XRP Breakout Signals Fresh Bull Run Could be Underway

Bitcoin ETFs continued their inflow streak on Wednesday, raking in over $900 million in fresh capital. 

However, despite the bullish ETF demand, Bitcoin’s open interest has dipped, and its funding rates have flipped negative, a sign that short-term market sentiment may be shifting. 

Bitcoin ETFs Stay Hot

BTC spot ETFs continued to draw investor interest on Wednesday, extending their inflow streak with another $916.91 million in net inflows. 

This marked the fourth consecutive day of inflows, highlighting the growing institutional appetite for BTC exposure, especially as the coin’s price attempts to stabilize above the $90,000 level.

On Wednesday, BlackRock’s ETF IBIT recorded the largest daily net inflow, totaling $643.16 million, bringing its total cumulative net inflows to $40.63 billion.

Ark Invest and 21Shares’ ETF ARKB followed in second place with a net inflow of $129.50 million. The ETF’s total historical net inflows now stand at $3 billion.

Traders Exit Bitcoin Positions as Market Sentiment Turns Cautious

Trading activity across the crypto market has dipped over the past 24 hours, with the total market capitalization shedding $18 billion during the period. 

This pullback has contributed to a modest 1% decline in BTC’s price. The drop in momentum is evident in the coin’s falling futures open interest, which signals reduced trading participation. At press time, BTC’s futures open interest is at $64.54 billion, plunging by 5% in the past day.

When an asset’s price and open interest plummet like this, it signals that traders are closing out positions rather than opening new ones. This combination reflects weak conviction and a potential trend reversal or deeper correction in the BTC market.

Further, BTC’s funding rate has flipped negative once again, indicating that short traders have regained dominance and are now paying to maintain their positions. At press time, this is at -0.0053%. 

When BTC’s funding rate is negative, short sellers are paying long holders to keep their positions open. This indicates that bearish sentiment dominates the market and suggests that traders expect the coin’s price to decline soon.

Moreover, today’s high demand for puts in the BTC options market supports this bearish outlook. According to Deribit, BTC’s put-to-call ratio is currently at 1.36.

This indicates that more put options are traded than calls, suggesting a bearish bias among options traders. The ratio reflects growing expectations of downward price movement.

The post Institutional Inflows vs. Retail Retreat: Who’s Driving Bitcoin Now? | ETF News appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Alex Mashinsky faces up to 20 years in jail as the US DoJ (Department of Justice) pursues the Celsius founder and former CEO for orchestrating a years-long campaign of lies and self-dealing.

Prosecutors are pushing for such an extreme punishment, citing Mashinsky as an example of the repercussions of crypto misconduct.  

CEL Token Soars 70% Amid Mashinsky’s 20-Year Sentence Risk

The US DoJ issued the request in a sentencing memo filed on Monday, April 28, asking the court for a 20-year jail term for Alex Mashinsky.  

The prosecution calls Mashinsky out for “deliberate, calculated” fraud, which resulted in the loss of almost $7 billion in customer funds.  

Despite this report, CEL, the powering token for the Celsius Network, is up by over 70%. As of this writing, data on CoinGecko shows CEL was trading for $0.1507.

This request comes five months after Mashinsky’s guilty plea, following fraud charges, including CEL token market manipulation, and avoiding a January trial. Commodities fraud and price manipulation were among the schemes linked to Celsius’s collapse.

According to the DoJ, while Mashinsky pled guilty, he still refuses to accept responsibility. Instead, he is reportedly shifting blame to regulators, market conditions, and even his victims.

“Mashinsky’s crimes were not the product of negligence, naivete, or bad luck. They were the result of deliberate, calculated decisions to lie, deceive, and steal in pursuit of personal fortune,” the DoJ contends.

Meanwhile, this case traces back to July 2023 when the US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) sued Celsius and Mashinsky. The securities regulator cited the two defendants for:

• Misrepresentation of the central business model and risks to investors.
• Misrepresentation of financial success.
• Misrepresentation of the safety of customers’ assets on the Celsius platform.
• Market manipulation of Celsius (CEL) tokens 

Beyond the DoJ and SEC, other agencies, including the CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission), FTC (Federal Trade Commission), and the US Government, had also filed similar charges against Celsius and Mashinsky.

“SEC, DOJ, CFTC, and FTC all sued/charged Celsius and Mashinsky in the past hour. Rough day,” db reported at the time.

Notably, this happened a year after Mashinsky stepped down as CEO of Celsius. Over the years, a key highlight in the case includes Mashinsky claiming to have withdrawn $10 million ahead of the platform’s bankruptcy.

Notwithstanding, the judge froze his assets and recently turned down his request to dismiss fraud charges.

Meanwhile, efforts to make victims whole have included unstaking the platform’s Ethereum (ETH) holdings. In January 2024, Celsius informed its followers on social media that it was working to compensate victims.

“The significant unstaking activity in the next few days will unlock ETH to ensure timely distributions to creditors,” read the post.

More recently, Celsius announced the second payout to creditors, citing $127 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and US dollars based on eligibility.

Mashinsky’s sentencing is set for Thursday, May 8. If the court agrees to the US DoJ’s push for a 20-year sentence, Alex Mashinsky would have received a lesser sentence than FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) 25-year jail term.

The post Celsius Founder Alex Mashinsky Faces 20 Years in Jail, But CEL Token Soars 70% appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Ethereum, the world’s leading blockchain platform, will deploy the Pectra upgrade on its mainnet, scheduled for rollout on May 7, 2025.

The Pectra upgrade enhances the network’s performance and scalability and introduces groundbreaking features, particularly with EIP-7702, making Ethereum more user-friendly and secure.

Ethereum Pectra Upgrade Timeline Confirmed

Tim Beiko, a key figure in Ethereum’s development team, announced on X that the Pectra upgrade will officially launch on the mainnet on May 7, 2025, at epoch 364032. Initially planned for April 30, the upgrade was delayed due to technical issues on the testnet.

This cautious approach shows Ethereum’s commitment to stability and security, ensuring seamless network operation post-upgrade. Coinbase has also begun preparations to support the upgrade, ensuring necessary updates are implemented promptly after Pectra’s launch.

Pectra is Ethereum’s most significant upgrade, incorporating 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). It builds on major upgrades like Dencun (March 2024), focusing on improving Layer 2 (L2) scalability, optimizing validator experiences, and enhancing user-friendliness.

These changes solidify Ethereum’s leadership while laying the groundwork for decentralized applications (dApps) to thrive.

Tim Beiko: Key Highlights of the Pectra Upgrade

Tim Beiko tweeted an overview of the upcoming Pectra update, with some notable highlights. One of Pectra’s standout features is EIP-7702, which extends standard Ethereum accounts (EOAs) with smart contract functionality.

“EIP-7702 enables use cases like transaction batching, gas sponsorship, or social recovery, all without migrating your assets” Tim tweeted.

Pectra also introduces several improvements for validators. Validators can increase their effective balance up to 2048 ETH, allowing them to accrue staking rewards directly without creating additional validators. Large validators can consolidate balances, reducing bandwidth strain on the P2P network.

“It also removes the pre-merge PoW follow distance, shortening the delay to process validator deposits, and introduces execution-layer triggerable withdrawals, which enable more trustless staking constructions.” Tim shared.

The Pectra upgrade will double the average number of blobs per block, from 3 to 6. This increase will enable L2 solutions to scale faster, meeting growing market demands. It’s a critical step in Ethereum’s scalability roadmap, especially as L2 platforms like Arbitrum and Optimism continue to grow.

“Raising this limit was in part possible due to another EIP (7623), which bounds the worst-case block sizes on the network!’ Tim tweeted.

Significance for the Ethereum Ecosystem

Pectra is a strategic leap forward for Ethereum to maintain its dominance in the blockchain space. By increasing blob capacity and improving validator efficiency, Ethereum can handle more transactions per second, fostering dApp growth and attracting new users.

These changes will better position Ethereum to meet future demands while providing an infrastructure for developers.

The Pectra upgrade has garnered positive feedback from the Ethereum community. In Tim Beiko’s announcement, some X users expressed excitement. However, one user noted the need for better public education, stating, “Too bad 99% of people have no idea what that means.”

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