Spring’s a time of revival, of new life. Of hope and rebirth. We’ll be taking a short break, but hope to be back soon.

And maybe this Spring will be crypto’s revival. The land of Bitcoin Spot ETF milk & honey proved to be kind of a let-down. We haven’t given up hope.

So, could Ethereum pick up Bitcoin’s dropped torch and provide investors with some Olympic gains?

Espresso Shots

☕️ Buterin’s AI Warnings 🚨

Vitalik Buterin took the time to warn the public of the hazards of mixing crypto and AI, in a blog post published Tuesday.

Buterin, a gamer to his core, divided the relationship between AI and crypto into four potential situations.

“AI as a player in the game [highest viability]”

“AI as an interface to the game [high potential, but with risks]”

“AI as the rules of the game [tread very carefully]”

“AI as the objective of the game [longer-term but intriguing]”

Buterin, cool and calculated as always, seemed more intrigued by the potential of the collision of these industries than fearful of calamity, but he ended the post with one last warning that the whole venture “is worth treading carefully.”

“Tread Carefully on Me” will also inevitably become the slogan on the snake flag for the AI libertarian movement.

☕️ The Abracadabra Attack 🪄 🎩

Abracadabra Finance, a Defi protocol, suffered a hack on Tuesday and was drained of approximately $6.4 million.

The attacker took advantage of a flaw in the program’s smart contract and manipulated a rounding error to make off with millions.

In the hours after the hack, Abracadabra’s stablecoin, Magic Internet Money (MIM) briefly depegged at below $.70, but has since shot back up to $.96.

Despite recent events, hackers still remain Abracadabra Finance’s second deadliest predator, after rogue magicians.

Spilling the Beans

All Eyes on ETH 👀

Yeah, yeah, we feel like we’ve been moping recently, kicking dust because the Bitcoin Spot ETFs didn’t turn out like we hoped.

But our spirits, like the crypto market, are resilient. We don’t think it’s naivete that keeps us looking for the next big opportunity, but deep-seated optimism and crypto bullishness.

That’s why when we start thinking about the next, biggest gains of 2024, our eyes are turning from Bitcoin to the east, to Ethereum’s new dawn.

Ethereum Spot ETFs may be coming this May and this could be just the jumpstart that the crypto market needs.

Now, we know what you’re thinking. This is just Charlie Brown lining up to kick Lucy’s football, no matter how many times she pulls it at the last minute and he eats shit.

But even accounting for the short-term drop that followed the Bitcoin Spot ETF approval, the market enthusiasm leading up to it was nothing short of a bull run and put Bitcoin back, comfortably in the $40,000 range.

And with that familiarity, an Ethereum bull run is almost assured. That is, if the analysts at Standard Chartered Bank are to be believed.

Geoff Kendrick, head of research at Standard Chartered, and his team of analysts believe that Ethereum will swing up 70% in the coming months, surpassing Bitcoin’s performance and comfortably settling in the $4,000 range. 

Should we be wary of another, “buy the rumor, sell the news” market event? Yes.

But Bitcoin’s pre-action was nothing to sniff at and we’d like to see the same performance, in a fun, new Ethereum flavor.

And yes, expect delays, because this is the SEC we’re dealing with, but the approval of the Ethereum Spot ETFs may be even more assured than Bitcoin’s chances ever were.

As the analysts at Standard Chartered wrote, there’s “no fundamental reason” that the SEC should treat Ethereum differently than Bitcoin.

"Grayscale also has an ETH trust that it wants to turn into an ETF, so a denial of that application would likely lead to another appeal by Grayscale," wrote Kendrick, as reported by The Block. "we see no fundamental reason for the SEC to view ETH differently than the CME already does."

Additionally, Ethereum futures are already listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Ethereum was not one of the 67 cryptocurrencies listed as potential securities in the SEC’s case against Ripple.

We’ve been “betting on Bitcoin” for so long, that maybe it’s time to start “egging on Ethereum.”

The Last Sip

Vitalik Buterin also warned bachelors of the dangers of mixing lights and darks as he looked forlornly at his newly pink Blizzcon 2023 t-shirt.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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