approach. With this, emphasizing regulatory scrutiny and the participation of interested parties in their decision-making processes.

Grayscale Going Through Identical Fate

The SEC released notices of the delay in Grayscale’s decision and the amendment to BlackRock’s application just hours after the agency postponed its decision on the Franklin Templeton Spot ETH ETF.

The SEC’s decision on converting the Grayscale Ethereum Trust into a spot ETH exchange-traded product on NYSE Arca was scheduled for April 24, but will now be extended another 60 days to June 23.

“The Commission finds it appropriate to designate a longer period to issue an order approving or rejecting the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change, as modified by Amendment No. 1,” the agency wrote in its notice. on April 23.

The SEC is expected to make a decision on Franklin Templeton’s application by June 11.

Also on April 23, Grayscale filed a Form S-3, similar to the S-1 but shorter, for a Grayscale Ethereum Trust and an S-1 for a Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust.

Observers claim that the SEC is not committed to ETH spot ETF applications, which many interpret as a sign of a possible imminent rejection.

Grayscale scored a victory over the SEC in August when an appeals court partially overturned the SEC’s rejection of its application to convert its over-the-counter Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin ETF listed.

By Leonardo Perez

XRP Price Regains $0.50 and Indicators Suggest Fresh Rise to $0.70

Audy Castañeda
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XRP Price Regains $0.50 and Indicators Suggest Fresh Rise to $0.70

XRP price is recovering above the $0.500 resistance. The price is indicating a positive bias and could rise above the $0.580 and $0.600 levels.

XRP is attempting a recovery wave above the $0.50 zone. The price is now trading above $0.5150 and the 100 simple moving average (4-hours). There was a break above a key bearish trend line with resistance at $0.5220 on the 4-hour chart of the XRP/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).

The pair could gain bullish momentum if it closes above the $0.580 resistance.

XRP Price Points Higher

After a sharp decline, XRP price found support near the $0.3880 zone. It formed a base and started a new rise above the $0.450 resistance, like Bitcoin and Ethereum. The bulls were able to push the price above the $0.50 resistance. The price rose above the 50% Fibonacci retracement level of the downward move from the high of $0.6420 to the low of $0.3875.

Additionally, there was a break above a key downtrend line with resistance at $0.5220 on the 4-hour chart of the XRP/USD pair. The price is now trading above $0.5150 and the 100 simple moving average (4-hours). The immediate resistance is near the $0.5650 level. The next key resistance is near $0.5820 or the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the high of $0.6420 to the low of $0.3875.

A close above the $0.5820 resistance zone could lead to a sharp rise. The next key resistance is near $0.620. If the bulls remain in action above the $0.620 resistance level, there could be a rally towards the $0.680 resistance. Any further gains could send the price towards the $0.700 resistance.

XRP Price Sees Breakout as Analyst Predicts Possible 150% Rise

The XRP price, the native token of the XRP Ledger, has shown tentative signs of life in recent days, breaking through the psychological barrier of $0.50 to now trade at $0.547 per token. This stability comes after a prolonged period of consolidation, and one analyst believes its price could soar 150%.

In a recently published post on microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter), analyst Egrag Crypto revealed that he believes a technical indicator often seen as a bullish signal.

This pattern, along with other technical factors, suggests a possible setup for a notable price increase, according to the analyst, which could see the native XRP Ledger token rise to $1.4, which would represent a 150% increase with compared to current levels.

In his post, Egrag Crypto wrote that the double bottom formation “is giving us a strong bullish signal” and added that it has “high confidence that the trend will begin soon.”

Another Drop?

If XRP fails to break above the $0.5820 resistance zone, it could start another decline. Initial support on the downside is near the $0.540 level. The next major support is at $0.5150.

If there is a break down and a close below the $0.5150 level, the price could accelerate lower. In the given case, the price could retest the $0.4650 support zone.

4-Hour MACD Technical Indicators. The MACD for XRP/USD is now gaining pace in the bullish zone.

4-hour RSI (Relative Strength Index). The RSI for XRP/USD is now above the 50 level.

Major Support Levels. $0.540, $0.5150, and $0.4650.

Main resistance levels. $0.5650, $0.5820 and $0.6200.

By Audy Castaneda

Binance Executive Nadeem Anjarwalla Arrested in Kenya After Escaping Custody in Nigeria, and other News

Leonardo Perez
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Binance Executive Nadeem Anjarwalla Arrested in Kenya After Escaping Custody in Nigeria, and other News

The Binance executive had allegedly escaped on March 22 while in custody in Nigeria.

Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British and Kenyan citizen who works for the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, was arrested in Kenya after escaping custody in Nigeria in March, several local media reported on April 22.

Kenyan police detained Anjarwalla and are considering his possible extradition to Nigeria to face criminal charges. The Binance executive escaped on March 22, when he took the opportunity to flee the country using his Kenyan passport.

The Binance executive reportedly traveled to Nigeria in February along with another Binance executive, Tigran Gambaryan, amid accusations that the exchange manipulated the country’s fiat currency, the naira. Both were arrested after Binance announced that it would stop accepting transactions in that currency.

BlackRock’s Paul Taylor Joins PairedWorld After Successful Funding Round

There is good news for PairedWorld, as the company looking to reignite real-world social interactions with blockchain technology. Paul Taylor, a venture partner at BlackRock, just joined its advisory board, just after the company closed a $1.5 million funding round.

PairedWorld is known for its innovative approach to motivating people to take a break from their devices and enjoy real social experiences. To do this, they have developed a system that rewards in-person social engagement, thus combating the growing problem of digital addiction and isolation. Additionally, they offer consumer brands access to data based on these real-world interactions.

Taylor has extensive knowledge in fintech and blockchain, which fits perfectly with the company’s mission. “Having Paul with us gives us confidence that we are on the right path,” said Raluca Cherciu, co-founder of PairedWorld.

Bitcoin Transaction Fees Fall After Halving

Bitcoin started the week with stability, trading above $65,800. While transaction fees decreased considerably following the recent halving.

On-chain data from Mempool.space indicates that medium priority transactions now cost $8.48, and high priority transactions cost $9.32. These numbers represent a significant decline from the post-halving peaks, when fees for a medium priority transaction exceeded $146 and high priority transactions reached over $170.

The hash price index, a metric developed by Luxor to measure a miner’s earning potential per unit of hashrate, has also seen a decline. Going from $182.98 per hash/day to $81, a figure lower than what was observed before the halving.

EigenLayer, Ethereum’s Largest Restoration Protocol, Could Face Performance Issues

EigenLayer, currently the largest Ethereum restoration protocol by total value locked (TVL), could find itself in a precarious situation due to its rapid growth. Industry observers are warning of a possible “cliff” in returns due to the gap between the amount of TVL and Actively Validated Services (AVS), which are necessary for the security of the protocol.

Chudnov, a pseudonymous builder on derivatives exchange 3Jane, commented in a post on social network X on April 22 that EigenLayer has more than $15 billion in TVL. But to maintain security, AVS actually need less than 10% of that amount. This could lead to a drastic drop in returns, affecting users participating in the protocol.

EigenLayer’s accelerated growth is partly due to the removal of limits for all liquid staking tokens (LST) on April 16. According to a company announcement. EigenLayer launched on the mainnet on April 10 and quickly attracted the attention of the Ethereum community.

By Leonardo Perez

Shiba Inu’s $12 Million Gamble: What It Means for SHIB Holders

Audy Castañeda
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Shiba Inu’s $12 Million Gamble: What It Means for SHIB Holders

The Shiba Inu team raised $12 million to create a new layer 3 blockchain. Despite the developments, overall activity on the network decreased.

The Shiba Inu [SHIB] team has secured $12 million to advance the development of a new Layer 3 blockchain.

The said team has reportedly made significant progress toward a new Layer 3 blockchain with a successful $12 million fundraising round.

Shiba Team Makes New Moves

The funding, raised through the sale of its upcoming TREAT token, comes from non-US venture capital firms including Polygon Ventures, Mechanism Capital and Animoca Brands. The fundraising, which began a few months ago and concluded earlier this month, was reportedly carried out at valuations reaching $200 million.

The participation of venture capital firms and their partners will help the Shiba Inu project expand its network and “increase what Shiba Inu can really be able to do for our community,” said Shytoshi Kusama, the anonymous lead developer of Shiba Inu.

“I’ve put my heart and soul into building this, and you’re a worthless ‘fudder’ who doesn’t deserve the encouragement God gave you,” Kusama wrote on April 21, in response to a user’s criticism.

The TREAT token itself will serve a dual purpose within the Shiba Inu ecosystem, functioning as a utility and governance token for its new layer 3 blockchain.

This new layer 3 solution will be built on top of Shibarium, Shiba Inu’s existing layer 2 blockchain built on top of Ethereum. The addition to the ecosystem adds to its existing token trio of SHIB, BONE, and LEASH. Each token plays a different role within the network, and LEASH offers exclusive benefits to the most loyal Shiba Inu fans.

Despite these developments, the number of transactions on the Shiba Inu network decreased substantially. The prosperity of the Shiba Inu ecosystem may affect the sentiment around SHIB in the future.

Another factor that could affect sentiment around Shiba Inu would be the recent outage of its network. While the Shibarium mainnet is back online, some users may still experience issues due to persistent issues with external validators and services.

The developers are actively working to fix the issue and have asked external teams to improve communication for a smoother resolution.

More on Shiba Inu

The Shiba Inu team explained that “TREAT is the latest unreleased token by the popular meme brand that will unlock Shiba Inu’s recently announced new blockchain with Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE).” Two months earlier, Shiba Inu partnered with Zama.ai to implement FHE technology, which forms the basis of the TREAT protocol’s new privacy layer.

The funds will be used by the Panamanian Shiba Inu entity, Shiba Inu Mint S.A., to build the TREAT platform. The developers noted that potential applications of the technology include encrypted lending platforms, tokenized asset exchanges, and encrypted machine learning models.

Shiba Inu has been a high-performing memecoin, gaining 164% in the last year. Last December, the protocol introduced .shib domains for its token holders. Meanwhile, Shibarium, its Layer 2 scaling solution, has surpassed 1 million users since its inception.

Exaggeration on Social Networks

Despite these issues, the weighted sentiment towards SHIB remained high, indicating that the positive comments about SHIB had outweighed the negative ones.

Furthermore, SHIB’s social volume had also grown, suggesting an increase in popularity on all social fronts. At the time of publishing, SHIB was trading at $0.0000272 and its price had risen by 0.93% in the last 24 hours.

However, the volume at which SHIB was trading had fallen by 36.46% during the same period.

By Audy Castaneda

Bitcoin vs. Gold: Analyst Says Yellow Metal Is a “Slow-Moving Rug Pull”

Leonardo Perez
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Bitcoin vs. Gold: Analyst Says Yellow Metal Is a “Slow-Moving Rug Pull”

On April 22, Willy Woo, an on-chain analyst, posted via X that the tides are turning in the age-old battle between gold and Bitcoin.

While gold has enjoyed a 6,000-year reign as a scarce asset, advances in mining technology have eroded its scarcity narrative, due to the accelerated rate of production in recent decades.

On April 22, Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo published the following:

“Gold production going to the moon as technology gets better. Gold has had 6000 years of being scarce. That changed as we moved into the industrial age.

Bitcoin supply growth dropped below gold this week, it’s only get scarcer.

Yup, this fundamental premise of S2F valuation.”

Gold versus Bitcoin: Which is a Better Store of Value?

Bitcoin supply is declining as gold risks becoming oversupplied in the coming years. With the halving event on April 20, the BTC shortage will be even more pronounced in the coming years.

Since its launch, the Bitcoin network has reduced the daily emission to miners through Halving. In the fifth epoch, the network rewards 3,125 BTC to each successful miner or mining pool every 10 minutes. This rate is down 50% since epoch four, when rewards were 6.25 BTC per block.

Generally, gold and Bitcoin are considered safe haven assets. However, over the last few centuries, the scarcity of gold has made it the preferred store of value for banks and countries. Almost all central banks in the world have gold in their reserves.

Due to the increasing rate of production from technological advances, though, Woo now believes that gold holders will face difficult times in the coming years as new supply floods the market. Woo supports Bitcoin, a digital asset considered digital gold due to its predetermined and transparent issuance schedule.

Traditional gold investors have failed to recognize that the yellow metal is a “slow shot” that will develop over the next decade, Woo says.

For analysts, in general terms, both assets are “incomparable,” as the economist Gustavo Martinez explains on his social networks, “when the duration collapses and the Nasdaq gives up more than 2%: Bitcoin corrects. Furthermore, he asks “What happens when the duration collapses and BTC too?”, to which he responds: “Gold doesn’t even move or rise.” This, he explains, simply and plainly, is justified by the fact that crypto is a risk asset and gold is a store of value.

However, Goldman Sachs has a different view, according to which the world’s most famous cryptocurrency could reach 50% of the store of value market in the next five years. Thus, Sachs argues that compared to gold, Bitcoin holds 20% of the current “store of value” market, although the growing adoption of digital assets would drive that percentage up rapidly.

Is BTC Preparing for a Strong Rally?

In another post on X, Woo argues that Bitcoin’s price ratio suggests the currency is preparing for a mega run up. The rally, the analyst continues, has not even begun despite Bitcoin rising to $73,800 in March 2024.

The rise in the coin’s valuation above the previous all-time high of $70,000 was a departure from historical performance. Still, if history guides and prices rise further in the current era, a new all-time high will be recorded in line with Woo’s projections.

Analyzing how Bitcoin’s price ratio performed relative to previous halving events, Woo now believes that the current rally will be a unique combination of strong demand and market dominance.

By Leonardo Perez

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