We start the week with a recap of April’s crypto markets and some analysis of the first few days of May.
Let’s take a look:
- Markets retrace: In the first hours on Monday, Bitcoin saw a massive 12.5 to 1 ratio of transactions. According to Santiment, traders’ confidence in Bitcoin is increasing, but regaining the US $40K mark might be a small stretch.
- Volatility ahead: The US Federal Reserve policymakers are ready to deliver a series of significant interest hikes to deal with increasing inflation and labor costs. This move has raised concern for crypto markets, as altcoin prices started to falter.
- Ultimate buy-the-dip? On-chain analysis platform Whalemap tweeted that if Bitcoin hits $25K to $27K, it would be the “ideal place to go all in Bitcoin if we ever get there,”referring to the max pain prices to buy.
April wrap-up: Despite the drawdowns, April has not been disappointing in terms of buying patterns. The number of Bitcoin (BTC) leaving exchanges has reached lows rarely seen in the past two years. The 30-day change in the Bitcoin exchange balance is hitting negative levels that we’ve only seen a handful of times in the last two years, according to analysis from Glassnode and CryptoQuant.
Central Republic of Africa: Second country to make Bitcoin a legal tender
We were all waiting for the second country to follow El Salvador’s lead after President Nayib Bukele announced that Bitcoin has become legal tender in the Latin American country.
There has been a lot of speculation about the next country to follow El Salvador’s steps, from Ukraine to Malaysia and small island nations. And they were all wrong.
Last week, the Central African Republic (CRA) announced that they had adopted Bitcoin as legal tender alongside their own currency, the CFA franc.
The CRA has been affected by internal conflicts in recent decades, and the UN ranked the country as the second least developed country in the world; only 4% of its population has internet access and World Data shows there are just 1.6 million mobile phones making it less than 30% of the population. On top of that, knowledge about cryptocurrencies is almost nonexistent there.
Because of these factors, the announcement was met with a lot of criticism. Some experts say that this is an “unusual step” for one of the poorest countries in the world. On the other hand, the move might help small countries like the Central African Republic reduce their reliance on the US dollar for global trade.
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