In our May 2024 Finance Bridge, we look at Bitcoin's halving and recent market self-off, Ethereum's staking debates, and key trends, providing insights about the market direction for institutional traders.

For months Bitcoiners have been bitterly debating the Ordinals phenomenon and the large amount of trading activity and congestion they brought to the chain.

Liquid staking has become one of the largest sectors in DeFi, with over $44B in TVL. Restaking, and by extension liquid restaking, have also grown at an exponential rate, with restaking representing approximately $14.6B in TVL (of which $9.5B is in liquid restaking form).

If you’re an artist or creator, ensuring your work can withstand the test of time is one of the most important things you can do. NFT.Storage enables you to do just that thanks to the power of the Filecoin network and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The process starts with generating a Content Identifier (CID).

The latest data from cryptocurrency research and analysis company Kaiko shows that miners are facing huge selling pressure as Bitcoin mining revenue and transaction fees decline. Bitcoin miners' income mainly comes from two aspects: mining rewards and transaction fees. However, affected by the halving of Bitcoin rewards in April (block rewards dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC), miners have to sell Bitcoin to pay for costs. Kaiko researchers pointed out in the report that the halving event usually prompts miners to sell BTC because the mining process requires a lot of expenses.

According to Kaiko Research, the correlation between Bitcoin (BTC) and stocks is increasing. After reaching a multi-year low of 0.01 in March, the 90-day correlation rose to 0.17 last week. Based on the company's research report on May 13th, the 90-day correlation between Bitcoin and stocks rose to 0.17 in the week of May 5th, higher than the multi-year low of 0.01 in March. The correlation between BTC and risk assets is lower than the high of 0.6 during the bull market.

First inflows in 5 weeks totalling US$130m, hesitant Ethereum investors

According to Defi Llama data, there is approximately $48.05 million in on-chain liquidation volume for Ethereum around $2,778.

On May 13th, according to DefiLlama data, there is approximately $48.05 million in on-chain loan liquidation volume for Ethereum around $2778.