OVERVIEW

🐂 Bulls Putting Bears To The Test 🐻

The heat map below looks nice compared to the sea of red we’ve been facing lately. It's always refreshing to see some green on the screen. 🟩

Also, you might have noticed yesterday’s Litepaper had the same title as Wednesday’s. That was a bug and not due to user error - which I totally thought was user error. Vindication. ✊

In today’s Litepaper: We’re looking at ETH, DOGE, and LINK’s charts because they’re good examples of what a large chunk of the market is doing: testing prior support as resistance.

Also on deck are Jack Dorsey’s BTC plan, Michael Saylor’s ETH prediction, and a look at why we still use bridges. Crypto bridges, that is. 📰

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:

And here’s a look at crypto’s total and altcoin market cap YTD:

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Bulls Retesting Prior Support Turned Resistance 🎯

Across the board, cryptos are showing some signs of bullish relief. And anyone who has been in crypto for a few years will tell you that the present price action is not the kind bulls or bears like to see going into the weekend. 🗓️

$ETH is a great example and stand-in for what a lot of the altcoin market looks like right now: two to three days of gains, but the market is getting hung up on moving higher. Bulls are battling it out to move above $3,075.

Keep an eye on the sentiment and message volume scores. Like price action, they’re all over the place. With the weekend coming up, prepare for some volatility and fireworks. 🎆

Like Ethereum, $DOGE is currently testing an important prior technical support turned resistance level, the 50% Fibonacci Retracement at $0.1387. Doge is currently trading at $0.1403. If the daily closes around that level, we might see even more attempts higher.

Looking at Stocktwits’ sentiment data for DOGE, it’s slowly ticking higher along with message volume, so no major divergences are present. 🧮

It’s been a while since we’ve had an opportunity to look at Chainlink ($LINK). Since failing to make any progress above the $20 value area, it’s suffered the same deep pullback the rest of the market has.

However, there might be a reason for bulls to have some hope. If you take a look at the stream, Stocktwits users and traders are looking for a daily close over the next few days at or above $14.10 because it would place LINK above Tuesday’s open.

Stocktwits’ sentiment scores are worth keeping an eye on here. The message volume is ticking higher with price, but the sentiment scores remain in sucksville. A notable divergence, especially if people are short LINK on the derivatives DEXs. If LINK keeps moving up, that sentiment score may pop much higher. ♾️

NEWS
Dollar-Cost Averaging like a Boss 🚀

Jack Dorsey, the grand poobah of Block ($SQ), has decided that the best use for 10% of his product profits is to buy more $BTC. Every. Single. Month.💰

This isn’t just a casual fling with cryptocurrency; it’s a full-blown love affair, with Block investing $220 million in Bitcoin over the year. With 8,038 Bitcoin cuddled up in its digital wallet as of March 31, Block is sitting pretty on a paper gain north of $230 million.

Block’s latest earnings showed a 60% spike in Bitcoin gross profits year-on-year. Meanwhile, Dorsey muses about Bitcoin and crypto being the internet’s future currency, though he admits the transition from the old-guard financial systems won’t happen overnight. 🌑

NEWS
Saylor’s Summer Agenda: Crushing Crypto Dreams

$BTC maxi Michael Saylor dropped a bombshell prediction at the MicroStrategy World 2024 conference yesterday (May 2). 💥

He forecasts a summer of discontent for $ETH, anticipating the SEC will tag it as a security and slam the door on spot ETF applications.

Saylor's crystal ball doesn't stop there; he envisions a regulatory smackdown extending to other crypto like $BNB, $SOL, $XRP, and $ADA—none of which, he declares, will see the Wall Street light of day as part of a spot ETF. In his view, Bitcoin remains the untouchable patriarch of institutional-grade crypto assets. No siblings are allowed in this family portrait, folks.

While Ethereum enthusiasts might have held their breath for a positive SEC nod, the odds are about as good as finding a flattering selfie angle at midnight—slim, with a generous side of bleak. The deciding moment looms on May 23, when the SEC will make or break hearts regarding VanEck’s ETF. 😢

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BLOCKCHAIN
Why, Bridges People? I Ask You Why. 🌉

One of Satoshi Nakamoto’s primary reasons for creating Bitcoin was to eliminate the middleman. But for whatever reason, people feel like we need a middleman, and even crypto developers want to be the middleman. Maybe middlemen are inevitable? 🤔

So why do they exist? Because of one yuge problem in crypto: interoperability.

To address interoperability, there are a metric crap ton of different solutions: Layer 2s, bridges, atomic swaps, DEXs, multichain protocols, and interoperable blockchains. But why bridges? Just look at some of the bridge hacks there have been:

• Socket/Bungee - $3.3M - January 16, 2023

• Multichain 2 - $3M - January 17, 2022

• Multichain 1 (Anyswap) - $7.9M - July 10, 2021

• Thorchain 1 - $5M - July 16, 2021.

• Thorchain 2 - $8M - July 26, 2021

• Harmony Horizon Bridge - $100M - June 24, 2022

• Nomad - $190M - August 1, 2022

• Orbit - $82M - December 31, 2023

• BNB Chain Bridge - $566M - October 7, 2022

• Poly Network - $610M - August 10, 2021

• Wormhole - $326M - February 2, 2022

• Ronin - $650M - March 23, 2022

What’s the solution? No idea - but there are plenty of alternatives with L2s, atomic swaps, DEX, etc. I don’t know a lot, but I do know that bridges attract hackers like mosquitos are attracted to me when I mow the lawn. 🦟

7 Things That Are More Useful Than Crypto Bridges 🧠

1. Stonehenge as a prison.

2. An ashtray on a bike.

3. One-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

4. A button on a sock.

5. A backup camera on a bobsled.

6. An ejection seat in a helicopter.

7. Half a pair of scissors.

NEWS
Crypto News In Three Sentences 📰

🌐 Subtle Shifts in U.S. Job Market
The latest U.S. jobs report hints at a slight cooling in wage growth, with average hourly earnings in April rising by just 0.20% month-over-month, shy of the 0.30% expected. Annually, earnings grew 3.90%, also below expectations, amidst a stable labor force participation rate and a slight uptick in underemployment. ForexLive has more.

🐕 Dogecoin Wallet Drama
The Dogechain wallet, a staple in the $DOGE ecosystem for over a decade, is abruptly shutting down, sparking uproar among the Doge community. While the reasons remain murky, the closure reflects broader regulatory pressures reshaping the U.S. crypto landscape. From U.Today.

🚀 EigenLayer's Airdrop Adjustment
EigenLayer responds to community feedback by beefing up its airdrop to a minimum of 110 tokens for early interactors, reflecting a more inclusive distribution strategy. By allowing direct smart contract interactions, EigenLayer hopes to mitigate the impact of geoblocking. More from Trustnodes.

🔍 Bitcoin Fee Fluctuation Fizzles
Bitcoin transaction fees normalized after a spike caused by Runes, a new protocol for $BTC-based token creation, overwhelming the network. This surge in activity, initially driven by high speculation and token minting, has since receded. Despite the turbulence, Runes maintains a strong presence in Bitcoin's token activity, hinting at lasting impacts on the network. The Defiant has more.

🎰 ZKasino Scandal Unfolds
Dutch authorities arrested a ZKasino founder for allegations of fraud, embezzlement, and a grand exit scam involving $33 million in Ether. Over $11 million in assets were seized during the raid. Binance’s compliance team assisted Dutch law enforcement, giving the exchange some much-needed good karma from a government enforcement agency. From CryptoBriefing.

Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

💵 Vanguard urges investors ‘right-zize’ toward bonds on Fed delay

🔮 Examining MATIC’s future as Polygon records new ATH in key area

💊 Hims founder offers jobs to anti-Israel protesters, hails their 'moral courage'

🪙 Economist Alex Krüger goes ‘Max Long’ on crypto positions – here are his altcoin picks

😱 Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud,’ permanently barred from public company audits

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