May 3, 2023

Bitcoin (BTC) climbed on Tuesday, gaining more than 2% on signs the U.S. banking crisis isn’t yet over. Helping the bullish tone was the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), which showed job openings declining to their lowest level since April 2021. Ether (ETH) also gained, climbing 1.5%. Bitcoin layer 2, Stacks (STX) outperformed the majority of crypto assets, soaring 13% over the last 24-hours. Last week, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, Binance announced it would support the network’s upgrade and hardfork. Stacks upgraded its network earlier today to fix a bug that was found in another recent upgrade. STX has surged 177% over the last 3 months, according to data from Messari.

Crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group (DCG) said Chief Financial Officer Michael Kraines stepped down in April and revealed that it fully repaid a $350 million senior secured term loan during the first quarter. Kraines became CFO two years ago. DCG has engaged Heidrick & Struggles for a new CFO search, according to a letter to shareholders, while President Mark Murphy and Chief Strategy Officer Simon Koster run the finance department in the meantime. Also in the letter, DCG, which is CoinDesk's parent company, reported first-quarter revenue of $180 million, up 63% from the fourth quarter, thanks to rising crypto prices. First quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was negative $6 million.

Frenzied trading activity has pushed the newly-launched PEPE token (PEPE) to garner trading volumes higher than those of dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) – which previously were biggest memecoins by trading volumes. PEPE trading volumes surged to over $250 million in the past 24 hours following a 100% price spike during a weekend rally. Over the same period, trading volumes on dogecoin stood at $225 million, while shiba inu volumes were only $100 million. Data from CoinGecko show crypto exchange OKX saw over $76 million in trading volumes for PEPE tokens, followed by $43 million at the decentralized exchange Uniswap. A bulk of these volumes may be generated by automated bots, which continually buy and sell tokens to generate trading activity and provide liquidity to investors in turn for a few dollars of profits.

Bitcoin (BTC), the world's biggest cryptocurrency by market value and a macro asset that closely tracks U.S. dollar liquidity metrics, has seen a resurgence this year with prices rising 70% since Jan. 1.

The rally may run into a temporary roadblock if Federal Reserve (Fed) chairman Jerome Powell refrains from signaling a highly-anticipated pause to the tightening cycle on Wednesday, according to some observers.

The Fed will announce its interest rate decision on Wednesday at 14:00 ET (18:00 UTC). Half an hour later, Powell will speak at the post-meeting press conference. Fed funds futures show traders expect the central bank to raise rates one final time by 25 basis points to the 5%-5.25% range, ending the so-called tightening cycle that roiled cryptocurrencies in 2022. Traders are pricing rate cuts as soon as July.

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