OVERVIEW

🎵 SOL Long, Not Well, Transactions Failed, We Sigh 🎶

It’s a bit of a mixed bag today from a price action perspective. $ETH turned positive with a small 0.26% gain, and $BTC fell by -1.01%. But the market’s focus has been on Solana ($SOL).

We’ll discuss Solana's latest notch in the belt of failure and examine the daily Total Market Cap chart.

Also on deck: Ripple’s stablecoin, the crazy volume traded in the BTC ETFs, how much the crypto space was fleeced for in March, and another OneCoin boss behind bars.

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
It’s Tightening Up 🙅

On Total Market Cap’s daily chart below, there’s a bullish continuation pattern known as a bullish pennant—a triangle. 🚩

Without getting into a ton of detail about how price action behaves in triangles, there are two powerful warning signs to look out for:

1. Volume typically drops the longer price is inside the triangle.

2. Breakouts often occur within the final 1/3.

3. ‘Valid’ breakouts occur on high and/or rising volume.

Bulls are looking at a daily close above the upper trendline of the triangle and the prior swing high, roughly the $2.629 trillion level.

Bears are looking for a close below the lower trendline of the triangle and below the prior swing low’s close near $2.35 trillion. 🏴

NEWS
76.80% of Solana Transactions Fail 🤦‍♂️

The blockchain that breaks down more than a diet at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet is broken again. Solana’s ($SOL) transaction failure rate is staggering at 76.80% 🤡.

An overwhelming influx of memecoin madness is choking the network's ability to process transactions efficiently. Solana's defenders have pointed fingers at bot spam, but let's face it—the network's inability to handle spam is like a sieve trying to hold water.

Mert Mumtaz of Helius even admitted to the network's poor spam management, painting a grim picture of users getting the short end of the stick. And while Solana's CEO, Anatoly Yakovenko, laments over the hassle of fixing congestion bugs, it's clear that the network's promise of efficiency is crumbling like a house of cards.

And because tribal warfare is a thing, Cardano’s ($ADA) Charles Hoskinson made a dig about Solana’s situation with a post on X that effectively wins the internet for the day:

Solana’s price action has been all over the place today, falling nearly -9% at one point to $168, but it’s since clawed back a good chunk of those losses and is currently at $176. 💸

NEWS
Ripple Joins the Stablecoin Wars 🪙

Ripple ($XRP) is set to launch a USD-pegged stablecoin, positioning itself as a formidable contender against Tether ($USDT) and Circle ($USDC) in the stablecoin market. 🌐

CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the initiative is part of Ripple's commitment to transparency, promising monthly reserve attestations. Despite entering a market dominated by giants, Ripple's compliance and innovative approach may carve a niche for its stablecoin, bolstering its role in cross-border transactions.

And speaking of stablecoins, PayPal ($PYPL) is integrating its PYUSD stablecoin into the Xoom platform. This allows U.S. customers to send international transfers without fees and aligns with PayPal's mission to leverage cryptocurrencies for mainstream financial transactions, offering a cost-effective alternative to traditional money transfer services. 💵

NEWS
Record-Breaking March for Bitcoin ETFs: $110 Billion in Trading Volume 🔊

March witnessed a dramatic surge in $BTC ETF trading volumes, tripling to $110 billion, led notably by BlackRock's $IBIT. 📈

BlackRock ($BLK) dominates the market, capturing almost half of the total volume, and shows the shifting dynamics from fundamental to spot ETF performance. With the SEC's recent approval of U.S. Bitcoin ETFs, the market has welcomed this new crypto investment, completing a significant goal for some in the crypto space: integrating TradFi into crypto.

There are even rumors across social that Morgan Stanley ($MS) is on the brink of setting a significant precedent in the U.S. banking sector by potentially offering a spot Bitcoin ETF to its clientele. 🌎

NEWS
Four-Year Sentence for OneCoin Lawyer 👮

Irina Dilkinska, the former chief legal officer for OneCoin, admitted to aiding in laundering the illicit proceeds associated with the OneCoin Ponzi scheme and received a four-year prison sentence. 🚨

The OneCoin scam is arguably the most infamous scam in the crypto space. It cost investors over $4 billion. However, the primary OneCoin con artist is Ruja "Crypto Queen" Ignatova. Her dealings are so bad she's on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted list. No one has seen hide or hair of her in years, so odds are she's not around anymore. ⚖️

NEWS
Over $500 Million Lost to Crypto Exploits in Early 2024: CertiK Report 👨‍🎨

The first quarter of 2024 saw the crypto world rattled by some big losses, with a notable rise in private key compromises. 📉 

CertiK's "Hack3d" report reveals a 54% increase in such incidents compared to the previous year, despite a slight decrease from the last quarter. January alone accounted for a staggering $193 million in losses.

Among the high-profile cases was Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, who lost approximately $112 million in $XRP, emphasizing the growing threat of these security breaches. The surge in private key compromises, particularly lucrative for attackers, highlights an urgent need for enhanced security measures within the crypto industry to protect against such devastating exploits. 🔐

STOCKTWITS “CHART ART”
Bitcoin Stabilizes Within Trend Channel 👀

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