Bitcoin (BTC) faced selling pressure early Tuesday as the cryptocurrency’s reward halving approaches. The leading cryptocurrency by market value fell 5.7% to $65,742 in a bearish resolution of the recent week-long consolidation between $68,000 and $72,000. Bitcoin’s halving event is approaching this month, expected on April 21. The event reduces the pace of BTC production by 50%. Some analysts say the event has already been well telegraphed by the market, limiting any major reaction. “As we come into this halving event, bitcoin has just put in a fresh record high and could be less inclined to be wanting to extend its record run before first going through an overdue period of correction and consolidation,” said LMAX Digital in a morning note. The broader crypto market also nursed losses, with ether (ETH), Solana's SOL and dogecoin (DOGE) registering larger drops. The broader CoinDesk 20 index fell nearly 8%.

Ethena Labs, the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that offers the $1.3 billion yield-earning USDe, has opened claims for its new governance token, ENA. In a post on X on Tuesday, Ethena invited holders of USDe to claim their share of the airdrop of 750 million ENA tokens – 5% of the total supply – which is set to list on centralized exchanges. Following the commencement of the airdrop, ENA rose over 8% to trade at around 64 cents, with a market cap of close to $500 million, according to data by CoinGecko.

Deribit, the world’s leading crypto options exchange, said on Tuesday that its Dubai-based unit, Deribit FZE, has won a conditional virtual asset provider (VASP) license from the local regulator. The license allowing FZE to operate as a virtual asset exchange for spot and derivatives trading remains nonoperational until Deribit satisfies all remaining conditions and local requirements of Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), Deribit said in the press release. Once operational, it will allow Deribit to serve institutional and qualified investors while continuing to serve retail investors through its Panama-based broker affiliate.

The crypto market is set up for a positive second quarter with most of the previously identified headwinds in the rear-view mirror, Coinbase (COIN) said in a research report on Friday. These positive factors may "only manifest themselves more clearly starting in the second half of April," Coinbase said.

The bitcoin (BTC) reward halving, expected April 16-20, remains the main supply-side event, the report said. The quadrennial halving is when miner rewards are slashed by 50%, thereby reducing the rate of growth in bitcoin supply.

"On the demand side, the 90-day review period that many wirehouses employ when conducting due diligence on new financial offerings – like spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) – could conclude as early as April 10," analysts David Duong and David Han wrote.

- Omkar Godbole