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CoinDesk Weekly Recap: Bitcoin Holds Steady Amid Market Turmoil

It was a dreadful week for the stock market, with the S&P 500 falling more than 6% over the last five days. That didn’t help Bitcoin, but the original cryptocurrency fared better than the wider market, rising over 1% in the same period. The Nasdaq had one of its largest falls in 25 years Thursday, but Bitcoin held relatively steady (CoinDesk’s James Van Straten reported ) even if now it’s nowhere near the highs above 100,000 that we saw at the beginning of the year. The big question for bitcoin amid market uncertainty is whether it’s seen as a risk asset to be sold off in a storm or a safe haven akin to gold (which until the last 24 hours at least was doing well relative to the market ). The impact of tariffs on crypto is much debated by researchers. Meanwhile, the digital assets industry prepared for better days ahead. Circle — the issuer of the second largest stablecoin, USDC — officially filed for an IPO . An important U.S. House committee advanced its stablecoin bill , with significant Democrat support. Fidelity Investments, a major brokerage firm, announced plans to offer an IRA allowing investors direct access to crypto in their retirement accounts. Helene Braun had the news. Advisers are increasingly willing to promote crypto products to their clients, surveys show. In other news, corporate bitcoin buyers, like Strategy, Metaplanet , Mara and Tether , kept stockpiling bitcoin, taking advantage of today’s prices. Ethereum developers locked in May 7 for their next upgrade (named Pectra), Margaux Nijkerk reported. Ripple reported big demand for its new stablecoin RLUSD , Kris Sandor reported. Then in regulatory news, Paul Atkins neared confirmation for SEC Chair and long-time D.C. crypto advocate stepped down from heading the Blockchain Association to work for a new Solana-focused group. Much of the news followed a pattern we’ve seen for the last few weeks: Sagging markets and quiet industry growth aided by a regulatory thaw. Given the tumultuous macroeconomic environment, it’s going to be fascinating to see how crypto continues to fare. CoinTurk News

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Ethereum Sets New Date for Pectra Upgrade After Technical Issues

Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade has now been scheduled to go live on the mainnet on May 7, 2025. The announcement was made during a call held by the blockchain’s core developers on April 3. Technical Challenges Pectra is one of Ethereum’s most significant upgrades since the network’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism in 2022. It merges the Prague execution layer with the Electra consensus layer and includes 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) aimed at improving the blockchain’s scalability, efficiency, and usability. Originally planned for March 2025, the changes were postponed due to challenges encountered during testnet implementation. Specifically, the Holesky testnet experienced finality issues, preventing developers from proceeding with the original timeline. Additionally, a minor bug was discovered on the Sepolia testnet in early March, which was identified and resolved before further testing. Developers then launched the Hoodi testnet, successfully running the enhancements without major incidents. This phase led to the confirmation of the May 7, 2025, mainnet deployment date. “We’ll go ahead and lock in May 7 for Pectra on mainnet,” said Ethereum Foundation researcher Alex Stokes during yesterday’s core developers’ call . “Happy Pectra everyone.” Despite recent developments, Ethereum’s market performance has remained weak, with its native ETH token posting its worst first-quarter performance in 7 years. A recent report from CryptoQuant showed that the ecosystem continues to struggle due to low activity, declining transaction fees, and a reduced ETH burn rate, all of which have contributed to increased inflationary pressure on the network. Key Features and Improvements Pectra contains several improvements aimed at making Ethereum more user-friendly and efficient. Key features in the new version include smart contract functionality for wallets, enhanced staking capabilities, account abstraction, privilege management, and the ability to sponsor transaction fees. Account abstraction will allow Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) to function similarly to smart contract wallets, introducing advanced features such as transaction batching, fee sponsorship, and custom security rules. These improvements are expected to enhance Ethereum’s flexibility, making decentralized applications (dApps) more accessible to users. Petra also increases the validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. This change supports larger validators and allows smaller ones to receive compounding rewards. Another addition is Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS), which reduces costs for layer-2 solutions by allowing nodes to verify large data availability without downloading all of it. The upgrade also includes the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) Object Format, which enhances EVM code to support future functionality on both layer-1 and layer-2 networks. The post Ethereum Sets New Date for Pectra Upgrade After Technical Issues appeared first on CryptoPotato . CoinTurk News