Bitcoin Fights for $80K, Strategy Posts Big Q1 Loss, Coinbase Cuts Jobs: Your Weekly Crypto Recap

It was another eventful week in the cryptocurrency space on the heels of the decisions made by the US Federal Reserve and the ECB to maintain the interest rates unchanged days prior.

Despite BTC’s short-term price dip to under $75,000 after the third FOMC meeting of the year on April 29, the cryptocurrency rebounded swiftly and actually went on an impressive roll. At first, it remained stable during the weekend, even though Washington rejected two peace proposals sent by Iran.

Moreover, bitcoin soared to over $80,000 on Monday morning for the first time in over three months, before it was halted and pushed south to under $78,400 after some confusing reports that Iran had attacked a US Navy vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. As the reports were refuted shortly after, BTC rebounded once again to $80,800 and eventually beyond.

The rally continued for a couple more days and peaked at $82,800 on Wednesday. This became bitcoin’s highest price tag since late January and meant that the asset had added roughly $8,000 since last Wednesday’s dip to below $75,000.

However, multiple analysts warned that this run is unsustainable and BTC could reverse its trajectory soon, which is precisely what happened on Thursday and mostly on Friday. Bitcoin lost the $80,000 support and now trades inches below it, but it’s still slightly in the green on a weekly scale.

Some altcoins have performed even better, but none is more impressive than ZEC. Zcash has risen by more than 60% weekly, followed by ONDO’s 48% pump, and WLFI’s 32% jump.

Market Data

Cryptocurrency Market Overview Weekly May 8. Source: QuantifyCrypto

Market Cap: $2.73T | 24H Vol: $103B | BTC Dominance: 58.4%

BTC: $79,600 (+1.3%) | ETH: $2,270 (-1.8%) | XRP: $1.39 (-0.8%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Wall Street Giant Morgan Stanley Enters Crypto Race With Pricing Edge: Report. The behemoth US bank, which has been a crypto supporter for a long time, is reportedly set to introduce digital asset trading on its E*Trade platform. It plans to compete on lower costs compared to rivals, and will initially allow clients to trade BTC, ETH, and SOL.

Strategy Posts $12.5B Q1 Loss as BTC Prices Weigh on Results. The Saylor-led company didn’t disclose a BTC purchase last week, but posted its Q1 results, which were quite bleak to say the least. It reported a net loss of over $12.5 billion, largely due to a $14.5 billion unrealized loss from poor BTC prices.

Coinbase Slashes Jobs by 14% to Become ‘Lean, Fast, AI-Native’. In line with some of its rivals, such as Crypto.com and Gemini, the largest US-based crypto exchange also announced a substantial staff layoff earlier this week. It reduced its workforce by around 14% as it focuses on more AI integrations.

Bitcoin Shoots Past $82K, Fuels Altseason Speculation. Bitcoin’s rally to new multi-month highs was followed by even more impressive price pumps from several alts, such as ZEC, TON, WLFI, and others. This led to immediate speculations about a potential altseason, but the following few days didn’t support this narrative.

Crypto Exchange Bullish Strikes $4.2B Deal to Acquire Equiniti. The popular cryptocurrency exchange revealed earlier this week that it’s all set to acquire Equiniti, a global transfer agent. The press release informed that the agreed amount for the deal is a whopping $4.2 billion.

WLFI Lawsuit Sparks Response: Justin Sun Calls It ‘Meritless’. The relationship between Justin Sun and the Trump-based World Liberty Financial project has deteriorated over the past few weeks, leading to a couple of lawsuits. The first was initiated by the Tron founder, while the DeFi protocol responded with its own earlier this week, which Sun called “meritless.”

Charts

This week, we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid – click here for the complete price analysis.