Crypto

The Litecoin price has shown considerable recovery ever since it reached its bottom in December 2022. LTC secured almost 50% appreciation in January this year. Currently, however, the altcoin has witnessed a price pullback and is consolidating on its daily chart.

Over the last 24 hours, the Litecoin price moved down by 0.3%, which signified a range-bound movement. The altcoin also lost close to 3% of its market value. The technical outlook of Litecoin pointed towards bullish momentum as demand for the altcoin remained high on the daily chart.

Accumulation also reflected the same. Price noted a decline as LTC receded from the overbought zone. Buyers still have the upper hand on the chart.

A continued fall in accumulation will cause bears to secure Litecoin’s price action. That momentum would continue for the upcoming week, causing LTC to fall below its nearest support level. At the time of writing, LTC was trading 78% below its all-time high set in 2021.

Litecoin Price Analysis: One-Day Chart

LTC was trading at $88.11 at the time of writing. The coin has pierced through several resistance lines over the past several weeks but has failed to hold on to the momentum. LTC met with two rigid resistance levels before it started to move south again.

The two important resistance lines for the coin stood at $90 and $92. Immediate resistance stood at $90. If demand for the altcoin remains steady, then LTC might attempt to breach the $90 price mark.

On the flipside, the nearest support line for the Litecoin price stood at $86, and a continued price correction will force LTC to fall below the $86 price mark and settle at $82. The amount of LTC traded in the last session was red, indicating a fall in buyers.

Technical Analysis

The altcoin has been hovering in the overbought region for several weeks now, and at the moment there is a slight fall in demand for Litecoin. The Relative Strength Index stood a little below the 60-mark after it noted a recent downtick indicating that demand was shrinking.

A reading close to the 60-mark, however, signifies that buyers outnumbered sellers. In accordance with that, LTC price shot past the 20-Simple Moving Average (SMA) line as buyers were driving the price momentum in the market.

The coin was also above the 50-SMA (yellow) and 200-SMA (green) lines, indicating increased bullishness.

Concerning the fall in buying pressure, the LTC chart displayed a sell signal on the one-day chart. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), which depicts market momentum, underwent a bearish crossover and formed red signal bars tied to sell signals.

This could also imply that the price will fall in the coming trading sessions. The Parabolic SAR, the indicator that reads the trend and change in price momentum, was still positive. The dotted lines were below the candlesticks, suggesting that the LTC price was still positive.

Featured Image From UnSplash, Charts From TradingView.com

The lending platform AAVE has been enjoying positive news lately. According to reports, AAVE has passed a governance proposal that would eradicate all bad debt it accumulated when Avraham Eisenberg, orchestrator of the Mango Markets exploit, targeted the platform’s Ethereum V2 liquidity pool back in November 2022. 

However, the governance token of the platform, AAVE, has not responded either positively or negatively. According to data from CoinGecko, the token registered losses in the daily and weekly time frames. But these losses are too miniscule to revert the token’s gains from the start of the year. 

 With the launch of AAVE’s V3 on its mainnet, the crypto might be in a position to tally new highs if the situation permits it. 

Image: Coinpedia

The Gist Of The Proposal & On-Chain Developments

Based on the proposal, the token has over 2,677,749 units of CRV in debt on its Ethereum V2 CRV reserve. This is worth, at the date of the proposal, over $2.5 million. The proposal would use V2’s stablecoin reserve to buy the necessary number of units of CRV to pay the debt.

This obviously was accepted by the community positively, being implemented immediately by January 25th. This would reverse the damage of the exploit attempt, proving the liquidity of the protocol. 

The deployment of AAVE’s V3 on Ethereum was also implemented. According to DefiLlama, the crypto is in the top 4 among all platforms. AAVE V3, the Ethereum pool deployment, has over $526.52 million total value locked. 

Image: DefiLlama

At $86.02, What’s In Store For AAVE? 

The token is currently consolidating around the $85.8 support range. This could be a sign that the token still has room to regain lost ground from 2022’s bear market. However, this can only be achieved if the token closes with a green candle to continue AAVE’s rally when the year started. 

Investors and traders should target the token’s current resistance at $90.15. If the bulls can consolidate at the token’s present support, we can see an upward push towards $94.70. 

AAVE total market cap at $1.2 billion on the daily chart | Chart: TradingView.com

Investors should also monitor the token’s correlation with Bitcoin and Ethereum as these would have a big influence on its price movement in the short to medium term.

As these major cryptocurrencies retest their crucial resistances, a breakthrough by either one or both of these coins would boost AAVE’s momentum to regain lost ground. 

With this in mind, investors and traders should exercise caution in the short to medium term as the token can still be clawed by the bears to revert back to $78.65.

Featured image by Kanalcoin.com

SHIB token burn rates are seemingly rising on the Shiba Inu network. The current number of Shiba Inu burn trackers is quite surprising. However, data shows it is due to the degenerative performance of the SHIB burning machine.

On-chain data shows that the SHIB burn rate observed a massive 1682.07% increase over the past 24 hours. That is the highest percentage rise in the burn rate on the SHIB network in the past few months.

Why Is SHIB Burn Rate Increasing?

In detail, the number of burnt tokens on the Shiba Inu network did not exceed 1 million SHIB on January 26. Yesterday’s amount was one of the lowest numbers of assets developers has burned on the network. So, the seeming spike in burn rate could be due to a default in the SHIB burning machine yesterday.

According to analysts, this percentage spike wasn’t triggered by increased network activity. Also, it didn’t represent a large number of actually burnt tokens. 

Token burns help to reduce the number of coins in circulation. It helps increase an asset’s scarcity and possibly boost the token’s price when increased supply pushes it down.

For instance, on January 17, the SHIB token burn surged by 613% within 24 hours, and the coin broke the bearish traders’ expectations, rising above 20% on the day. However, a surge in price did not accompany the recent rise in the token burn rate.

Also, some SHIB whale activities indicate that top investors have lost faith in the meme coin as many whales keep moving chunks of Shiba Inu positions on exchanges. 

? ? 3,312,307,240,798 #SHIB (38,257,148 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallethttps://t.co/0mdLkwpPQQ

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 26, 2023

This could mean that short-term traders don’t believe the asset couldn’t rise above the resistance level, helping them earn profit. 

New SHIB Whales Emerge – What’s Next?

While some whales sell off their tokens, a new address is buying the dip, accumulating large amounts of SHIB tokens, and maybe awaiting the next bull market. Data shows that a new crypto wallet became a Shiba Inu whale address on Thursday, January 26, 2022.

The new wallet became a whale address after receiving 3.3 billion SHIB worth about $38.9 million. Etherscan revealed that the sending address moved funds from different wallets before transferring the tokens to the receiver, now the newest SHIB whale. This move further confirms our suspicion that smaller investors are giving up their positions.

According to the blockchain whale tracker, Whale Alert, the wallet also received 1 billion PAW tokens a few minutes after sweeping the SHIB token. With the current balance, the new whale is now the world’s 30th-largest SHIB holder.

This recent accumulation came after the world’s 26th-largest SHIB holder swept 150 billion tokens into its wallet. The token sweep occurred through four transaction clusters within three hours on January 23.

So while short-term investors might be selling their positions due to falling SHIB prices, some could be accumulating in anticipation of future gains from the upcoming Shibarium launch.

Shiba Inu is currently trading at $0.00001188 with a 24-hour increase of 1.28% and a 7-day price surge of 0.2%. In addition, the meme coin has seen a 14-day price surge of 22.1% and a 30-day rally of 41.4%.

Featured Image From Pixabay Kevin_Y, Chart From Tradingview

Fantom (FTM) has been one of the best-performing tokens of 2023, pulling off a series of impressive gains in the last few weeks. Following the market crash in late 2022, FTM began the new year trading as low as $0.2007, representing a 94.19% decline from its all-time high value of $3.46.

However, with the entire crypto market attempting to pull off a recovery, FTM has been one particular token with lots of investor attention, as its price has surged by over 136% since the start of 2023. 

Fantom Records 39% Profit In Seven Days

According to data from CoinMarketCap, Fantom (FTM) gained by 38.77% in the last seven days alone, outperforming major cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Ripple (XRP), and Bitcoin (BTC) itself.

While FTM has been on an upward trend since the first week of the year, its price rally in the last week can be attributed to Fantom’s recent integration with the Axelar Network. On Jan. 24, the Fantom Foundation announced a partnership with Axelar, which will introduce interchain communication to the Fantom Network.

As of the time of writing, FTM is trading at $0.4724, having gone up by 1.98% in the last 24 hours. Based on more data from CoinMarketCap, the daily trading volume of FTM is currently $240.7 million, while its total market cap is $1.312 billion.

FTM trading at $0.4790 | Source: FTMUSD chart of Tradingview.com

What Does Axelar’s Integration Mean For Fantom Users?

According to a blog post by Fantom, “Axelar network is a blockchain that connects blockchains, enabling universal Web 3 interoperability.” Basically, Axelar functions as a medium for communication and transfer of value between several blockchains.

Following the integration with the Axelar network, Fantom automatically becomes part of an ecosystem that consists of over 30 different blockchains capable of seamlessly interacting with one another. 

Using the General Message Passing (GMP) protocol, developers on the Fantom network will be able to easily access smart-contact codes on any chain connected to Axelar. The GMP protocol will also allow dApps and users to send and receive data and function calls across the multiple chains in Axelar’s ecosystem.

Another benefit of Axelar’s integration with Fantom is the introduction of one-click cross-chain swaps on the platform’s biggest decentralized exchange, SpookySwap. Using Squid, an Axelar-based protocol that reroutes liquidity between chains, SpookySwap users will seamlessly swap native tokens of different chains in one click.

In every transaction, the Axelar network will process the cross-chain gas conversions from the source-chain token to the destination-chain token, ensuring that users need not own crypto wallets on multiple chains or hold native tokens of other chains for gas fees,

That said, other chains on the Axelar Network aside from Fantom include Arbitrum, Moonbeam, Polygon, Osmosis, etc.

Featured Image: Zipmex, chart from Tradingview.com

On-chain data shows Bitcoin exchanges have registered the most significant outflows since the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX back in November.

Related Reading: Bitcoin Investors Turn Greedy For First Time Since March 2022

Bitcoin Exchange Netflow Shows Deep Negative Values

As an analyst in a CryptoQuant post pointed out, around 7,000 coins have left the exchange in this latest spike. The relevant indicator here is the “all exchanges netflow,” which measures the net amount of Bitcoin exiting or entering into the wallets of all centralized exchanges. The metric’s value is calculated by taking the difference between the inflows (the coins going in) and the outflows (the coins moving out).

When the indicator has a positive value, the inflows overwhelm the outflows, and a net number of coins are deposited to exchanges. As one of the main reasons investors deposit to exchanges is for selling purposes, this trend can have bearish implications for the price of the crypto.

On the other hand, negative values imply that a net amount of supply is currently being pulled off these platforms. Generally, holders withdraw their coins from exchanges to hold onto them for extended periods in personal wallets. Thus, such metric values can signal that investors are accumulating at the moment, which may have a bullish impact on the price.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin all exchange’s netflow over the last few months:

Looks like the value of the metric has been quite negative recently | Source: CryptoQuant

As shown in the above graph, the Bitcoin exchange netflow recorded a deep negative spike during the past day. This outflow amounted to around 7,000 BTC, leaving the wallets of these platforms the largest value the metric has seen since the FTX crash back in November of last year.

From the chart, it’s apparent that the aftermath of FTX’s collapse saw some substantial outflow values. The reason behind that is that a known exchange like FTX going belly up instilled fear among investors and made them more aware of the risks of keeping their coins in centralized platforms.

Naturally, these holders fled exchanges in masses (causing the netflow to plunge into red values) so that they could store their Bitcoin in offsite wallets, the keys they own.

Interestingly, the latest negative netflow spike was recorded while Bitcoin has been observing a sharp rally. Usually, inflows are more commonly seen in periods like now, as investors rush to take some profits.

Thus, instead of making these large outflows, investors are showing signs that they are bullish on Bitcoin in the long term and feel that the current rally has more to offer still.

That would be only if these investors made the withdrawals with accumulation in mind. In the scenario that they transferred out these coins for selling through over-the-counter (OTC) deals instead, Bitcoin could instead feel a bearish impulse.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $23,100, up 8% in the last week.

BTC moves sideways | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Thought Catalog on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com

Bitcoin prices have been on the rise in the last couple of weeks and the digital asset has been able to return to its November 2022 levels. This has been a much-needed boost for the market during this time, but an unexpected investor group is reportedly driving the price of the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Surges Are Happening During U.S. Hours

In a new Matrixport report that was shared with NewsBTC via email, U.S. institutional investors are driving the recent price increase of bitcoin. The report notes that over the course of January, the digital asset is already up over 40% but more than 35% of those increases have happened during U.S. trading hours. As such, the research report concludes that U.S. investors are driving the price.

Matrixport explains the reasoning behind this by saying that when an asset performs so well during U.S. hours, especially one that trades for 24 hours, it shows that institutional investors are buying the asset. However, when it does well during Asian hours, then it means that Asian retail investors are buying it.

BTC moves the most during U.S. trading hours | Source: Matrixport

The most significant movements have happened during this time and the trend lines show very strong similarity to Bitcoin’s movements to this point. But even more interesting is the fact that the data shows that U.S.-based investors are responsible for 85% of the total BTC buying that is happening currently.

What Is Driving These U.S.-Based Investors?

As the Matrixport report notes, U.S.-based investors have been encouraged by the inflation slow-down. It has put individual and institutional investors in positions where they believe they can take more risks. Hence, there is a marked increase in their exposure to risk assets such as bitcoin.

BTC price rises over 40% in less than 30 days | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

Furthermore, the report points to the possibility of more rallies given the fact that inflation is expected to keep falling. “This could set up the crypto market for a mid-month rally, every month and turn into a trend where we see a strong rally from mid-month onwards with some consolidation towards the end of the month as traders take profit and miners sell calls.”

This is also good news for altcoins as Matrixport notes that historically, money flowing into bitcoin will eventually spread out into other digital assets. So this could mean that the market has not seen the last of the altcoin rally once these institutional investors begin spreading out their investments.

BTC is currently trading at $22,959 at the time of this writing. The coin is seeing small gains of 0.06% in the last 24 hours but on a seven-day rolling basis, the digital asset is still doing quite well with 9.45% gains.

Follow Best Owie on Twitter for market insights, updates, and the occasional funny tweet… Featured image from Forbes, chart from TradingView.com

The conditions of the cryptocurrency market have changed drastically; according to an analysis by QCP Capital, the options market in its current state makes the crypto industry look like a major crisis, such as the shutdown of crypto exchange FTX after filing for bankruptcy, never happened.

Trading desk QCP Capital published observations on the crypto industry, revealing some key points to consider for the coming months.

The Crypto Market Comes Back To Life

QCP’s analysis points out that Bitcoin (BTC) risk reversals have been trading in positive territory over the past week, which tells us that calls (buys) have been more expensive than puts (sells) since 2021 across multiple tenors.

This is unusual for the sector as BTC typically has a persistent put skew, mainly due to miner/treasury hedging activity. The chart below depicts this market behavior and the bullish sentiment impacting the options sector.

Put skew drives the price of puts higher and calls lower. This difference in pricing between options is called skew and, under normal circumstances, puts trade with higher volatility than calls precisely because investors are hedging some of their bullish positions.

For the trading desk, this means that the sentiment in the cryptocurrency market has shifted from bearish to bullish, a culmination of what has been happening in the macro market and the slight recovery in the economy.

Bulls Might Get Their Hearts Broken On Valentines Day

Ethereum’s (ETH) implied volatility (IV), which represents the expected volatility of a stock or currency over the option’s life, has fallen, indicating complacency as the market prices out fears of a price collapse, according to the analysis.

The enthusiasm in the market can be measured by the amount of “fear of missing out” (FOMO) that has set in, with many chasing prices and the top by buying high delta calls and going long in the spot market over the past week.

With the upcoming “Big Bad” Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the trading desk expects the market to be more cautious and conservative.

According to QCP, the following potentially problematic date will be February 14th, when the following CPI report will occur, which can potentially “break the heart of the bulls.”

For QCP, this is the same scenario the market experienced in December. Similarly, the price may experience a topside breakout characterized by a highly sharp and violent movement.

Bitcoin is currently trading at $23,200 and seems to be paving the way for the conquest of new levels. It has gained 0.7% in the last 24 hours and 10.3% in the last seven days. Bitcoin is trying to break the next obstacle represented by the $24,400 level.

Ethereum is trading at $1600, up 0.3% in the last 24 hours, with sideways price action. The next resistance wall is at $1,691, a zone the bulls have not visited since September 2022. Ethereum has gained 3.8% in the last seven days.

Cover image from Unsplash, charts from Tradingview.

Silvergate, a California-based crypto bank whose shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is suspending dividend payout to remain highly liquid as the digital currency market tries to pull itself out of the liquidity crisis of 2022.

In a press release on January 27, Silvergate, a state-chartered bank that went public in 2019, said it would suspend dividend payout on its “5.375% Fixed Rate Non-Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series A” to preserve capital. 

Focus On Liquidity

The crypto bank said its primary focus is maintaining a highly liquid balance sheet with a strong capital position. This will give it an advantage as it navigates the high volatility in crypto. The move means the crypto bank will have more capital than customers’ digital assets.

The bank’s board of directors will re-evaluate the payments of quarterly dividends depending on market conditions evolve. 

There was no official comment from any of Silvergate’s executives.

The high volatility in crypto saw prices peak at around $70,000 in November 2021 before plunging to $15,300 in November 2022.

Losses were due to several macroeconomic factors and crypto-related events. The shift in monetary policy saw central banks hike interest rates to tame runaway inflation. 

In return, this change saw capital flow in the other direction, away from what investors would ordinarily label as “risky”, including crypto and stocks, to safe havens like bonds and gold. 

Silvergate Forced To Take Bold Steps 

The collapse of several CeFi platforms, first 3AC, Voyager, and BlockFi, before FTX said it was halting withdrawals and eventually filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, broke the markets. In the aftermath, crypto assets capitulated, with Bitcoin sinking to 2022 lows. 

At one time, FTX was valued at over $32 billion. It later emerged that Sam Bankman-Fried misappropriated clients’ funds through the exchange’s related trading firm, Alameda Research.

The risk to safety from investors spilled over to Silvergate, stretching the crypto bank. On January 17, Silvergate posted its financial statements with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), saying they posted a loss of $949 million in 2022. This was a sharp reversal in fortunes considering the bank made $75.5 million in profits in 2021. 

Early this month, Silvergate clients withdrew almost $8 billion of their crypto deposits. Reports indicate that roughly 66% of the bank’s clients pulled out their coins in the last three months of the year. Subsequently, the bank was forced to sell $5.2 billion of its assets to cover costs and remain liquid amid the industry’s rapid changes.  

Feature image from Canva, Chart from TradingView

Federal prosecutors of the Southern District of New York overseeing the current case against Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder and former CEO of FTX, want the court to impose tighter bail conditions on the defendant.

SBF Using Signal

Based on their investigations, they discovered that Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, had messaged the general counsel of FTX US via Signal. 

Signal is a messaging app similar to WhatsApp. The platform offers instant messaging across platforms, allowing people to communicate privately. Signal creators’ primary focus is on security and privacy. The application is run as a non-profit managed by a foundation. Over 40 million people use it, and per court filings, SBF is one of them.

Investigators said messages sent to the general counsel of FTX US, an individual who can be a potential witness in the ongoing criminal case against SBF, were “suggestive of an effort to influence a witness’ potential testimony.” 

On January 15, SBF, prosecutors say, messaged the general counsel asking if they could “reconnect” and “if there’s a way for (for them) to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources.”

Investigators claim these messages are concerning because, considering the nature of the current investigation, the general counsel might have access to information that might help indict the defendant. 

For his action, federal prosecutors are asking the overseeing judge to prevent SBF from communicating with former employees and to stop using Signal. His continued communication would be contrary to the bail terms.

Even in his house arrest, the former CEO continues to receive visitors. For instance, there are reports that author Michael Lewis visited SBF. He is writing a book about the crypto entrepreneur.

The Collapse Of FTX

SBF managed FTX, an exchange that was at one point one of the most liquid in the world, only after Binance and Coinbase, since launch. However, it later emerged that through Alameda Research, SBF was misusing user funds to recklessly trade, invest in crypto projects, and donate to U.S. political parties.

Falling crypto prices also accelerated the collapse.

Following the collapse of FTX and the revelation of the extent of SBF’s misappropriation, U.S. authorities are charging the 30-year-old with, among others, money laundering, fraud, and campaign finance violation.  

SBF is out on a $250 million bond and has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. Apart from the various interviews he did earlier before his arrest, it has emerged that the former CEO has begun mounting a defense of his own. Recently, it was revealed that he had been laying out his turn of events leading to the collapse of FTX on Substack, a media platform.

Feature image from Canva, Charts from TradingView

The U.S. government is set to tighten regulations to mitigate the growing risks associated with the crypto industry. This development comes after increased scrutiny following the collapse of FTX and Terra Luna in 2022. 

In a press release on January 27, the White House put forward a comprehensive roadmap designed to protect investors and hold bad actors accountable. The roadmap highlighted several measures for more effective regulations in the crypto industry. 

A Two-Pronged Approach By U.S. Government

The U.S. government revealed that it had spent the past two years identifying the risks of cryptocurrency and finding ways to mitigate them. To ensure these measures are implemented, the White House intends to utilize a two-pronged approach. 

Firstly, the U.S. government has developed a framework for individuals and organizations to safely and responsibly develop digital assets. This includes addressing the risks they pose as well as highlighting poor practices within the crypto industry. 

Secondly, agencies have been mandated to increase enforcement and develop new regulations where needed. While there’s an increase in public awareness programs designed to help consumers understand the risks of buying cryptocurrencies. 

Related Reading: US Federal Regulators Warn About Crypto Activities

The White House also pointed out that Congress had a major role in expanding regulators’ powers and passing transparency laws for cryptocurrency companies. It also warned about passing legislation that would reverse the current gains and tie cryptocurrency with the U.S. financial system. 

In addition, the government intends to commit significant resources toward digital assets research and development, and this would help technologies power digital currencies and protect investors by default.  

Crypto Industry Still Reeling From FTX Collapse

The crypto industry is still recovering from the bearish markets resulting from several CeFi platforms’ high-profile collapses. 3AC, Voyager, BlockFi, and FTX were among the top platforms to file for bankruptcy, with the quartet holding more than $100 billion in assets. 

The nature of FTX collapse brought about increased scrutiny of the crypto industry. Congress testimonials exposed the risk-averse nature of crypto companies’ executives as details emerged that Sam Bankman-Fried misused clients’ funds through his trading firm Alameda Research. 

The ripple effect was massive as several individuals and firms exposed to the platform suffered huge losses, with some companies forced to shut down. These events caused concerns and reactions from within and outside the crypto space. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the U.S. government is looking to tighten its grip on regulations. 

Related Reading: Crypto-Friendly Bank Silvergate Suspends Dividend Payouts

Months after the FTX crash, there’s still increased skepticism about the crypto industry. There’s an increase in the amount of bitcoin withdrawn from exchanges, and earlier this month crypto bank, Silvergate revealed that clients withdrew almost $8 billion of their crypto deposits. 

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com