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tZERO to tokenize $18M of stock for the ‘Robinhood of real estate investing’

tZERO to tokenize $18M of stock for the ‘Robinhood of real estate investing’

Around $18 million worth of NYCE’s common shares will be tokenized and supported for secondary trading on tZERO’s security token trading platform.

tZERO, an alternative trading system for security tokens, has announced a partnership with real estate crowdfunding company, NYCE Group, to tokenize $18 million worth of the firm’s shares.

NYCE’s stock will be tZERO’s first new listing since launching its ASPN pairing in August 2020, representing fractionalized ownership in a Colorado ski resort.

Announced June 30, tZERO will support secondary trade for NYCE’s tokenized common shares once the real estate company has completed its upcoming Regulation A+ offering, subject to regulatory approval.

NYCE’s shares will be tokenized using tZERO’s proprietary smart contract technology. Philip Michael, CEO and co-founder of NYCE, stated:

“Through our partnership with the leader in liquidity for digital securities, tZERO, we are excited to provide investors with liquidity optionality.”

The real estate firm was founded by Michael and FC Barcelona soccer player Martin Braithwaite, with media describing the platform as a “Robinhood of real estate investing.”

The NYCE app allows retail investors to own fractionalized shares in properties from its $260 million portfolio, describing its mission to create 100,000 high-net-worth millennial stakeholders of color by 2030.

NYCE finalized its $1 million Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) offering in October 2020, setting a record for the fastest Reg CF offering to raise seven figures. The company formally launched its app in March.

Related: Security tokenization may be the next big use case for blockchain tech

Of the tokens on the exchange, volume for the ASPN token has consistently lagged behind tZERO’s native token TZROP and Overstock’s digital security OSTKO since the resort’s token was launched.

The security token sector has been on a wild ride in recent years, with monthly volume increasing from roughly by more than 110 times from less than $200,000 as of January 2020 to roughly $22 million during August.

However, monthly trade activity has since slumped more than 75% with less than $5 million in May.

According to Security Token Group’s latest report, TZROP was the most-traded security token for the month of May with nearly $2.7 million worth of trade. TZROP’s market cap is currently roughly $140 million, which would rank it as the 229th-largest crypto asset by capitalization, according to CoinGecko.



via cointelgraph.com
Messari: USDC set to become ‘dominant’ stablecoin on Ethereum

Messari: USDC set to become ‘dominant’ stablecoin on Ethereum

Tether supplies on Ethereum are dwindling as USD Coin demand grows and grows.

USDC has grown much faster than Tether (USDT) in 2021 and it is emerging as the dominant stablecoin on Ethereum thanks to its popularity in DeFi according to Messari.

Research by the analytics firm revealed that the demand for USD Coin has grown so much that it has consumed a large chunk of Tether’s market share this year.

Researcher Ryan Watkins predicted that in the coming weeks, this could result in Tether' share of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum falling below 50%.

He added that over half of the total USDC supply now sits in smart contracts, which is equivalent to around $12.5 billion. Citing data from CoinMetrics, Messari estimates that more than 40% of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum is USDC.

Watkins stated that the Circle stablecoin has now become the preferred dollar-pegged asset staked in smart contracts in DeFi protocols.

“Although this percentage is not as high as DAI, USDC leads by a wide margin in dollar terms and has become the preferred stablecoin in DeFi for now.”

The USDC supply has surged by more than 1,820% since the beginning of 2021 when there was just 1.3 billion circulating. Currently, the supply of the stablecoin is at a record 25 billion according to Circle.

Related: Circle enables seamless USDC-USD transfers, providing a bridge from banks to DeFi

According to the Tether transparency report, there are 62.7 billion USDT in circulation, an increase of around 200% since the beginning of the year. Of that total, 30.9 billion is currently on the Ethereum network, a figure that has been falling with regularity this year as high network fees have hampered transactions.

The researcher reported that DeFi lending protocols MakerDAO, Compound, and Aave are the largest consumers of USDC, holding around 23% of the total supply.

He added that the trend is likely to continue with the pending launch of Compound Treasury, a new product offering 4% interest on USDC to institutions, and initiatives centered on Circle’s DeFi API, a new platform to ease DeFi operations for businesses.

Earlier this week, U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase also announced that it would pay 4% interest on USDC holdings adding further momentum to the stablecoin.



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$22B hedge fund Point72 reportedly searching for a “head of crypto”

$22B hedge fund Point72 reportedly searching for a “head of crypto”

Reports suggest that Steve Cohen’s Point72 hedge fund is searching for a “head of crypto” as the firm weighs up its options before entering the crypto market.

New York billionaire Steven Cohen’s hedge fund Point72 Asset Management, is reportedly searching for a “head of crypto.”

Cohen, the 65-year-old dubbed the “Hedge Fund King”, founded Point72 in 1992 and it has approximately $22.1 billion worth of assets under management. The investor also owns the New York Mets Major League Baseball team.

The Street reported it has spoken to sources in the know who claim Point72 is seeking to hire a head of crypto, as the firm gears up to enter the crypto sector.

If accurate it fits with other signals emerging from the fund. Cohen recently stated in an interview with macro research firm founder, Jawad Mian, that “I’m fully converted to crypto,” and added that “I have an old saying at the poker table, you got to pay to learn. There’s no way around it. You can talk all you want, but you’ve got to get in the game.”

Point72 hasn’t specifically revealed what its foray into crypto would look like, telling its investors in a client note in May that, “It’s too early to say what paths we will ultimately pursue and when.”

However, the firm noted that “we are exploring opportunities around blockchain technology and its transformative and disruptive capabilities,” and added that:

“We would be remiss to ignore a now $2 trillion cryptocurrency market.”

Cohen has made a small play already, with Fortune reporting on June 13 that his venture capital firm “Cohen Private Ventures” invested an undisclosed amount into Autonomous Partners — an up and coming hedge fund that acquires crypto and equity stakes in blockchain-based companies.

Interestingly, Point72 already has a small but concrete affiliation to crypto exchange Coinbase. Last month it sublet a 30,000 square foot office to Coinbase for its New York office at Related Companies’ 55 Hudson Yards.

Related: Hedge fund that shorted GameStop closes as $1.13B GME stock offer completes

Point72 is also a big investor in Melvin Capital, the hedge fund that famously took a 53% loss from short positions on GameStop (GME) at the beginning of this year, during the r/wallstreetbets pump and dump incident.

Point72 had a total of $1 billion invested in the firm before the GME drama, and provided an influx of cash to the tune of $750 million, to help stabilize the fund in the aftermath.



via cointelgraph.com
Tracer DAO raises $4.5M to launch derivatives for anything ‘with an oracle feed’

Tracer DAO raises $4.5M to launch derivatives for anything ‘with an oracle feed’

Tracer DAO has raised $4.5 million from the likes Framework Ventures, Maven 11, and Apollo Capital.

Decentralized derivatives platform, Tracer DAO, has announced a successful $4.5 million fundraising round to expand its team and product suite.

They hope to launch innovative derivatives for “any market with an oracle price feed,” with plans to one day allow ordinary consumers to hedge the cost of commuting and other household bills using tokenized derivatives.

This week’s raise saw participation from crypto venture heavyweights, including Framework Ventures, Maven 11, DACM, and Apollo Capital. The investors will share 10% of the project’s governance token supply, which will be vested linearly over two years.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Pat McNab, Tracer DAO founder and co-founder of Mycelium — the Australian development team working to build Tracer DAO — emphasized that the team is currently working to launch v1 of its open-source perpetual swap contracts to Arbitrum mainnet in the coming months.

McNab described the swaps as standing out from the competition through its “highly capital efficient” design and unique insurance pool that allows anyone to “become an insurer for the protocol and earn interest.”

“For each perpetual swap market there will be an underlying insurance pool [...] that insurance pool collects funding payments in the form of an interest rate paid by traders,” he said, adding:

“If a trader goes under margin and there is counterparty risk, this is when the insurers funds will have to be used.”

Tracer is also currently working to launch leveraged tokens, predicting they will go live before the end of the year. The team also plans to hold a public raise via Gnosis Auction in the coming months.

Looking forward, Tracer articulates a bold mission of enabling derivatives for “any market that has an oracle feed,” with McNab emphasizing the opportunity to use cryptocurrency to unlock new markets tied to real-world assets.

“We’re working with Chainlink currently on trying to aggregate fuel pricing data or gas pricing data around different jurisdictions such that, say, in a neo-banking app, consumers can effectively budget for their fuel consumption by buying into a derivatives position using a perpetual swap contract,” he said.

“Our vision for price feeds, especially in the real world [...] will certainly tend down the path of having consumers able to hedge their consumption to local goods markets.”

McNab added that Tracer is currently working with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to “unpack how the water markets work within Australia, especially to determine if we can create more ways for people to effectively manage their risk when it comes to consuming water on a day-to-day basis.”



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Willy Woo: 'Rick Astley' hodlers a key force again and on-chain signals suggest 'recovery'

Willy Woo: 'Rick Astley' hodlers a key force again and on-chain signals suggest 'recovery'

Those that are never gonna give up BTC are still accumulating according to the analyst.

Bitcoin technical analyst Willy Woo believes that this is not a bear market because on-chain indicators are signaling a recovery and the asset is still being bought by long-term hodlers.

The popular analyst’s comments came in an interview on the “What Bitcoin Didpodcast on June 28. Woo stated that he does not believe that Bitcoin is in a typical bear market due to signs of accumulation showing on-chain.

Referring to the 1980’s hit song “Never Gonna Give You Up” by British pop artist Rick Astley, Woo stated:

“The ‘Rick Astley’ is the holder that keeps buying and never tends to sell much ... And of course Rick was very active over 2021, and then suddenly all the coins moved away from Rick to the weak hands — the speculative traders that buy and sell. Now we’re seeing that cross back into moving to Rick.”

He added that we are currently in a speculative phase and those coins that were sold earlier this year are slowly being absorbed by long-term holders.

Podcast host Peter McCormack revealed that he hasn’t sold any crypto assets yet and is still confident because there is “still too much going on and good stuff happening”.

Related: 3 things traders are saying about Bitcoin and the state of the bull market

Analyzing the current Bitcoin price chart, Woo stated that it is a cycle unlike any we’ve ever seen as the underlying structure is completely different. He stated:

“The price right now is going sideways bearish, it looks like a Wyckoffian accumulation price pattern and so if that plays out we should have that last wick down to $28K-$29K which should have been the final test of the bottom. Everything on-chain looks like it’s in recovery.”

Analytics provider Santiment appears to have noticed similar data and it noted that the supply of Bitcoin sitting on exchanges has steadily fallen back down and is getting locked away for safekeeping by hodlers.

Commenting on current regulatory pressure, which has escalated in China, the U.S. and the U.K., Woo stated:

“It’s like Bitcoin is now fighting the Final Boss in a video game … it’s really up against the central bankers, and much earlier than we ever thought.”

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading within its six-week range bound channel, down 3.7% over the past 24 hours at $34,653 according to CoinGecko. As reported by Cointelegraph, traders have been eying three key areas for the monthly candle closure.



via cointelgraph.com
Bargain? World Wide Web’s source code NFT sells for $5.4M at Sotheby’s

Bargain? World Wide Web’s source code NFT sells for $5.4M at Sotheby’s

The source code for the World Wide Web has been sold by the inventor for $5.4 million.

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has sold an NFT of the web's source code for $5.4 million at fine art auction house Sotheby’s.

The piece titled ‘This Changed Everything’ includes a time-stamped file of the source code's 9,555 lines, a high-fidelity image, a 30-minute animation of the code being written, along with a letter written by Berners-Lee.

While $5.4M is a significant sum, it’s a far cry from the $69 million record set in March for Beeple’s Everydays and less than some observers had predicted. Delphi Digital’s Piers Kicks said he’d been expecting a sale around $10M, noting:

According to Berners-Lee, he and his wife will donate the proceeds of the auction to causes supported by the family.

In a statement to the press released by Sotheby’s, Berners-Lee discussed the future of the internet and expressed his hope that it would remain open to allow it to be a continual source of creativity, technical innovation, and social transformation. These ideals were the inspiration behind Berners-Lee move into the NFT space, he said:

“NFTs, be they artworks or digital artifacts like this, are the latest playful creations in this realm, and the most appropriate means of ownership that exists. They are the ideal way to package the origins behind the web.”

Related: Hype is over: How NFTs and art will benefit from each other moving forward

The high-profile auction of the web's source code isn’t the only multi-million dollar sale of a digital artwork hosted by a premier auction house this week. On June 30th, Christie’s Auction house closed a $2.1 million auction for the works of transgender digital art FEWOCiOUS.

The NFT “Hello, i’m Victor (FEWOCiOUS) and This Is My Life,” includes five individual pieces each depicting a year in the artist's formative years from ages 14 to 18 as he transitioned to male. The works illustrate the artist’s struggles with loneliness and identity as he strove to become an artist.

The trajectory of the young artist’s career is indicative of the upward mobility the digital market offers to digital artists. FEWOCiOUS made his first tokenized sale on the marketplace SuperRare for $6,000 in September of last year and was soon selling artworks valued at over $1 million on Nifty Gateway.

Data provided by Cryptoart.io shows that combined sales from the digital art markets have shrunk to $18.3 million in June from their peak of $205 million in March. Winklevoss-owned marketplace Nifty Gateway saw a 94% decline in sales from a peak of $145 million to $7.6 million.

Some digital asset platforms have prospered. Relative newcomer to the digital art space, hic et nunc, has seen sales grow 276% from $717,000 in March to $2.7 million in June, capturing capturing 14.7% of the market.

Source: cryptoart.io/data


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Celsius users to receive yield from its $200M Bitcoin mining investment

Celsius users to receive yield from its $200M Bitcoin mining investment

“There’s nothing better than building a factory that makes Bitcoin,” said Celsius CEO, Alex Mashinsky.

Alex Mashinsky, the CEO of centralized crypto money market Celsius, has revealed that a share of profits from the company's recent $200 million investment into Bitcoin mining infrastructure will be redistributed back to depositors.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Mashinsky stated the firm's mining expansion has added a fifth stream of yield generation for its crypto depositors — alongside lending funds to institutional investors, leveraging DeFi protocols, retail lending, and market making on centralized exchanges.

In early June, Celsius announced it had invested more than $200 million into North American Bitcoin mining infrastructure and positions in Core Scientific, Rhodium Enterprises and Luxor Technologies.

“A big chunk of our community owns Bitcoin and they want to be paid in Bitcoin,” he said, adding: “So, there's nothing better than building a factory that makes Bitcoin.”

“By creating a mining business we are guaranteeing that we can pay our community what we owe them, which is interest in Bitcoin.”

Celsius was founded by the serial entrepreneur in 2017, with the platform offering yield on deposits for more than 40 digital assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins.

Celsius’ mining expansion comes as Mashinsky notes Bitcoin yields are shrinking amid the growth of DeFi, with numerous protocols offering interest in the form of BTC on Bitcoin deposits. Celsius doesn’t charge any management fees from users, but instead takes 20% or more of the profits generated.

The company is not alone looking to invest in North America’s mining sector, with analysts expecting the continent will see an influx of miners who have been dislocated by China’s recent crackdown on the sector.

Mashinsky is unsurprised by China’s regulatory moves, characterizing the clampdown as a move to eliminate competition and protect its emerging central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Ultimately, Celsius’ CEO argues the Chinese miner exodus will prove to be beneficial for the decentralization of the Bitcoin network, stating:

“Moving a lot of the miners out of China is definitely helping Bitcoin get decentralized even more. So it's a good thing for Bitcoin, just not necessarily a good thing for the citizens of China.”

Related:  Cointelgraph Magazine — The adventures of the inventive Alex Mashinsky

The CEO has bullish expectations of Bitcoin’s price for the rest of the year, asserting that the price will tag heights of “anywhere between $140,000 and $160,000.”

However, he believes the markets will peak before 2022, asserting Bitcoin will “close the year below $100,000” after sellers step in to take profits in the six-figure price range.



via cointelgraph.com
Bitcoin’s Game Theory Is Not Cut And Dried

Bitcoin’s Game Theory Is Not Cut And Dried

The often-cited idea is misunderstood in the context of how the world interacts with Bitcoin as a whole.

Game theory is the science concerning the systematizing of strategic conflict and cooperation among rational actors. It was formalized in the mid-40s by the genius polymath John Von Neumann, and then it allegedly found its way into all kinds of science, even though the only people talking about it are venture capitalist types like Balaji Srinivasan using it in word salads to make simple things sound very complex.

When game theory got a little pop culture notoriety with John Forbes Nash Jr.’s depiction in the 2001 biographical drama “A Beautiful Mind,” it somehow became one of those things that people thought could be utilized as a life hack without ever really understanding it, like nootropics and magnetic bracelets. No, seriously, what are nootropics?

To be fair, plenty of things can be appreciated just by reading their Wikipedia entries, but that does not an international affairs expert, nor a set theorist, make. Not everything is a perfect instance of the prisoner’s dilemma, or a tragedy of the commons, or a game of chicken. Again, unless you’re in Silicon Valley and wearing those ugly thousand dollar tennis shoes they all wear.

A game needs, at the very least:

1. Rational actors: players who have specific goals and act in order to achieve them

2. A set of finite and well-defined actions players can make

3. A set of finite and well-defined possible countermoves to those actions from every other player

Games are made challenging and/or complex by:

1. Determining a player’s goals with certainty

2. Iterating a player’s possible “moves” given an adversary’s move, especially if it’s a continuous game with no clearly-defined end state. This can very quickly get bogged down in probability and Bayesian theory.

3.Determining how much information each player has at any given moment

This is why game theoretic simulations for even moderately complex systems are frequently computer-based.

Enter Bitcoin. Which is to say, enter the space where Bitcoin, Bitcoiners, and others reside adjacent to it. Game theory is a frequent rebuttal/reason, wielded with a high level of confidence, for some actor doing this or that, or for hyperbitcoinization to be an inevitability. This is presumably because Bitcoin has rules which are extremely defined, very hard to change, and which generally encourage cooperation. But it’s not that simple.

We really have (at least) three sub-games going on, in which the actions and outcomes in one can potentially affect the actions and outcomes in another:

1. Acting within Bitcoin. This most closely resembles a cooperative symmetric game, where agreements are enforced by a third party, which in this case is the protocol itself, and the identity of actors is less important - again, because of the protocol.

2. Adopting Bitcoin. The decision to step into number 1.

3. Interacting with Bitcoin outside of it.

Let’s dig deeper.

The game theory of acting within Bitcoin is inarguably the most concrete of these. It is set by the code, which is extremely difficult to alter, and is extremely costly to manipulate. This high cost, translated as censorship resistance and security, is a large portion of the value people find in Bitcoin. The predictability of particular actions by particular actors is extremely well-known. As the network becomes more robust and mining becomes more decentralized, this almost isn’t even a talking point anymore. Bitcoin will soon become denser than iridium, and finding some leverage against it will be largely infeasible.

The game of adopting bitcoin, although admittedly I’m using the term a little more loosely here, is where things start to get interesting. The power structures that exist within national governments and the legacy financial system have been perpetuated largely due to immoral actions, such as predatory lending, questionable wars, the petrodollar, cronyism, and the revolving door between them all. Maximal personal liberty and the current socioeconomic and political climate are mutually exclusive. Again, this is not an opinion. Hyperbitcoinization means, at the very least, a severe dampening of this climate.

Adoption of Bitcoin in any capacity is not immediately in the best interest of most nations. Not since George Washington has such a powerful leader or entity readily given up power. No one should expect any large nation to go quietly. Hyperbitcoinization will not roll down to us from the hill of good fortune. We have to hike up ourselves and claim it. And it will be a long and steep one. No country will step out of a game where they made the rules - and can always adjust them to their benefit - and enter into another game with steel walls guarded by those who used to be their subjects. They must be pushed in.

Critical mass is, at least in part, one of the issues. This is why El Salvador’s actionsare such a watershed moment. Many people correctly theorized that it would be a smaller country, under some economic control of a larger one, to adopt Bitcoin. With much diligence and good faith effort, they will hopefully flourish, and their neighbors will be encouraged to do the same. And large nations know there is strength in numbers. It cannot be overstated that this upsets the way of doing things In the modern world, and that other actors will try to thwart it.

You cannot reasonably expect a dishonest and malicious player to suddenly become cooperative.

Interacting with Bitcoin while outside of it is, in this writer’s humble opinion, the most problematic of these three games. The first two games now have considerable momentum behind them. The censorship or extreme regulation of Bitcoin seems to be the lowest cost way to resist it. What form that would take is less than obvious, but the options are limited. You can (attempt to) restrict ownership, purchasing, trading (which is to say, transmitting/routing transactions), or mining. Now, that’s “only” four avenues, but they are each as wide as the FBI’s pocketbook is deep.

Bitcoin, like the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, is not self-enforcing. It requires protecting. And the only thing to do is make Bitcoin more antifragile. Fungibility and censorship resistance will carry the team to hyperbitcoinization.

All of this is to say that the road is not even paved yet, and we shouldn’t be quick to assume the going will be easy. But at least we know where we’re headed.

This is a guest post by Nameless. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.


via bitcoinmagazine.com
Crypto miner claims all major Yunnan operations shut down in advance of CCP anniversary

Crypto miner claims all major Yunnan operations shut down in advance of CCP anniversary

It's unclear if the shutdowns are due to orders passed down from above or the result of China's announced regulatory crackdown on crypto miners.

Reports alleged that cryptocurrency miners in China’s Yunnan province may be out of commission for a day if not longer due to the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary celebration this week.

According to Kevin Zhang, the vice president of mining infrastructure company Foundry Services, all major Bitcoin (BTC) mining farms in Yunnan have been shut down as of today. Zhang said he personally knew of at least two crypto mining sites in the southwestern region that had received orders to cut power.

The shutdowns are purportedly due to the impending Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, celebrations, which occur every year on July 1. Due to this year’s anniversary being a centennial, authorities seem to have taken stronger measures to ensure less pollution — China ranks as the 14th worst country in terms of air quality — traffic, and political demonstrations. Major industries including coal mining and steel production will reportedly be shut down for up to a week in an attempt to reduce urban smog and prevent accidents.

However, it’s unclear if the CCP anniversary is directly related to the shutdowns or Chinese crypto miners are responding to an ongoing regulatory crackdown. The State Council’s Financial Stability and Development Committee announced in May it would be curtailing BTC mining amid financial risk concerns. Several reports have surfaced since that time suggesting authorities are enforcing crypto mining bans in regions including Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai.

Related: China crackdown shows industrial Bitcoin mining a problem for decentralization

While some companies have said the mining ban is driving them to other provinces within China, a few may leave the country entirely. Many experts in the crypto space expect the regulatory crackdown will push mining firms to relocate to Texas, with abundant renewable energy and a highly deregulated power grid.



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Here's why pro traders expect further downside from Ethereum price

Here's why pro traders expect further downside from Ethereum price

Ethereum's EIP-1559 upgrade is fast approaching, but derivatives data shows traders are less than optimistic about ETH's short-term prospects.

Derivatives data shows that Ether (ETH) traders are feeling less bullish when compared to Bitcoin (BTC). Even though the altcoin captured a nearly 200% gain in the first half of 2021 versus Bitcoin's modest 22% price increase, traders seem to be more affected by Ether's recent underperformance.

Institutional flow also backs the decreased optimism seen in Ether derivatives, as ETH investment vehicles suffered record outflows this past week while Bitcoin flows began to stabilize. According to data from CoinShares, Ether funds experienced a record outflow of $50 million this past week.

Ether (orange) versus Bitcoin (blue) prices. Source: TradingView

Take notice of how Ether is underperforming Bitcoin by 16% in June. The London hard fork is scheduled for July, and its core proposal — dubbed as EIP-1559 — will cap Ethereum's gas fees. Therefore, the price action could be related to unsatisfied miners as the network migrates out of Proof-of-Work (PoW).

For this reason, Ether investors have reason to fear because uncertainties abound. Perhaps miners supporting a competing smart-contract chain or some other unexpected turn of events could further negatively impact Ether price.

Whatever the rationale for the current price action, derivatives indicators are now signaling less confidence when compared to Bitcoin.

Ether's December futures premium shows weakness

In healthy markets, the quarterly futures should trade at a premium to regular spot exchanges. In addition to the exchange risk, the seller is 'locking up' funds by deferring settlement. A 4% to 8% premium in the December contracts should be enough to compensate for those effects.

A similar effect occurs in almost every derivatives market, although cryptocurrencies tend to present higher risks and have higher premiums. However, when futures are trading below this range, it signals that there is short-term bearish sentiment.

OKEx BTC (blue) vs. ETH (orange) December futures premium. Source: TradingView

The above chart shows the Bitcoin December futures premium recovering to 3.5% while Ethereum contracts failed to follow. While both assets displayed a neutral-to-bearish indicator, there's evidence that the altcoin investors are less optimistic about a short-term recovery.

Related: Key Bitcoin price indicator flashes its 'fifth buy signal in BTC history.'

Another leg down will do even more harm to altcoins

Another thesis that could negatively impact Ether's premium is the impact of a potential negative 30% performance from Bitcoin. Filbfilb, an independent market analyst and the co-founder of the Decentrader trading suite, said that a 30% crash in the Bitcoin could prompt altcoins to drop twice as hard.

Clem Chambers, the chief executive of the financial analytics website ADVFN, also predicted another potential leg down, which would repeat the late-2018 crypto winter period. Chambers claims Bitcoin could capitulate and fall back towards $20,000.

While the overall market sentiment is neutral-to-bearish, it seems sensible to predict a more daunting scenario for Ether, including uncertainties from the transition to Proof-of-Stake (POS).

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.



via cointelgraph.com
House committee reviews cryptocurrency risks, regulations in hearing

House committee reviews cryptocurrency risks, regulations in hearing

A panel of expert witnesses and members of congress discussed the risks and rewards of cryptocurrency in committee Wednesday.

The U.S. House committee on financial services held a hearing Wednesday for legislators and a panel of witnesses to discuss cryptocurrency regulation in the United States.

The subcommittee on oversight and investigations invited expert witnesses to testify before congress on the risks and opportunities of blockchain technology.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-MN), a ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, was not keen on the idea of investing in cryptocurrency to save for retirement:

“Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, so if one person makes a million dollars and retires at age 45, and nine lose $100,000–– Coinbase makes money, and one millionaire goes on TV and says how wonderful it is, and nine others do not retire with dignity, but instead become eligible for Medicaid.”

He also quipped that the California lottery would make a better “bet” than blockchain: 

“Cryptocurrency is something you can bet on, but if people want to have the animal spirits to take risk, I’d prefer they invest in equity markets to support the building of American companies, or the California lottery to support the schools in my state.” 

But Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), another senior member of the committee, was more concerned that regulatory interference was preventing Americans from benefitting fully from crypto entrepreneurship:

“Over the last few years I’ve been fortunate to meet with many great crypto and blockchain innovators. A common refrain during our discussion is that they so badly want to develop their crypto and blockchain ideas right here in the United States. But they don’t because of continuing uncertainty with crypto regulation.”

Hard-learned lessons from the 2008 financial crisis seemed to loom large over the statements made by witnesses and members of congress. That year’s subprime mortgage crisis in real estate lending quickly spilled over into adjacent financial sectors.

When it did, a wild array of innovative–– and unwieldy–– new financial instruments wiped out huge swaths of investors and plunged the entire U.S. economy into a recession.

The structural instabilities and excessive euphoria that characterized this period’s runaway growth of new securities derivatives were exacerbated by massive amounts of leverage.

Recent years have seen the rapid proliferation of new ventures and technologies to support and expand the capability, use, exchange, and “hodling” of cryptocurrencies— and the blockchains that maintain them. Some lawmakers and regulators fear it’s like the runup to 2008 all over again.

Efforts to regulate blockchain technology, and mitigate the risks involved when trading them as securities, are a confusing patchwork as lawmakers scramble to understand the new technologies and the industry that’s building them.

Not all federal legislators are wary of crypto. Some even endorse them. In a recent CNBC interview, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) said she hopes to see bitcoin as a normal part of a diversified retirement portfolio to hedge against inflation. And earlier this month, the National Republican Congressional Committee began accepting crypto donations for campaign funds.



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Will An African Country Be The Next To Adopt Bitcoin?

Will An African Country Be The Next To Adopt Bitcoin?

The continent is ripe for the opportunity of embracing the interconnecting digital economy of Bitcoin.

With El Salvador becoming the first country to give legal tender status to bitcoin, it begs the question: should African countries follow suit?

After June 8, we can say that the world entered the “nation state game theory” phase of Bitcoin adoption. Latin American neighbors to El Salvador, such as Panama, have started mulling over the prospects of passing similar legislation, as they don’t want their nations to be left behind. Latin American countries are not the only nations feeling pressure to move forward with bitcoin-friendly legislation. Kal Kassa wrote a fantastic piece about Ethiopia and bitcoin. In addition, American football player of Nigerian descent, Russell Okung, wrote a compelling open letter to the president of Nigeria imploring him to embrace a bitcoin standard.

Now, I by no means have the same level of clout as Mr. Okung, but I am of Ghanaian descent, as my family immigrated to the U.S. in hopes of a better life, and I'd like to make the case for an African nation to embrace bitcoin by the end of the year.

According to data from usefultulips.org, sub-Saharan Africa leads the world in peer-to-peer bitcoin transactions in 2021.

Sub-Saharan Africa also has a history that one might think would lead to favorable conditions for a non-global-power-aligned monetary option.

Due to the lasting legacy of imperialism and colonialism in Africa, the French-backed and controlled CFA Franc, created in 1945, is a colonial relic in 15 African countries. One CFA Franc was equivalent to 1.70 Francs in 1945. Over half a century later the CFA Franc was equal to 0.01 Francs in 2002 as France ditched the Franc for the Euro. How did this happen? Devaluation of the CFA Franc by the French government. The CFA Franc lost 17,000% of its value in the span of 52 years.

Bitcoin, created in 2009, solves this problem of control and manipulation of money from the outside.

There are approximately 40 different currencies within the continent of Africa alone. This is a headache considering the geography of the continent. Boarding a flight from Accra to Lagos is about the same distance as from New York to Philadelphia, yet the barriers and hurdles you’ll face before, during and after traveling, such as with visas and foreign exchange, are frustrating. This has presented challenges in cross-border payments, business and economic development, currency instability, devaluation and inflation for many decades.

Bitcoin means different things to different people. I say this to explain that when trying to explain the “store of value” component of bitcoin to Americans and Europeans, it usually falls on deaf ears due the quality of life that most have been accustomed to. You haven't grown up in an emerging market. You haven't lived under authoritarian regimes who can restrict how and what you do with your money. You haven't experienced inflation wiping out your savings, killing your currency. Like the old saying goes, “I don't understand how this is useful to me therefore, it's useless."

The list of nations racing to adopt bitcoin as legal tender is growing and it is only a matter of time before another country becomes the second to do so after El Salvador. I hope it will be an African country although it is more likely that a Latin American country does, given their proximity to El Salvador.

It is in the best interest not only for Bitcoin entrepreneurs, business types and governments, but for the ordinary people of the continent. Bitcoin’s unique properties make it a digital store of value, a savings technology, a quasi bank account for the unbanked, a bank account in cyberspace and an alternative to Western Union for remittance payments to friends and family around the world (Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most expensive region to send money to, where sending $200 costs an average of 8.2% percent as of the fourth quarter of 2020).

The rise of China has meant an increase in their economic influence and ambition on the continent. Look at what institutions such as the IMF and China have done and are doing to African countries. They load African countries with debt and make sure they can’t spend money on things like health, education and overall development.

With bitcoin, Africa will be able to wield control of its own development with permissionless, decentralized money and without the foreign intervention and manipulation of money. Bitcoin is 1,000 times better than the IMF, World Bank, China and the Bank of International Settlements because it is a digital bearer asset.

The implications of such a move will be massive. With China currently clamping down on bitcoin miners, imagine those miners migrating west to the motherland, setting up mining hubs in rural and remote places in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana. That could transform whole economies and change hundreds of millions of lives! Bitcoin could break decade — even centuries — long woes of underdevelopment.

This is a guest post by Paul Opoku. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.


via bitcoinmagazine.com
3 key areas traders are watching as Bitcoin’s monthly close occurs

3 key areas traders are watching as Bitcoin’s monthly close occurs

As the month of June comes to an end, traders are asking the Magic 8-Ball for answers to the question of where Bitcoin's price will go next.

Bitcoin's (BTCwhipsaw volatility has been on full display throughout June, leaving traders confused and in search of the latest technical indicator or major news announcement that might provide some hint at which way the price will move. 

As the month of June comes toward an end, traders are now focused BTC's on the monthly close to determine if the forward outlook is tilted toward bulls or bears.

BTC/USDT 1-month chart. Source: TradingView

At the time of writing, Bitcoin price is still 47% away from its all-time high at $64,873 and analysts have a mixed view on whether or not the bullish momentum will return in the short term. Here are three perspectives analysts have in mind as the market prepares to head into the month of July.

Bitcoin needs to hold the $34,500 support

A survey of crypto Twitter shows that many chart watchers have identified $34,500 as a crucial price level that needs to be defended to establish the bull case for Bitcoin moving forward.

According to Rekt Capital, a pseudonymous trader on Twitter, a close near this level would put the market on a similar trajectory to the BItcoin price pattern seen during the 2013 bull market which included a mid-cycle correction before price broke out to a new all-time high later in the year.

From this bullish perspective, the price of Bitcoin should soon continue the uptrend that began in late 2020 and will theoretically lead to a new all-time high later in 2021 or early 2022 which is projected to surpass $100,000 according to the Bitcoin stock-to-flow model.

Bitcoin stock-to-flow model. Source: Lookintobitcoin

Despite the widespread acceptance and faith in the S2F model, Bitcoin's recent price action led even Plan B, the creator of the popular model, to feel “uneasy” about BTC's most recent dip to the lower bound of the model.

Signs of a bearish breakdown

While bull market advocates look for any sign to validate a move higher, the price action on June 30 caught the eye of another pseudonymous Twitter analyst called John Wick. According to the analyst, there is a bearish topping pattern that can be se in the most recent BTC chart.

According to Wick, Bitcoin now needs to hold support at $34,000 or the market could be in for another extended period of sideways, range-bound trading rather than a fledgling move higher.

Bearish sentiments were also highlighted in the following tweet from the Twitter personality Nunya Bizniz, who points out that BTC would need to close above $37,400 to avoid three consecutive down months, which has historically indicated more downside in the future.

Signs of rising sentiment

While the debate about a bullish or bearish future rages on, there are several indicators pointing to the possibility of rising sentiment amid the noise.

Twitter personality 'Bitcoin Archive' pointed to the Grayscale Bitcoin premium approaching zero and renewed buying activity by the Purpose Bitcoin ETF as evidence that sentiment is on the rise.

Related: NYDIG set to bring Bitcoin adoption to 650 US banks and credit unions

On-chain analyst William Clemente III also posted the following chart to highlight the fact that long-term BTC holders have been accumulating since late May after the price of Bitcoin bottomed out below $29,000.

Bitcoin supply held by long-term holders. Source: Glassnode

Clemente said:

“Bitcoin is cheap and Long-Term BTC Holders know it. They've added 741,363 BTC to their holdings since the initial price drawdown in late May.

For a simplified explanation of important levels to keep an eye on, John Bollinger, a technical analyst and creator of Bollinger Bands,  simply said that $41,000 and $31,000 are the key "logical levels" to watch and he also cited the $35,000 to $36,000 zone as crucial support levels to monitor. 

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.



via cointelgraph.com
George Soros’ investment fund is reportedly trading Bitcoin

George Soros’ investment fund is reportedly trading Bitcoin

In addition to trading crypto, Soros Fund Management is said to be in discussion to acquire blockchain-focused firms.

Soros Fund Management, the private investment firm of billionaire George Soros, is reportedly trading Bitcoin (BTC) as part of a broader exploration of digital assets, according to financial news website TheStreet. 

People familiar with the matter told author Michael Bodley that Dawn Fitzpatrick, the chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management, gave the green light to trade Bitcoin and possibly other cryptocurrencies in the last few weeks. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Fitzpatrick and her team have been exploring cryptocurrencies for some time and that the latest venture is “more than just kicking the tires” on digital assets.

A spokesperson for Soros Fund Management was contacted by TheStreet but declined to comment.

Fitzpatrick is also reportedly in conversations about acquiring a private stake in leading blockchain-based enterprises, though the names of these companies weren’t provided. As Cointelegraph reported, Soros Fund Management was one of several firms behind the $200 million funding of New York Digital Investment Group, better known as NYDIG. MassMutual, Morgan Stanley and Stone Ridge Holdings Group also participated.

At the time, NYDIG co-founder and CEO Robert Gutmann said the investment round was evidence that institutional adoption of Bitcoin was on the rise.

TheStreet's report has already circulated on Twitter, with several prominent industry voices joining the discussion. 

Related: Financial advisers lead the institutional push toward crypto adoption

It’s not entirely clear how Soros Fund Management intends to trade Bitcoin, if at all. An investment stake in the digital asset shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as bullish given that Soros earned his reputation for shorting the British pound in 1992 and effectively ‘breaking the Bank of England.’

Nevertheless, Fitzpatrick has spoken favorably about Bitcoin in recent months. In March, she said cryptocurrencies like BTC are at an “inflection point” that could catalyze greater adoption in the future.

"We've been making some investment into that infrastructure and we think that is at an inflection point," she told Bloomberg in March.



via cointelgraph.com
Bitcoin And The St. Petersburg Game

Bitcoin And The St. Petersburg Game

The apparently infinite value of bitcoin has been expressed in a proposed mathematical situation before.

If you’ve fallen down the Bitcoin rabbit hole even a foot, you’ve probably seen references to the idea of “everything there is, divided by 21 million.” Originally posited by Knut Svanholm, Ioni Appelberg and Guy Swann in a YouTube video with the same title, the concept reflects the seemingly infinite potential value of Bitcoin. As it continues to overtake various asset classes like gold and spread into new markets, the total value of the Bitcoin market appears to be only constrained by the absolute maximum of 21 million circulating bitcoin.

When a financial endeavor promises, in theory, to yield infinite (divided by 21 million) returns, it’s easy to get caught up in the hype. People have even taken out mortgages to buy bitcoin. In the face of infinitely high returns, this isn’t irrational. Why would you not pay anything and everything for the chance to make your life infinitely better? However, the St. Petersburg game, a thought experiment in economics that can trace its roots all the way back to 1713, may offer some insights into the hype surrounding the potential value of bitcoin.

The St. Petersburg game means a lot more than the Bitcoin Bowl in St. Petersburg, Florida. Originally published in Papers of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Petersburg by Daniel Bernoulli, the St. Petersburg paradox is a thought experiment that pushes traditional behavioral economics to the test. Imagine that you’re asked to pay some amount of money to participate in a bet. In the bet, a fair coin is tossed until it shows heads. When it eventually shows heads, you get paid two dollars multiplied by the number of times it was tossed. If it lands on heads on the first toss, you get paid $2. If it lands on tails on the first toss and heads on the second toss, you get paid $4. If it lands on heads on the third toss, $8, and so on and so forth. How much should you be willing to pay to play this game?

Pure economic decision theory would tell you to pay any finite amount. You should sell your car, take out a third mortgage on your home, and contact every loan shark in your address book just for the opportunity to play the St. Petersburg game. Let’s look at why an ideally rational person could end up at such an irrational-seeming conclusion.

For a person seeking to maximize expected value, the traditional approach to decision theory is to take the amount of value in a payout and multiply it by the probability of that payout happening. The probability of the coin landing on heads in the first toss is 50 percent and the payout is $2. Multiplying these together gives us an expected value of $1. The probability of the coin landing on heads in the second toss is 25 percent and the payout is $4, giving us an expected value of $1 again. You can calculate the expected value for any number of tosses n and it will always yield $1.

What are the odds that the coin lands on tails a million times before finally landing on heads? Really really low (around 10−301030), but the amount you stand to gain is $2 million. To find the maximum amount of money that you should be willing to play this game, you can add the sum of expected values for all potential outcomes. As the number of tails tosses in a row increases, the probability gets incredibly small, but it is never zero. As such, we should take the sum of an infinite set.

As you can see, this gives us a total expected value of infinity for the game. With a potential payout approaching infinity like this, you could pay any finite amount of money to play the game and still maximize your expected value.

This recommendation has confused economists for centuries. How could it possibly be reasonable to pay millions or even billions of dollars for an infinitesimally small chance at a net-positive payoff? There’s no conclusive answer so far, but decreasing marginal utility is a long-standing suggestion for why you shouldn’t pay a ludicrous amount. Decreasing marginal returns is the idea that at some point, once all your needs are met, additional dollars are worth less to you than before. Vitalik Buterin explained in this article that a gallon of water a day is worth a lot more when you have none than when you already have 99. Similarly, in the St. Petersburg game, it may seem justified to risk losing a billion dollars to gain three billion, but if you already have a billion dollars, how much can an extra billion really do for you? If you lose, the difference in lifestyle between zero dollars and a billion dollars is much more extreme than the difference in lifestyle between a billion dollars and three billion dollars. This is true for more realistic sums of money as well.

Now what does all this have to do with Bitcoin? If Bitcoin can truly represent the total value of the entire economy — past, present, and future — then it’s the closest thing we’ve ever seen to a real-life St. Petersburg game. Like the St. Petersburg game, the payout itself would be finite (bitcoin will probably always have a quantifiable value attached to it), but its potential approaches infinity.

In one sense, this highlights the asymmetric risk-reward tradeoff of investing in bitcoin. You can only lose what you put in, but the potential reward is much, much higher. In another sense, this thought experiment recommends putting everything you can into bitcoin, without paying any mind to your potential losses. The only thing to keep in mind when you’re deciding whether or not to put an extra $100 of your fiat currency into bitcoin is how you could use that $100 right now. If the money is the difference between paying your utilities or having your water cut off, it’s probably smarter to hold onto it. After all, even the best scenario for bitcoin won’t add as much happiness to your life as forgoing showers for a month would take away. But if you’ve paid off all your credit cards and the rent check is in the mail, then know the extra dollars you put into bitcoin are endorsed by economic theory over the past few hundred years.

This is a guest post by Will Henson. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.


via bitcoinmagazine.com
Ethereum 2.0 approaches 6 million staked ETH milestone

Ethereum 2.0 approaches 6 million staked ETH milestone

ETH 2.0 now has 10x more staked Ether to power its proof-of-stake mechanism than the Ethereum Foundation required at launch six months ago.

Ethereum 2.0 is approaching what some are calling a major milestone in its short history — 6 million staked Ether (ETH). The Ethereum Launchpad, Ethereum 2.0’s portal for validators to stake their coins, shows some 5.9 million staked Ether and almost 180,000 validators powering the blockchain Wednesday.

That averages out to just slightly more than the minimum 32 staked Ether required to activate the validating software and becoming a validating node on the network. This represents an investment of $66,560 to participate as a validator on the network at the average crypto exchange price at the time of publication.

According to the Ethereum Foundation, validators “are responsible for storing data, processing transactions, and adding new blocks to the blockchain.”

When Ethereum 2.0 first went online in Dec 2020, the foundation required a minimum of 524,288 ETH to be staked before launching. So in six months, Ethereum has swelled with 10x more validators than the minimum network requirements decided by the foundation last year.

ETH rallied this week after reclaiming $2,000, remaining above key support at $2,080 since mid-afternoon Monday (UTC). Traders and investors are bullish for Ether as they anxiously await the London hard fork scheduled for July.

At the current price level, the 5.9 million staked Ether is worth some $12.29 billion in market exchange value. That figure represents the amount of money nearly 180,000 validators have locked away in deposit, for the opportunity to power the blockchain.

This qualifies them as good-faith participants in the network, with a stake in following the rules and keeping malicious behavior and software off the Ethereum network.

Validators that do not adhere to the network protocol, go offline, or fail to validate, risk losing their staked Ether. Those that help the network follow the rules and achieve consensus as it processes requests from users earn rewards credited to them on the blockchain.



via cointelgraph.com
Price analysis 6/30: BTC, ETH, BNB, ADA, DOGE, XRP, DOT, UNI, BCH, LTC

Price analysis 6/30: BTC, ETH, BNB, ADA, DOGE, XRP, DOT, UNI, BCH, LTC

Bitcoin and altcoins are witnessing selling near key overhead resistance levels, but a shallow pullback may suggest further upside is in store.

Bitcoin price staged a mild resurgence at the start of this week but data from Glassnode suggests that its new BTC investors who came late to the party and are dumping their positions in a panic.

This transfer of crypto assets from speculators or momentum chasers to long-term investors is a positive sign. This lays the groundwork for the start of the next bull run but it may not happen in a hurry.

At the moment, institutions are unlikely to buy aggressively and propel the price of Bitcoin higher because there is still a chance that they can accumulate at lower levels. Therefore, the range-bound action may continue for a few more days.

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

According to Forbes, New York Digital Investment Group’s (NYDIG) partnership with enterprise payment company NCR may empower 650 banks and credit unions in the U.S. to offer Bitcoin trading services to more than 24 million customers. This move is likely to attract several new investors to crypto, which is a long-term positive.

Will Bitcoin and altcoins witness selling pressure and break below their recent lows or will buyers propel the price above the local highs? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin broke above the 20-day exponential moving average ($35,196) on June 29, which is a positive sign. This showed that traders were not booking profits at the 20-day EMA but were trying to push the price above it.

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

However, the bears have not allowed the price to sustain above the 20-day EMA. This suggests that sellers are defending the zone between the 20-day EMA and the 50-day simple moving average ($37,752).

The bears will now try to pull the price down to $31,000 but the flattening 20-day EMA and the relative strength index (RSI) above 45 suggest the selling pressure could be reducing.

A shallow pullback from the current level will enhance the prospects for a break above the 50-day SMA, clearing the path for a rally to $42,451.67.

This positive view will invalidate if the bears sink the price below the $31,000 support. That could result in a decline to the critical support at $28,000.

ETH/USDT

Ether (ETH) broke above the 20-day EMA ($2,170) on June 29, indicating strength. However, the bears did not waste time and have pulled the price back below the 20-day EMA today. This suggests that sellers are not willing to let go of their advantage easily.

ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the bulls do not allow the price to dip below $2,000, the ETH/USDT pair will once again try to rise above the 20-day EMA. If that happens, the pair could rise to the downtrend line. The bears will try to stall the rally at this level.

Contrary to this assumption, if the bears sink the price below $2,000, the pair may again drop to the $1,728.74 support. Repeated retests of a support level tend to weaken it. If the price slips below $1,728.74, the selling may intensify and the pair may drop to $1,536.92.

BNB/USDT

Binance Coin (BNB) is facing resistance at the 20-day EMA ($315). The bears will now try to pull the price below the immediate support at $264.26. If they succeed, the altcoin could drop to the critical support at $211.70.

BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The downsloping moving averages and the RSI in the negative territory suggest the path of least resistance is to the downside.

Alternatively, if the price again rebounds off $264.26, the buyers will try to drive the price above the 20-day EMA. If they succeed, the BNB/USDT pair could move up to the 50-day SMA ($369) and then to $433.

This level may act as a strong resistance and if the price turns down from it, the pair could drop to the 20-day EMA.

ADA/USDT

Cardano (ADA) pierced the 20-day EMA ($1.38) but the buyers could not sustain the price above it. That suggests the bears are attempting to defend this resistance aggressively.

ADA/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the price dips below $1.30, the ADA/USDT pair could drop to $1.20. The bulls are likely to buy this dip and again attempt to push the price above the 20-day EMA. If they succeed, the pair could rally to the 50-day SMA ($1.57).

On the contrary, if the bears sink the price below the $1.20 support, the pair could slide to $1. This is an important support to watch out for because a break below it could result in long liquidation while a rebound off it could extend the range-bound action for a few more days.

DOGE/USDT

Dogecoin (DOGE) had been trading close to the 20-day EMA ($0.27) for the past three days but the bulls could not push the price above it. This may have attracted profit-booking from short-term traders, pulling the price lower today.

DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the bears sink the price below the $0.21 support, the DOGE/USDT pair could drop to the critical support at $0.15. This is the last major support before panic selling could drag the price down to $0.10.

On the contrary, if the price rebounds off the $0.21 support, it will suggest that bulls are trying to form a higher low. The buyers will then make one more attempt to push the price above the 20-day EMA.

If they succeed, the pair could rise to the 50-day SMA ($0.33), which is just above the neckline of the head and shoulders pattern.

XRP/USDT

XRP’s pullback has hit a wall at the 20-day EMA ($0.73). This suggests that sentiment remains negative and traders are selling on rallies to the overhead resistance levels.

XRP/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The bears will now try to pull the price below $0.58. If they succeed, the XRP/USDT pair could drop to the psychological level at $0.50. This is an important support to watch out for because if it gives way, the decline could extend to the support line of the descending channel.

This negative view will invalidate if the pair turns up from the current level or rebounds off $0.58 and rises above $0.75. Such a move will suggest that the bulls are trying to make a comeback. The pair could then rise to the 50-day SMA ($0.93) and later to $1.07.

DOT/USDT

Polkadot (DOT) has turned down from the $16.93 resistance, suggesting that bears are selling on every minor rally. The bears will now try to pull the price to the $13 level. If the price rebounds off this support, the altcoin may extend its consolidation between $13 and $16.93.

DOT/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

However, the downsloping moving averages and the RSI below 38 suggest that the path of least resistance is to the downside. If bears sink the price below $13, the DOT/USDT pair could start the next leg of the downtrend that may reach $10 and then $7.50.

This negative view will invalidate if the bulls drive the price above the 20-day EMA ($18.20). That could result in an up-move to the 50-day SMA and then to $26.50. The bears are likely to defend this level aggressively.

UNI/USDT

The bulls pushed the price above the $18.60 resistance but could not clear the hurdle at the 20-day EMA ($19.49). This suggests that bears continue to sell Uniswap (UNI) on rallies to the strong resistance levels.

UNI/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the price turns down from the current level, the UNI/USDT pair could drop to $15. A bounce off this support may keep the pair range-bound between $15 and the 20-day EMA for a few days.

On the contrary, if the bulls regroup and push the price above the 20-day EMA, the pair could rise to the 50-day SMA ($24.45). This level may again act as stiff resistance but if the bulls arrest the next decline above $18.60, the pair may rally to $30.

Related: Coincidence? Bitcoin saw its highs and lows on 'Turnaround Tuesdays' in June

BCH/USDT

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is facing stiff resistance at the 20-day EMA ($537), which is just below the horizontal resistance at $538.11. The bears are likely to defend this level aggressively.

BCH/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the price turns down from this level, the BCH/USDT pair could drop to $428.43 and then to $370. A bounce off this support could keep the pair range-bound between $370 and $538.11 for the next few days.

However, the flattening 20-day EMA and the RSI above 41 suggest the selling pressure is reducing. If bulls propel the price above $538.11, the pair could pick up momentum and rise to the 50-day SMA ($690).

LTC/USDT

Litecoin’s (LTC) relief rally is facing stiff resistance at the 20-day EMA ($147). This suggests the sentiment remains negative and traders are selling on rallies to strong resistance levels.

LTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the price turns down from the current level, the bears will make another attempt to sink the LTC/USDT pair below the $118 support. If they manage to do that, the pair will complete a descending triangle pattern. This could intensify selling and pull the price down to $100 and later to $70.

Contrary to this assumption, if the price turns up from the current level or rebounds off $118 and breaks above the downtrend line, it will invalidate the bearish setup. That could open the gates for a rally to $225.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Market data is provided by HitBTC exchange.



via cointelgraph.com