Gold is soaring to new highs as demand for precious metals intensifies. The yellow metal is testing critical resistance levels, moving ever closer to the psychological $2,500 mark. Despite the Relative Strength Index (RSI) nearing overbought territory, there remains ample room for further gains if favorable catalysts emerge. The market’s current momentum suggests that gold could continue its bullish trajectory, provided it maintains its upward trend.
In tandem with gold’s rally, silver is also making waves. The gold/silver ratio has retreated below the 84.00 level, sparking renewed interest in silver. Traders are keeping a keen eye on gold’s strong performance, which traditionally bodes well for silver. Should silver surpass the $31.00 level, it is poised to test resistance zones between $31.45 and $31.75. This potential breakout could signal further gains for silver, solidifying its bullish outlook.
Platinum, another key player in the precious metals arena, is also gaining traction. The metal’s recent upward movement aligns with the broader rally in precious metals markets. Additionally, palladium’s 1.9% increase is providing a bullish signal for platinum. If platinum manages to stabilize above the $1,000 level, it will likely face resistance at $1,020 to $1,030. This level of resistance will be crucial in determining platinum’s next directional move.
For those looking to stay informed about all the latest economic events and their potential impacts on the markets, be sure to check out our economic calendar.
As gold, silver, and platinum continue their impressive rallies, traders and investors should remain vigilant. The interplay between these metals and market conditions will be key in navigating the next phases of their price movements.
In a compelling conversation at Paris Blockchain Week, Pierre Samaties, the Chief Business Officer of the DFINITY Foundation, shares the bold vision behind the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP)—an infinitely scalable, fully decentralized infrastructure designed to power the next generation of Web3 applications.
From a breakthrough AI project dubbed the ‘Self-Writing Internet’ to protocol-level integrations with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and soon Solana, DFINITY is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in Web3. Samaties offers exclusive insights into how users will be able to build live, on-chain apps with nothing more than natural language prompts.
Samaties on the Internet Computer Protocol
DFINITY Foundation is the main contributor to the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). I take care of anything business-related, commercial-related, and product-related at DFINITY.
The Internet Computer community is growing significantly because it’s the only true world computer infrastructure where you can actually build a full end-to-end world computer stack, which means you have front end, back end, data, and everything on-chain. This is very attractive for many developers. If you read the Electric Capital report from last year, you see that ICP is the second fastest growing developer ecosystem, right behind Solana.
The Self-Writing Internet
We’re working on something which our founder and Chief Scientist, Dominic Williams, coined the ‘Self-Writing Internet.’ This enables anyone on this planet to use an AI interface, like a ChatGPT interface, where you prompt in natural language what kind of application you want to have built and deployed on-chain.
Not only is the AI returning the codes, but it is also returning a URL with the deployed application live on the internet computer in a matter of one to two minutes. And we’re obviously working to get this to chat speed. Not only that, you can actually update the application through prompting. That is a very big thing because this is another use case, finally, after DeFi.
A Web3 infrastructure is superior to a Web2 infrastructure, but you don’t need to tell anyone about it. People will just realize that this is a great thing. I can create my own app. If I’m an individual, an enterprise, or a startup, I can just get going with natural language. So this is a very big thing.
Users wouldn’t notice the difference between web2 and web3 because any application on the Internet Computer is accessed through a web browser. So for you, it would just feel like a normal web application, which by the way, I think should actually be the real goal of Web3. I think the problem with Web3 that we have today is that it always has its own extra thing on how to access it, and some UI issues. The key to adoption is really to make it as seamless as possible. And this is what that product is.
On ICP’s Integration into Key Blockchains
Another key feature of the Internet Computer is that it has a protocol-level integration with Bitcoin, with Ethereum, and in a few weeks with Solana, and others are following. On Bitcoin, it specifically allows everyone who’s building on the Internet Computer to interact, read, and write on Bitcoin. That is very interesting for Bitcoin builders. Bitcoin is a single-purpose blockchain, which is fantastic for what it does, but it’s very hard to build logic on top of it.
Given that we have this Chain Key Bitcoin Integration, many builders – and we have over 40 different projects from the Bitcoin community – are using ICP tech to build true Bitcoin DeFi and Bitcoin Web3 applications. You can use the main chain with the most liquidity, with the best trust assumption we have for Web3 and DeFi applications.
There is a “canister,” which is our term for smart contracts on Twitter. It is a full-stack canister that can read and write Bitcoin. This means you can build the logic in everything that you want to do on ICP, smart contracts, and stiffer applications, but you immediately interact with Bitcoin.
The other important key element is that we have a digital twin of Bitcoin that is cryptographically secured on the Bitcoin mainnet, living on the Internet Computer. It’s called CkBTC and it allows for Bitcoin transactions with one-second finality, plus only 10 sets of transaction fees. That allows projects like Odin.fun, that aims to create a centralized exchange feeling on a decentralized infrastructure with Bitcoin.
Whenever you convert a mainnet Bitcoin to a CK Bitcoin, it automatically locks the Bitcoin on the mainnet. And there is no central bridge that can be rug-pulled or hacked or exploited, which makes CkBTC the most secure way to have Bitcoin outside of the mainnet.
ICP’s Scalable Infrastructure Deflationary Model
ICP is probably one of the most ambitious projects in the entire Web3 industry. This is also why DFINITY has one of the largest R&D teams in Web3, and we spend most of our funds on R&D. But what our team has actually created is something really marvelous. It is a well-configured infrastructure that is already infinitely scalable because it scales horizontally.
The mainnet has been live since 2021. We run around 500+ applications already on the Internet Computer, including entire social media platforms. There is a WhatsApp telegram clone called OpenChat with around 20,000 users already. And scalability is not a problem. The system has been designed for scalability. Think about it: if you have an undertaking to create a true world computer, you make very intelligent choices about scalability.
As I mentioned, it is horizontal scalability. We don’t have a gas model but a reverse gas model. Now, all of us feel the pain of second-generation blockchains that have this gas model, where you always need to top up in order to do transactions. The Internet Computer has to build from scratch on a first-principle approach.
This is what we call a reverse gas model. As a user, you will not be obliged to pay gas fees because we think that kills adoption. Instead, we have a model that is pretty much the same as we have in web2 today. If you host your application on Amazon, you would pay Amazon for your cloud computing space. This is exactly the same logic on the Internet Computer.
If you’re a developer, you pay for compute cycles, and you pay for these compute cycles in ICP, and this ICP is burnt. This also means the more computing is happening on the Internet Computer, the more deflationary the tokenomics are.
ICP’s Deflationary Model
I can’t comment on prices, but we already had a few days in the last six months where the network became deflationary because of a significant network activity of a few projects that have been deployed. This leads us to believe that we might reach a sustainable deflationary state way before we predicted it initially.
But again, time will tell, and the self-running internet is also going to be a key catalyst, because every application that you can deploy will obviously run on ICP. It will need to pay for its compute cycles, which is very cheap by the way, probably the cheapest in the industry. That will further add to some type of deflationary elements.
About Developing on ICP
As long as the self-writing internet is not out, you will not be able to use AI for prototyping. But once that’s out, maybe relatively soon, you can just prototype with that. If you are a project and you have already figured out the architecture and your idea, you can just contact our dedicated growth team, which is led by my colleague Lomesh.
The growth team will help you with everything from onboarding you to the Internet Computer, reviewing your projects, and potentially also supporting me with some grants.
Expectations at Paris Blockchain Week
For me, the real benefit of these conferences is to have face-to-face discussions. As always, we have a lot of online meetings and so on. But I think the value of this is really to have here a lot of people, in particular, every European leader of the industry.
So we can have just good discussions, and we can just get things done. Still, we are a trustless industry in a sense, we want to achieve trustless, but face-to-face discussion is still very important to build trust. That’s what I’m trying to achieve here.
The Solana-based meme coin FARTCOIN has emerged as an unlikely outperformer over the past month. The altcoin has defied the broader market troubles and surged by nearly 250% in the past 30 days.
However, buyer exhaustion could soon set in, potentially triggering a wave of profit-taking among FARTCOIN holders eager to lock in gains.
FARTCOIN Enters Overbought Zone
FARTCOIN’s triple-digit rally has pushed its price above the upper band of its Bollinger Bands (BB) indicator, a sign that the meme coin is overbought.
The BB indicator identifies overbought or oversold conditions and measures an asset’s price volatility. It consists of three lines: a simple moving average (middle band) and two bands (upper and lower) representing standard deviations above and below the moving average.
When the price breaks above the upper band, it means the asset’s current value is moving significantly away from its average, making it overbought and due for a price correction.
This pattern suggests that FARTCOIN’s current price level may not be sustainable, increasing the likelihood of a near-term pullback.
Moreover, readings from the token’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) confirm its nearly overbought status. At press time, this momentum indicator rests at 69.09.
The RSI indicator measures an asset’s overbought and oversold market conditions. It ranges between 0 and 100. Values above 70 suggest that the asset is overbought and due for a price decline, while values under 30 indicate that the asset is oversold and may witness a rebound.
At 69.09, FARTCOIN’s RSI signals that the meme coin is nearly overbought. Its upward momentum may be weakening, and a price correction could be near.
Will It Hit $1.16 or Slip Back to $0.37?
If the current momentum fades, FARTCOIN could face a short-term correction that causes it to shed some recent gains. In that scenario, the Solana-based asset could retest support at $0.74.
Should it fail to hold, the downtrend strengthens and could continue toward $0.37.
Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering below the $94,000 level while still showing sensitivity to US economic indicators. Accordingly, this week’s US economic data could spark volatility in the crypto market.
From consumer confidence to labor market strength, economic indicators could influence sentiment and sway crypto prices.
US Economic Data To Watch This Week
The following US economic indicators could affect the portfolios of crypto market traders and investors.
“Let me try to help you make sense of everything that’s going on: Tariff madness, plunging consumer confidence, rising recession odds, market fragility and all the ways that the economy will shape your life,” economist Justin Wolfers remarked.
Consumer Confidence
The Consumer Confidence report will start the list of US economic indicators with crypto implications this week. On Tuesday, April’s Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index will show whether households are optimistic about financial conditions.
March’s 92.9 index signaled a relatively pessimistic outlook among US consumers concerning the economy and their financial situation.
According to data on MarketWatch, the median forecast is 87.4. Strong confidence often correlates with risk-on sentiment, driving investment into Bitcoin and altcoins.
Accordingly, reading below expectations might trigger profit-taking, denting confidence in the economy’s overall strength.
With global trade tensions, an unexpected decline could amplify safe-haven demand for Bitcoin, though volatility remains a risk.
“The soft data suggests that the hard data is set to fall. Consumer Confidence can lead the unemployment rate (inverted). If that ends up being the case this time around, we’re looking at around 6% or higher,” wrote Markets and Mayhem.
JOLTS Job Openings
This week, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLT), which tracks demand, adds to the list of US economic indicators.
The last JOLTS report was released on April 1, covering February 2025 data. It reported job openings at 7.6 million, hires at 5.4 million, and total separations at 5.3 million. The next JOLTS report, for March 2025, is due on Tuesday, with a median forecast of 7.4 million.
A rebound above 7.6 million for crypto could signal economic resilience, boosting risk assets like Bitcoin. Strong openings suggest hiring confidence, potentially increasing disposable income for crypto investments.
However, a weaker-than-expected figure, potentially below the median forecast of 7.4 million, might stoke recession fears. Such an outcome would drive investors toward Bitcoin as a hedge.
Crypto markets react to labor market signals as they influence Federal Reserve (Fed) policy expectations. With rates at 4.25%–4.5%, a tight labor market could delay cuts, pressuring speculative assets.
ADP Employment
The ADP National Employment Report tracks private-sector job growth and will be out on Wednesday. March 2025’s 155,000 jobs beat expectations, signaling labor market strength despite tariff concerns.
A strong reading above 160,000 for crypto could ignite bullish sentiment, as job growth fuels consumer spending and risk appetite. If employment data suggests economic expansion, Bitcoin could gain more upside potential.
However, a miss below the March reading of 155,000 or below the median forecast of 110,000 might spark fears of a slowdown. This could push investors toward stablecoins or Bitcoin as safe havens.
Unlike the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Non-farm Payrolls (NFP), ADP’s payroll-based methodology excludes government jobs. This methodology offers a granular view.
With markets eyeing Fed policy, ADP’s outcome will set the tone for Friday’s NFP.
Q1 GDP
The advance estimate for Q1 2025 GDP will be released on Wednesday. This data also measures economic growth.
Q3 2024’s 2.8% annualized rate fell short of expectations, pressured by trade deficits. Meanwhile, Q4 2024’s 2.4% reading came following a downward revision to imports.
Strong GDP growth above 3% in crypto signals economic health, often boosting Bitcoin as investors embrace risk. Nevertheless, crypto markets are sensitive to GDP revisions and influence Fed rate decisions.
With inflation concerns lingering, a strong GDP, higher than Q4’s 2.4%, might reduce rate-cut hopes, pressuring speculative cryptos. Conversely, sluggish growth could spur expectations of monetary easing.
PCE
The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge is the Core PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) Price Index. This US economic indicator, covering March, will come out on Wednesday this week after the March 28 data covering February.
After February 2025 saw a 2.5% year-over-year (YoY) PCE index, economists anticipate a modest drop to 2.2% for March, reflecting persistent price pressures.
Nevertheless, a PCE reading below 2.5% for Bitcoin could signal cooling inflation, raising hopes for rate cuts and boosting sentiment toward Bitcoin.
A hotter-than-expected figure above the previous reading of 2.5% might tighten Fed policy expectations. PCE’s exclusion of volatile food and energy prices offers a stable inflation view, making it a key driver of crypto sentiment.
With markets sensitive to monetary policy shifts, traders should monitor services spending, as it reflects consumer resilience. Nevertheless, volatility is likely, as PCE shapes the Fed’s rhetoric.
“March PCE inflation (out on Wed Apr 30) should read 2.1% (rounded). April PCE (out in late May) should read 2.0% (rounded). Tariffs are a boss but this is the Fed’s target measure. It could be time to cut, to be honest, politics aside,” wrote hedge fund manager Ophir Gottlieb.
Initial Jobless Claims
This week, the Initial Jobless Claims, reported every Thursday, adds to the list of US economic indicators. This data measures weekly unemployment filings. Claims are a high-frequency indicator, offering real-time labor market insights, and crypto markets often react swiftly to surprises.
For the week ending April 18, 222,000 claims indicated a steady labor market despite tariff chaos. Accordingly, claims below 222,000 could signal growing employment, fostering risk-on sentiment, and lifting Bitcoin.
However, higher claims above 222,000 could spark concerns of economic softening, driving investors to stablecoins or Bitcoin for safety. With the Fed closely monitoring labor data, an unexpected spike might fuel rate-cut speculation.
Non-farm Payrolls
The Non-farm Payrolls (NFP) report will be released on Friday. March 2025’s 228,000-job gain exceeded expectations, with unemployment at 4.2%.
A strong NFP could drive bullish momentum, as job growth signals consumer spending power. A weak report below the median forecast of 130,000 might trigger recession fears, pushing capital to Bitcoin as a hedge or stablecoins for stability.
NFP’s broad scope, covering 80% of GDP-contributing workers, makes it a market mover. Key interest will also be on wage growth, as 0.3% monthly increases suggest inflation pressures, potentially capping crypto gains.
With markets pricing in Fed policy, surprises could spark sharp volatility.
