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First Mover Americas: BTC Post-Halving – Remember the Macroeconomy: Goldman Sachs
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for April 17, 2024.
Updated Apr 17, 2024, 12:04 p.m. Published Apr 17, 2024, 12:01 p.m.
This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter, putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
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Bitcoin's fourth mining-reward halving is just two days away. The quadrennial event will reduce BTC's per block emission to 3.125 BTC, cutting the pace of new supply by 50%. Previous halvings preceded massive multimonth rallies in BTC, and the crypto community is confident history will repeat itself. Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, however, cautioned its clients from reading too much into the past halving cycles. "Caution should be taken against extrapolating the past cycles and the impact of halving, given the respective prevailing macro conditions," Goldman's Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC) and Equities team said in a note to clients on April 12. The macroeconomic environment on those occasions differed from today's high inflation, high-interest rate climate.
According to broker Bernstein, the “miner fear factor” is at its peak ahead of the halving, and investors should buy outperform-rated Riot Platforms (RIOT) and CleanSpark (CLSK) because the market will reward these companies for their superior execution and for being market leaders by self-mining hashrate. Bernstein notes in a research report that mining stocks have continued to underperform bitcoin (BTC) year-to-date as the halving raised concerns over profitability once the rewards are slashed. The event is due around April 19-20. Hashrate refers to the total combined computational power that is being used to mine and process transactions on a proof-of-work blockchain. “Historically, bitcoin price breakout has always followed the halving event and sometimes a few months after halving,” analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra wrote.
U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) are taking another swing at crypto-specific legislation, with a narrowly tailored bill seeking to define how stablecoins – cryptocurrencies that maintain value with some other asset or currency – will operate in the U.S. The lawmakers unveiled a new stablecoin bill Wednesday in the latest effort to create legislation directly addressing this corner of the crypto market. Under their proposed bill, payment stablecoin issuers would have reserve and operational requirements, including needing to create subsidiaries specifically to issue stablecoins. The bill would also require stablecoin issuers to deal in dollar-backed tokens.
Chart of the Day
- The chart shows that while bitcoin's rally has stalled, the combined market cap of the top three stablecoins, USDT, USDC and DAI, has risen to a record $146 billion.
- The continued expansion in the supply of stablecoins, a proxy for liquidity, is a positive sign for the crypto market.
- Source: TradingView
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Exchange Review - March 2025
CoinDesk Data's monthly Exchange Review captures the key developments within the cryptocurrency exchange market. The report includes analyses that relate to exchange volumes, crypto derivatives trading, market segmentation by fees, fiat trading, and more.
What to know:
Trading activity softened in March as market uncertainty grew amid escalating tariff tensions between the U.S. and global trading partners. Centralized exchanges recorded their lowest combined trading volume since October, declining 6.24% to $6.79tn. This marked the third consecutive monthly decline across both market segments, with spot trading volume falling 14.1% to $1.98tn and derivatives trading slipping 2.56% to $4.81tn.
- Trading Volumes Decline for Third Consecutive Month: Combined spot and derivatives trading volume on centralized exchanges fell by 6.24% to $6.79tn in March 2025, reaching the lowest level since October. Both spot and derivatives markets recorded their third consecutive monthly decline, falling 14.1% and 2.56% to $1.98tn and $4.81tn respectively.
- Institutional Crypto Trading Volume on CME Falls 23.5%: In March, total derivatives trading volume on the CME exchange fell by 23.5% to $175bn, the lowest monthly volume since October 2024. CME's market share among derivatives exchanges dropped from 4.63% to 3.64%, suggesting declining institutional interest amid current macroeconomic conditions.
- Bybit Spot Market Share Slides in March: Spot trading volume on Bybit fell by 52.1% to $81.1bn in March, coinciding with decreased trading activity following the hack of the exchange's cold wallets in February. Bybit's spot market share dropped from 7.35% to 4.10%, its lowest since July 2023.
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What to know:
- Ethena's USDe becomes fifth stablecoin to surpass $10 billion market cap in just 609 days, while Tether's dominance continues to slip.
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