[Daily] Is Litecoin the real silver?

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. North Korean crypto hackers have taken self-reliance to a whole new level. These cyber criminals steal crypto, sell it to buy mining equipment, and then mine more crypto using the hardware. Cost savings, apparently. 🙄

As of Wednesday, 7PM IST

The markets recovered from the CFTC tremors. Bitcoin saw active buying from investors. Ethereum gained amidst the buzz around withdrawals post the Shanghai upgrade. S&P 500 and Nasdaq were bullish on gains in technology stocks. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended higher on a rally in the Asian stock markets.

Litecoin Gets A Boost

Amidst the chaos around US regulators suing CZ, Litecoin emerged as a silent winner. The crypto token was termed a commodity in the regulator’s lawsuit, a factor that has helped LTC rally.

So what?ICYMI, commodities regulator CFTC and securities regulator SEC are in a race to regulate crypto. The outcome of the race will decide the future of crypto. Here’s a quick rundown of the cold war:

1. CFTC and SEC have agreed that BTC is a commodity, but are divided on Ethereum’s status.

2. The SEC has ignored Litecoin so far, but CFTC has classified it as a commodity.

Litecoin will be considered more valuable if CFTC officially adds the token to its list of commodities, which includes gold and silver.

Whales are inThese implications have probably attracted the attention of moneybags. Data showed that transactions worth $100,000 and above rose by 23% since the lawsuit.

Any blips?There is a decrease in daily active addresses trading LTC since the second week of March. A technical metric called MVRV Ratio also indicated that the token was overvalued. But most of the HOLDers are old-timers who are unlikely to sell.

With Litecoin’s halving scheduled for mid-2023, the $100 dreams are well intact.

Miners Sink But HODLers HODL

Bitcoin miners are under pressure. Profits have dipped and operational costs are up. Even though BTC has rallied over ~40% in the past two weeks, it won’t be enough.

Is there a way out?MicroStrategy may offer a few answers. The company bought 6,455 BTC between February 16 and March 23 for $161 million. With that, it HODLs 138,955 BTC worth ~$4.14 billion.

More investors have joined the BTC network. Glassnode data showed that wallets HODLing >1 BTC have hit a new peak of 990,449. That ignites hopes of a sustained rally. The longer you hold and the more the token rises, the more profit you can book. It’s never a bad idea.

Dorsey’s Spiral = Good News BTC?

No, Jack Dorsey is not spiralling. His company, Block, has funded Spiral. And this looks good, especially for Bitcoin.

It’s like LightningSo there's this thing called the Lightning Development Kit (LDK). It’s seen as the way to make Bitcoin payments cheaper, faster, and more scalable. How, you ask? Well, that’s a complex thing to explain fully. But the team behind the LDK hosted a Twitter Spaces to show their progress. LDK is a project of Spiral.

So what’s the big deal?Just the fact that if the LDK succeeds, Bitcoin payments could finally scale. And go mainstream. It’s not smooth yet, but it's getting there. So, if there’s cash going to make these magical things happen, better for Bitcoin.

ICYMI, things have actually been spiralling for Dorsey’s Block. Short-seller Hindenburg Research took aim at Block last week for facilitating criminal activity. A little bit of spiralling then.

Bored Apes Has Game

Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), wants to expand its NFTs universe. Or metaverse. It has now unveiled a 2D game called Legends of Mara.

Do I see a use case?Remember the Otherside? We don’t blame you if you don’t. The metaverse has too much going on to remember everything. It’s Yuga Labs’ metaverse. And the company has been hard at work to make its ugly ape NFTs useful beyond their unexplainable popularity.

The game?But we digress. Coming back to Legends of Mara. It takes off from the second trip to Otherside, where people could collect Otherdeed, NFTs linked to the land in Otherside. The game allows Otherdeed holders and players to claim a free NFT and discover its potential. Yeah, we’re thinking what you are. That’s too many NFTs crammed in this small space. Well played, Yuga.

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