BTC price action is shaping up to repeat a rare Bollinger Bands breakout, which only happens once per halving cycle, data suggests.

The DOJs national security and crime divisions are both looking at the cryptocurrency exchanges provision of services to Russians, Bloomberg reports.

The article below is an excerpt from a recent edition of Bitcoin Magazine PRO, Bitcoin Magazine's premium markets newsletter. To be among the first to receive these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market analysis straight to your inbox, subscribe now.

The Bitcoin Halving

One of the most important and innovative features of bitcoin is the hard-capped supply of 21 million.

The total supply is not specifically defined in the code, but is instead derived from the codes issuance schedule, which is reduced by half every 210,000 blocks or roughly every four years. This reduction event is called the bitcoin halving (or halvening in some circles).

When Bitcoin miners successfully find a block of transactions that links a set of new transactions to the previous block of already confirmed transactions, they are rewarded in newly created bitcoin. The bitcoin that is freshly created and awarded to the winning miner with each block is called the block subsidy. This subsidy combined with transaction fees sent by users who pay to get their transaction confirmed is called the block reward. The block subsidy and reward incentivizes the use of computing power to keep the Bitcoin code running.

When bitcoin was first released to the public, the block subsidy was 50 bitcoin. After the first halving in 2012, this number was reduced to 25 bitcoin, then 12.5 bitcoin in 2016. Most recently, the bitcoin halving occurred on May 11, 2020, with miners currently receiving 6.25 bitcoin per new block.

The next halving is coming up in about one year. The exact date will depend on the amount of hash power that joins or leaves the network, as this impacts the speed at which blocks are found. Estimates for the next halving range from late April to early May 2024. After the next halving, the block subsidy will be reduced to 3.125 bitcoin.

In the past, the bitcoin price rose considerably after the halving, albeit many months after the subsidy was reduced. Every halving cycle, there is a debate about whether or not the halving is priced in. This question considers the fact that the halving is a well-known event and attempts to add...

This is an opinion editorial by SV, the editor-in-chief of BitcoinMaxiNews.com and a former professional advertising copywriter.

After getting seriously into Bitcoin a while back, I decided to approach the subject of orange-pilling which basically means to sell newbies on Bitcoin as I would any given copywriting gig.

The first thing a professional ad copywriter will identify is the prospects main conscious and unconscious objections and fears. In other words, whatever is most likely standing in the way of this person being converted.

Lets therefore start with the main orange-pilling obstacles, before a solution is presented.

Why Selling Something As Great As Bitcoin Is So Hard

The challenge of orange-pilling newbies boils down to three things, and all three mutually reinforce each other to make it even harder:

1. Fiat paradigm blindness mixed with fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD)

When I prompted it, OpenAI defined paradigm blindness as the inability to recognize or fully understand the assumptions and frameworks that shape one's beliefs, values and actions.

Bitcoin is a paradigm-breaking innovation, and its therefore hard to truly grasp its value without breaking out of the comfort zone of the indoctrinated fiat paradigm.

A lot of the FUD is generated by this fear of the unknown, in addition to the fear of losing money.

2. The skeptic power-position compensation (resistance to being lectured).

Nobody likes being in the submissive position of being lectured, and few are humble enough to admit that they dont know something.

Any orange-pilling attempt thus creates an equal and opposite force of resistance in them, and this is especially true if you try to convince them in person.

Remaining skeptical gives them the perceived power position and upper hand, which is why people love to proclaim how skeptical they are.

3. The blind men and the elephant dil...

UMA (UMA) has registered an impressive 28.7% gain in the last seven days, according to data by CoinMarketCap. In a week marked by market losses and little gains, the DeFi token showed much resilience to emerge as one of the biggest weekly gainers. 

Although most of the market stands in awe of the stunning bullish performance of the popular meme coin PEPE -, UMAs remarkable price gain has recorded much profit for its investors, drawing significant attention.

UMAs Price Action 

Initially, UMA began trading the week around a price region of $1.95. The token showed no significant movement until two days after when it attempted a bullish run but couldnt break past the resistance level at $2.31. 

On May 5, i.e., yesterday, UMA experienced a hike in its market price, gaining by over 43% to move from $2.18 to break above the $3 price mark for the first time since August 2022. 

Although UMAs price has since slipped from such high levels, the DeFi token appeared to have found support and could be gearing for another breakout.

At the time of writing, UMA is trading around $2.55, with a 0.22% loss in the last 24 hours. In this same period, the tokens trading volume has boosted by a staggering 438.82% to attain a value of $336.70 million. 

Interestingly, UMAs price growth is also reflected by the growing traction on its platform. Based on data from Stelareum, Total Value Locked (TVL) on the UMA protocol has grown from $10.33 million to $11.12 million over the last two days. 

UMA Protocol Set To Record New Partnerships

Amidst the impressive market performance of the UMA token, its underlying network appears to make much progress on the adoption front.

According to a tweet yesterday,  the UMA Protocol announced that two new DAOs is set to integrate its latest blockchain product, the oSnap module, a unique governance solution aimed at merging on-chain and offchain governance system.

The Optimistic Snapshot Execution, or oSnap as it is known, enables the execution onchain of transactions performed off-chain immediately but with protections against harmful proposal execution.

The last protocol to integrate the oSnap module was the popular decentralized exchange, ShapeShift.

That said, UMA generally functions as a decentralized platform that allows other DeFi protocols to build priceless financial contracts on Ethereum while providing them with publicly verifiable market data.

In essence, this project functions as an oracle, granting...

ChatGPT offers personalized advice on budgeting, investing, debt management, savings and retirement planning.

Were officially in the meme coin season as Floki Inu becomes the latest meme-based token to experience a significant price pump. The cryptocurrency inspired by Elon Musks Shiba Inu pup has long been considered as the next big memecoin and it appears to be living up to its hype.  Floki Inu is currently up 40% in the past 24 hours and is the second-best performing crypto-asset during this period after the fast-rising Pepe token. 

Floki Inu Benefiting From High-Profile Listings

This latest price surge can be linked to a series of high-profile listings by exchanges in recent days. Bitfinex was the first to announce the listing of Floki on May 3rd in a move that came out of the blue and surprised many in the crypto community.  This was followed by Binance, the largest exchange in the world, disclosing on May 5th that it would be listing Floki alongside Pepe in its innovation zone, with users able to deposit as of May 5th. 

The exchange further noted that it would begin trading the tokens on May 6th across four pairs: PEPE/USDT, PEPE/TUSDT, FLOKI/USDT, and FLOKI/TUSD. Binance also intends to permit borrowing on both assets and plans to add new margin pairs for FLOKI and PEPE on Isolated Margin in the next 48 hours. The Isolated Margin pairs include FLOKI/USDT and PEPE/USDT.

News of this listing caused significant excitement to the crypto community, which led to a positive market movement for both assets. PEPE achieved a new market high of $0.0000028, surpassing the $1 billion market cap, while FLOKI also increased by 60% within a few hours.  During this period, Floki Inu has experienced increased trading volume as m...

On March 20, 2023, Stacks (STX) hit an all-time high of $1.30. But the price declined below the $1 mark on March 25 as the bears increased momentum. The asset has remained under the mark from March until May 5.

The 4-hour time frame chart today indicates that the STX token is trading on a downtrend movement due to high selling pressure. The token is also in a long-term downtrend, with the bears increasing its selling pressure forming lower highs and higher lows.

Will The Bulls Dethrone The Bears From The Market?

The overall structure of the STX market is bearish, with the bears battling with the bulls to take full control. The 4-hour chart shows that the STACK token is trading at $0.7276, with a decrease of -6.47% within the last 24 hours.

Related Reading: This Meme Coin Created By GPT-4 Is Now Worth $40 Million, Heres Why

STXs 24-hour trading volume is down by 56.76%, with a total market cap of $1 billion. This also shows that STX is not experiencing many activities at the moment.

Despite the increased selling momentum resulting from the investors sentiment, the bulls are attempting to regain control by taking advantage of the support level at $0.67.

Stacks (STX) Price Analysis

Currently, STX is trading within the range of the 200-day simple moving average and the 50-day simple moving average, suggesting a neutral market position or consolidation phase.

Consequently, traders and investors may use the 50-day and 200-day SMAs as reliable support and resistance levels while trading. 

Notably, a breach above the 50-day SMA may signal a potential short-term uptrend, presenting a buying opportunity for traders. The fact that STX lacks an obvious trend, either upward or downward, suggests that the price is stable.

Currently, the RSI level of STX is 41, which shows that the STX market is heading towards the neutral zone, and theres indecision. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) line is below the signal line, which suggests a potential sell opportunity. 

Moreover, the histogram, which measures the distance between the MACD line and the signal line, is below the zero line, indicating that the security is trading below its long-term trend. 

Additionally, the histogram is increasing, implying that the bearish momentum is gaining strength. This situation suggests that STX is facing downward pressure, which could continue for some time, allowing traders to short the token.

AI can analyze data for accurate risk assessment, reduce bias, automate tasks and personalize the lending experience for improved credit scoring.

The tax is intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, electricity costs and local environmental pollution, but has not been kindly received by the crypto community.

Under a bill proposed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, crypto exchanges could be required to reimburse users who were the victims of fraud.

PEPE token inches towards $1 billion valuation (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Trading patterns (geralt/Pixabay)

BNP Paribas (Shutterstock)

Alchemy CEO Nikil Viswanathan (Pantera Capital)

(Unsplash)

Pepe the Frog meme. (Pepe coin's Twitter account)

(Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

An unidentified Shiba Inu wallet holder burnt about 1.69 billion SHIB in a single transaction. This burn event caused the overall SHIB burn rate to increase by 38,986.28%, exceeding yesterdays burn rate of 1.34 million SHIB.

SHIB burn events are critical to its price movement since they eliminate excess tokens in circulation and the 1.69 billion SHIB burn represents the third-largest burn event this week. However, the burn event did not significantly impact SHIBs price, although it could improve its performance in the long term.

SHIB Burn Rate Increasing This Week

Shiba Inu experienced massive burn events this week from some of its top holders. CultPunks and a mysterious wallet are among the main contributors to these burns. A total of 2.25 billion SHIB token burns occurred on May 3-4. These transactions significantly increase the SHIB burns on the network in 2023.

Related Reading: Pro-XRP Attorney Shares Information That Could Be Bullish For Ripple

The new NFT collection on the Modulus Network, Cultpunks, burnt 246.74 million SHIB in a single transaction. Also, Blaze Token sent approximately 2 billion SHIB to the dead wallet in a single transaction. These burns contributed to the overall burn rate that increased progressively to date.

Amid the ongoing burn transactions, some whales continue to accumulate SHIB tokens. Etherscan.io revealed that a prominent SHIB whale purchased 221.72 million SHIB worth $2.23 million in a single transaction. 

The whale started its purchases on April 25, 2023, when it bought 730.61 million SHIB. Also, on April 27, the same whale acquired an additional 76.31 billion SHIB worth $770,036. Additionally, the SHIB whale bought 49.34 billion SHIB worth $495,868 on April 29. 

Lastly, the same SHIB whale purchased 348.11 billion SHIB tokens worth $3.50 million last week in four transactions, bringing its current holdings to 21.6 trillion SHIB tokens ($218.19 million).

Will The Burns And Whale Accumulation Boost Shiba Inu?

Shiba Inu is fluctuating today despite the news of increasing token burns and accumulations. It has formed a Gravestone Doji c...

Stephen Castell commented that emerging technologies like blockchain, the metaverse and AI will usher in a new set of ethics and human species.

Pepe the Frog meme. (Pepe coin's Twitter account)

A look inside the AI black box problem: confronting the trust dilemma and unearthing strategies for transparent AI.

Crypto developments in Hong Kong do not mean China has softened or will soften its approach to regulating Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin price continues to consolidate within the trading range between $27,800 and $30,000. Even though the buy side currently seems to have lost momentum and the bears feel in control, there are numerous good arguments why the Bitcoin price will write new yearly highs in the short and medium term.

4-Hour Chart Of Bitcoin

A look at the 4-hour chart of Bitcoin shows that the price has been writing higher lows since the price reached a low of $27,000 on April 24. A higher low occurs when the price hits a new low that is higher than the previous low, without a lower low preceding it.

Thus, the current price movement of BTC indicates an uptrend. The $30,000 level should be the next target as long as BTC stays above $28,800.

US Banking Crisis

Another driver for the Bitcoin price in the short and medium term can be the ongoing US banking crisis. The last few weeks have shown that BTC has reacted strongly to the news, and for the most part has seen a rise. Ultimately, Bitcoin was created for this very purpose: an escape from the fractional reserve banking system.

Because of this, it is also not surprising that Bitcoin has seen its highest correlation with gold in two years. Physical gold has written new all-time highs in recent days, Bitcoin could be spurred by this.

The lead economist at $646 billion asset manager AllianceBernstein, Jared Bernstein, recently acknowledged that Bitcoin will establish itself as an alternative financial system in times of bank failure, and urged people to buy Bitcoin.

Bernstein predicted that the U.S. banking crisis is far from over, adding, We believe Bitcoin will emerge again as a faster horse than gold.

FEDs Interest Rate Pause In June?

Even though the financial markets initially gave a bearish reaction to...

What people need to realize is that the technology of blockchain, and the shenanigans that some people pull, are two totally different things.

The circulating supply of SUI tokens will grow by nearly 15% by the end of 2023.

Memecoins are back in the headlines as PEPE booms, taking the market capitalization of speculative tokens over $20 billion.

The price of the new frog-themed memecoin has surged more than 4,000% since its inception on April 14.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Meme coins PEPE and FLOKI are finally making their way onto Binance after an impressive run. Both communities have in the past called for the crypto behemoth to list the tokens but the exchange has been quiet about possible listings, until now.

PEPE And FLOKI Make It To Binance

The worlds largest crypto exchange Binance has taken another step toward supporting meme coins as it announced new listings for two of the largest meme coins in the world. In a post on its official website, Binance revealed that Twitters new favorite meme coins PEPE and FLOKI will be listed in its innovation zone.

Trading for both of these coins will begin on Saturday, May 6, while deposits for both cryptocurrencies have already been opened as of Friday, May 5. Both meme coins are listed for spot trading across four pairs, including PEPE/USDT, PEPE/TUSDT, FLOKI/USDT, and FLOKI/TUSD.

Furthermore, the exchange revealed that it plans to also allow borrowing on both of these assets. The new margin pairs for FLOKI and PEPE will be available on Isolated Margin and Binance plans to add both of these in the next 48 hours. The Isolated Margin pairs include FLOKI/USDT and PEPE/USDT.

New Listings Trigger Price Rally

Binance posted the announcement on its website in the early hours of Friday and both assets have responded positively since then. PEPE rose to a new high of $0.0000028, crossing the $1 billion market cap, and FLOKI is up 60% in the last day as well.

...

While still a relatively-new technology, the Bitcoin Lightning Network offers distinct advantages for a wide range of business operations.

This is an opinion editorial by Matt Maraia, a CPA focused on how changes to accounting regulations impact the Bitcoin community.

Today, companies spend egregious amounts of money on credit card fees when processing customer payments, ultimately cutting into margins that are widely scrutinized by investors and management alike.

But the Lightning Network presents a new payment solution with the ability to process instantaneous payments (using Bitcoin) for virtually no fees. It boasts equivalent decentralized safeguards to the Bitcoin network, ultimately using Bitcoins blockchain, which has not been hacked since its inception in 2009. While doubt among the general public about bitcoin manifests itself in the assets price volatility, this innovative technology built on top of Bitcoin rails poses a unique opportunity for CEOs and CFOs to improve profitability.

In fact, you can be anti-Bitcoin and still be able to extract the advantages of the Lightning Network into your companys payment processes, avoiding the issues of bitcoin price variability.

Here are some of the biggest advantages of adopting the Lightning Network for businesses:

Improving Margins, Reducing Fees

With mass layoffs circulating the market, investors and managers understandably continue to scrutinize margins every dollar matters and can spell disaster without proper planning and foresight.

The Lightning Network helps to alleviate these pressures by way of minimal transaction fees. On average, payments made via credit card amount to about 3% in fees owed to intermediary financial institutions. The Lightning Network opens up the possibility to process payments at a fraction of the cost by using micropayment channels. While it is unlikely that an entire customer base will immediately transact through the Lightning Network, even transitioning 25% of credit card payments could significantly improve margins.

Benefitting From Consistent Innovation

Without delving into the superfluous details of how Lightning operates behind the scenes, the innovations materializing in the space remain frequent....

(Federal Reserve Bank of New York, modified by CoinDesk)

BNB Chains Victor Genin said blockchain could improve transparency, accountability, traceability, energy efficiency, waste reduction and collaboration in the climate action space.

Ethereums layer-2 blockchain Arbitrum is facing a pivotal moment: will it break out of the descending triangle (in the 4-hour chart) or will it see an even deeper correction in the coming days. As NewsBTC reported, Arbitrums on-chain data remains extremely strong and could signal an end to the downtrend.

However, an important question will also be whether investors regain confidence in altcoins (except PEPE). Bitcoin dominance has been on the rise again against altcoins since May 1, approaching the local high of 49%. Once confidence returns, ARB could benefit greatly. But if not, another plunge could be next.

Arbitrum Price Analysis

Arbitrums price corrected sharply in the last two trading weeks after reaching an all-time high of $1.81 on April 23. It was only in the area of the old breakout zone at $1.30 that the ARB price found a floor after a 30% price decline.

Now, this price level is also the frontier in the 4 hours, which bulls should defend at all costs. It is the support line in a descending triangle pattern that has been forming over the past two weeks. The descending triangle is a bearish pattern that anticipates a breakdown to the downside.

In order to invalidate the chart pattern, the ARB price must break the resistance line to the upside in the next few days. The support line was defended by the buy side several times recently. However, now is the time to make the breakout to the upside.

However, the ARB price must overcome not only the ascending trendline, but also the 50-EMA (orange) and the 200-EMA (blue) in the 4-hour chart. Otherwise, a plunge towards the support at $1.20 can be expected.

The RSI is trending down...

Despite the latest spike in Bitcoin transaction fees, the current BTC transaction cost is still far from all-time high levels.

The first Cardano Hydra Head is now live on the mainnet, but this is not preventing bears from pinning down ADA, the native currency of Cardano, going by its performance on the daily chart.

Scaling Cardano Using Hydra Heads

According to Cardano documentation, Hydra Head will be the first in a suite of protocols that will help the smart contracting platform further process more transactions. 

This is vital considering Cardanos gradual enhancement of its mainnet to eventually handle enterprise-grade DApps demanding higher throughput. 

Observers note that the release of the first layer-2 Hydra Head is a milestone in the current Basho State in Cardano, where scaling and network enhancement is a priority.

Hydra is a family of layer 2 protocols designed to make #Cardano more scalable and adaptable for various use cases that require fast and cheap transactions. The first Hydra head recently opened on mainnet.

This video is a great starting point for exploring the current release, pic.twitter.com/g1moYifGNj

Input Output (@InputOutputHK) May 4, 2023

The Hydra Head, now live on mainnet, provides what platform developers describe as a secure isomorphic state channel that works off-chain, connecting participants. Notably, transactions sent within a Head are settled instantly. 

Hydra uses the same architecture as the Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN) that also uses channels. Like the LN, those keen on using the Hydra Head must first deposit funds. Researchers said these Heads could be connected in the future, effectively forming a network.

While this development is bullish in the long term, ADA prices are falling when writing in early May 2023. This could be because though Cardano promises to surpass Ethereum as the home of DApps, offering better scaling and decentralization, activity is still relatively low. 

DeFiLlama data, for example, shows that the total value locked (TVL) in Cardano is $152.74m while Ethereum manages $28.61 billion. 

Moreover, Unlike Ethereum, which supported smart contracting immediately after launching, Cardanos smart contracting came years later during the Goguen Stage. 

ADA Prices U...

The White House national strategy listed eight emerging technologies, focusing on building international standards and finding use cases in the economic sector.

Zimbabwes central bank plans to sell gold-backed digital tokens at $10 for individuals and $5,000 for corporations.

Bitcoin bulls slowly claw back lost ground on the road to a $30,000 rematch as the U.S. banking crisis lingers.

Unregistered crypto ATMs are illegal, the FCA said (Ivan Radic/Flickr)

Cardano (ADA) was at the peak of its performance in 2022, boasting an all-time high Total Value Locked of over $400. However, since then, the cryptocurrencys value has fluctuated. 

But recent data from Artemis shows that Cardanos TVL has been consistently increasing over the last six months. 

The seven-day moving average of $154 million is a level not seen since May 2022. With this growth rate, many are wondering if Cardano will have what it takes to reach its previous all-time high TVL.

Over the last six months, $ADA TVL has consistently increased.

Currently, the seven-day moving average sits at $154m, a number that has not been seen since May 2022. pic.twitter.com/wkbYoAddQb

Artemis (@Artemis__xyz) May 3, 2023

Cardano Growing TVL, Development Efforts Hint At Bright Future

Cardanos TVL has been on a consistent upward trajectory, with a recent surge of over 9% in just 24 hours, according to DeFiLlamas. 

Meanwhile, a tweet from Input Output Global highlighted the blockchains impressive performance in April, with the Hydra team gearing up for the upcoming 0.10.0 mainnet release. 

As Cardano continues to prioritize scalability, this new release could have a significant impact on the entire ecosystem.

1/ The weekly development update is released e...

A leaked document from a senior software engineer sounds the alarm about Googles artificial intelligence development.

Flag of Zimbabwe (Manuel Augusto Moreno/ Getty)

PnL refers to the financial gain or loss from buying and selling cryptocurrencies. To calculate it, use various method like the FIFO, LIFO, YTD, and more!

Pepe Coin has emerged victorious in the battle against skepticism and doubt, with an incredible rally that left even its harshest critics astounded. 

Despite the naysayers, including Changpeng CZ Zhao, the CEO of Binance, who openly expressed his confusion towards meme coins, Pepe proved to be a force to be reckoned with.

The coin has experienced a stunning resurgence, with Coingecko reporting a jaw-dropping 100% rally in just 24 hours, putting its price at $0.00000221.

The momentum didnt stop there, as the coin continued its meteoric rise, boasting a remarkable seven-day increase of 708%, defying all expectations and proving its worth as a contender in the world of meme coins.

CZ Expresses Confusion Over Meme Coins

During a recent Twitter Spaces conversation, CZ expressed his confusion over the concept of meme coins. Despite this, he stated that Binances decision to list such coins is primarily based on user interest and trading volume, rather than his personal understanding of the coins. 

I personally never really understood meme coins, the Binance chief said. There are many successful people who do seem to understand them, including Elon Musk, and others, so we go by users.

CZ did acknowledge that meme coins like Pepe have recently gained popularity, and while Binance does not base listing decisions purely on hype, they do consider the level of speculative interest surrounding a coin.

Pepe is a recent example of a meme coin that has seen an incredible surge in price since its launch on April 14, with a price increase of nearly 38,900%. While the Binance big boss may not fully comprehend the concept of meme coins, he remains neutral on listing decisions, leaving them in the hands of a separate team at his exchange.

Potential Factors Behind Impressive Rise Of Pepe Coin

Pepes incredible price surge can be attributed to several fac...

Flag of Israel (Eduardo Castro/Pixabay)