Market News: More Explosions Heard in Dubai

April 4 Despite a crypto market downturn, stablecoins are still growing rapidly. Per DefiLlama data: - Total stablecoin market cap rose 0.43% over the past week, hitting a new all-time high at $317.255 billion. - USDT’s market dominance slid below 60% to its current 58.03%. - Sky Network’s stablecoin USDS saw its circulating market cap jump 9.57% last week to $8.924 billion, now the third-largest stablecoin by market cap.

April 4 — Iran has authorized a ship carrying essential goods to sail to an Iranian port via the Strait of Hormuz, according to Tasnim News Agency.

April 4 – Cryptoquant analyst Darkfost says a major shift in Ethereum’s derivatives market structure has occurred, marking the first such change since the 2023 bear market. Darkfost notes that while ETH’s net trading volume has been negative for most of the period since 2023, it has now turned positive. (Note: Net trading volume measures whether buying or selling pressure is dominant in the derivatives order book.) Right now, the indicator signals dominant buying pressure, with $104 million in buying volume. Notably, even when ETH prices neared a new high earlier, the indicator still showed strong selling pressure—but that dynamic now seems to be shifting. Darkfost argues the positive buying pressure could help ETH form a stronger bottom. If this momentum holds and the spot market plus ETFs start backing the trend, ETH may be set to resume its uptrend.

April 4 — Israel has resumed operations at its Leviathan natural gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, the country’s Ministry of Energy announced Thursday. The nation’s largest gas field was shut down for 32 days due to escalating regional tensions. The resumption is aimed at restoring natural gas exports to Egypt and Jordan. (CCTV International News)

On April 4, Shanghai officially released the *Several Measures of Shanghai Municipality to Support the Development of the Gaming and Esports Industry* (dubbed the "Shanghai Ten Articles on Gaming"), according to Xinmin Evening News. The measures outline key priorities: - Supporting gaming and esports firms in researching/applying technologies (AI large models, blockchain, big data, cloud computing) and terminal devices, plus building basic game tools like engines and 3D modeling software. - Promoting blockchain use in copyright registration, rights protection, transactions, and settlement. - Encouraging game companies to partner with electronic device makers to explore more multi-terminal development opportunities for games.

On April 4, per Onchain Lens data, a whale emerged from 5 months of dormancy to deposit 1 million USDC into HyperLiquid and open a 20x leveraged long position on 20,000 BRENTOIL. Before this move, the whale had already accumulated over $12.44 million in gains.