Bitcoin’s renewed inflows, a major Ethereum staking move and a critical PHP vulnerability were among the key developments in the cryptocurrency market this week.
CryptoQuant chief executive Ki Young Ju said Bitcoin’s latest capital-flow data resembled patterns seen during previous bull markets. The comments came as fresh exchange-traded fund inflows provided a bullish signal for the market.
As institutional ownership becomes a larger part of the Bitcoin market, ETFs are expected to remain an important source of buying liquidity. A sustained rise in inflows could become a significant technical indicator for a prolonged bull run.
Uniswap also expanded the potential sources of revenue for its UNI token-burning mechanism by routing liquidity from rival decentralised exchanges (DEXs).
The platform’s update brings liquidity from Curve, Fluid, PancakeSwap V3 and Slipstream into the system. The move means Uniswap can use activity from competing DEXs to support the burning of UNI tokens.
The development was described as another step towards giving UNI a viable value-accrual model, with Uniswap continuing to seek ways to link wider market activity to the token.
Bitmine, the company associated with Tom Lee, staked a further 159,728 ETH during the week. The holding was valued at about $390.6 million, taking the proportion of the company’s treasury deployed in staking to 86.5%.
Lee’s commitment to Ethereum has been described as one of the biggest bets in crypto history. Michael Saylor and Strategy have committed more money in dollar terms to Bitcoin, but the Ethereum position is considered a higher-risk investment.
Lee’s “base case” for ETH during the current cycle is $22,000, equivalent to about nine times current prices.
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz removed the word “crypto” from the name of its $9.8bn dedicated cryptocurrency investment arm. The business is being rebranded as Frontier.
The change was interpreted by some as a bearish signal for the sector or an attempt by a16z to distance itself from crypto. An alternative view is that crypto technology is increasingly being absorbed into infrastructure designed to make businesses more efficient.
That approach places greater emphasis on investing in companies using crypto technology, rather than focusing only on crypto assets, and is becoming more common in venture capital.
Cybersecurity concerns also emerged after a critical flaw in PHP affected internet-facing systems. Coinbase and BitGo said they were unaffected, while Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao urged caution. Bitget Wallet was also among the major crypto companies assessing its exposure.
The vulnerability affects businesses running unpatched websites rather than cryptographically secured technology itself. The available assessment indicated that no crypto business or crypto asset had been affected by the PHP flaw.
