The blockchain war heats up as Ethereum and Bitcoin continue to make headlines, with the ETH/BTC pair hitting a 3-year low. However, the spotlight now shines on the clash between Solana and Base. While one secured victories on the regulatory and decentralized fronts, the other struggled to process transactions and got sold at a 65% discount during institutional auctions.
Top Story
Coinbase With Two Big Regulatory Wins
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has recently scored two regulatory wins:
- Victory in an ongoing lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled in favor of Coinbase, confirming that secondary sales of cryptocurrencies on its platform do not violate the Securities Exchange Act and are not securities.
- First foreign crypto exchange to be registered in Canada. Coinbase obtained restricted dealer licenses in Ontario. Coinbase called the news a “culmination of months of work” since expanding into Canada in March 2023 and marks Coinbase’s seventh international registration in the last year.
Coinbase is the only publicly traded crypto exchange with its $COIN stock. The CEX’s recent role as custodian for the ETF surge led by BlackRock and its selection as the preferred platform for U.S. government Bitcoin auctions further cements the narrative that the American market belongs to Coinbase.
Market Updates
Layer-2 Blockchain Base Is Dominating DeFi
Speaking of Coinbase, its L2 protocol–Base outperformed Arbitrum and Ethereum (combined) by average transactions per second (TPS) over the past week. As for the last 30 days, Base has processed nearly 48 million transactions, achieving a peak TPS of 35.19 on April 6. While Base continues to perform well, it has not yet been through the same stress test as Arbitrum, which faced a peak TPS of 58.97 on Dec 16, 2023, resulting in a "partial outage" of the ARB network.
Over the past few weeks, a new narrative has been sneaking across Crypto Twitter suggesting that the memecoins season was moving from Solana to Base. This trend has sparked a blockchain rivalry between the two networks. Despite Solana being a layer-1 protocol and Base a layer-2, proponents of both projects continue to argue over which chain is superior.
Solana Reached 75% Transactions Failure
Approximately 75% of non-vote transactions on the Solana network failed on April 4, coinciding with increased user complaints about transaction issues and degraded performance. Mert Mumtaz, a vocal Solana supporter and CEO of Helius, suggested that these issues are primarily caused by bot spam and don't significantly impact regular users, as he explained, “because your wallet will simulate the [transaction] and let you know that it will not work beforehand anyway.”
Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko expressed frustration with addressing congestion bugs, noting their complexity compared to total liveness failures, while Fantom network creator Andre Cronje defended Solana, attributing recent transaction failures to rapid growth rather than flaws in the consensus mechanism. Some X (Twitter) users clarified that the circulating news intended to incite fear. They pointed out that the issue is identified as a malicious spam attack targeting RPCs (remote communication methods) of the Solana network.
Related: FTX Sells $1.9b in SOL For $64 Per Token To Settle Debts
Stablecoins Are Having A Crypto Renaissance
Ripple Labs (most known for the endless legal disputes against the SEC), is preparing to launch a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin to compete with established players such as Tether and USDC. The stablecoin will be fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. Treasuries, and cash equivalents. Currently, stablecoins have a market capitalization of approximately $155 billion. Tether's USDT holds a dominant 69.03% share of the sector, with only Circle’s USDC coming remotely close at 20.79%.
Recently, Ethena Labs entered the race by introducing 750 million ENA tokens, further boosting their USDe stablecoin to surpass $2 billion in market cap and secure the fifth position. Despite facing criticism from prominent DeFi figures for apparent similarities to Terra's model, Ethena Labs has countered by expressing openness to engaging in discussions about the risks associated with their innovative protocol.
MORE BITE-SIZED STACKS
Institutional Investing
- South Korean Party Pledges Access to US Bitcoin ETFs in Race for Votes
- First Spot Bitcoin ETF to launch in Australia, Says Monochrome
- BlackRock Adds Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, UBS as APs for Bitcoin ETF
- $900 Billion DWS Launches Physical Bitcoin ETC In Germany
- Galaxy Plans to Raise $100M for Crypto Venture Fund
- Pantera Capital Crypto Fund Posts 66% Gain Aided by Solana Token
- Grayscale Removes Cardano From Its Crypto Large Cap Fund
Bitcoin
- Bhutan to Boost Bitcoin Mining Capacity by 500% Ahead of Halving
- Bitcoin 'Pretty Unlikely' To Revisit $50K Price Level, Says Analyst
DeFi
- Bitcoin Cash Completes Halving Weeks Before Bitcoin’s Turn
- Ethena Labs Officially Adds Bitcoin Backing To Its USDe Synthetic Dollar
- DApp Activity Sees Surge Amid Bitcoin’s All-Time High in Q1 2024
- Uniswap Tops $2T In Trading Volume, Larger Than Australia’s GDP
- dYdX Community Approves 20M Token Stake As Network Activity Soars
CEXs
- Binance Enforces Mandatory KYC for Sub-Accounts
- Bitcoin Exchange Reserves Drop To Multi-Year Lows: CryptoQuant
- Bitfinex Launches Bitcoin and Ether Volatility Futures
Misc
- New York Jury Finds Do Kwon, Terraform Labs Liable for Fraud in SEC Case
- Crypto Scams Detective ZachXBT Is ‘Borderline Harassed’ By U.S. IRS Agents
- PayPal Enables Stablecoin-To-Fiat Option for International Money Payments
- U.S. Added 303K Jobs in March, Outpacing Expectations for 200K
Yields, Airdrops & Degen Plays
- Trader Turns $13K Into $2M Within 1 Hour As Memecoin Frenzy Continues
- Selling $100M Of $WIF For Less Than $10K And 4 More Misses That Just Hurt
- 5 Degen Strategies For April Including Liquid Restaking & Leveraged Airdrop Farming
Tweets For Thought
DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational purposes only. It is not intended as financial advice or any form of recommendation for investment strategies. The information provided should not be relied upon in making any financial decisions. Always conduct your own research and exercise caution when dealing with financial matters.
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