● This week's major events and market outlook: BTC is expected to complete halving this Saturday, which may cause market fluctuations
According to Odaily Planet Daily, Greeks.live macro researcher Adam released this week's major events and market outlook on the X platform (4/15-4/21): The most important event this week is undoubtedly the Bitcoin halving, which is expected to be completed on Saturday. After the halving, the mining output will increase from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. As the core symbol of a large cycle of BTC, the halving itself is of commemorative significance and may cause market fluctuations, which is very worthy of attention.
● US retail sales growth in March exceeded expectations, weakening investors' confidence in the Fed's rate cut
According to Jinshi, the increase in U.S. retail sales in March exceeded economists' expectations, further undermining investors' confidence that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates this year. Most U.S. Treasury yields climbed to their highest level since the beginning of the year, with the 2-year Treasury yield close to 5% and the 10-year Treasury yield up 10 basis points to 4.62%, the highest level since November 14 last year. Expectations for monetary policy have shifted to the Fed starting to cut interest rates later, with officials saying that rate cuts require a higher degree of confidence that inflation is continuing to rebound toward the 2% target. Traders no longer fully expect rate cuts before November, while at the beginning of this year the market fully priced in rate cuts starting in March.
● Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission approves Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETF products in principle
According to Golden Finance, Harvest Global Investments (hereinafter referred to as Harvest International) announced that the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission has approved in principle that Harvest will invest in two digital asset spot ETF products. Harvest's investment in two digital asset spot ETF products will be through OSL Digital Securities Co., Ltd., the first digital asset platform licensed and insured by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission, which effectively solves problems such as excessive margin requirements, price premiums caused by the lack of short positions, and rolling losses, thereby more accurately reflecting the real-time value of Bitcoin.
● Bloomberg ETF analyst: Hong Kong Bitcoin spot ETF inflows may reach US$500 million
According to BlockBeats, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted on the X platform that the Hong Kong spot Bitcoin ETF has been approved in principle, but has not yet been launched. It is not expected that there will be a lot of flow in the Hong Kong spot Bitcoin ETF (some people estimate $25 billion, which is crazy), and the estimated scale of capital inflow may be $500 million. The reasons are as follows: 1. The Hong Kong ETF market is very small, only $50 billion. 2. The three approved spot Bitcoin ETF issuers (Bosera, Huaxia, and Harvest) are small in scale. There are no big institutions like BlackRock involved yet. 3. The liquidity/efficiency of the underlying ecosystem is low = these ETFs may have large spreads and Prem discounts. 4. The transaction fee may be 1-2%, which is higher than the US spot Bitcoin ETF.
● QCP Capital report: ETH risk reversal indicator turns extremely negative
According to Wu, QCP Capital pointed out in its latest market report that although the Asian market rebounded in early trading on Monday next week on the positive news of the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in Hong Kong, the US market once again saw a comprehensive sell-off of risky assets, and BTC fell below $63,000 again. It is worth noting that the ETH risk reversal indicator has turned extremely negative (-12%) at the near end, indicating that market sentiment is tense. In addition, the market is currently in an ETH Gamma short state, which means that the sharp fluctuations in ETH prices may be amplified.
● CoinShares: Total outflows from digital asset investment products last week were $126 million
According to Golden Finance, according to the CoinShares weekly report, digital asset investment products saw a small outflow last week, with a total outflow of $126 million. Trading volume rebounded slightly, from $17 billion last week to $21 billion, but ETP/ETF activity declined relative to the overall market, from 40% of total trusted exchange trading volume last month to 31% last week. Bitcoin saw an outflow of $110 million, but still maintained a positive inflow of $555 million so far this month. Shorting Bitcoin broke three consecutive weeks of outflows with a small inflow of $1.7 million. Ethereum suffered the most losses, with an outflow of $29 million last week, which was the fifth consecutive week of outflows.
● The UK government plans to propose legislation on stablecoins and crypto assets in June or July
According to Odaily Planet Daily, Bim Afolami, the economic secretary of the British Treasury, said at the Global Summit on Innovative Finance that the British government plans to propose legislation for stablecoins and crypto asset pledges, exchanges and custody by June or July. Afolami said they are working hard to pass legislation to put their final recommendations to the regime in place. Once these legislations are online, a range of crypto asset activities, including operating exchanges and custody of customer assets, will come under regulatory jurisdiction for the first time.
● Reserve Bank of Fiji warns the public against using cryptocurrencies for payments or investments
According to PANews, the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) has issued a warning to the public against using cryptocurrencies for payment or investment. Fijian residents may even face criminal charges for investing in overseas cryptocurrencies using "funds held in Fiji." The RBF stated that no license has been issued to any person or entity to provide cryptocurrency investment or virtual asset trading.
● The first Sunset upgrade of BNB beacon chain mainnet was successful, and BSC Feynman hard fork will be launched on April 18
According to Odaily Planet Daily, the BNB Chain official website shows that the first Sunset upgrade of the BNB beacon chain mainnet has been successfully completed. The BSC Feynman hard fork will be launched at 5:49 UTC on April 18, launching local equity and governance. In addition, the second Sunset upgrade of the BNB beacon chain mainnet is expected to take place in June this year, and the last one is expected to take place at the end of June.
