The BNB perpetual futures have dipped into bearish terrain with data from Coinglass indicating a slip in open interest and volume-weighted funding rates to -0.18%, the lowest since April’s end. Essentially, this signifies that shorts have taken precedence, signaling a prediction of a price drop. “BNB is being heavily shorted,” noted Huff Haus, co-founder of Pear Protocol, alluding to the intensely negative funding rates.
On the flip side, the native token of Decentralized Exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch (1INCH) saw its value escalate by over 58% giving birth to a trading volume of $597 million, its highest since October, 2021. Although the gain fell back considerably, the 1inch rally persisted despite the lack of an apparent catalyst. It is speculated that 1inch’s bullish momentum might be a ripple effect from XRP’s victory against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week, witnessed by substantial gains for altcoins like Solana’s (SOL), Cardano’s (ADA) and Polygon’s (MATIC).
Concurrently, the Bitcoin ecosystem experienced an unprecedented surge in hashrate, indicative of escalating miner competition ahead of the next halving event, according to a research report from JPMorgan. Scheduled to occur in Q2, 2024, the implications of this event are profound; the halving would slash mining rewards to 3.125 BTC from 6.25 BTC, effectively increasing Bitcoin’s production cost while reducing miner revenues. Analysts, led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, anticipate this to pose a significant challenge for bitcoin miners.
A noteworthy rise was also observed in the CELO token of EVM-compatible blockchain Celo, which soared by 7% and hit a two-week high of $0.59. This growth coincided with cLabs’ proposal of transitioning from an independent Layer-1 blockchain to an Ethereum Layer 2 solution, in an effort to streamline liquidity sharing between Ethereum and Celo, enhance security and foster an effortless developer experience. Once this transition is effected, the CELO token will continue its role as the native cryptocurrency and will be relied upon to cover gas fees.
While each of these developments represent exciting progress in their respective fields, they also underline the inherent dynamism and unpredictability of the crypto sphere, with oscillating fortunes often hinging on multifarious and unforeseen factors.
Source: Coindesk
