Important events
Sep 152022
Coming to the end of the tunnel?
Bitcoin mining’s becoming a bit like playing chess with your know-it-all dad – too hard to even be fun anymore.- Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has reached a new all-time high, jumping by 3.45% on Tuesday to 32.05tn hashes. This is the second significant increase in three weeks with difficulty shooting up by 9.26% on August 31. Profits for Bitcoin miners are now looking mighty thin as greater computation power is required to mine.
- BTC’s not been having a great time of it recently, dropping by almost 10% on Tuesday and sustaining losses since then, joined in its declines by the broader market with ETH and BNB plummeting around 8% and 5.6% the same day – the overall crypto market closed below $1tn on Wednesday.
- According to some, high mining difficulty is actually a rly good sign. Scott Norris, co-founder of private BTC mining company LSJ Ops, said that it’s an “indicator of a strong and growing network”. However, the fact that mining profits were below $1bn for a fourth consecutive month in August is still gonna have a lot of miners p’d off.
Jeremy Bezanger / Unsplash
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Sep 012022
BTC miners battle for profits
Bitcoin miners battle to break even with skyrocketing difficulty levels making profit margins as thin as your cat squeezing under the neighbor’s fence.- Bitcoin mining difficulty has risen by over 9% in the last two weeks in the largest increase in difficulty since January. It’s being caused by BTC miners in Texas turning their machines back on after a heat wave prompted a mass switch-off over summer, and a higher difficulty level means a lower chance of receiving profits for mining companies.
- BTC fell by almost 10% last week while it battled to hold the $20k mark, but don’t hold your breath – analysts are predicting that imminent Fed action could cause further drops. With mining difficulty hovering at 30.97tn (just below its all time high of 31.25tn in May), BTC mining companies like Core Scientific and Riot Blockchain are in for a tough ride.
- Bitcoin miners don’t seem to be discouraged despite the challenges. The network’s hashrate – an indication of mining activity – remains strong at around 220 EH/s. Shares in Core Scientific and Riot Blockchain have dropped this year by 79% and 68% respectively but rn it looks like they’re doubling down rather than backing out.
Pressure / cottonbro / Pexels
Aug 222022
Crypto bulls get cold feet
Any crypto bulls that were taking off their wooly hats to prepare for the end of the crypto winter get a stark reminder that bear season ain’t over yet. Bundle up peeps.- The crypto industry felt a sharp selloff last week with nearly $200bn worth of crypto dumped. The value of the overall industry’s now fallen below $1tn – its lowest valuation since December 2020. BTC fell by nearly 12% last week with ETH taking an even bigger beating of 16% over the same period to close at its lowest price since mid-July.
- The Fed’s monetary policy seems to be to blame as investors predict further rate-hikes incoming, which is prolly why crypto-related stocks also felt the squeeze. Coinbase plummeted by over 11% on Friday and famed HODLer MicroStrategy sank nearly 13% to erase its August gains.
- Many analysts are warning of more turbulence ahead, pointing to the absence of a BTC futures premium, $470m in liquidations and unrestrained stablecoin lending as symptomatic of new lows to come. Worth noting that some tokens actually managed to defy the selloff entirely, with the likes of layer-1 blockchain EOS rallying more than 23% over the weekend while most others sold off.
GuerrillaBuzz Crypto PR / Unsplash
Aug 122022
Asset managers ignore the rout
Asset managers ain’t fazed by recent market bearishness, still seeing enough demand for BlackRock to up its Bitcoin offering game.- BlackRock has launched a spot Bitcoin private trust. As the largest money management firm in the world, it’s a pretty shiny vote of confidence for crypto as an asset class. BlackRock founder Larry Fink has come a long way from describing BTC as little more than a vehicle for money laundering.
- Bitcoin has been enjoying the cool-down of the recent market panic. The OG token has risen by a substantial 12% over the last month, which prolly has something to do with the fact that inflation doesn’t seem to be getting any worse (for now) – CPI data on Wednesday drove BTC to its highest close since mid-June.
- It looks like crypto might be beginning to shake its institutional stigma despite seeing such losses this year. US investment group Charles Schwab recently launched a crypto-related ETF, the UK’s Schroders has acquired a stake in digital assets manager Forteus, and Goldman Sachs announced its first ever Bitcoin-backed loan in April.
Muhammad Asyfaul / Unsplash
Jul 272022
Forget mining, just play sudoku
If you’re good at puzzles and you like Bitcoin, you’re in luck: gaming startup Zebedee has launched a play-to-earn Bitcoin platform.- Zebedee and mobile games studio Viker have teamed up to bring Bitcoin rewards to three games: solitaire, sudoku, and ‘Missing Letters’ – a Wordle-like game. The companies claim the process of earning and withdrawing the Bitcoin is all pretty user-friendly, and that the money earned can also go back into Zebedee’s own virtual economy.
- All the rewards will go through Bitcoin’s Lightning Network – a layer 2 solution designed to lower transaction time and cost. Viker’s co-founder Dan Beasly believes the gaming studio has a vibrant play-to-earn ecosystem, with around 500k players earning Bitcoins from its games every month.
- On the market, Bitcoin is facing a bit of a puzzle itself as it tries to navigate the implications of a potential 100bps Fed hike, as well as a continued struggle at the 200-week moving average. The entire crypto asset class fell back below $1tn on Tuesday, with Bitcoin clinging onto $21k after a hefty 5.2% drop on Monday.
ZEBEDEE
Jul 262022
There’s no FOMO when it comes to FOMC
Bitcoin takes a slide ahead of the much feared Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).- Bitcoin dropped 5.6% on Monday to trade at $21k, falling further astray from the 200-week moving average it managed to briefly break through last week. The move down is ahead of the FOMC’s meeting where peeps are expecting a further 75bps hike on rates come Wednesday.
- The fall in price was in spite of the volatility index (VIX) lowering, suggesting swathes of Wall St may believe that a lot of the economic turbulence caused by the hikes has already been priced in. Elsewhere, however, some economists are calling for a 100bps hike, with the logic that aggression now will quicken the process to bring inflation down by early 2023.
- 75ps or 100bps, it’s likely there’ll be a bit of volatility this week. Bears looking at the Bitcoin chart will have eyes on the sub-$18k level, while the bulls will be hoping for a strong response to move back above the 200-week bedrock currently sitting at $22.8k.
Dulcey Lima / Unsplash
Jul 202022
Battle of the 200W Moving Average
Bitcoin climbs above the 200-week line in the sand after spending a record-breaking amount of time beneath it.- Bitcoin rose 4.3% on Tuesday to shoot past its 200-week moving average, trading at $23.4k as of Wednesday morning. Currently, the infamous line resides at $22.7k, which is around a 300% increase from the price level of $5.5k it represented before the 2020 bull market began.
- A record-breaking 32 days were spent below the 200-week from June 16 onwards. Given historically a weekly Bitcoin candle has never closed more than a couple of percentage points below the line, to many it had come to represent the bedrock of the Bitcoin price chart… until 2022 happened ofc.
- These levels represented a generational buying opportunity to some, but to others the slump way below the 200-week line has invalidated previous cycle models and patterns and led many to reassess what could actually be the bottom for Bitcoin. As for now, all eyes will be on just whether it can maintain this show of strength.
Bernard Hermant / Unsplash
Jul 192022
The market edges up Bit(coin) by Bit(coin)
No, Bitcoin is not “giga-mooning”, but it did have its best day in a month on Monday as some positive sentiment ekes back into the crypto market.- Bitcoin rose 7.85% on Monday to eye up the $23k benchmark, leaving it around 25% up from its June 18 low of $17.5k. The ringleader has yet to fully break through resistance at $22.5k, and only time will tell if it can stomach further macroeconomic headwinds and rate hike increases coming out of the Fed.
- The rest of crypto benefitted from Bitcoin’s show of strength. On Monday, the overall market cap of the asset class rose above $1tn for the first time since June 13 – a day in which crypto had $130bn wiped off its value. That’s around about the market cap of Morgan Stanley. Crazy.
- But the bear market may last another 250 days, at least according to a market cycle model noted by Grayscale in their latest Insight report. This is mostly supported by on-chain data that shows on June 13 the ‘market price’ of Bitcoin fell below the ‘realized price’, signaling that most Bitcoin addresses are now holding onto losses.
Jeremy Bezanger/ Unsplash
Jul 082022
Mt. Gox might be getting wrapped up
Crypto catapulted into the green on Thursday, which could be good news for those waiting on a crypto repayment after the infamous Mt. Gox collapse.- It was a good day for the Bitcoin bulls out there. First up, the overall crypto market saw gains of 3.88% as Bitcoin bounced 5.33% to take its weekly gains to 12%, and Ethereum lifted 4.3% to see weekly gains of 14% so far – as you probs know, the gains are in stark comparison to the last three months of decline.
- Mt. Gox investors are also nearing a payday after thousands of Bitcoin were stolen in a hack on the platform in 2014. Trustees of the defunct crypto exchange contacted creditors on July 6, asking them to register online and enter their preferred repayment method – there is a treasure trove of 141,686 BTC waiting to be returned, now worth around $2.9bn.
- Hoorah for investors, but how will this impact Bitcoin itself? Well, obvs nobody knows for sure, but there is a real chance it could depress the cryptos prices. A lot of the people who get their BTC back will now have made a handsome little profit considering Bitcoin’s rise the last few years and will likely be looking to sell their BTC and earn some moola – which could lead to selling pressure on the coin and further declines.
Maxim Hopman / Unsplash
Jul2022
Noem My Skollie
The top commodities watchdog in the US is zeroing in on a skollie (translation: thief) from South Africa who somehow managed one of the biggest crypto scams in the world.- In one of the biggest scams in crypto history, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is charging South African bitcoin club Mirror Trading International (MTI) with $1.7bn fraud, detaining its self-described CEO – Cornelius Steynberg – in Brazil on an interpol warrant. Eish.
- Steynberg orchestrated a global, multi level marketing scheme through various websites and social platforms that “misappropriated” all of the bitcoin it had amassed. MTI duped investors into sending bitcoin to a community pool that he wasn’t licensed to run and was actually a Ponzi scheme, promising up to 10% in returns every month, but actually used the bitcoin to execute off-exchange trades.
- The CFTC says Steynberg accepted nearly 29.5k BTC from 23k Americans and even more elsewhere in the world. The regulator has called it the “largest ever fraud scheme case involving bitcoin” and is seeking restitution for investors after spending nearly two years investigating the case and trying to hunt down Steynberg.
Jeremy Bezanger / Unsplash
Jul 042022
Bitcoin buys continue despite the frost
Bitcoin whales continue to ape into the OG currency despite its value being further demolished in June.- June was Bitcoin’s worst month in the 12 years it's been traded on exchanges. The currency lost 37% for the month and is now down just under 60% year-to-date, joined by #2 crypto Ethereum and its 45% June losses, as well as the overall crypto market, which lost 33%. Did someone say crypto winter?
- But some of the big players have remained unfazed. Controversial bull Michael Saylor topped up his supplies near the $20k mark, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele bought 80 more Bitcoin, and on-chain analytics show that Bitcoin outflows on exchanges continue as people buy the dip.
- Where do we go from here? The last time we saw “this fast accumulation pace by retail ” was after the covid crash in 2020, which was followed by a price bounce, but appaz that doesn’t mean that a bull market is guaranteed in sight just yet. On the plus side, fund managers are cutting the cost of their ETPs to lure back investors, so perhaps that’ll help ease the bear market pain a ‘lil.
Small #Bitcoin holders with < 1 $BTC have been adding to their balance at the most aggressive rate since March 2020.
Shrimps are adding at 36.75k BTC/month which is 0.2% of the circulating supply, and 1.36x monthly issuance.
Shrimps now hold 1.12M $BTC in total.
2/4
Jul 012022
Grayscale puts on the boxing gloves
Place your bets everyone, cause Grayscale is not one to take a punch lying down and is now taking on the SEC.- Grayscale’s spot Bitcoin ETF application was just rejected yet again by the SEC, with the watchdog citing concerns over investor protections and Grayscale’s failure to answer its questions about market manipulation. Crypto bulls had high hopes pinned on the ETF getting accepted, after waiting since October 2021 for a decision.
- Gather round for Grayscale vs the SEC. The group is now suing the SEC, saying the agency is acting “arbitrarily and capriciously”. Grayscale has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the SEC's order, and the company’s CEO says we can prolly expect a verdict within a year.
- Meanwhile, Bitcoin just posted its worst quarter in over a decade. The OG currency has lost over 50% of its value in the last three months, after dipping back down to the $19k mark this week. It’s not alone either – the overall crypto market lost around 60% of its value, or $1.3tn, in the first half of this year.
Jeremy Bezanger/ Unsplash
Jun 292022
Bitcoin gets classified
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler labels Bitcoin a commodity, giving fresh hopes for Grayscale’s spot ETF for the crypto.- Bitcoin’s called ‘digital gold’ for a reason – and Gary Gensler appears to sorta agree, reaffirming the SEC’s stance on CNBC this week that BTC is not a security like stocks, but a commodity like – yep, you guessed it – gold. However, Gensler was less willing to label other tokens as such, leaving Ethereum’s classification still unclear.
- The news gave rise to hope that Grayscale’s Bitcoin spot ETF might have a chance of being passed by the SEC in a yes-or-no decision on July 6. With further recognition of what Bitcoin is, Grayscale will prolly be pining for Gary to pass it, especially given there’s already a Futures and Short ETF for BTC.
- Bitcoin fell 2.12% on Tuesday as it hovers around the $20k mark. The market leader has now spent two weeks under the 200 week moving average – a slump BTC hasn’t experienced before. And while the wider crypto market did recover its $1tn market cap last week, everyone in the cryptoverse is still looking for a decisive move by the OG.
#Bitcoin is a commodity, which is essential for any treasury reserve asset. This allows politicians, agencies, governments, & institutions to support bitcoin as a technology & digital asset to grow the economy and extend property rights & freedom to all.
Jun 212022
A game of changing hands
The crypto shakeout is truly underway, with over 500k Bitcoin changing hands between $18k - $23k.- Bitcoin saw $7.3bn in realized losses over the weekend as people stared into the specter of the current crypto market and cashed out their holdings. Apparently, some wallets had bought around the all-time high of $69k, only to sell off at a meager $18k.
- OK, but who’s buying this Bitcoin? Despite long-term holders contributing to the sell off (178k BTC of the 550k were wallets older than a year), major whale and mining wallets continue to accumulate Bitcoin. This sort of transference of BTC kinda reflects how and why the illiquid supply (basically Bitcoin stashed away) has risen over time.
- BTC has started this week with a relief rally, up 20% since Saturday’s low of $17.5k. However, peeps are out there wondering whether this is just a dead-cat bounce and Bitcoin’s got a way lower to go. Glassnode analysts reported that the bottom could be close, though – with just 49% of the circulating supply in profit, they say this ratio resembles previous bear market bottoms of 40-50% holders being in the green.
愚木混株 cdd20 / Unsplash
Jun 142022
The Halvening
Another week, another dump – leaving Bitcoin down 50% from its value in January, and the wider crypto market even further astray.- Bitcoin closed over 15% down on Monday – its biggest daily drop since March 2020. The OG crypto now trades at $22k, languishing at the 200 week moving average – also for the first time since the covid-led crash of March 2020. At Bitcoin’s all-time high of $69k, it was 300% over extended from this support band. How the mighty have retreated.
- It was a rocky day at the office for exchanges, too. Binance had to pause Bitcoin withdrawals for over three hours amid market pressure and “a stuck transaction causing a backlog”. It seems investors can smell the tension – over the weekend, lending platform Celsius (home to $12bn in crypto assets) halted withdrawals, raising fears of another Terra-style collapse.
- The crypto market has now lost $1.2tn YTD, leaving everyone wondering when the asset class is gonna bottom out. Coinbase fell 11% to close the day at an all-time low, rumors of MicroStrategy facing a margin call sent the stock down 25%, while elsewhere crypto lending platform BlockFi is laying off 20% of its staff. Bear. Market.
愚木混株 cdd20 / Unsplash
Jun 072022
To squeeze or not to squeeze
Is Bitcoin going to trade between $28.5k and $31.5k for the rest of eternity? Perhaps it should be reconsidered as a stablecoin.- Bitcoin looked like it was about to make a move on Monday, pumping 4.89% to reach the $32k resistance mark. Sure enough, however, it made a swift reversal and dumped 5.6% on Tuesday morning. Back to the drawing board, folks.
- Indeed, it had a similar summer sideways cool-off last year, only back then the peeps didn’t seem to have the bear market blues like they do now (thanks inflation), and the price action wasn’t so tightly woven between two points. From May 20 to June 20 last year, prices ranged between $30-40k – now the range seems to just get narrower and narrower.
- People that are long and short are prolly sweating. Bitcoin hasn’t fallen below $28k since it kinda capitulated to $25k on May 12, so those with bets on which direction it’s gonna take will likely be keeping an eye on that area. Nevertheless, BTC dominance is actually up 13% since the crash, meaning the OG crypto is now taking up around 47% of the market share.
Sandie Clarke / Unsplash
May 312022
Cliff dwellers of the world unite
In a feat of magic, Bitcoin breaks through resistance and sees three green daily candles. What’s gonna happen next?- Bitcoin looks set to end a historically bad nine-week downtrend this week to finally give investors a glimmer of green. BTC leapt 7.75% on Monday, giving the bulls some relief after such a long period of sluggish price action.
- As per, altcoins followed Bitcoin’s lead. Leading the line was Cardano – its native token ADA seeing a 37% pump over the last two days, while Ethereum also jumped 10%.
- Have the bears priced in the market? Who knows – that depends on lots of macroeconomic factors, like whether the Fed decides to stop turning the inflation screw any tighter. We did see a relief rally for the major indices of NDX, SPX, and DJI late last week, so it could be Bitcoin is just lagging behind equities atm.
Yiğit Ali Atasoy / Unsplash
May 302022
The Decoupling
Bitcoin has decoupled from the broader market, which in the past has been a good omen. This time? More like The Omen.- Bitcoin decoupled from the Nasdaq last week, spelling the end of what was a pretty solid correlation between the two since the start of the year. While NDX was up 8.4% from Wednesday to Friday, BTC managed to trade down 3.5%.
- Will crypto catch up? As of Monday morning, Bitcoin was trading up 7% from Friday, suggesting crypto might just be lagging behind. But other indicators still look pretty bearish – on-chain data is showing Bitcoin options traders are hedging exposure at near-historic levels, implying traders aren’t up for any downside risks.
- Decoupling has been a source of hopium for crypto investors in the past, but the current macroeconomic environment is unlike any other crypto has faced. With the Fear and Greed index for Bitcoin sitting comfortably in “Extreme Fear” as of Monday morning, it can’t be much of a surprise that people aren’t in a rush to buy even the most stable crypto out there.
愚木混株 cdd20/ Unsplash
May 262022
Like digital vegemite
As Bitcoin decides which way it wants to go on the chart, even the big boys are giving their opinion on where they think it should be.- JPMorgan Chase announced on Wednesday that Bitcoin’s fair price is 28% above its current level, meaning the bank reckons it deserves to be trending anywhere around the $38k range. For every bull there’s a bear, though – the CIO of Guggenheim Partners said BTC is going to $8k and the market has become “a bunch of yahoos”.
- Elsewhere though, Andreessen Horowitz seems to believe it’s the Houyhnhnms (Google it). Indeed, the venture capitalist thinks BTC is going for cheap, so much so it has now raised a mega $4.5bn crypto fund that will aim to take advantage of what it sees as bargain prices.
- And what’s Bitcoin doing about all of this? Nothing really. For the better part of two weeks, the OG crypto has been oscillating between $28.6k and $31.2k. Investors will be prodding it with a stick soon. But will it be off a cliff or up a hill? Do something.
Яндекс фото / Wikimedia Commons
May 232022
Just another bearish Monday
You guessed it: last week was another session in the red for Bitcoin – and the bearishness doesn’t stop there.- Bitcoin chalked off another week in the red, meaning it has now bled 35% over the course of eight weeks. While it has stemmed the tide slightly – only dropping 3.3% last week, it’s yet to show any momentum of breaking back into the low $30k region.
- The ratio of puts to calls reached a peak of 0.72 last week, suggesting investors are feeling that the Bitcoin sell-off has yet to reach a conclusion. The last time the ratio was this high was May 2021, which quickly followed a two-week drop of 40% for Bitcoin. Hmm.
- Clearly, nobody is gonna be scheduling their Forbes interviews any time soon. The current market is uncharted territory for Bitcoin. While many maintain the OG crypto continues to logarithmically trend upwards, the space has yet to trade within a recession-bound stock market.
Natarajan sethuramalingam / Unsplash