Grayscale's Spot Bitcoin ETF Drops 50% Prior to Halving

Major Bitcoin investor Grayscale Investments witnessed a halving of its spot Bitcoin ETF (GBTC) holdings, reducing by 50% to 309,871 BTC on the 66th day of trading. This "halving" coincided with the anticipated Bitcoin halving event, which will reduce the mining reward by 50% on April 18th. Additionally, Andreessen Horowitz raised $7.2 billion for new venture funds, with no additional allocation for crypto investments.

Grayscale Spot Bitcoin ETF 'Halves' Before BTC Halving

Major Bitcoin investor Grayscale Investments has witnessed a 50% decline in its spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) holdings ahead of the anticipated Bitcoin halving event.

On April 16, Bitcoin holdings in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) dropped from 619,220 BTC on the first day of trading on Jan. 11 to 309,871 BTC on its 66th day of trading. This represents a 50% reduction in the amount of BTC held by the ETF since its trading debut.

The GBTC "halving" occurred just two days before the much-anticipated Bitcoin halving, which will reduce the mining reward by 50% from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

Occurring once every four years, or once in 210,000 blocks, the Bitcoin halving is a major event often tied to subsequent rallies in the crypto market. While the two events are not correlated, they coincide in the chronology of Bitcoin-related occurrences.

Worldcoin Launches Its Own 'Human-Centric' Blockchain Network

Worldcoin, an identity coin startup founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has furthered its "human-centric" approach to the Web3 space with its new blockchain network, World Chain.

On April 17, Worldcoin announced World Chain, a new blockchain initiative designed to prioritize human users, enhance efficiency, and foster real-world utility in Web3 applications.

Worldcoin recently surpassed 10 million World IDs created and 75 million completed transactions, signaling the project's rapid expansion. Its own dedicated network has been designed to scale alongside the broader Ethereum network as a layer 2 to meet the project's needs.

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Tiago Sada, the head of operations at Worldcoin, explained the project's intention to prioritize humans over bots in its network design.

"Usually, the way it works is that every account is fighting for block space. Usually, since bots can move faster and they can outbid humans," he said, "the networks get saturated with all the transactions for bots, and humans have whatever is left — many times, they can't even get in."

Andreessen Horowitz Raises $7.2B for New Venture Funds

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has raised $7.2 billion to invest across several tech sectors, including gaming and artificial intelligence — but is not putting any more toward crypto.

The firm's "Growth" venture strategy, a bundle of funds backing a range of early-stage startups, will receive the largest chunk of the raise at $3.75 billion. Its "Infrastructure" and "Apps" strategies will, respectively, receive $1.25 billion and $1 billion, a16z said in an April 16 statement.

The "Infrastructure" strategy mostly focuses on funding teams in the AI, computing, and data industries, while the "Apps" funds focus on consumer, enterprise, and fintech application builders.

The remaining $1.2 billion will be evenly split between "Games," its gaming-focused fund, and its new "American Dynamism" fund, which invests in founders and companies supporting United States national interests in aerospace, defense, safety, education, and manufacturing.

Its $4.5 billion crypto-focused fund did not receive any additional funding.

Cyprus Keeps FTX Europe License Suspended Until September

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission has extended the suspension of FTX Europe's license, prohibiting the firm from offering services until September.

Cyprus' securities regulator officially announced the news on April 16, declaring that FTX Europe must proceed with necessary actions to comply with the relevant provisions of the Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law.

As part of the regulatory decision, FTX Europe is banned from providing investment services as well as entering into any business transaction with any person or accepting any new clients. The firm is also prohibited from advertising investment services, as per the announcement.

Token Holders Approve $7.5 Billion AI Merger

Token holders of SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean protocols approved a $7.5 billion merger that would create a combined Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI) project.

The Fetch.AI (FET) token will become the ASI token with a total supply of 2.6 billion. Meanwhile, SingularityNET (AGIX) and Ocean (OCEAN) tokens will be converted into ASI at approximate ratios of 0.43:1, with ASI tokens having a combined value of $7.5 billion post-merger, according to the April 16 announcement.

The ASI is scheduled for launch on May 24.

"Our mission is to create a decentralized AI infrastructure at scale, ensuring ethical and trustworthy practices," said Humayun Sheikh, chairman of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance and CEO of Fetch.ai.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $63,444, Ether (ETH) at $3,072, and XRP (XRP) at $0.49. The total market cap is at $2.28 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the three best-performing altcoins of the week were ONDO (ONDO) at 6.79%, UNUS SED LEO (LEO) at -0.33%, and OKB (OKB) at -1.63%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week were ORDI (ORDI) at -39.37%, Ethena (ENA) at -36.72%, and Bittensor (TAO) at -33.85%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

"I always tell people that if you buy Bitcoin and you are trying to predict what the price is in an hour or a day, a week, or even a month, that's probably a fool's errand. Instead, what you should think about is, 'This is a savings technology.'"

• Anthony Pompliano, founder and partner at Pomp Investments

"With only 2 million Bitcoins left, if we assume a daily inflow of $500 million to Bitcoin Spot ETFs, the equivalent of around 7,142 Bitcoin will leave exchange reserves daily, suggesting that it will only take nine months to consume all of the remaining reserves."

• Bybit, cryptocurrency exchange

"Don't expect a lot of flows — I saw one estimate of $25b that's insane. We think they'll be lucky to get $500m."

• Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg

"Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots."

• Elon Musk, owner of X and CEO of Tesla

"AI and Gaming have garnered the most resounding revival of venture capital enthusiasm among the categories."

• QuickNode, blockchain development platform, and Artemis, an on-chain analytics provider

"With the bond market now projecting less than three cuts and 10-year Treasury yields surpassing 4.50%, we may have arrived at a crucial tipping point for risk assets."

• Markus Thielen, founder of blockchain analytics firm 10x Research

Prediction of the Week

Bitcoin Miners Could Dump $5B in BTC After Halving

Bitcoin miners could potentially liquidate $5 billion worth of BTC after the halving, the head of research at 10x Research, Markus Thielen, calculated in an April 13 analyst note.

"The overhang from this selling could last four to six months, explaining why Bitcoin might go sideways for the next few months — as it has done following past halvings," he added.

Thielen said that the same could happen again, with crypto markets potentially facing "a significant challenge in a six-month 'summer' lull."

Bitcoin prices remained range-bound between $9,000 and $11,500 in the five months that followed the 2020 halving.

FUD of the Week

Bitcoin Price Falls Under $62K Amid Wavering Spot BTC ETF Demand

Bitcoin's price fell 3% on April 16 as crypto investors entered a risk-off mode amid stagnating ETF demand.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed local BTC price lows of $61,709 on Binance shortly after the Wall Street open on April 16.

Bitcoin joined U.S. stock indexes in heading lower on the day, as the U.S. Dollar Index reached a six-month high of 106.17.

On April 15, capital flows into the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $36.7 million in net outflows, according to data from Farside Investors.

Mango Markets Exploiter Found Guilty After Jury Deliberations

A jury has found Avraham "Avi" Eisenberg, the crypto user responsible for a $110 million exploit of the Mango Markets decentralized exchange, guilty of fraud and market manipulation.

In an April 18 ruling in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, a group of jurors announced that Eisenberg had been found guilty of wire fraud, commodities fraud, and commodities manipulation.

The decision followed hours of deliberations after closing arguments on April 17.