🧘‍♂️What Next For Ethereum?

Dear Meditators

Crypto markets continued the second day of slide on Friday as bitcoin hovered above $40,000.

Today’s Meditations: 

• ETH Technical Analysis
• Cracking the SEC’s Diary of Deliberations 
• Axie Hackers Identified

⏰ Top Headlines

• Twitter Closes Down on Session as Musk Calls for Shareholder Vote
• President Biden announces former Ripple adviser as pick for Fed vice chair for supervision
• Central Bank of Portugal Grants Country’s First Crypto License to a Bank
• Emirates plans to launch NFTs and expand experiences in metaverse

? Keep Br-ETH-ing

ETH/USD

Macro Structure: As predicted, the price has come down to test the $3k level. This is the key level to hold. Bullish bias weakened by the loss of the 0.382 level.

Key Support: $3k.

Key Resistance: $3.6k.

Looking Forward: Next level after $3k is $2.4k. If we hold $3k, the next level is $3.6k.

? Cracking the SEC’s Diary of Deliberations 

The legal battle between the SEC and Ripple Labs is back in the headlines. The regulatory agency filed a suit against Ripple Labs offering in December of 2020 for allegedly conducting an unregistered securities sale. On April 11th, the judge in the case issued an order denying a motion filed by the SEC to reconsider granting privilege to emails and communications they have been ordered to produce. 

• Ripple’s defense rests on a speech in 2018 by a former director of the SEC, William Hinman.
• The SEC initially argued that this speech by a former director was based on his personal opinions and did not reflect the policy of the agency.
• When the defense requested emails and other communications regarding the June 14, 2018, speech of then-Director Hinman, the SEC argued that these documents should be shielded under the deliberative process privilege.
• The court ruled that the ‘privilege’ is only applicable to the deliberative process regarding policy and not the personal opinion of a former director. Since the SEC previously disclaimed the speech as policy, and the former director testified under oath that it was not meant to reflect agency policy, no privilege would apply and the documents must be produced.

If you are getting a sense of DeJa’Vu, don’t be alarmed. The court already ordered the SEC to produce these documents in a Jan 13, 2022 ruling. The SEC’s motion for reconsideration, seemingly annoyed the judge who pointed out that the standard for granting a motion for reconsideration is strict.

Although the XRP army is undoubtedly excited to pore through hours of emails and other documents, ruling the Hinman speech as personal opinion and not agency policy is disconcerting to many who at the time, viewed it as framework.

??‍ Axie Hackers Identified

The bad actors behind the Axie Infinity Ronin bridge hack have been identified by the U.S. Treasury Department in cooperation with the FBI. The North Korean hacking group Lazarus was allegedly responsible for the theft of over $600 million in cryptocurrency according to U.S. officials.

• Ethereum sidechain Ronin was compromised last month, resulting in the biggest cryptocurrency hack in history.
• An Ethereum address was added to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list Thursday. The sanctioned address has been labelled a “Ronin Bridge Exploiter” by Nansen, and CoinDesk independently confirmed the wallet’s connection to the Ronin exploit.
• A U.S. Treasury spokesperson said the department worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate the Lazarus Group as well as APT38 – another North Korean hacking group.
• North Korea’s cryptocurrency heists are an “important revenue source” for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs according to United Nations investigators.

Hacks and exploits are never good. If there is a silver lining surrounding this cloud, it’s that identifying guilty parties and effectively sanctioning flagged addresses should give regulators tangible evidence that cryptocurrencies are not impervious to scrutiny or magically untraceable solutions for criminals.

1. Watch our How to Get Rich Trading Crypto Course if you struggled with today’s technical section.
2. Read the following Technical Analysis guides for more insight:
   1. Moving Averages 
   2. Fibonacci Retracement  
   3. Volume and Open Interest

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??‍♂️✍️ Stories in this newsletter were written by D. Beverly, Kyle F., Max P., Nick T., Kimia K., Ellen B. and Koroush AK. Graphics were produced by Ellen B.

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