Max Pain - Chung's Weekly Digest (5/1)

Difficult Period for Investors

The crypto market is now at max pain where almost all short-term investments are at a loss. Bitcoin’s Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) chart shows that it is at its lowest level since mid-2020. 

Bitcoin ($BTC) hit a daily low of $37,664 on May 1 according to CoinGecko as fear continues to keep retail buyers on the sidelines. Institutional buyers on the other hand are continuing their accumulation spree. This is the largest amount of accumulation for whale wallets since $BTC swept the lows of $3,000.  

The market is due for a correction after the recent slump. Bitcoin is gaining in dominance, which is an indicator that shows altcoins are losing more grounds as the market dumps. 

Weekly Recap

• Central African Republic becomes the second nation-state to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. 
• Trust wallet adds support for Cronos chain. 
• Shiba Inu burns over 8 million $SHIBs on its burn portal’s first day. 
• Algorand moves to reduce its carbon footprint through the use of smart contracts. 
• Cronos exceeds 700k unique addresses. 
• OpenSea acquires Gem, an NFT market aggregator. 
• Celer Network launches its flagship product. 
• Crypto.com’s CEO refutes CZ’s claim on EU sanctions. 
• Popular BabyDogeCoin NFTs sold out in 3 days. 
• European Central Bank (ECU) wants to regulate crypto. 
• Thetan Arena completes its second burning round. 
• Crypto trading in India declines by 70% after new regulations.  
• Binance Bridge 2.0 goes live.
• BAYC faces a major social media hack. 
• BC Vaults now supports the entire Cronos ecosystem. 
• Binance NFT reveals whitelisted projects.
• Crypto.com DeFi wallet offers new features. 
• Cronos name service successfully deploys. 
• Dragonfly Fund III allocates $650 million for deserving crypto projects. 

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Market Sentiment

The US government’s refusal to approve the long-awaited spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is a general reflection of regulators’ reluctance to embrace crypto. The US has been cautiously avoiding having to deal with crypto regulation as the world adopts a different stance. 

A spot ETF would likely turn the tides around for the entire crypto market as institutional money would start pouring in.  

April was a bearish month for Bitcoin despite positive news flooding the market. In April, we saw regulators from around the world adopting a more favorable stance toward cryptos. This policy realignment from nation-states will likely continue in the coming months. 

Bitcoin’s network difficulty continues to rise as the blockchain becomes more resilient than ever. 

Coins to Watch

• Bitcoin ($BTC) - Countries that wish to adopt crypto or diversify their reserves will look at Bitcoin first because it is the least volatile crypto asset available. 
• Institutions are starting to realize that their balance sheet must be hedged, hence a portion of these reserves will go into crypto assets, primarily Bitcoin. 
• Two important metrics that usually led to a sustainable rally, are spot Bitcoin’s exchange outflow and Bitcoin’s network difficulty. 
• Inflation continues to eat into the US dollar driving investors to seek a safer haven. 
• Avalanche ($AVAX) - $AVAX is a blue-chip crypto-asset alongside the likes of Solana ($SOL), Ethereum ($ETH), and Terra ($LUNA). 
• $AVAX could be one of the major beneficiaries as the wider market sentiment improves. 
• The price of $AVAX has fallen approximately 60% from its all-time high. 

• Solana ($SOL) - Solana has all the ingredients that will set it on the same path as Ethereum. Solana is scalable and cheap. 
• The only two criticisms that have always been leveled against Solana are the constant outages that it suffered in the past and the lack of decentralization. 
• Despite its shortcomings, big projects continue to launch on the Solana network suggesting that institutions are unaffected by the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) on Solana. 
• Solana is a natural choice as an alternative investment to Bitcoin and Ethereum because of its liquidity. 
• It has real-world use cases, hence the price of its coin is fundamentally grounded. 

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