CryptoNews of the Week by NordFX

CryptoNews of the Week


- Bitcoin has had its best start to the year since January 2013. The rate rose by 51% then, the growth was 40% last month. It happened against the backdrop of the weakness of the US dollar. “At the same time, 85% of the contribution to the rally is associated with investors from the United States,” says Markus Thielen, head of research at crypto services provider Matrixport. The bullish stance of US companies is also confirmed by the renewed premium in bitcoin futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. “We interpret this as a sign that faster institutional traders and hedge funds are actively buying back the recent fall in the cryptocurrency markets,” Thielen said.
Deutsche Digital Assets made a similar observation earlier, on January 20, drawing attention to the increase in Coinbase's premium as evidence of increased buying interest from sophisticated US investors. An institutional-led bullish reversal in bitcoin could be a good sign for the US stock market, given that the cryptocurrency bottomed a few weeks before the S&P 500.

- Binance Bitcoin Exchange reported that user interest in digital assets remains high. According to the survey, more than 88% of Binance customers plan to continue investing in cryptocurrencies, and only 3.3% do not consider this possibility. Bitcoin is still the dominant asset, owned by 21.7% of those surveyed. The top three also include Tether (17.8%) and BUSD (10.3%).
Over 40% of respondents bought digital assets last year for investment purposes. Other motives were the decline in the value of bitcoin and the general bearish trend. Almost 8% cited the geopolitical situation in the world as a reason for the purchase, and 11.5% expressed distrust of the traditional financial system. 40.8% do not use traditional investment opportunities (buying shares, investing in real estate, mutual funds), while 32.4% do use them. At the same time, 79.7% are sure that cryptocurrencies are necessary for the development of the global economy, and 59.4% of respondents believe that deposits in cryptocurrencies will be able to replace bank deposits over time.
According to statistics, the total number of digital wallets with a balance of $1,000 or more in bitcoin or ethereum has increased by 27% in 2022.

- Despite the fact that 2022 was a challenging year for the crypto industry, 82% of millionaires considered investing in digital assets like bitcoin. This follows from a survey conducted by financial consulting company deVere Group. The results of the survey, published on January 30, show that 8 out of 10 surveyed clients of the company, with assets to invest from $1.2 to $6.1 million, turned to financial advisers for cryptocurrency advice.
Nigel Green, CEO and Founder of the deVere Group, believes that while the group surveyed is “generally more conservative,” its interest stems from the core values of bitcoin: “digital, global, borderless, decentralized, and secure from unauthorized access". Green also notes a growing interest in crypto services from older financial institutions such as Fidelity, BlackRock and JPMorgan, and considers this a good sign for the industry. He predicts that the momentum of interest will build as the “crypto winter” of 2022 thaws due to changing conditions in the traditional financial system.
For the record: A June 2022 report by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers found that roughly a third of 89 traditional hedge funds surveyed had already invested in digital assets like bitcoin.

- The Fear and Greed Index, a metric showing the community's general attitude towards bitcoin, entered the “Greed” zone for the first time since March 30, 2022. This is due to the increase in the bitcoin rate in the first month of the year and the general revival of the entire market. It is worth noting, however, that the increased confidence among crypto investors should not be directly viewed as a catalyst for the resumption of bullish growth in the bitcoin price. In fact, a Fear or Extreme Fear metric could indicate a good buying opportunity, and too high a Greed reading could mean the market is headed for a downward correction.

- Tron founder Justin Sun said that the legalization of cryptocurrency will not only make it easier to buy and sell goods and services but will also give the public more control over their financial future. “Cryptocurrency can become a powerful tool for financial inclusion and improving the lives of people in all corners of the world. […] Let's work together to create a more inclusive and equal future for all,” wrote Justin Sun.
For the record: TRON is a decentralized entertainment content platform based on blockchain and using the TRX token. The platform also offers tools that allow developers to build and launch their own dApps.

- Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker widely known as “The Wolf of Wall Street”, also believes that regulation of the digital asset segment may be a bullish catalyst for bitcoin in the future. According to the entrepreneur, the flagship cryptocurrency will only benefit from this. He also emphasized that if world governments continue to print money uncontrollably, more and more users will see bitcoin as a reliable tool to protect against inflation.

- The price of bitcoin on Nigeria's popular NairaEx exchange jumped in terms of local currency to almost $40,000, which is about 70% higher than the global market. The discrepancy is due to the limit imposed by the country's Central Bank on withdrawing funds from ATMs. The regulator took this step in order to reduce the share of cash in cash turnover.

- Arizona Senate Member Wendy Rogers has once again proposed approving bitcoin as legal tender in the state. In a tweet, Rogers quoted Goldman Sachs data that the first cryptocurrency is “the world's most profitable asset this year.” If the law is passed, the cryptocurrency will receive the same status as the US dollar.

- Billionaire founder of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd Mike Novogratz, having endured a challenging 2022, is now determined to increase investment in bitcoin mining. His focus is Texas, where Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd is buying the Helios mining operation from Argo Blockchain for $65 million. 
There are currently almost 30 mining companies in Texas. In total, they have already created about 2,000 new jobs directly, and indirectly, about 20,000 more. The Governor's Blockchain Working Group believes that Texas, which leads in oil production, is able to maintain leadership in the US in bitcoin mining as well.

- According to Matrixport experts, the flagship cryptocurrency rate may reach $45,000 by Christmas 2023. Researchers released a report in which they shared a historical observation: when January's bitcoin quotes on the chart were in the “green” zone, the price rally usually continued in the following months of the year.

- A popular analyst Plan B has outlined a scenario that, in his opinion, could raise the bitcoin price to $1 million by 2025. As for this year, he predicts the price will rise above $100,000. The analyst also said that the January bitcoin pump confirms that the asset's 4-year cyclical price bottom is over.
Plan B is known for the "Stock-to-Flow" model, which attempts to model the price of bitcoin based on its scarcity. His concept involves a parabolic jump in the price of an asset every 4 years due to halving. That being said, the analyst was heavily criticized in 2022 due to an unfortunate prediction that BTC would rise well above $100,000 at the end of 2021. After that, he adjusted his model based on 18-month statistics, as a result of which a smoother growth of the main cryptocurrency was incorporated into it.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen said that bitcoin has a “long year” to look forward to. According to the expert, it may appear that BTC has significant strength, while in fact the asset is likely to be in the process of forming a wide sideways range as a base. Cowen explained that sideways movement is not always an indicator of the growth of the first cryptocurrency and may also signal a fall in quotes.
The analyst reminded traders that a bearish cycle is usually followed by a year of sideways movement. Thus, there were three upward impulses in 2015, and only the last one turned into a real rally. There were also periods of growth in quotes in 2019, then their active fall followed, and a cycle that brought the crypto market to new highs started only after that.
The analyst noted that 2023 can be seen as a year of accumulation and that investors can take advantage of this period to increase their holdings of BTC. In addition, Cowan believes that the US Federal Reserve should ease monetary policy in order to increase cryptocurrency prices.

- Peter Brand, a well-known cryptocurrency trader, has a bearish forecast for the near future, as BTC has not been able to gain a foothold above $23,500 for a long time and is in consolidation. As the expert noted, many traders and investors are now waiting for a certain pullback in order to enter the market at better prices. The specialist believes that the flagship of the crypto market may reach the level of $25,000 in the near future, after which there will be a correction closer to $19,000. Brand remains optimistic from a medium-term perspective, predicting bitcoin to rise to $65,000 in the middle of this year.

- This release of CryptoNews was prepared a few hours before the meeting of the US Federal Reserve, following which the decision on the key rate will be announced. If the rate, according to forecasts, increases by 0.25%, and at the same time the head of the Fed, Jerome Powell, clearly hints at the dovish attitude of the regulator, this will most likely weaken the dollar and push the quotes of risky assets, including cryptocurrencies, up. On the other hand, if, contrary to the expectations of investors, the refinancing rate rises by 0.50%, a wave of panic sales in the crypto market cannot be ruled out. You can find out what will actually happen in NordFX's regular analytical review, which, as usual, will be published at the end of the week.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan said on CNBC that he was not sure that the bitcoin issuance is really limited to 21 million coins. "How do you know? Maybe it will go up to 21 million, and Satoshi's photo will pop up and laugh at all of you,” he suggested. The top manager already publicly expressed skepticism in October 2022 regarding the code embedded in the algorithm of the first cryptocurrency. “Have you all read the algorithms? Guys, do you believe in all this?” Damon grinned at the time.
Given the programmed halvings, reaching the bar of 21 million should occur by 2141. At the same time, experts say that the limit on bitcoin emissions is provided by only five lines of the code. It is open for study, and anyone can verify this.

- According to Cathy Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, the cryptocurrency market will enter a new phase in 2023. The growth of bitcoin and other virtual currencies will be the result of the US Federal Reserve's easing of monetary policy in the second half of this year. It is this move that will become a trigger for investors testing stock markets and digital currencies. Earlier, Bloomberg strategist Mike McGlone expressed a similar point of view, pointing to the possibility of BTC rising to $30,000.

- Adam Farthing, Chief Risk Officer at crypto company B2C2, noted that the first cryptocurrency needs to overcome the key level at around $25,000 in order to continue the rally. “It will be a tough nut to crack,” the expert shared his opinion. According to him, after passing the designated milestone, interest will resume from outsiders who want to return to the market.
Analysts at the brokerage company Bernstein are convinced that such a rally is unlikely to continue at the moment, as there are no signs of “any new injections” into the industry. However, in their opinion, institutional capital will still begin to show more interest in cryptocurrency this year, as it becomes an increasingly regulated asset class.

- Brian Armstrong, head of crypto exchange Coinbase, called bitcoin “the right long-term bet” for Brazil and Argentina. According to the Financial Times, the two countries intend to create a single currency to reduce dependence on the US dollar and stimulate regional trade. The Argentine Minister of Economy spoke about plans to offer participation in the bloc to other Latin American countries. The FT estimates that the new union will cover approximately 5% of global GDP and will be the second largest in the world after the EU (14%). “I wonder if they would consider switching to bitcoin. That would probably be the right long-term bet,” Armstrong said.
Former Goldman Sachs executive and macro investor Raoul Pal criticized Armstrong's idea because of the volatility of the first cryptocurrency. “No one can currently afford a national currency with 100% volatility, which falls by 65% and rises tenfold. Businesses are fighting to plan and hedge this,” he wrote.

- The Binance exchange press service said that an unknown artist under the nickname Sabunir tried to sell his digital image for bitcoins for the first time in the world. This happened 13 years ago, on January 24, 2010. The picture was a desktop wallpaper for a personal computer and was designed in a resolution of 1280x960 pixels. Sabunir tweeted at the time that he wanted to try to earn some bitcoins. He priced his picture at $1 and stressed that he plans to get 500 BTC for it. It is not known whether this deal took place, but if it did, Sabunir would now be a wealthy man, as these coins are worth more than $11 million. 

- Carley Garner, senior commodity strategist & broker at DeCarley Trading, recommended staying away from virtual currencies and choosing gold instead as a hedge against rising inflation and economic chaos. Garner studied the daily chart of BTC and Nasdaq 100 futures since March 2021 carefully, and noted that the picture was almost identical, and the price movements were in sync. According to her, this indicated that bitcoin is more of a risky asset than a means of saving capital.
Garner's opinion was referred to by Jim Cramer of CNBC. “Mad Money” TV presenter also highlighted the risks associated with the flagship cryptocurrency in light of the collapse of the FTX marketplace. He noted that a similar situation could happen at any time with any other large crypto company. In his opinion, no one knows what the big players in the industry are really hiding. And there are no guarantees that they are actually honest with their customers. Any new scandal will cause a sharp drop in bitcoin quotes, which means that investors' assets are at risk.

- The first nuclear-powered bitcoin mining center will open in Pennsylvania (USA). Cumulus Data has completed construction of the country's first zero-carbon data center. The new data center will have a capacity of more than 40 MW, achieved through a direct connection to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in northeast Pennsylvania. In addition to server equipment for cloud computing, the data center will house equipment for mining the main cryptocurrency.
Cumulus Susquehanna is the first in Cumulus Data's future network of 18 combined data centers with a combined capacity of more than 470 MW. They will be used to deploy the first Nautilus Cryptomine mining complex in the United States, which operates exclusively on nuclear energy and produces “carbon-free crypto assets”.

- “Buying bitcoin at the end of the first day of the Chinese New Year and selling it ten trading days later guarantees an average profit of more than 9%,” Markus Thielen, director of research and strategy at Matrixport, found out. The scheme has been profitable in 100% of cases for the last eight years, from 2015 to 2022. Such an operation would bring the greatest profit in 2017: 15%. Even in 2018, against the backdrop of the previous crypto winter, the investor received income, although only 1%.
To implement the scheme In 2023, it was necessary to buy digital gold on January 22, and sell the assets 10 days later, on February 1. Bitcoin was trading near the $22,900 mark on the day of the proposed purchase, January 22. Thielen believes its price should approach $25,000 by the beginning of February.
We will soon find out whether the phenomenon will be justified this time. And if anyone decides to follow Thielen's recommendations in the future, we would like to inform you that the next Chinese New Year begins on Saturday, February 10, 2024.

- Nicholas Merten, a cryptocurrency analyst and creator of the DataDash channel, noted that cryptocurrencies have a bright future, but many people underestimate the global situation. The damage done by FTX, Celsius, Three Arrows Capital and Terraform Labs has left an indelible mark on the industry. In addition, the macroeconomic component should also be taken into account, since many countries are struggling with rapid inflation, and supply chains have not fully recovered after the coronavirus pandemic. According to the expert, investors need to understand that the long-term bullish trend is over. Unfortunately, the digital asset industry needs to prepare for new challenges, and the current bullish trend in the market is only a local correction within the overall bearish trend.

- Thanks to the recent bullish rally, the capitalization of the flagship cryptocurrency has exceeded $443 billion, and has surpassed all key traditional financial institutions, including global world banks, in this indicator. For example, the capitalization of the American banking giant JPMorgan Chase is $406.42 billion, while Bank of America has a capitalization of $277.56 billion. In addition, BTC is ahead of companies such as Alibaba ($317.01 billion), Samsung ($335.37 billion), Mastercard ($365.09 billion) and Walmart ($385.15 billion). However, it has slightly lost to Tesla ($454.72 billion).
According to CompaniesMarketCap, bitcoin is the 16th most valuable asset in the world. The leaders of the rating are gold ($12.77 trillion), Apple ($2.25 trillion) and Saudi Aramco ($1.94 trillion).


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Texas A&M University (USA) will launch an educational program dedicated to bitcoin in spring 2023. The Bitcoin Protocol course will be included in the educational program of students at such university schools as as May Business School and College Engineering. The initiative is based on the book Programming Bitcoin by Bitcoin Core developer Jimmy Song.

- Shaktikanta Das, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said during a speech at the BT Banking & Economy summit that digital assets should be completely banned in the country. “The position of the RBI is extremely clear: all cryptocurrencies should be banned. However, blockchain technology needs to be supported as it has many other uses,” he explained.
Das emphasized the unreliability of cryptocurrency due to constant price changes and the “ambiguity” of the definition. According to him, some consider it an asset, others consider it a financial product. However, according to the manager, “disguising a cryptocurrency as a financial product or asset” is inappropriate. As for changing the price of coins, this is 100% speculation and gambling, which, by the way, are prohibited in India.

- Unlike India, the US has a more loyal attitude towards cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. Thus, the country's Congress has created a new subcommittee that will deal with new rules for regulators regarding digital currencies, as well as develop policies to further promote digital financial technologies.
The new organization will be led by Republican Congressman French Hill, who previously led the Fintech and Artificial Intelligence Task Forces. Hill noted in his statement that at a time of significant technological advancement and change in the financial sector, the subcommittee's job is to promote responsible innovation by encouraging the development of FinTech in the country.

- Bank of America (BAC) researchers believe that digital currencies, CBDCs and stablecoins are a natural evolution of money and payments. Central bank digital currencies can “revolutionize global financial systems and may become the most significant technological achievement in the history of money.” 
BAC researchers believe that monetary regulators in developed and developing countries will focus on the efficiency of payments and their availability. However, some countries will not issue such means of payment even in the next ten years. But their central banks will have to “either innovate technologically or become irrelevant in the long term.”

- Kevin O'Leary, head of O'Leary Ventures and host of the TV show Shark Tank, expects even more crypto exchanges to crash in the industry. The reason for this, in his opinion, is people's ignorance. “If you ask me if there's going to be another crash to zero, 100% that's going to happen. And this is going to happen again and again... I don't think it's about regulation. It will not change the scale of fraud,” the investor said. Legislators are likely to put in place a solid regulatory framework soon, O'Leary said, but that won't do the industry any good.

- The value of bitcoin could increase to $50,000-100,000 over the next two to three years. This opinion was expressed in an interview with CNBC by the founder of the hedge fund SkyBridge Capital Anthony Scaramucci. The businessman called 2023 a “recovery year” for the main cryptocurrency.
Of course, the decisions of the US Federal Reserve will influence the digital gold rate. And if the financial regulator takes measures to stimulate the economy in the middle of the year, this will be a good impetus for the rise in the bitcoin price. This is evidenced by the January price jump caused by US inflation data for December. The market decided based on this data that the Fed could significantly ease its monetary policy, as a result, BTC quotes went up sharply.

- Positive sentiment dominates the cryptocurrency market, and its total capitalization reached $1 trillion on January 16, for the first time in a long time. In turn, bitcoin is firmly held above $20,000. Analyst Craig Erlam noted that digital assets have become the main beneficiary during the current increase in risk appetite.
In his opinion, it is also possible to say that the industry has recovered from the recent FTX collapse. On the other hand, there are no specific fundamental grounds for the development of a bullish trend at the moment. In the current conditions, it is necessary to monitor the macroeconomic situation, as it will have a strong impact on the dynamics of digital assets. At the moment, the consensus forecast of market participants is based on the fact that following the results of the February meeting, the Fed will raise the refinancing rate by only 0.25%. In this case, the bullish mood in the cryptocurrency market is likely to receive serious support.

- Bloomberg Intelligence senior strategist Mike McGlone believes that the bottom in the cryptocurrency market has already been passed. But his opinion on the Fed's monetary policy differs from that of other analysts.
McGlone has noted that the charts are reminiscent of the 2018 dynamics, when the price of the first cryptocurrency rebounded from $5,000. However, the macroeconomic situation is now completely different, which is why the bitcoin growth may stop at current values. Thus, the NASDAQ index may continue to fall, and the correlation between bitcoin and the stock market has been quite significant in recent years. “We are still pulling liquidity from global markets, and there are reasons for this. And even if equities and other risky assets rise, liquidity will remain limited by central banks. The big difference from 2018 is that the Fed had already begun to ease its policy then, and we do not see any easing today,” the Bloomberg strategist explained.
“Look at the NASDAQ, the chart is breaking through the 200-week SMA. This has only happened 3 times in history, and the Fed has always eased its monetary policy. But the US Central Bank is aggressively tightening it now. The overall picture is optimistic for bitcoin, but the situation is unprecedented now, so anything can happen,” McGlone said.

- Legendary stock trader and analyst Peter Brandt, who, among other things, predicted the 2018 BTC correction accurately, gave a fresh forecast for the bitcoin movement in the short and long term.
According to the specialist, BTC will be able to realize growth to levels near $25,000 in the near future. After that, a correction is not ruled out by the end of spring, that will give the cryptocurrency strength for a new rally. As a result, the coin will reach its previous highs near $68,000 in the second half of 2023. After that, another correction and a subsequent update of the absolute high are possible.
Peter Brandt does not rule out bitcoin rising to $150,000 by early 2025. However, he warns that this is nothing more than his guess. Nobody knows how the main cryptocurrency will actually behave, according to the eminent trader.

- Peter Brandt was supported in this opinion by artificial intelligence (AI) of the ChatGPT test platform. This platform has become popular due to its ability to solve a wide range of tasks with high accuracy, including asset trading.
Experts from Finbold asked the artificial intelligence what the bitcoin price will be in 2030. Finbold suggested that ChatGPT would be able to provide a fairly accurate forecast based on historical BTC price data, market data, technical and fundamental analysis, and other indicators. But the AI didn't live up to expectations. It was never able to predict the exact rate and admitted that it is hard to name the price of the coin in the long term. The AI cited high market volatility and unclear regulatory rules as the reasons. However, the AI, like Peter Brandt, believes that the flagship cryptocurrency has potential for growth in the coming years. This will be possible due to the development of technology, the maturation of the cryptocurrency market and their massive 
distribution.

- Ben Armstrong, a popular cryptocurrency YouTuber, believes that the price of the flagship cryptocurrency will jump to $30,000 by the end of February 2023. However, analyst and investor Ali Martinez disagrees. According to him, miners have recently been actively selling their assets to lock in profits. In addition, according to the expert, traders trading on the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, massively opened short positions on BTC. According to analytical resources, as of the morning of January 17, 51% of the users of the trading platform had bitcoin shorts. This number then increased to 57%.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Nine months before the collapse of the FTX bitcoin exchange, its top management spent $40 million on luxury hotels, flights and food. Business Insider writes about this with reference to court documents. Thus, the founder of the stock exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, lived in a $30 million penthouse in the prestigious resort of Albany (New Providence, Bahamas) before his arrest. In addition, Bankman-Fried's parents, himself, and FTX executives have owned at least 19 luxury properties worth $121 million.

- The Hong Kong Financial Secretary announced that the jurisdiction is ready to accept cryptocurrency companies from around the world. The official noted that the authorities of this administrative region of China have recently completed work on a licensing regime for the industry. In accordance with the adopted rules, crypto companies are subject to the requirements that apply to the traditional financial sector. Earlier, the Hong Kong Financial Services and Treasury Bureau announced the introduction of regulatory mechanisms to protect investors.
Analysts expect that regulatory pressure on the crypto industry will increase in many countries in the coming year. The long-awaited law MiCA (Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation) will come into force. Most likely, the SEC will also do something important in terms of regulating cryptocurrencies. And it is possible that such steps will help restore investors' interest and confidence in the industry, lost after the turmoil of 2022.

- Despite the recovery of cryptocurrency markets after the collapse of the FTX exchange, the situation with Binance has not yet returned to normal. According to a recent Forbes report, the exchange lost $12 billion in assets due to users continuing to withdraw money from the exchange. Despite statements from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao that the situation has calmed down, the outflow of funds is now only increasing.
According to a Forbes study, Binance lost about 15% of its assets. According to analytical company Defillama, customers of this largest crypto exchange withdrew approximately $360 million last Friday alone.
The performance of Binance Coin (BNB) and Binance USD (BUSD), the exchange's own tokens, is the best indicator of investor mistrust. According to Forbes, BNB has lost 29% of its value in the last two months and more than 37% compared to last year. In addition, the exchange was losing about $3 billion a year as a result of the cessation of bitcoin spot trading fees.

- Bill Miller, an American investor and fund manager, has confirmed his belief in bitcoin and called it a completely different asset. According to him, the Fed intervened actively in the situation in order to save the markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the BTC network, without any support, worked continuously and without interruptions. Miller also noted that the global market has risen by only 70% since the crash in March 2020, while the price of bitcoin has risen by 190% over the same period. Thus, BTC is a more efficient asset.
The expert also believes that it is wrong to link BTC to the bankruptcy of crypto companies such as FTX and Celsius. He emphasized that these are all centralized organizations, which should not be confused with the decentralized bitcoin network. In addition, Miller advised the public not to confuse volatility with value, stating that the price of the main cryptocurrency will rise by the end of the year.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Dave the Wave, known for predicting the collapse of bitcoin in 2021, believes that the coin is now on track to break its “long-term resistance diagonal”. In his opinion, "a technical movement within the next month or two" may be enough to break this resistance. Dave the Wave has previously said that its Logarithmic Growth Curve (LGC) model indicates that bitcoin could rise to $160,000 by January 2025.

- Ukrainian startup Global Ledger has become a partner of the United Nations Department on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in launching a new educational course on cryptocurrencies. This will be the third such virtual resource program for UNODC. 
Participants will be able to conduct real cybercrime investigations during the course, gain experience both on the basis of historical data and on "live" cases. In the context of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the program is designed to train representatives of the Ukrainian Cyber Police and other services to identify and prevent the use of cryptocurrencies in criminal and terrorist activities and circumvent international sanctions.

- The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has issued an official warning about the new Godfather malware that collects user data in banking and cryptocurrency apps. Experts discovered the Trojan back in 2021, but the program was underdeveloped then. The improved and finished build of The Godfather was discovered on Android devices in December 2022 for the first time. 
BaFin said that the program targets more than 400 apps operating not only in Germany but throughout the world. The principle of operation of The Godfather is simple: the program simulates banking and cryptocurrency application websites, stealing user data at the time of entry. Moreover, the software can send push notifications to receive two-factor authentication codes. BaFin experts are trying to figure out how the malware gets on users' devices.

- Blockchain security company CertiK reported earlier that the level of fraud and hacking in the cryptocurrency industry will increase significantly this year as the industry becomes more popular. Another computer security company, Kaspersky Lab, believes that “a major cyber epidemic of unprecedented proportions may occur in 2023”, as the BlueNoroff cybergroup has again intensified its attacks on organizations working with cryptocurrencies, such as venture funds, banks and startups. 
Kaspersky Lab experts discovered new BlueNoroff traps for startup employees in autumn 2022: 70 fake domains masquerading as well-known venture funds and banks from Japan, the USA, Vietnam, and the UAE. In addition, hackers are now experimenting with new file types to inject malware. For example, it can be an email with an allegedly important document in the “doc” format attached. If you open this file, the device will be immediately infected with malware, and attackers can monitor all daily operations and plan to steal funds.

– Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said in a recent interview with CNBC that the prospects for cryptocurrencies are not so good, but everything is not so bad either. Bitcoin and Ethereum prices have remained stable lately despite the bad news. Leveraged traders closed out their positions in December 2022, creating what the entrepreneur called a “clean market.” In addition, market participants have significantly reduced their spending and will continue to do so in order to get through the transition period.
 Novogratz also stressed that 2023 will be a defining year for the future development of the industry. At the same time, he pointed to the problems that exist between Gemini and Genesis, which could create an unpleasant situation for the entire digital asset market.

- The founder and CEO of BTC.TOP & B.TOP crypto projects, Jiang Zhuoer, studied the historical charts of the bitcoin and ethereum rates. All three previous bear markets took the same amount of time to go from the previous high to the bottom. Thus, the expert concludes that the four-year cycle is still working.
Based on this, Zhiang Zhuoer believes that we are now in the last sideways period of the bear market bottom. Events such as bankruptcies of crypto companies will no longer have a significant impact on prices. The optimistic estimate suggests that if the 2018 scenario repeats, BTC price could stay flat for another two months before the next bullish rally begins.
The analyst emphasized that Ethereum now looks much stronger than bitcoin. Currency freedom and increased opportunities for smart contracts have attracted new users and encouraged the creation of innovative apps. Zhiang Zhuoer noted that the decline in ETH was no more than that of BTC, and the ETH/BTC ratio was kept at a high level. Bitcoin's inflation rate was 1.72%, while after switching to the PoS algorithm, the same rate for ETH was only 0.01%. According to the expert, ETH deflation will have a very positive effect on its future price, and Ethereum will begin to grow in value earlier than bitcoin and will become the leader of the next bullish market. This should happen between March and May 2023.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- It was on January 3, 2009, that a person or a group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto launched the main bitcoin network, mining a genesis block with 50 BTC. Shortly before the network was launched, on October 31, 2008, the white paper of the first cryptocurrency was published. The first bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009: Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney. A version of Bitcoin_0.1 software was published three days earlier.
Nakamoto's identity and motives for creating bitcoin are still a mystery that the crypto community and beyond are trying to unravel. One of the probable reasons for the creation of bitcoin was the global financial crisis that broke out in 2007-2008, accompanied by the collapse of the largest investment banks, a widespread decline in production, falling demand and prices for raw materials, rising unemployment and active state intervention in the economy.

- The Italian Parliament approved amendments to the 2023 budget, which involve the introduction of a 26% tax on capital gains received from the trading of digital assets. The tax will be levied if there is a profit of more than €2,000 ($2,145), and citizens will be obliged to inform tax authorities about such investments.
The UK, by contrast, has offered tax breaks for non-residents and foreign investors when buying digital assets through local investment managers or brokers. The new rule came into effect on January 1, 2023 and is part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's plans to make the UK the world's crypto powerhouse.

- Sam Bankman-Fried, 30, founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which collapsed in November, causing billions of dollars in losses to investors, pleads not guilty. He faces eight criminal charges, including electronic fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and campaign finance violations, for which he could spend decades in prison.
According to Reuters, the court has set the first date for the Bankman-Fried trial on October 2, 2023. In the meantime, the defendant has been released to his parents' home in California on $250 million bail. Parents are two of the four people who have paid bail. Lawyers said they were threatened with harm, so two more names have not yet been disclosed.

- The past 12 months have been particularly difficult for the cryptocurrency market, which has lost more than 70% of its total capitalization. However, many analysts seem to be quite optimistic about the short-term outlook for BTC.
Tim Draper, third-generation venture capitalist and co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, believes bitcoin will be worth $250,000.
It will take a rally of about 1,400% upside to reach this cosmic mark. Draper is also positive about the halving, which should take place in 2024, believing that this event will have a big impact on the price of the main cryptocurrency.
Another expert with a positive outlook is Carol Alexander, professor of finance at the University of Sussex. She had been prone to BTC falling to $10,000 in 2022 in her previous forecast. This did not happen, although the forecast almost came true.
However, the financier predicts now that the first cryptocurrency can reach $50,000 in 2023. The professor believes that the catalyst will be the influx of more “dominoes” that fell apart after the collapse of the FTX exchange. “2023 will be a managed bull market, not a bubble,” she writes. - We will not see a jump in the rate, as before. But we will see a month or two of stable trending prices interspersed with periods of limited range, and perhaps a couple of short-term crashes.”
Alistair Milne, IT Director of the Altana Digital Currency Fund, is also among those who gave several high-profile forecasts about the bitcoin rate. In his opinion, “We should see bitcoin at least $45,000 by the end of 2023.” That being said, Milne warns that “if central banks decide to allow a higher inflation target […] to avoid a recession, hard assets could become fashionable again.” He also tweeted that BTC should reach $150,000-300,000 by the end of 2024, “and this is probably the peak of opportunity for the bulls.”
Another expert joining the bull train is Eric Wall, Chief Investment Officer at cryptocurrency hedge fund Arcane Assets. It is also called the "altcoin killer". However, his forecast for 2023 looks much more modest: the expert believes that the bitcoin rate may exceed $30,000. Eric Wall often bases his comments on the BTC Rainbow Price Chart, an analytical tool created by BlockchainCenter. And this time he said that the $15,400 exchange rate was the bottom for bitcoin.
Unlike previous forecasts, strategists at the British international financial conglomerate Standard Chartered believe that the BTC rate may, on the contrary, fall to $5,000. In their opinion, “more and more crypto companies and exchanges are facing insufficient liquidity, leading to further bankruptcies and the collapse of investor confidence in digital assets.”

- Luke Dashjr (alias Luke-Jr), one of the main developers of the first cryptocurrency core, who has made more than 200 proposals to the bitcoin code since 2011, is now the victim of hackers. Luke-Jr claims to have lost "virtually" all of his BTC in a brazen hack that took place on New Year's Eve. The programmer said in a January 1 message that hackers gained access to his Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) key, a common security method. As a result, more than 215 BTC ($3.6 million) were stolen.
Dashjr said he had "no idea" how the attackers got access to his key. He only noticed the recent hack after receiving emails from Coinbase and Kraken about login attempts, he said. 

- Dante Disparte, Head of Strategic Development at Circle, shared his opinion on the developments in the cryptocurrency sector over the past year and the prospects for the industry in 2023. According to the specialist, digital assets and blockchain will still remain indispensable tools of the economy, despite the terrible events in 2022, which indicate not a crypto winter, but a whole “ice age” for the industry. However, despite these setbacks, many major banks and financial institutions will continue to introduce cryptocurrencies into their product lines. As for the bankruptcy of several crypto-lenders and the collapse of the FTX exchange, these events, according to Dispart, can be a boon for the industry, as they lay the foundation for more responsible and affordable investments.

- Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki revealed that he is buying more bitcoin (BTC) at current prices. Kiyosaki explained that, unlike altcoins, bitcoin is likely to be able to dodge the hammer of regulators: “Why? Because bitcoin is classified as a commodity much like gold, silver and oil. Most crypto tokens are classified as securities, and the US SEC will crush most of them.”

- As it turns out, Darren Nguyen, a 25-year-old crypto trader who traded nearly $2 billion worth of crypto in 2021, was running his crypto empire from the comfort of his parents' home in Sydney. This is evidenced by an article published on January 2 in The Australian. Until now, the family has kept quiet about the crypto business Nguyen runs, and his mother refused to answer the question of whether she knew about what the child was doing under her roof.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Billionaire Mark Cuban had an argument with Club Random podcast host Bill Maher regarding investments in bitcoin and gold. Maher noted that he is an opponent of the first cryptocurrency and believes in the value of the precious metal. In response, Cuban called those who invest in gold dumb. “I want bitcoin to drop lower so I can buy some more,” the billionaire said.
Cuban also criticized Maher's claim that gold is a hedge against inflation and other risks. According to him, buying the precious metal does not mean owning a physical ingot. “This is a digital transaction that proves ownership […]. Do you know what would happen if you had a gold bar in your hands? Someone would beat you to a pulp or kill you to take it,” Cuban added.

- The mining company BIT Mining Limited reported a hacker attack on the BTC.com pool under its control. “As a result of the cyber attack, certain cryptocurrencies were stolen, including assets of BTC.com customers worth about $700,000 and approximately $2.3 million owned by the company,” BIT Mining Limited said. According to Immunefi, the crypto industry's total losses from hacks and scams in Q3 22 amounted to $428.7 million. 

- According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Agency, North Korean hackers have stolen $1.2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets over the past five years. More than half of this amount ($626 million) was stolen over the past year. 
North Korea's hackers are considered among the best, as Kim Jong-un's regime is investing heavily in cybercrime. CNN has published a major investigation into how the North Korean regime is financing its nuclear program by creating a network of agents and hackers embedded in various crypto exchanges and crypto companies, mainly from the United States.

- Large institutional investors are still “staying away” from digital assets due to high volatility. This was stated by Jared Gross, Managing Director of JPMorgan Asset Management. In his opinion, bitcoin has not become an alternative to gold and a hedge against inflation, as many hoped, and for most large institutions, cryptocurrencies “actually do not exist” as an asset class. “[A lot of big investors] breathed a sigh of relief that they haven't entered this market and probably won't do so anytime soon,” added Jared Gross.

- Bobby Lee, co-founder and former head of the BTCC exchange, allowed the cryptocurrency bull market to return by early 2025, in an interview with CNBC. “It is difficult to determine exactly when this bear market will bottom out. I expect the bull market to return in two years,” he said.
The expert also believes that it is necessary to strengthen regulation, especially for companies providing custody services, to restore confidence in the digital asset industry. “I have always been a supporter of more regulation in the cryptocurrency market. To understand, I'm talking about regulating companies, not the asset itself, because it's inert. It is a commodity like gold and silver. No regulation can change the chemical composition of gold or silver. It’s the same with bitcoin,” Lee explained.

- Bitcoin has been recognized as a means of payment in Brazil. The law that has secured this status for it has been passed by Congress and signed by the president of the country. The Bank of Brazil is expected to be in charge of using the first cryptocurrency as a means of payment, while the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to take responsibility for overseeing digital gold as an investment asset. 
At the same time, the Chairman of the Bank of Brazil has repeatedly stated that he does not consider cryptocurrencies as an alternative to fiat. Based on this, according to a number of experts, the Central Bank will not help create favorable conditions for the use of bitcoin in mutual settlements.

- Ethereum's fundamentals are strong, but analysts expect ETH to further depreciate. The Ethereum blockchain is at its best since its launch. 100 days have passed since the transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. The chain is now protected by almost half a million validators, and energy consumption has decreased by 99%.
In addition, Ethereum remains the best ecosystem of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. According to Nansen, almost $24 billion worth of NFTs were minted and sold in 2022. However, these positive factors have not increased ETH quotes. The price of the coin is still close to $1,200, and some analysts predict a further drop in the rate to the $1,000 zone. 

- Crypto trader Dan Gambardella, who runs a YouTube channel called Crypto Capital Venture, released a video on whether the crypto industry can reach a capitalization of $100 trillion by 2030. Gambardella quoted Raoul Pal, former Goldman Sachs chief executive and CEO of RealVision, who compared the cryptocurrency industry to the stocks, bonds and real estate industries, whose market capitalization ranges from $250-350 trillion. Based on this analysis, the top manager believes that a $100 trillion crypto market capitalization could become a reality.

- Popular analyst Benjamin Cowen believes that bitcoin’s current percentage drawdown from its all-time high is approaching the level that signaled the bottom of the 2018 and 2014 bear markets. According to Cowen's chart, bitcoin then fell by more than 80%, today its fall is 75.6% from the high set in November 2021. This figure indicates the approaching end of the bear market. But it is too early to say that the bottom has already been reached.
Cowen is also keeping a close eye on the percentage drawdown of total market capitalization from all-time highs. According to him, it is now down by 72%, which is also still less than the drawdowns observed during the previous two bear markets.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The SEC and CFTC may need to consider banning cryptocurrencies. Sherrod Brown, Chairman of the US Senate Banking Committee, said this on NBC. “We [legislators] want them [regulators] to do what they need […] perhaps by banning them [cryptocurrencies]. Although this scenario is extremely difficult, since they [digital assets] will go offshore, and few people can predict what this measure will lead to,” the senator explained.
Sherrod Brown backed Jon Tester, who also sits on the banking committee. The legislator stated on December 12 that cryptocurrencies have not passed the “gut check”, and therefore there is no reason for them to exist.
Brown admitted that he has been “educating” senators and the public on the “dangers of cryptocurrencies” over the past 18 months, calling for immediate and aggressive action. “I've already reached out to the Treasury and Secretary [Janet Yellen] and asked for a nationwide assessment through all the various regulatory agencies [...] The SEC has been particularly aggressive,” he explained. Brown cited the collapse of FTX as justification for the position, adding that this is only part of a huge problem.

- According to the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler, digital assets are too volatile and speculative, which puts investors at great risk. “It is important that cryptocurrency issuers, as well as other intermediaries, operate in accordance with clear rules,” he said. “Although the industry usually does not pose a threat to the traditional financial sector, we must be vigilant to prevent such a situation from developing.”
Gensler noted that the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) was able to effectively identify gaps in the regulation of the crypto industry. The FSOC has recommended passing bills that would empower federal financial regulators to control the spot market for crypto assets, similar to stock markets.

- Michael Burry, the hero of The Big Short, who predicted the 2007-8 mortgage crisis, called audits of the balances of cryptocurrency exchanges FTX, Binance and others pointless. This is how the investor commented on the news about the termination of services for crypto companies by the French auditor Mazars.
Mazars's audit of Binance's bitcoin balances was actively criticized by experts who said that it was not a full audit and that its results did not convince users of the safety of users' assets. Following the criticism, Binance faced a significant outflow of funds. The exchange also had problems withdrawing the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin on some networks. Against this background, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was forced to refute rumors about a lack of liquidity on the platform.

- Edward Snowden, a former NSA and US CIA officer who now lives in Russia, proposed his candidacy for the post in response to Twitter owner Elon Musk's post about the search for the social network's CEO. “I accept payment in bitcoin,” Snowden wrote.
Elon Musk posted that he needed a CEO who could "keep Twitter alive." Earlier, the billionaire conducted a survey in his profile about the need for him to resign from the post of head of the social network. 17.5 million users participated in it, the majority of them (57.5%) voted for Musk's resignation, and he promised to follow the results of the poll.

- Elon Musk had admitted back in August that a recession could trigger a number of bankruptcies, and the period itself could continue until the end of 2023. Although the billionaire admitted that “making macroeconomic forecasts ¬is a lost cause,” he still assumed that the upcoming crisis will be “relatively mild”. In particular, he referred to the "relatively low debt levels for most companies." This allows us to hope that the recession will remain in the range of "mild to moderate, lasting about eighteen months," Musk said at the time.
Mike Novogratz, the head of the venture capital company Galaxy Digital, adheres to similar deadlines. In his opinion, bitcoin will continue to remain in the zone of uncertainty as long as the US Federal Reserve is trying to curb inflationary risks. He also suggested that it is high time for the crypto market to pause due to excessive activity.
Novogratz called the takeover of the American crypto exchange Coinbase “by some big traditional financier” one of the worst recession scenarios. Coinbase has long been cutting operating expenses in anticipation of worsening business in 2023.

- According to a number of analysts, there are currently no significant prerequisites for the growth of the bitcoin rate in the global cryptocurrency market. On the contrary, the anxiety of traders against the background of the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange may lead to a collapse in its value. According to RBC, “investors are now actively withdrawing funds from the Binance exchange, and in record volumes. The US intends to strictly regulate the crypto market and citizens' transactions.  So we should expect that bitcoin will not grow, but will come to its lows soon. It is possible that its value will be at the level of $10,000 in the first half of 2023, or even in Q1.”
The tightening of the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy may also put pressure on the bitcoin rate. Its plans to raise the interest rate above 5.00% next year may limit the potential for BTC to rise in value. And as analysts at the British investment company AJ Bell predict, the main cryptocurrency rate will be very volatile in 2023.

- Given the deteriorating macroeconomic conditions, the crypto market is likely to face another collapse in quotes in the near future. This conclusion was reached by analysts at the Nansen research portal, considering the correlation between the S&P500 index and cryptocurrencies. Experts expect that the US recession will affect not only stocks, but also digital assets. At the same time, it is possible that this fall will be the last in the current cycle (until 2024). However, Nansen experts did not specify how soon it will happen and how long the market will be at the bottom.

- Bloomberg senior strategist Mike McGlone shares the opposite point of view. According to him, despite the fact that “the global benchmark digital asset was defeated in 2022”, it is ready to once again lean towards faster growth. The expert believes that the global economy may continue to fall in 2023, but BTC is likely to grow and become more actively used as digital security. The correlation of the digital asset with the Nasdaq index can be a supporting factor in this matter.
Mike McGlone had earlier predicted that the "macroeconomic global winter" could last up to three years. At the same time, he expects that the crypto industry will become stronger than ever in the next few years, and the bitcoin exchange rate will reach $100,000, and Ethereum at $6,000 by 2025.

- To circumvent sanctions imposed due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Parliament is studying the possibility of issuing a gold-backed cryptocurrency that is stored in the country's Far East. This is not the first initiative on the topic of gold backing of digital assets. Economists at Vnesheconombank of the Russian Federation proposed issuing a gold-backed stablecoin called the “golden ruble” last June. In their opinion, it will be impossible to block transactions with the crypto-gold ruble, since the exchange rate will be tied to the gold rate on the world market. 

- The research company Solidus Labs has published a report on fraudulent schemes in the crypto industry. According to the firm, scammers released over 100,000 new "cryptocurrencies" (117,629 to be exact) from January 1 to December 1, 2022. This figure is 41% higher than the figure recorded in 2021. The BNB Smart Chain blockchain, developed by the Binance exchange, took the first place in terms of the number of coins issued by fraudsters. 12% of the tokens created on this network were issued by scammers. In second place is the Ethereum cryptocurrency blockchain, in which 8% of new coins were associated with scam projects.
The most profitable scam was the so-called honeypot, which is a trap for greedy people. To pull off this scam, attackers develop a smart contract with a vulnerability that supposedly allows you to withdraw cryptocurrency after making a deposit. In practice, those who fall for the bait of the scammers cannot take the coins from the "pot" and lose their assets. The authors of one of these virtual traps, based on Squid Game (SQUID) tokens, earned $3.3 million in just a few days.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Following the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting, the US Federal Reserve will decide on the interest rate on December 14. Although its current level is still far from the expected peak of 5-5.25%, the US Central Bank may raise the rate not by 0.75%, but by 0.5% this time. Such a decision will signal the easing of monetary policy and that additional volumes of dollar liquidity may appear on the market. According to experts, this will have a positive impact on the prices of risky assets, including cryptocurrencies. If bitcoin settles above the $18,000 area in the near future, some experts estimate that it is likely to reach an extreme of $20,000 by the end of December.
In such a situation, the bitcoin price will again be on a growth parabola, according to an analyst known as Plan B. According to their latest forecast, BTC could reach $100,000 in 2023. Jim Wyckoff, Senior Analyst at Kitco News, also believes BTC is close to developing a sustained bullish rally in the current environment as strong buyers have stepped in.

- Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the 30-year-old founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX, has been arrested in the Bahamas after U.S. prosecutors filed eight felony charges against him. According to law enforcement officers, SBF colluded with partners to deceive, misappropriate funds from clients of the trading platform and use them to pay the expenses and debts of their companies. As a result of the leak of deposits, an $8 billion hole was created on the exchange's accounts. The charges also include money laundering and violations of US political campaign finance laws. Earlier, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also accused SBF in defrauding FTX investors.  According to the representative of the prosecutor's office, Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years in prison in the aggregate of all criminal cases.

- ARK Invest CEO Catherine Wood said that Sam Bankman-Fried has always disliked bitcoin because it is transparent and decentralized, and he could not control it, including during the crisis caused by opaque centralized players.
Despite the difficult situation caused by the bankruptcy of FTX, the head of ARK Invest remains optimistic. In her opinion, DeFi will be further developed, as investors have learned how important fully transparent decentralized networks are thanks to the crisis. “When centralized crypto companies went bankrupt, investors who invested in transparent distributed networks saw what was happening. They were able to withdraw their assets on time. Even those who used high margin leverage were able to survive,” Catherine Wood said.
Recall that, in addition to the FTX bankruptcy in November, the crypto industry has experienced a number of major shocks this year. First of all, this is the collapse of the Terra ecosystem in May. Compute North, Voyager Digital, Celsius Network, Three Arrows Capital, and Blockfi also filed for bankruptcy. According to some estimates, approximately several million customers lost billions of dollars as a result of all these events.

- Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of the BitMEX crypto exchange, said that the first cryptocurrency reached the lowest level of the current cycle, as almost all “irresponsible organizations” ran out of coins to sell. Hayes explained that when facing financial difficulties, centralized credit companies often borrow first and then sell off their BTC holdings, followed by a collapse. “When you look at the balance of any of these ‘heroes’, you won’t see bitcoin there. They sold it before they went bankrupt."
This is how Hayes explains the reasons for the fall of the first cryptocurrency even before the bankruptcy of centralized credit companies. At the same time, the expert believes that the period of large-scale liquidations is over. In his opinion, the digital asset market expects a partial recovery in 2023 amid the next launch of the “printing press” by the US Federal Reserve.

- According to Bloomberg's leading strategist Mike McGlone, bitcoin is likely to outshine gold. The popular analyst added that the flagship cryptocurrency is currently only four times more volatile than the precious metal, which is negligible compared to what it was in 2018.
McGlone called next year the bitcoin market and a time of shine after a year and a half of direct downtrends. This will happen due to the fact that the Central Banks, primarily the Fed, will move from an aggressive tightening of monetary policy to its easing. If this does not happen, Bloomberg strategist says, the world could plunge even deeper into a recession with negative consequences for all risky assets.
Max Keiser, a former trader and now TV host and filmmaker, also believes that BTC will certainly catch up in 2023 and may stage an epic rally before the 2024 halving. In his opinion, the growth of the flagship cryptocurrency will continue over the next decades.

- The FTX crash gave additional arguments to those US officials who are skeptical about cryptocurrencies. For example, Senator Jon Tester, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has recently said that digital assets failed the “tightness” test. “I haven't found anyone who could explain to me what their value is,” the senator says. “The problem is that if we regulate them, people will start to think that crypto assets are really legal.”
The decision of the US authorities to regulate cryptocurrencies will determine the further behavior of institutional players and large owners of bitcoins, which are often the same persons. So far, 80% of the losses that occur in the market of the main cryptocurrency are caused by the sale of BTC by “whales”, most wallets with a balance of more than 10 thousand BTC continue to sell more than buy digital gold since mid-July. 

- The proportion of US adults who have ever invested in cryptocurrencies increased from 3% in 2020 up to 13% in June 2022. This is evidenced by a study conducted by JPMorgan analysts. The specialists of the financial conglomerate analyzed a sample of 5 million accounts and found that the majority of retail users invested in digital assets for the first time close to the price peak. The average purchase price for their first cryptocurrency is $42,400-$45,500. At the same time, most low-income investors bought at a higher price.
Retail investors' inflows of money into crypto accounts have far exceeded outflows from them over the past few years. The cash flow has become more balanced against the background of the market decline in the first half of 2022. At the same time, the researchers found that the average investment is relatively small: about $620, which is approximately equal to a weekly salary. Only 15% of investors have invested more than their monthly earnings in digital assets. JPMorgan analysts also noted that Asians with high incomes are most likely to invest in cryptocurrencies.

- Twitter's new CEO Elon Musk managed to silence cryptocurrency spam bots. The businessman had promised to solve the problem with a huge number of advertising messages before buying the social network and has already started working in this direction. The volume of mailings has decreased significantly, but Elon is not going to stop there.
“My guess is that there are a small number of people running a huge army of bots and trolls. Today [December 11] we will block IP addresses of known violators. Although this should have been done much earlier,” Musk said. Twitter will now immediately blacklist the IP addresses of spammers, so they won't be able to use the social network for a long time using the VPN service or the Tor browser. In addition, Elon Musk promised to punish all scammers, but has not yet said exactly how.
Dogecoin creator Billy Markus, known under the pseudonym Shibetoshi Nakamoto, has confirmed the effectiveness of anti-spam measures. After Musk announced the blocking of IP addresses, only one bot responded to Marcus' post instead of the usual 50. Thus, the social network has neutralized almost all spammers.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- According to a Bloomberg poll, about 94% of respondents believe that the FTX bankruptcy will be followed by further turmoil as years of easy lending give way to a tougher business and market environment.

- The FTX collapse will continue to affect cryptocurrency market sentiment, leading to a drop in bitcoin's price to $5,000 in 2023. This is the conclusion reached by Standard Chartered. Eric Robertsen, chief strategist at this multinational bank, allowed interest to shift from the digital version of gold to its physical counterpart. The conclusion about the fall of bitcoin follows from his forecast for the growth of the precious metal by 30%, to $2,250 per troy ounce. Robertsen stressed that the proposed version of the development of events is not a forecast, but it only suggests a possible deviation from the current market consensus.
The described scenario is possible due to the suspension by the world's leading central banks of raising interest rates in 2023 after they have risen in recent months. An additional factor will be the expected continuation of a series of bankruptcies among major participants in the crypto industry with a loss of confidence in digital assets. “Gold will benefit from problems in the crypto industry in the future,” Nicholas Frappell, Global General Manager at ABC Refinery, agreed with Eric Robertsen.

- Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz maintained his forecast for the price of the first cryptocurrency to rise to $500,000 in a comment to Bloomberg Television. However, due to significant changes in the macroeconomic situation, it will now take bitcoin more than five years to achieve this goal. “The reason bitcoin dropped from $69,000 to $20,000 is [Fed Chairman] Jerome Powell’s decision to start fighting inflation with a series of rate hikes from 0% to 4%,” he explained. “For this reason, all assets that are considered inflation hedges have fallen in value.”
The founder of Galaxy Digital said in early October that bitcoin would resume growth after the Fed backed away from aggressively raising rates to fight inflation.

- According to a report by CertiK, a blockchain security company, fraudulent bots are rapidly gaining popularity on YouTube: the number of dubious videos increased sixfold in 2022. CertiK describes a wave of fraud through bots that promise instant profits and up to 10 times a day in its report dated December 1. The scam itself usually involves victims being asked to download virus software that is designed to steal their assets the moment they attempt to initiate a pre-transaction.
North Korean hackers of the Lazarus group, which spread the AppleJeus virus under the guise of a bot for cryptocurrency trading BloxHolder are among the attackers, according to IT analysts from Volexity. The extent of the cryptocurrency they stole is still unclear. However, it is already known that the AppleJeus virus is actively updated and encrypted using a special algorithm, which complicates its tracking by antivirus programs.

- Investors lost $10.16 billion in just one week in November as a result of the collapse of the second-largest crypto exchange in terms of capitalization, FTX. According to the figurative expression of analysts, this was not a “crypto winter”, but a “crypto massacre”. The FTX crisis was like a domino that led to the collapse of many other companies.
To complicate matters, between 73% and 81% of investors lost money due to investing in cryptocurrencies between 2015 and 2022. This is evidenced by data from a study conducted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). According to many experts, regulators will no longer be able to ignore the complaints of those who have lost their savings in such a situation and will have to move to proactive action.

- Peter Schiff, a well-known financier and investor, is widely known as a supporter of gold and an opponent of cryptocurrencies. He expressed confidence in his latest interview that the global inflation rate will rise significantly in 2023, and what is happening now is just the beginning. In his opinion, the cryptocurrency market should fall even more, unable to withstand such strong pressure.
Schiff called the rising inflation rate a certain tax on the population. He noted that every US dollar that the government spends must be paid by citizens in one way or another. The authorities are using a dishonest path. They simply print new money and then put it into circulation. When this happens, the price of everything people buy is constantly increasing. So instead of taking money through taxes, they're stealing purchasing power.

- Texas Senator Ted Cruz said that cryptocurrency mining is essential to the US energy system. First of all, miners can use energy which is excess in the extraction of oil and gas. When it comes to extreme weather conditions in the state, whether it's severe frost or drought, miners can also benefit the Texas power grid. The senator explained that the energy generated by mining can be used to heat households and businesses. 
Cruz stressed that Texas creates favorable opportunities for the development of the cryptocurrency industry thanks to an abundance of cheap electricity. In addition, the state government supports free enterprise, and this attracts companies working with blockchain and digital assets. According to the politician, he likes bitcoin, and this is the only crypto asset in which he invests and buys it on a weekly basis.

- Mike McGlone, senior strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, believes that cryptocurrencies are now going through the last stage before reaching the bottom. However, he warned that it will be very difficult to survive this phase: “Normally, markets do not just form a V-bottom. They make it as hard as possible with a lot of volatility, taking money from all investors.”
Bloomberg analyst noted that there is good news as well. Thus, ethereum has grown 12 times compared to 2019 and is still growing. McGlone claims that ETH has strong support close to the current price level. According to his forecast, this coin will outperform all cryptocurrencies, thanks to growing demand and shrinking supply.

- According to Michael Van De Poppe, a well-known trader and analyst, the market situation has stabilized slightly, and BTC bulls need now to break through an important resistance level in the $17,400-17,600 range. In this case, the price will continue moving towards $19,000 quite quickly. He noted that one of the first goals was to reach the $18,285 horizon. As for the price of ethereum, Van de Poppe believes that the key support level for this cryptocurrency is the price of $1,200.

- JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has once again criticized cryptocurrency and digital assets. He stressed that some people can be fooled into buying anything. The head of the bank has previously called cryptocurrencies “decentralized Ponzi schemes” and urged to stay away from bitcoin. However, he wrote in his annual letter to shareholders that “decentralized finance and blockchain are real new technologies” and went on to promote the bank’s efforts to implement them. In addition, JPMorgan registered a trademark for its own crypto wallet at the end of November. the bank will provide services related to digital assets under the new brand, including the transfer and exchange of cryptocurrencies, as well as the processing of cross-border payments.

- According to PricePredictions machine learning algorithms, which include a number of technical indicators (MA, RSI, MACD, BB, etc.), the price of bitcoin may rise in the near future. According to this forecast, the main cryptocurrency will reach $18,797 on December 31, 2022. It should be noted that this forecast is lower than the expectations of members of the CoinMarketCap crypto community, who believe that BTC will be trading at an average price of $19,788 by the end of the year.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- A bull market will soon begin for bitcoin and other digital assets, but this will happen after a noticeable fall and reaching a real bottom. This opinion was expressed by cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen.
The expert expects the 2018 crypto winter scenario to repeat. At that time, digital gold demonstrated several stages of gradual recovery. But growth became stable after quotes fell to the minimum of the bearish cycle. “When the market is bearish, we see the following stages constantly: a fall, a consolidation, a small increase, and a failure again. We are following a simple signal: the intersection of the 200-day moving average and the bitcoin price chart,” the analyst said. According to him, such an intersection will take place on December 25-27. This is when we can expect the price to reach a real bottom and move to sustainable growth.
Cowen pointed to the duration of bearish markets, which has historically been about a year, as an additional argument. The 2014 cycle lasted 14 months, and the 2018 cycle lasted 12 months.
According to the expert's forecast, the bottom has not yet been reached so far. In addition to not crossing the BTC price with the 200-day SMA, Cowen also referred to the Puell Multiple indicator. The metric value at the minimum was about 0.3 in previous cycles. The indicator has so far dropped only to 0.375 this year.

- Mark Mobius, co-founder of Mobius Capital Partners LLP investment company, shared his prediction that bitcoin will continue to fall, and its immediate goal is $10,000. He added that he would not invest his own money or his clients' money in digital assets as "it's too risky." “But cryptocurrency is here to stay because there are some investors who still believe in it,” the famous investor “reassured” crypto enthusiasts.
Mark Mobius is not alone in his predictions. Deribit options data shows a large number of outstanding bitcoin put contracts, so called open interest, with an exercise price of $10,000 at the end of December. 

- Analysts at IntoTheBlock note that bitcoin is currently experiencing a sharp backwardance: a situation where BTC futures are priced much lower compared to the current price of the asset in the regular (spot) market. This suggests that the market is under strong pressure from sellers. Traders are actively opening short positions, hoping that the price of bitcoin will continue to go down.
At the same time, IntoTheBlock points out that the times when futures contracts are backward tend to coincide with market lows, as was the case in March 2020 and May 2021. And it can also be a signal that the cryptocurrency has found a bottom now. A similar trend can be seen with extremely negative funding rates.

- Unlike Mark Mobius, Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and well-known analyst, remains a bitcoin supporter and believes that this asset can still serve as an investment tool.
Lee agrees that the passing year has been a terrible year for the entire crypto industry. The macroeconomic events of early 2022, the collapse of Terra, which not only buried two TOP-10 cryptocurrencies, but also caused a domino effect that destroyed many industry participants. A new shock came in November when one of the market giants, the FTX crypto exchange, and related companies, collapsed. There are now rumors questioning the fortunes of Digital Currency Group and its subsidiaries, two of which are Genesis and Grayscale. However, despite all the tragedy of the current situation, Tom Lee believes that the above events are a "cleansing" moment for the industry, and next year should be better than this one. 

- Michael Novogratz, CEO of the crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, said that digital assets will not leave the market, even though the industry is experiencing a crisis of confidence. “There are 150 million people who have chosen to store part of their wealth in bitcoin. […] Therefore, bitcoin, ethereum will not disappear. Other cryptocurrencies will not either,” he said.
Novogratz expects the recovery of the crypto industry and its slow growth. “You will see how people like ARK Invest CEO Cathy Wood will soon enter the crypto market and invest. I don't think this will be a quick recovery. It will most likely take a long time. It won't be easy to restore trust. Centralized companies will have to act differently,” the businessman said.
Cathy Wood herself, according to Yahoo, answered “yes” when asked whether she still sticks to her forecast of the BTC price of $1 million by 2030.

- Analysts at investment bank JPMorgan believe that the cryptocurrency industry will change significantly after the collapse of FTX. Primarily due to stricter regulations. They cite the bill on the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the European Union (MiCA) as an example.
JPMorgan expects regulators to pay close attention to the issues of storing crypto assets and protecting consumers. These areas should lead to the same level of security as in the traditional financial system. Another way to protect consumers could be the separation of roles for cryptocurrency companies. When, for example, a cryptocurrency broker cannot be a credit service or provide custodial services at the same time. It is also important to ensure the transparency of the crypto business and oblige companies to provide periodic reporting on their status.
JPMorgan researchers do not expect a significant increase in the role of decentralized exchanges due to numerous restrictions for such sites. “We believe,” they write, “that centralized exchanges will continue to play a huge role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem for the foreseeable future. Especially for large institutional investors, even despite the FTX crash.”

- Renowned crypto trader Ton Vays has described how bulls can end a year-long bearish market. According to him, they should push the price of the main cryptocurrency to the November high, and this will start an upward rally. “I want to see a move to $23,000. If there's a rebound, we'll need to hold on to $19,000 and then come back for a further $23,000. This is 95% to 98% likely to show that a bull market has begun.” 
The crypto trader who predicted the collapse of bitcoin in 2018 accurately does not rule out that bitcoin will soon face a new sale. “Another scenario is we will fall to $11,000. I believe the bull market will start right after that because I just don't believe bitcoin could fall even lower.” In any case, under any of these scenarios, Vays expects bitcoin to reach $23,000 later this year or early 2023.

- Small retail investors (up to 10 BTC) are becoming increasingly optimistic about bitcoin and have accumulated a record number of coins despite the FTX crash and the ongoing crisis, according to a report by the Glassnode analytics platform.
It is reported that “shrimp” investors (less than 1 BTC) added 96,200 coins worth $1.6 billion to their portfolios after the FTX crash in early November, which is a “record high balance increase”. And now they own 1.21 million BTC in total, which is equivalent to 6.3% of the current turnover of 19.2 million coins. Meanwhile, “crabs” (up to 10 BTC) have bought about 191,600 coins worth about $3.1 billion over the past 30 days, which is also a “convincing all-time high.”
While crabs and shrimps were accumulating a record number of bitcoins, large investors were selling them. According to Glassnode, bitcoin whales have released about 6,500 BTC ($107 million) to exchanges over the past month. However, this is a very small fraction of their total holdings of 6.3 million BTC ($104 billion), which suggests that the whales remain somewhat optimistic as well. 

- Texas Governor Greg Abbott sees bitcoin's value to the world, adding that his state “wants to be at the center of it all.” Abbott urged bitcoin companies to set up operations in Texas, promising that anyone who does so will be rewarded with ease of doing business and a lack of regulatory controversy.
According to a recent SmartAsset study on cryptocurrency-friendly states in the US, Texas ranked fourth along with New Jersey, behind Nevada, followed by Florida and California.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- A deepfake of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was spread on Twitter, where he offered to take part in a cryptocurrency draw as compensation for the collapse of his exchange. The deepfake video directed people to a website hosting the “largest $100 million cryptocurrency giveaway.” To participate in the “draw”, the scammers offered users to send any number of coins to a specific address.
The fake account was quickly banned. Apparently, the scammers used an $8 Twitter Blue subscription to pass off a fake Sam Bankman-Freed profile as a real one. For reference: Deepfake is a technology for creating and replacing elements on existing videos using artificial intelligence and neural networks.

- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has recently shared a mysterious tweet that puzzled the cryptocurrency community. Without going into details, he wrote that "the rumor is that something important is about to happen." Dumbfounded by the strange text, readers are now trying to figure out if Buterin is trolling or is really trying to say something to the community.
This veiled warning comes after a dark tweet by renowned venture capitalist Paul Graham. He stated there that the crypto economy was about to experience “systemic risk” and referred to information he heard from a trustworthy person. At the same time, he added that he "does not know anything specific." So, it's possible that Buterin was simply making fun of Graham's vague doom warning.

- In addition, rumors have spread that Vitalik Buterin is getting rid of his Ethereum holdings. The wallet he allegedly owns has sold 3,000 ETH worth $3.75 million through Uniswap decentralized exchange. The question of whether this wallet really belongs to the Ethereum co-founder is debatable, but transactions were made with his other known addresses as well. These steps were taken in the middle of the night on Saturday, November 12, less than 24 hours after news of FTX's possible bankruptcy broke.

- Billionaire investor and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Bill Ackman is optimistic about the prospects for cryptocurrencies, despite recent industry events, including the FTX crash. “Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and with proper oversight, they can benefit society and develop the global economy. All bona fide ecosystem participants should be highly motivated to expose and eliminate fraudulent projects, as they increase the risk of regulatory intervention,” Ackman said.
According to him, he was initially skeptical because he saw that the phone, the Internet and cryptocurrencies have “one thing in common”: “Each of these technologies helps the other in terms of improving fraud opportunities.” The billionaire also assumed that tokens have no intrinsic value and are simply a “modern version of tulip mania” but has now changed his point of view. The billionaire admitted that he has invested in several crypto projects. However, the share of such investments does not exceed 2% of his total portfolio.

- According to Happycoin.news, Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker convicted of fraud and commonly known as The Wolf of Wall Street, believes that the FTX trading platform's bankruptcy was intentional, and Sam Bankman-Fried is a sociopath who implemented FTX pump and dump schemes. Belfort called FTX's business model a "fraternity house," which is more like a hostel than an actual business. In addition, in his opinion, all Bankman-Fried decisions can be equated to madness, and regulators need to focus on clients who lost money as a result of the exchange crash.

- A number of US senators have sent a letter to the management of the holding company Fidelity Investments, calling for a reconsideration of the option to include bitcoin in retirement savings accounts. It was supposed to be available to employees of 23,000 companies that use Fidelity to manage their $2.7 trillion retirement plans.
“The recent FTX crash has made it clear that the digital asset industry is in serious trouble. It's full of charismatic geeks, opportunistic scammers and self-proclaimed investment advisors who promote products without a proper level of transparency,” the legislators explained their move.

- Robert Kiyosaki, author of the world-famous book Rich Dad Poor Dad, still believes in the bright future of the two flagship digital assets bitcoin and Ethereum. According to him, bitcoin is not the same as Sam Bankman-Freed. The situation around FTX must be considered as a special case, and conclusions about the entire industry cannot be drawn only on its basis.

- Analytics firm Glassnode said in their November 21 report that recent market weakness has “shattered the confidence of bitcoin holders” and the looming crypto winter is following in the footsteps of its 2018-19 predecessor. According to Glassnode, most of the whales (wallets with more than 1,000 BTC) are now lying on the bottom, waiting for better times.
At the height of the previous bear market, bitcoin fell by 84% from its maximum. It took just under a year for the asset to fall from $20,000 to $3,200 in November 2018. It took about the same time this time to drop 77.3% and crash from $69,000 on November 21 to a new cycle low of $15,482. At the same time, some analysts believe that BTC should not be expected to recover soon, because several months had passed after the collapse of 2018 before the first noticeable upward impulse appeared.
In addition, last week saw the fourth-largest spike in realized losses with a daily volume of $1.45 billion. This dumping of crypto assets by long-term players “is often a sign of fear and capitulation among this more experienced cohort,” the report notes.

- The November fall in the cryptocurrency market resulted in a sharp increase in the number of unprofitable bitcoin addresses. According to the IntoTheBlock platform, the proportion of wallets that bought BTC at prices higher than today is now just over 51%. The total number of BTC holders is now 47.85 million, of which 24.56 million addresses are suffering losses. About 45% of wallets are still in the black, and the remaining addresses are in the break-even zone.
The last time a similar situation was observed was after the March market crash, IntoTheBlock analysts say. At the same time, one of them added that the share of unprofitable addresses usually exceeds 50% at the moment when the market is at the bottom. Thus, he hinted that a more significant fall in cryptocurrency should not be expected. However, statistics show the opposite: the share of addresses that suffered losses reached 55% in January 2019, and this figure exceeded 62% during the dominance of the bearish trend in 2015.

- Dave the Wave, a well-known crypto analyst with over 130,000 Twitter followers, has published an updated Bitcoin Logarithmic Growth Curve (LGC) model. According to his charts, bitcoin is now right at the lower end of the long-term LGC, which has historically acted as support.
BTC's history has already seen price actions below this curve: for example, in the 2015 bear market or during the crash at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. However, such a drop did not last long in past cycles, and the cryptocurrency regained its long-term support quickly. This usually signaled the end of the bear market and the start of a new bull market.
The analyst noted in a comment to his tweet that special attention should be paid to the closing of the month. According to him, there is technically nothing catastrophic in the price action yet, but the lower border of the model is hardly holding. If bitcoin closes the month below $16,000, LGC support is highly likely to collapse, and the fall will continue. And vice versa: if it manages to stay on the lower logarithmic curve and bounce up, this may be a signal for the beginning of a new bull market.

- American economist Benjamin Cowen is one of the best-known proponents of bitcoin’s cyclical nature and the cycle lengthening hypothesis. He has recently published a chart comparing the current bear market with the previous three. We see here the return on investment (ROI) of BTC of those who bought it at its absolute peak. The chart shows that bitcoin is at a very interesting point today.
On the one hand, 376 days have passed since ATH (the all-time high). In the previous two bearish markets, this period was 363 days in 2018 and 410 days in 2015. On the other hand, the current ROI is 0.247. In previous bearish markets, it always fell below 0.2. If this happens now, bitcoin will face another fall.

- Arthur Hayes, former CEO of BitMEX, has increased the negative outlook for bitcoin to $10,000. The cryptocurrency has fallen below $16,000, but Hayes believes that the story will continue to develop. The market is again on alert, as reports are received about the possible bankruptcy of Genesis, a branch of the Digital Currency Group (DCG) fund. The Genesis Credit Branch stopped the withdrawal of funds by customers on November 16. This happened after the company failed to raise $1 billion in funding.
Binance was expected to join the deal. But the trading platform refused to participate in financing, fearing a conflict of interest. However, Genesis is not officially preparing for bankruptcy, and the funding target has been lowered to $500 million.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Cryptocurrency funds may lose up to $5 billion due to the bankruptcy of FTX. This is evidenced by a study by the analytical agency Crypto Fund Research. According to the experts, the crisis has affected 25-40% of industry investment structures that invested in FTX or its utility token FTT. Joshua Gnaizda, CEO of Crypto Fund Research, clarified that we are talking about 7-12% of assets under fund management.
Paradigm and Sequoia Capital reported that their potential losses due to the FTX crisis could be $278 million and $213 million, respectively. About $175 million has been blocked at the Genesis Trading brokerage company. As of November 8, Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital investment firm had $76.8 million in FTX-related positions. Multicoin Capital invested $25 million in the US division of FTX, and also held $2 million in USDC on the exchange itself. Investments in FTX US through the Venture Fund II, created in July, amounted to $430 million. Crypto Fund Research experts have estimated the value of Pantera Capital's FTX-related assets at approximately $100 million.
Industry participants admitted on condition of anonymity that the losses of asset managers could be even greater. “The number of funds absolutely destroyed by this bankruptcy is just beginning to be revealed,” one of the sources said. Researchers expect a record number of investor requests for refunds from crypto funds in November, up to $2 billion. The previous high of $1.3 billion was recorded in June after the Terra crash.

- The FTX incident has shown that the cryptocurrency industry needs “very careful regulation.” This opinion was expressed by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, writes Bloomberg. The The Treasury Secretary added that the consequences of the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's empire could be even worse if the cryptocurrency market was more closely intertwined with the traditional financial system. “At least it's not as deeply integrated with our banking sector, and it doesn't pose more serious threats to financial stability at the moment,” Yellen said.

- While many investors around the world are panicking, experts at JPMorgan investment bank consider current events to be a positive catalyst. They said that the FTX crisis would benefit the industry and help it move several steps forward. The sudden collapse of one of the largest crypto companies will encourage regulators to speed up the process of forming regulations that allow effective control of the sector. And the introduction of a comprehensive regulatory framework will facilitate the institutional acceptance of cryptocurrencies.
JPMorgan analysts had warned earlier that the fall of major cryptocurrencies is not over, and the crisis related to the bankruptcy of FTX could lead to “cascading liquidations”. The market decline will continue for some time, reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis. However, the JPMorgan team believes that the blow to total capitalization is likely to be less this time, as the TerraUSD episode has already caused a pullback in risk taking and a more wary attitude towards investing in dubious projects.

- MicroStrategy is not abandoning its strategy of buying and accumulating bitcoin, despite the continued market decline. This was stated by the executive chairman of the company Michael Saylor. He acknowledged that the situation looks like a "roller coaster" for digital gold. But at the same time, he recalled that bitcoin sank to levels that are still 33% higher than the levels when MicroStrategy first bought BTC in 2020. The company's shares have risen 38% over the period, outperforming tech giants like Apple or Amazon.
After acquiring 301 BTC worth $6 million in September 2022, MicroStrategy's reserves reached 130,000 BTC. The company has invested about $3.98 billion in cryptocurrency. The current value of the assets is approximately $2.25 billion.

- The People's Court of Shangrao (China) jailed a hacker for 10.5 years who, in the spring of 2018, used a Trojan to gain access to the imToken wallet on the victim's phone. During March-April, he made over 520 withdrawals for a total of 383.6 ETH. Subsequently, the attacker exchanged these coins for 109,458 USDT. After the hacker was arrested, the police returned all the stolen assets to the victim. In addition to imprisonment, the court fined him 200,000 yuan (about $28,000).

- A popular analyst named Dave the Wave told his 130,200 Twitter followers that cryptocurrency markets faced a huge loss of public trust after FTX filed for bankruptcy. However, Dave the Wave also reminded that bitcoin had previously remained in a long-term uptrend even when many announced its actual death. “Do not underestimate the speculative beast underlying the BTC market, as reflected in the LGC (logarithmic growth curve), which has demonstrated the ability to absorb the most terrible news and events,” the expert believes.

- Edward Snowden, a former CIA and US National Security Agency employee who once fled to Russia, shared his views on the crypto market. Snowden believes that after the collapse of FTX, the industry should switch to secure DEXs. Decentralized exchanges are an alternative to centralized exchanges and are managed solely by smart contracts without the participation of a third party. Thanks to full decentralization, DEXs in their original state should never face problems similar to FTX, as their reserves never fall below users' deposits.

- About three-quarters of bitcoin investors lost money due to the continued decline in the crypto market. This was stated in the Bank for International Settlements. BIS analysts analyzed data on cryptocurrency investors in 95 countries from 2015 to 2022. During the study period, the price of bitcoin rose from $250 in August 2015 to a peak of almost $69,000 in November 2021. The number of people using apps to buy cryptocurrency has grown from 119,000 to 32.5 million over the same period. In addition, the experts found that as the price of bitcoin rose, smaller users bought it, while the largest holders, on the contrary, sold it, receiving income from smaller users.
The study also found that the majority of new cryptocurrency investors (around 40%) are males under the age of 35, commonly referred to as the most “risk seeking” segment of the population.

- Bitcoin has stopped the fall caused by the collapse of FTX, and its supporters believe with a vengeance in its bullish future. Thus, experts from the cryptanalytical firm TradingShot conducted an “interesting fractal analysis at different time intervals”, which showed that if bitcoin stays above $16,628, its powerful rally is not ruled out in 2023. The results of the analysis suggest an increase in bullish potential, perhaps even up to $95,000 by 2024.

- Tesla CEO and new Twitter owner Elon Musk is confident that BTC will survive the bear market, although it will take a long time before its full potential is realized. Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, also expressed optimism, who said that he is not concerned about the current price movement of the main cryptocurrency.
Elon GOAT Token (EGT) issuing company has created a monument to Tesla CEO Elon Musk “in honor of his many achievements and commitment to cryptocurrency.” The nine-meter aluminum monument, which depicts Elon Musk as a goat on a rocket, cost the company $600,000.  The company drew attention to the fact that the image of the goat is not accidental. The name of the animal in English is goat, and in the case of the sculpture, the authors encrypted the phrase “Greatest Of All Time” in this way. “We thought it was a fun and creative way to get the attention of Elon and the world,” the company said. We will deliver it to Elon Musk on November 26. The donation will take place at Tesla's headquarters in Austin."

- Former stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who served time for securities fraud and is known as the “Wolf of Wall Street,” shared tips for managing finances during times of high volatility.
Tip No.1: Invest in bitcoin for 3-4 years. “If you take a three-, four- or five-year horizon, I would be shocked if you didn’t make money,” the expert says.
Tip No.2: Don't look at anything other than bitcoin and Ethereum. Belfort believes that despite the existence of thousands of cryptocurrencies, the attention of investors should be focused only on these two assets, as they have a solid foundation. In the case of bitcoin, limited supply and a rising adoption curve are key catalysts for an upward rally. As for Ethereum, it has become the first cryptocurrency to have really wide use cases in terms of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Tip No.3: Don't panic. “The whole crypto world is paralyzed by fear. [...] I'll say that if you get back into the game, this is the moment when the market is making the most money,” says The Wolf of Wall Street.
Belfort called the current market downturn a "cleansing." He also believes that the potential of bitcoin will be realized when the crypto sector becomes fully regulated.

- After cryptocurrency began to fall in price due to the bankruptcy of FTX, a video of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger smashing cryptocurrency began to circulate on social networks. In a 2018 video, this legendary investor stated that the crypto industry is attracting a large number of charlatans who use people “who are trying to get rich because their neighbor is rich.” Then he said that cryptocurrencies are “rat poison squared” and a bad outcome awaits them. Buffett's right-hand man Munger, in turn, called cryptocurrencies "disgusting" and said that their price will fall to zero eventually.
“It turns out that old people really know what they are talking about,” economist Steven Geiger commented on the words of Buffett and Munger.

- Analyst Jason Pizzino opined that bitcoin bulls would not allow BTC to fall to $10,000. “We have a figure of $14,900 in the spot market as a cycle low and around $15,500 depending on which exchange you use.” According to Pizzino, “If we get above $18,500 or $18,600, that would be a strong indication that the whole thing was just a shake-up, and perhaps the losses will be offset during November and there will be a return to $20,000.”
“However, that doesn't mean that once we close above that $18,500, we can't go back down,” the trader added. “If the decline continues throughout November, then we will get a price of about $13,500, which is relatively well in line with the previous highs of the old 2019 cycle.”

- According to Morgan Stanley analysts, another sale may take place in the coming days. Traders will turn to selling due to the fact that BTC was unable to gain a foothold above $17,000. The result, most likely, will be a fall in the BTC rate below $15,000. In the event of such a rollback, the cryptocurrency can only qualify for immediate support in the $14,000 region. Moreover, Morgan Stanley does not exclude that bitcoin will find the bottom at $13,500 or even $12,500. But it will be the worst of scenarios.
Delphi Digital also came to a similar conclusion. Its report says that market consolidation has been delayed and that technical indicators hint at a new reset by the end of November. At best, bitcoin will be able to stay in the range of $14,000 to $16,000.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The bankruptcy of the FTX exchange collapsed the crypto market. After it became known about the liquidity crisis of Alameda Research, a crypto trading company owned by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Binance CEO Chang Peng Zhao published a message about selling FTT tokens. The relationship between Binance and FTX is a complex and long story, starting with Binance receiving $2.1 billion for withdrawing from FTX investments. 
Recall that FTT is a token created by the FTX team, and Chang Peng Zhao’s actions immediately led to a rapid drop in its value. FTX users began to massively try to withdraw their savings. During the day, all BTC (about 20,000 units) were withdrawn from the exchange, and the exchange's balance is currently negative. In addition to FTT, the price of Sol and other tokens of the Solana project, which is linked to both FTX and Alameda, fell sharply as well. Other cryptocurrencies have also been affected by the decline.
Binance CEO Chang Peng Zhao announced on Tuesday, November 08 that his exchange is going to buy FTX, which is facing a liquidity crisis. However, this is currently just an intention that is not binding. 
Against the background of all these events, bitcoin fell significantly in price, falling by 14.2% on November 8: from $20,701 to $17,756. Ethereum “shrunk” by 28%, it fell from $1,577 to $1,135. The total capitalization of the crypto market has decreased from $1.040 trillion to $0.853 trillion. As experts explained, “investors don't like to see any disruptions in any risky asset.”

- Nigerian presidential candidate Adewole Adebayo said that the introduction of the latest technology will help reduce unemployment in the country and promised to use blockchain and digital currencies to create 30 million jobs. His future administration intends to join forces with 2,000 local cryptocurrency companies to do this.
Residents of another country, Lebanon, whose national currency has fallen by 96% against the US dollar, see salvation in cryptocurrencies as well. Inflation has hit triple digits since August 2019, and the minimum wage has been cut from $450 to $17, according to CNBC. As a result, mining has replaced full-time jobs for some of the country's citizens.

- The total volume of lost bitcoins, as well as digital gold in the wallets of long-term crypto investors, has reached a five-year high. This means that the active market supply of cryptocurrency is decreasing, promising optimistic prospects for prices, provided that demand increases or remains constant.
Cumberland, the cryptocurrency arm of venture capital firm DRW, also believes that a “promising uptrend” is forming in the volatile digital asset market. “The dollar's seemingly inexorable rally ended up killing sentiment in all major risk asset classes earlier this year,” the firm said. “This rally seems to have peaked, probably as a result of expectations that the Fed will change course by mid-2023.” Another tailwind for digital assets, according to Cumberland, is the easing of geopolitical turmoil, namely the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the resolution of problems in supply chains.

- Many on-chain metrics, including Pewell's multiplier, RHODL Ratio, and Reserve Risk, signal that bitcoin is deeply oversold and is likely to reach the bottom of the bearish market. This is stated in October analytical report by ForkLog. At the same time, some indicators point to the risk of a new wave of redistribution and price consolidation in the range of $16,500-21,100.

- Having analyzed bitcoin’s previous price action, including its upper highs and lower lows since November 2021, crypto analyst Moustache concluded that the cryptocurrency has displayed a “bullish megaphone pattern.” In his opinion, the expanding model, which looks like a megaphone or an inverted symmetric triangle, indicates that bitcoin could reach $80,000 around the summer of 2023.
As for the shorter-term outlook, some analysts believe that bitcoin could regain a critical support level by the end of 2022 and possibly even regain its $25,000 high.

- Speaking at Web Summit 2022, billionaire Tim Draper predicted that the price of the first cryptocurrency would rise to $250,000 by mid-2023. However, this prediction is not new at all. Back in 2018, Draper predicted bitcoin at $250,000 by 2022, moved the forecast to early 2023 in the summer of 2021, and extended it now for another six months.
Draper is confident that women will be the main driver of the next bull market, as they control about 80% of retail spending. “You can’t buy food, clothing, and housing with bitcoin just yet, but once you can, there will be no reason to hold on to fiat currency,” the billionaire added.
He also called digital gold an insurance against mismanagement and noted that cryptocurrencies prevent the government from controlling the population. “You saw speculators get out of bitcoin. Only hodlers remain, they're into it. They say it creates a freer and more trusting world. [Bitcoin] is an honest currency, not tied to banks and governments. It is decentralized,” Tim Draper explained.

- Mastercard Chief product officer Michael Miebach believes that it will take longer than expected for cryptocurrency to become mainstream. In his opinion, this asset class will become much more attractive to people as soon as the supervisory authorities introduce the appropriate rules. Many people want but do not know how to enter the crypto industry and how to get the maximum protection for their assets.
Like Tim Draper, Miebach sees a future world where the majority of consumers around the world use bitcoin in their daily transactions and settlements. However, he believes that this will not happen in the coming months: “I think there is a long way to go before cryptocurrency becomes mainstream.”

- The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has determined that cryptocurrency fraud falls into three categories. The first relates to fraud, where the victim believes they are investing in a legitimate asset. However, the crypto app, exchange, or website turns out to be fake. The second category of scams involves fake crypto tokens used to facilitate money laundering activities. The third type of fraud involves the use of cryptocurrencies to make fraudulent payments.
ASIC says the top signs of a crypto scam include “getting an offer out of the blue,” “fake celebrity ads,” and asking a “romantic partner you only know online” to send money in crypto.
Other red flags include asking to pay for financial services in crypto, asking to pay more money to access funds, withholding investment profits "for tax purposes" or offering "free money" or "guaranteed" investment income.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- October 31, 2022, marks 14 years since Satoshi Nakamoto published the bitcoin white paper. The white paper described how the peer-to-peer payment system worked that would revolutionize the financial technology world.
The bitcoin network was launched in January 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared two years later, and the public has never been able to find out who wrote the document that underpins the multibillion-dollar industry. It is unknown as well whether it was one person or a group of people.

- UN Secretary-General António Guterres has noted that new technologies have “unsurpassed potential to improve the lives of people” but are also used to finance terrorism. “Terrorists are abusing new technologies to spread disinformation, foment discord, recruit and radicalize, mobilize resources and carry out attacks,” he said.
The UN plans to involve states in regulating the industry, to combat abuse of digital assets. Few countries, however, have begun work on regulation, and even fewer have “successfully applied it” to curb illicit activity. At the same time, cash and hawala, an informal financial settlement system used mainly in the Middle East, remain the predominant methods of financing terrorism.

- According to the Coin ATM Radar center, after the failure in September (minus 459 devices), the number of bitcoin ATMs in the world increased in October by more than 200 units and reached 38,823. 
Robocoin installed the world's first such ATM in a coffee shop in Vancouver (Canada) on October 29, 2013. 348 transactions worth more than $100,000 were made through the device during the first week. This operator no longer exists, and the focus of distribution has shifted to the United States: the country accounts for 88% of the total number of bitcoin ATMs. Canada retains the second line of the world ranking with a share of 6.6%. Spain came in third on October 22, 2022, with 215 bitcoin ATMs, or 0.6% of the total. Recall that analysts at Grand View Research predict that the bitcoin ATM market will reach $1.88 billion by 2028.

- Former Goldman Sachs CEO and macro investor Raoul Pal has allowed the digital asset market capitalization to rise to $300 trillion in the next 10-15 years. According to him, the capitalization of almost all financial markets ranges from $200 trillion to $300 trillion. Pal believes that cryptocurrencies will also reach this level in the future as part of the “fastest and most massive growth” in history.
The expert's forecast is based on the amount of activity around the digital asset industry and Web3. Pal also noted an influx of $60 billion in venture capital investments over the past 18 months. He is confident that the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies will soar immediately after the end of the macroeconomic turmoil. 

- The author of popular comics and books, American cartoonist Zach Weinersmith said that the only meaningful argument he heard from cryptocurrency supporters is that they do not want centralized power over money.” According to Weinersmith, gold can be used in this paradigm. Vitalik Buterin joined the discussion of his tweet and gave three arguments in favor of cryptocurrencies as money: 1. Gold is incredibly inconvenient and difficult to use, especially when dealing with unreliable parties. 2. It does not support secure storage options such as multi-signature. 3. Today, gold is less common than digital assets.
“So, cryptocurrencies are the best choice,” concluded the ethereum co-founder.

- Blockchain security firm Peckshield shared some horrifying statistics on digital asset theft on Halloween night. As of October 31, 2022, $2.98 billion worth of digital assets have been stolen, according to published data, nearly double the $1.55 billion lost in all of 2021.
October has broken all records, fitting its new nickname "Haktober". During this month alone, the attackers stole assets worth a whopping $760 million (although $100 million was recovered). After October, the second largest amount of stolen funds was in March, during which just under $710 million was stolen. Most of the losses were related to the hacking of the Ronin bridge used in the Axie Infinity sidechain, as a result of which $625 million worth of crypto assets were stolen.

- BNY Mellon, America's oldest bank, said that 70% of institutional investors would increase investment in crypto, albeit under certain conditions, such as "custody and execution that would be available in recognized, reliable institutions."
The BNY Mellon report notes that "nearly all institutional investors (91%) are interested in investing in tokenized products." But at the same time, they are looking for ways to enter the cryptocurrency market safely, and not invest recklessly in the hope of high profits.

- Grayscale Investment has released the results of its survey. Experts planned to find out how ordinary Americans feel about the cryptocurrency industry. Only 52% of those surveyed agreed that cryptocurrencies are the financial future. And only 44% of respondents said they were considering investing in digital assets. At the same time, the majority of respondents (81%) agreed that cryptocurrencies need clear regulation rules. 

- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong predicts that bitcoin will become a reliable asset over the next 5-10 years that can provide investors with security in difficult times. The billionaire believes that the market capitalization of BTC is not yet large enough for the first cryptocurrency to act as a serious hedge asset. However, according to the businessman, everything can change around 2030, when the crypto market will grow and “take a large share of the global economy.” Bitcoin can be then treated as digital gold, investments in which can protect during a crisis.
The head of Coinbase admitted that he has now overestimated the chances of bitcoin to act as insurance against inflation. “I thought that the situation in the economy could draw more attention to BTC, but it looks like it’s too early,” the billionaire said.
Cathie Wood, manager of ARK Invest, shares a similar opinion. In her opinion, the capitalization of bitcoin will grow to $4.5 trillion, and it can become more valuable than most fiat currencies, including the US dollar.

- The cryptocurrency market flagship continues to trade above the $20,000 key level. Kitco News analyst Jim Wyckoff noted that bulls are technically dominating bears. The specialist does not rule out that consolidation may form on the market in the near future before the quotes move into a phase of stable growth. Wyckoff has not ruled out either that bitcoin could experience increased volatility in the coming weeks.

- An analyst aka Plan B believes that bitcoin is on the verge of a new cycle. The expert predicts an uptrend for two reasons. First, thanks to the recent rise in the value of bitcoin, investors who collectively own more than 60% of the available coins have made profits. According to Plan B, this factor indicates the upcoming BTC price pump. Secondly, the RSI index speaks in favor of the increase in the value of bitcoin. The value of this technical indicator has recently dropped to its all-time low, that is, the market has fallen into an extreme oversold zone, so a reversal is inevitable.
Researchers at Glassnode agree with Plan B. Their latest report says that the bitcoin market is currently in an accumulation phase, leading up to a massive bull run. There is a trend at the moment, similar to what happened at the beginning of 2019 before the rapid increase in bitcoin's value more than threefold.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Most of the 564 crypto investors surveyed by MLIV Pulse think that bitcoin will continue to trade in the $17,600-25,000 price range until the end of 2022. Almost two-thirds (65%) of retail investors said that the regulation of the crypto industry was more attractive than a repulsive factor for buying digital assets. The figure was 56% among professionals.
Only a third of respondents admitted the possibility of flipping: the superiority of ethereum over bitcoin in terms of market capitalization in the next two years. After being asked to choose one word to describe the crypto industry, investors were almost evenly divided between opposite options: “Ponzi” and “future.”

- Katie Wood, the head of ARK Invest management company, shared her opinion on the capitalization of the first cryptocurrency. She predicted a rise to $4.5 trillion even when bitcoin was trading at $250. It was then that Wood asked Arthur Laffer, a well-known economist, and member of the US President Reagan's Advisory Board, to study the digital gold white paper. ARK Invest CEO was interested in the prospects of bitcoin as a unit of account, a means of preserving value and circulation. Laffer spoke positively about the first cryptocurrency. “I've been looking for this ever since we dropped the gold standard. Bitcoin is a rules-based monetary system,” he said. Laffer also compared the prospects for capitalization of digital gold with the size of the US monetary base.
Wood added that it was this conversation that prompted her to immediately invest more than $100,000 in bitcoin, which was 400 BTC at that time (about $8.0 million at the time of writing).

- The quotes of the first cryptocurrency will reach $100,000 next year, against the background of the approaching halving. This was stated by well-known trader Ton Weiss in an interview with Kitco. He also warned that the price of digital gold could fall to $14.000 before the bull market sets in.
According to Weiss, capital flows from Europe to the United States and the syndrome of lost profits can become the engine of growth. “They missed their chance to catch the low in 2018. This is another possibility. If bitcoin ever drops below $10,000, investors will immediately take advantage of this,” the trader explained.
He also noted the decentralization and resistance to censorship of the first cryptocurrency. According to Weiss, these characteristics will provide the asset with mass adoption. “We are seeing how governments, the Central Bank and ordinary banks freeze accounts. This year alone, we have seen how the West and the US confiscate funds from people because of their Russian passports,” he said.

- One of the events that could significantly push the price of BTC up is the halving, which is due to take place in 2024. This opinion is also shared by a well-known crypto trading specialist under the nickname PlanB. He provided an analysis of previous bitcoin price movements and made predictions for the future using a Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model. His colleague was supported by another trader and analyst, Josh Rager, who also expects bitcoin to grow significantly after the halving in 2024. At the same time, in his opinion, growth should not be expected before this event.
As we know, the last bitcoin halving took place on May 11, 2020, when the reward for each created block was halved to 6.25 BTC. This reward will again be halved to 3.125 BTC per block during the fourth halving, which is expected to take place in May 2024.

- The legendary trader and analyst Peter Brandt has a slightly different opinion. He said that bitcoin would reach a new all-time high in about 32 months, but it would first fall to $13,000. The expert believes that the first cryptocurrency will find this bottom at the beginning of 2023 and will not show “impressive” performance over the next year and a half.
According to Brandt, the US Federal Reserve is not going to ease monetary policy. He assumes that the regulator will raise interest rates by another 75 basis points at least twice more by the end of 2022 in order to combat inflation.
However, the analyst expects that the value of the first cryptocurrency will no longer depend on other markets at some point. “Bitcoin will eventually correlate with bitcoin,” Brandt explained. The expert also noted that the cryptocurrency will become the “main store of value” in the next 10 years.
Recall that Peter Brandt has been working in the financial markets for more than 40 years, he is the creator of the Factor Trading service, which provides expert reports and analysis of asset value charts. Brandt has repeatedly noted that bitcoin is one of the largest parts of his investment portfolio.

- According to an October survey conducted by the financial company Finder, the median forecast of analysts is that the price of BTC will reach $270,722 by 2030. They also think that the first cryptocurrency will be traded at $21,344 by the end of this year.

- His Majesty's former Treasury Chief, Rishi Sunak, became the new British Prime Minister on October 25. He was remembered for his benevolent attitude towards cryptocurrencies in his previous position. In his opinion, innovations can make payments cheaper and faster.
His department began developing regulation for stablecoins in 2020 and announced research on Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).  The future Prime Minister stated in April 2022 that he aimed to turn the UK into a "global hub for crypto-assets technologies." Sunak instructed the Royal Mint then to issue NFTs, and the Treasury announced plans to legalize stablecoins.
However, the agency ruled out the use of algorithmic stablecoins as payment mechanisms in May, amid the collapse of Terra. The Treasury has also considered additional measures to protect against “stable coin” disasters like UST.
Twitter users recalled that Sunak is easy to navigate popular NFT collections, and when taken a blitz survey, he chose both bitcoin and ethereum from the two leading cryptocurrencies.

- The bitcoin community is divided over whether BTC will rise or fall next year. There is reason to believe that BTC is likely to collapse sharply in the coming months but will then rise in middle to late 2023. Most analysts and technical indicators suggest that it could drop to $12,000-$16,000 in the coming months. This correlates with a volatile macro environment, stock prices, inflation, Fed data, and (at least according to Elon Musk) a possible recession that could last until 2024.
On the other hand, influencers, BTC maximalists and a number of other fanatical barkers claim that the price of the first cryptocurrency can soar to $80,000 and more. According to trader and analyst Kevin Swenson, we may see an 80-week bear market turn into a bull market around April. The deflationary nature of BTC, thanks to the halving, will contribute to this price increase.
Michael van de Poppe, CEO of trading firm Eight, has joined the cohort of analysts anticipating the rise of the first cryptocurrency. He believes that bitcoin has been consolidating around $20,000 for too long and should soon get out of the corridor to shake things up. “Bitcoin will break through all levels within two to three weeks. And I think it will be up. I think we'll get to $30,000."
The outflow of BTC from centralized exchanges also speaks in favor of a possible growth: this indicates that investors are withdrawing funds to cold wallets in anticipation of the growth of the first cryptocurrency.

- Other experts, on the contrary, believe that we will not see a surge either in the near future or in 2023. Gareth Soloway of InTheMoneyStocks has pointed out that there is a small chance that the coin could even crash to $3,500. “I think we will see a small bounce in the near future, then a wave down to $12,000-13,000, and then, I am afraid, we will move to $8,000-10,000, maybe even see a drop to $3,500,” he says. At the same time, Gareth Soloway warns that if BTC falls to $12,000 or below, it may not be profitable for miners to manage the ecosystem. This would mean that transactions are no longer being processed. And this, in turn, can not only damage the industry, but also destroy the bitcoin market.

- Frank Giustra, a billionaire who built his fortune on investments in the mining industry, believes that the US authorities will destroy cryptocurrencies sooner or later. He suggested that the US government plans to develop a jurisdiction for its own blockchain. “I think the US authorities really want to be ahead of the rest of the planet in terms of blockchain, not in bitcoin, but in a state-owned digital currency that they can fully control. Like all other countries, they don't need bitcoin competition. Therefore, I see BTC as a game against sovereign fiat money.” Giustra added that bitcoin has no chance of standing up to world governments.
The billionaire tried to convince crypto investors to invest in real gold. “If you invest in precious metals, the government will not be able to take them away from you when it destroys all assets not controlled by them in the digital world.” 

- The correlation between the prices of bitcoin and gold over the past 40 days has reached a significant value of 0.5, which is a strong increase after it was almost zero in mid-August. At the same time, the volatility of bitcoin turned out to be less than that of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones. Accordingly, the price of the coin began to fluctuate less following the change in these two main indicators of the world's largest capital market.
Bank of America, in a letter to investors, expressed the opinion that “the decrease in bitcoin's positive correlation with the S&P 500 and the rapidly growing relationship with gold indicate that investors may be considering bitcoins as a relatively “safe haven” in a situation where there remains macroeconomic uncertainty in the world, and the “bottom” of the market may eventually be fixed.”

- As the most frightening holiday of the year approaches, there is another factor to consider when investing during this period: the “Halloween effect”. This is a popular sign among traders, which suggests that bitcoin and the stock market tend to perform well from the end of October to the end of May.
According to Finbold, BTC's price has only increased year-on-year over the past three Halloweens. However, it would be too reckless currently to assume that a digital asset could show growth for the fourth year in a row. But even stranger things happen in the world. According to estimates by 28,488 members of the CoinMarketCap community, the average implied BTC price on Halloween, October 31, 2022, will be $21,248, which is 65.17% lower than on the same day last year. Bitcoin was trading at $61,300 on October 31, 2021, with a market capitalization of $1.156 trillion, up 344.39% from BTC’s Halloween 2020 price of $13,794. 


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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Forex and Cryptocurrency Forecast for October 17 - 21, 2022

EUR/USD: Market, Are You Crazy?

Throughout the first half of the week, EUR/USD moved sideways along the 0.9700 horizon as markets waited for the release of US inflation data. And it was on Thursday, October 14 that the Department of Labor Statistics of the country published fresh values of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which exceeded the forecast values. In monthly terms, the September CPI reached 0.6% against the forecast of 0.5%, in annual terms - 6.6% against the forecast of 6.5% and the previous value of 6.3%.

The first reaction of the markets was quite expected. The DXY dollar index soared to 113.94 points (the highest value since September 28, when a 20-year high of 114.79 points was reached), the yield of 10-year treasuries updated a 14-year high, reaching 4.08%, and EUR/USD reached the level 0.9630. Risky asset quotes associated with the dollar by reverse correlation went down. The S&P500 index fell by 2.4% and updated its 2-year low. Dow Jones, Nasdaq and crypto assets behaved in a similar way.

But something extraordinary happened in less than one hour: all the markets, as if going crazy, turned 180 degrees all of a sudden. Moreover, for no apparent reason.

The dollar began to lose its positions rapidly: DXY fell to 112.46, and EUR/USD broke through 0.9800. On the contrary, the S&P500 was positive by the end of Thursday and grew by 2.6%. Analysts cite the strong oversold stock market as the main reason for this change in sentiment and the sharp increase in risk appetites. It is believed that stocks lose about 30% during recessions. At this stage, the S&P500 is down 27.5% during 2022. Therefore, some investors have decided that the bottom has already been reached or will be reached soon, and it is time to start buying. A large number of put options have recently been bought in the US market, on which profit-taking took place, and the freed fiat was used to purchase risky assets.

Despite the events of the past week, market opinion regarding the further increase in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve has not changed. Billionaire investor Ray Dalio has warned that the US will face a "perfect storm" of problems: a combination of debt, political infighting, and conflict abroad. But at the same time, despite the threat of a recession, the Fed will have no other choice to beat inflation.

The market has no doubts that the key rate will be increased by 75 basis points (bp) at the next meeting of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) on November 2. The largest North American financial derivatives market, CME Group, estimates the probability of this at over 90%. Moreover, it is possible that the rate will also increase to 75 bp in December (or, alternatively, by 50 bp in December and another 50 bp in Q1 2023). The peak of the rise is predicted at the level of 4.93-5.00% per annum, and this rate may remain until 2024.

As for Europe, the ECB representative and head of the Slovak Central Bank, Peter Kazimir, recently said that “raising the rate by 75 bps in October is appropriate”. However, this had almost no impression on the market. Economists at Commerzbank still expect the European regulator to raise the rate to only 3.0% by March next year. Thus, it will still be far behind the USD rate.

In addition, the energy crisis and the problems associated with sanctions against Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine will also continue to put pressure on the common European currency. According to analysts at Commerzbank, the euro will start to recover only when investors bet more and more on the end of the crisis next year. In the meantime, they write, “a decisive tightening of monetary policy and a remarkably strong US economy make the US dollar the favorite currency of international investors.”

Thus, EUR/USD in the short term is still aimed south. And according to the forecasts of DBS Bank strategists, if it breaks through the important support level just below 0.9600, it may fall into the range of 0.8270-0.9500, which was observed in 2000-2002.

Following the release of September US Retail Sales and the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, the EUR/USD pair was trading in the 0.9750 zone at the time of writing the forecast on Friday evening, October 14. 55% of analysts support the fact that it will continue to move south in the near future, another 35% expect it to move north, and the remaining 10% vote for a sideways trend. Among the trend indicators on D1, 90% are red and 10% are green. The picture is quite different among the oscillators: only 40% of them advise selling the pair, 15% are in favor of buying, and 55% have taken a neutral position.

The immediate support for the EUR/USD is at 0.9700, followed by 0.9670, 0.9630, 0.9580 and finally the September 28 low at 0.9535. The next target of the bears is 0.9500. The resistance levels and targets of the bulls look like this: 0.9800-0.9825, 0.9900, the immediate task is to return to the range of 0.9950-1.0020, the next target area is 1.0130-1.0200.

The upcoming week's calendar highlights Tuesday October 18, when the German ZEW Economic Sentiment Index is released. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) of the Eurozone will be known. And there will be data on manufacturing activity and the housing market in the US on Thursday, October 20.

GBP/USD: UK Changes Course

In general, the GBP/USD chart was similar to the EUR/USD chart last week, except for the volatility. The local minimum was fixed at the level of 1.0922, the maximum - 1.1380, thus the range of fluctuations for the five-day period amounted to more than 450 points.

The statistics on the UK economy released this week looked mixed. Friday, October 14, was the key day, when Prime Minister Liz Truss fired Treasury Secretary Quasi Kwarteng. Now, after this event, the markets are awaiting details about the country's upcoming mini budget. Former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has been appointed as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Liz Truss has announced a dramatic change in fiscal policy. However, this has not helped the British currency much so far: it was in the 1.1200 area at the end of the working week.

As for the median forecast, here the majority of analysts (75%) side with the bears, 25% have taken a neutral position, while the number of supporters of the strengthening of the pound is 0. Among the oscillators on D1, the ratio is 60% to 40% in favor of the reds. Among the trend indicators, only 15% are colored red, 40% are green, and the remaining 45% are neutral gray.

The nearest levels and support zones are 1.1100, 1.1055, 1.0985-1.1000, 1.0925. This is followed by 1.0500-1.0740 and the September 26 low of 1.0350. When the pair moves north, the bulls will meet resistance at the levels of 1.1300, 1.1350, 1.1400, 1.1470, 1.1500, 1.1610, 1.1720, 1.1800 and 1.1960.

Regarding the release of UK macro statistics, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) will be released on Wednesday, October 19, as in the Eurozone, and UK retail sales for September will be announced on Friday, October 21.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: How Much Will BTC Be Worth on October 9, 2024?


The crypto market was relatively quiet until Thursday October 13. The BTC/USD pair, despite the downward pressure, looked quite stable, holding positions around $19,000. However, it flew down  after the values of the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) became known, following the stock indices S&P500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq. However, it never reached the June 19 low of $17,940, and having found a local bottom at $18,155, it then went up sharply, following the stock indices. At the time of writing this review, on the evening of Friday, October 14, the pair is trading in the $19.375 zone.

According to Amsterdam Stock Exchange trader Michael van de Poppe, bitcoin price volatility will increase in the second half of October. The US inflation data, along with the latest data on retail sales and labor market dynamics, will have a strong impact on both Wall Street and the cryptocurrency market. The next important point will be early November, when the Fed is likely to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.75%. Based on this, JP Morgan strategists predict a new collapse of the S&P500 index, by about another 20%. Thus, the unrealized loss of those who invested in the shares of the 500 largest US companies at the beginning of 2022 could exceed 44%. However, many crypto investors hope that, as in the case of the recent crisis in the UK, bitcoin will play the role of digital gold this time and will not collapse after other assets. It will become clear in the foreseeable future whether these hopes will come true.

If we look at the latest analysts' forecasts by color, the palette is as follows: short-term forecasts are dark black, medium-term forecasts are gray, and long-term forecasts are sky blue.

Among the dark blacks, this time, let's highlight the scenario of Zack Voell, who is a mining analyst at Braiins. He has recently shared a model that reflects BTC's price performance in previous bearish cycles. Zach Voell studied the behavior of quotes in all past periods between highs and lows, on the basis of which he predicted a fall in the BTC rate to $13,800.

The analyst emphasized that he studied the behavior of the bitcoin price in 2011, then in 2013-2015 and 2017-2018, as well as during the current cycle, which began in November 2021. According to him, the value of the cryptocurrency lost more than 80% of its peak values the last two times. If history repeats, the rate will fall to at least this mark and may even go lower. He noted among other things that the bearish cycle of 2011 led to a drop in the value of BTC by as much as 95%. However, this happened when the cryptocurrency was practically unknown to anyone and was not on the way to mass adoption.

Voell also noted that despite the negative sentiment, bitcoin was the most profitable asset in Q3 2022. Digital gold has shown extreme stability in the past months. (Apart from BTC, according to statistics published by NYDIG, only precious metals and fiat USD turned out to be profitable in Q3).

Now let's talk about what may happen in the last, Q4 2022. Mike McGlone, senior strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, predicted a rise in the bitcoin price by the end of 2022. Digital gold and ethereum tend to outperform most major assets during economic downturns. Therefore, McGlone called the increase in interest rates by Central banks “a strong tailwind.” He noted that October has been the best month for bitcoin since 2014. At the same time, the analyst believes that ethereum's transition to the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm can help ETH and BTC gain a foothold above the $1,000 and $20,000 levels, respectively.

Such levels for ethereum and bitcoin will certainly not impress investors. Therefore, this forecast of the Bloomberg Intelligence strategist can be classified as neutral gray. Then move on to sky blue scenarios.

Paul Tudor Jones, a trader and founder of the Tudor Investment Hedge Fund, said in an interview with CNBC that he continues to hold a position in the first cryptocurrency. According to the influencer, the first and second most capitalized cryptocurrencies will be valuable “at some point” because of too much money.

That moment, according to Raoul Pal, could come when the Fed retreats from its plans to fight inflation by tightening monetary policy. This Real Vision founder and former Goldman Sachs chief executive said that the macroeconomic background is beginning to look attractive for investing in cryptocurrencies. Many investors are now in a state of extreme fear, fearing that the global financial system will soon collapse. And this could be a growth catalyst for risky assets like bitcoin and altcoins.

According to the businessman, investors are very negative and are playing it safe. Previously, the market had incredibly high amounts of investments, but the market does not work now, as sellers predominate over buyers. This situation may encourage the Fed to relax its monetary policy.

“There is currently no liquidity on the market, as only sellers are left there. I think this will cause huge problems in the future. Ultimately, businesses will demand more money to be issued and the situation on the market to be changed,” said Raul Pal. So once Central banks start printing money again, assets like bitcoin and altcoins will rise. “This is a sad state of affairs, but this is the real situation,” says the financier. “You will be able to see when the shift comes and use it to your advantage by investing in cryptocurrencies.”

A popular crypto analyst known as Dave the Wave accurately predicted the bitcoin crash in May 2021. He believes now that if bitcoin equals gold in the long term in market capitalization, this will be equal to an increase in its price by about 40 times. According to the expert, this global goal can be achieved within two decades.

The rainbow price chart of the Blockchain Center looks no less optimistic. (It differs somewhat from our forecast). It shows how past price statistics can help predict the future behavior of an asset. In the long term, the graph indicates that bitcoin could reach a six-figure value of $626,383 by October 9, 2024. The flagship cryptocurrency will reach the “maximum bubble territory” then, marked in dark red.

Additionally, the chart indicates that the current crypto winter may have bottomed out. It is noteworthy that bitcoin's current price is estimated to be in the “Main Sale” zone (marked in blue). Ahead of another bull run, the rainbow chart also shows that bitcoin’s “HODL” status will take effect at the end of the year when the asset trades at $86,151.

The color bars follow a purely logarithmic regression, which has no scientific basis. In addition, the bands have been adjusted to match past periods in the better way. However, the chart creators note that this is at least an interesting way to look at the potential future profitability of the main cryptocurrency.

At the time of writing, the total crypto market capitalization is $0.927 trillion ($0.946 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has climbed 1 point in seven days from 23 to 24 and is still in the Extreme Fear zone.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Paul Tudor Jones, a trader and founder of the Tudor Investment Hedge Fund, said in an interview with CNBC that he continues to hold a position in the first cryptocurrency. “I still have a small bitcoin investment,” Jones noted. According to this Wall Street King, the first and second most capitalized cryptocurrencies will be valuable “at some point” because of too much money.
Jones pointed to the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve. It was quite simple until 2018, but the regulator “went too far with quantitative easing” two years later to support the economy, and then changed its strategy drastically. “Inflation is a bit like toothpaste,” the famous trader explained. "Once you squeeze it out of the tube, it will be difficult to put it back. The Fed is furiously trying to wash that taste out of their mouths. […] If we go into a recession, it will have a really negative impact on a range of assets.”

- Mike McGlone, senior strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, predicted a rise in the bitcoin price by the end of 2022. Digital gold and ethereum tend to outperform most major assets during economic downturns. Therefore, McGlone called the increase in interest rates by Central banks “a strong tailwind.”
He noted that October has been the best month for bitcoin since 2014. At the same time, the analyst believes that ethereum's transition to the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm can help ETH and BTC gain a foothold above the $1,000 and $20,000 levels, respectively.

- A popular crypto analyst known as Dave the Wave accurately predicted the bitcoin crash in May 2021. He believes now that if bitcoin equals gold in the long term in market capitalization, this will be equal to an increase in its price by about 40 times. According to the expert, this global goal can be achieved within two decades.
Dave the Wave also notes that the MACD momentum indicator may indicate soon if BTC has hit the market bottom. “The recent local downtrend is now equal to the previous uptrend. A monthly closure with a strength/contraction histogram will contribute to a significant assumption [if not confirmation] of the bottom.”

- Google has announced that it will soon start accepting payments for subscriptions to its own cloud services in cryptocurrency. This was reported by the CNBC news agency. The partner of the IT giant is the Coinbase crypto exchange. It is noted that Google will accept 10 types of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and even Dogecoin. The feature will become available in early 2023. At the first stages, only “a few corporate clients in the world” will be able to pay Google with cryptocurrency. However, a much larger number of Google users will later access it.
According to CNBC, Coinbase will receive a commission on each transaction, the amount of which has not yet been disclosed. However, it is noted that as part of the partnership, Coinbase will abandon Amazon's cloud infrastructure in favor of a similar solution from Google.

- Amsterdam Stock Exchange trader Michael van de Poppe believes that bitcoin's current low price volatility will begin to increase in the second half of October, after US inflation data is released. Together with the latest data on retail sales and labor market dynamics, it will have a strong impact on both Wall Street and the cryptocurrency market.
The next important point is early November, when the Fed is likely to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.75%. The probability of this is estimated above 90% at the Chicago CME Group. If so, according to JP Morgan, the S&P 500 index, which has lost 24.21% since the start of the year, faces a new collapse of about 20%. Thus, investors will be able to receive less than $56 out of the $100 dollars that they invested in the shares of the 500 largest US companies.
Bitcoin's price is sure to react to such a move in the US stock market, but how? Opinions differ here. Wall Street stock prices, like any other risky asset measured in USD, are under pressure that the dollar DXY index is rising and is now reaching its highest level since May 2002 (113 points). However, the correlation of cryptocurrencies with the stock market is not stable: it either rises or falls. And it will become clear in the foreseeable future whether bitcoin can become a hedge asset against the risk of unwinding global inflation at this stage.

- Real Vision founder and former Goldman Sachs CEO Raoul Pal said that the macroeconomic background is beginning to look attractive for investing in cryptocurrencies. Many investors are now in a state of extreme fear, fearing that the global financial system will soon collapse. And this could be a growth catalyst for risky assets like bitcoin and altcoins.
According to the businessman, investors are very negative and are playing it safe. Previously, the market had incredibly high amounts of investments, but the market does not work now, as sellers predominate over buyers. This situation may encourage the Fed to relax its monetary policy.
“There is currently no liquidity on the market, as only sellers are left there. I think this will cause huge problems in the future. Ultimately, businesses will demand more money to be issued and the situation on the market to be changed,” said Raul Pal. So once Central banks start printing money again, assets like bitcoin and altcoins will rise. “This is a sad state of affairs, but this is the real situation,” says the financier. “You will be able to see when the shift comes and use it to your advantage by investing in cryptocurrencies.”

- An experienced cryptocurrency market expert Zack Voell, who is a mining analyst at Braiins, shared a model that reflects the dynamics of bitcoin (BTC) prices in previous bear cycles. He studied the behavior of quotes in all past periods between highs and lows, on the basis of which he predicted a fall in the BTC rate to $13,800.
The analyst emphasized that he studied the behavior of the bitcoin price in 2011, then in 2013-2015 and 2017-2018, as well as during the current cycle, which began in November 2021. According to him, the value of the cryptocurrency lost more than 80% of its peak values the last two times. If history repeats, the rate will fall to at least this mark and may even go lower.
He noted among other things that the bearish cycle of 2011 led to a drop in the value of BTC by as much as 95%. However, this happened when the cryptocurrency was practically unknown to anyone and was not on the way to mass adoption.
Voell also noted that despite the negative sentiment, bitcoin was the most profitable asset in Q3 2022. Digital gold has shown extreme stability over the past months. In addition to BTC, according to statistics published by NYDIG, only precious metals and fiat USD turned out to be profitable in Q3.

- According to the analytical cryptocurrency platform Santiment, large bitcoin holders have increased their BTC savings by 46.173 coins (about $929 million) since September 27.
The list of so-called whales includes owners of addresses that store between 100 and 10,000 bitcoins. Analysts stressed that such activity by large coin holders is very rare this year. Apparently, bitcoins were bought with USDT stablecoins: the the latter's stocks in whales' wallets have fallen significantly.
It is quite possible that large holders expect the crypto market to grow. Indeed, bitcoin has been trading along the Power Point $20,000 for several weeks now, and this is an accumulation phase that should give way to an up phase. At the same time, 45.72% of all available bitcoins were stored on whale wallets at the end of September: this is the lowest figure in the last 29 months.
It has been repeatedly said that the fall in digital and other risky assets is associated with an increase in base rates by regulators in the United States and other world leading economies. However, financial analysts expect the Central banks of these countries to start cutting rates to combat the economic recession. This should push the price of bitcoin up.

- The bitcoin consolidation near the $20,000 level continues, and one of the tools used to determine the possible movement of the price of BTC is the Blockchain Center’s rainbow price chart. It shows how past price statistics can help predict the future behavior of an asset.
In the long term, the chart indicates that bitcoin could hit six figures at $626,383 by October 9, 2024. The flagship cryptocurrency will reach the “maximum bubble territory” then, marked in dark red.
Additionally, the chart indicates that the current crypto winter may have bottomed out. It is noteworthy that bitcoin's current price of about $19,500 is estimated to be in the “Main Sale” zone (marked in blue). Ahead of another bull run, the rainbow chart also shows that bitcoin’s “HODL” status will take effect at the end of the year when the asset trades at $86,151.
The color bars follow a purely logarithmic regression, which has no scientific basis. In addition, the bands have been adjusted to match past periods in the better way. However, the chart creators note that this is at least an interesting way to look at the potential future profitability of the main cryptocurrency.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Analysts have estimated the “painful” breakeven threshold for miners at $18,300. According to Glassnode's calculations, 78,400 BTC could be at risk of liquidation if the price of bitcoin goes below this price, which follows from the mining difficulty regression model. This value is slightly higher than the June low of $17,840.
Against the background of price stability, mining metrics are improving, which is a signal that the situation will improve in the coming months. In particular, the hash rate reached a record 242 EH/s. The growth of computing power is due to the introduction of the most efficient ASIC devices. This confirms the dynamics of revenue per EH/s (4.06 BTC). In dollar terms, it ranges from $78,000-$88,000. The last time such values were observed was after the halving in October 2020, when bitcoin was worth half what it is now (~$10,000).
The balances of miners, which account for 96% of the current hash rate, have 78,400 BTC, the maximum number of coins that can increase sales in case of stress for this category of market participants. At the moment, most of the sales are carried out by miners associated with the Poolin pool. In September, representatives of this company admitted that there were problems with liquidity. 
Glassnode experts also noted a growing likelihood of increased volatility after a long period of consolidation in the $18,000-20,000 range.

- McDonald's restaurant chain has started accepting BTC payments in Lugano, Switzerland. Back in March, Lugano authorities announced that they would make digital gold, USDT, and the city's LVGA token "de facto" legal tender. The decision was the development of an initiative to turn the city into the “Bitcoin Capital of Europe”.

- Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad, called the strengthening of the US dollar an excellent opportunity to buy the first cryptocurrency and other digital assets. “Buy more. When the Fed turns around and cuts interest rates, you will smile while others cry,” he said.

- George Soros' former Quantum associate, billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, predicted a revival of digital assets amid the collapse of the fiat-based economy. He said this at the CNBC conference. The financier expects a "hard landing" of the economy in 2023 against the backdrop of an aggressive tightening of the Fed's monetary policy.
In his opinion, quantitative easing and low rates led to bubbles in financial markets. These factors have not only been stopped now, but reversed. The Fed has begun cutting its $9 trillion balance and has already managed to raise the key rate five times to 3.25%, expecting its peak at 4.60%. “You don’t even need to talk about black swans to start worrying,” the billionaire said. In his opinion, if confidence in the actions of central banks is lost, cryptocurrencies “will play a big role in the revival”.

- Unlike global investors, ordinary people look at what is happening a little differently. The collapse in the crypto assets market forced not only the older generation, but also young people to reconsider their attitude towards them. The financial company Bankrate conducted a survey, according to which, the number of Americans who were comfortable investing in digital money has dropped sharply.
Millennials, who had previously been considered most open to new technologies, have lost confidence in cryptocurrencies more than others. The percentage of young people for whom cryptocurrencies were a convenient investment method fell from 49% in 2021 to 29% in 2022. People between the ages of 40 and 55 are losing trust in digital assets as well. Over the year, this figure fell from 37% to 21%. Among the older generation, the figure fell from 21% to 11%.
“It's much easier to invest enthusiastically in something when you see its value constantly increasing,” says Greg McBride, Chief Financial Analyst at Bankrate. “A real test of the faith happens when the market falls, and what you fervently believed until recently ceases to be profitable. Recent movements have forced many to reconsider their attitude towards the digital asset market radically.”

- Some different data was provided by The Block. According to their calculations, despite the global bearish trend, the number of active investors in the bitcoin network continues to grow. This trend is due to the serious economic crisis in Europe, against the background of which retailers are increasingly investing in the main cryptocurrency in order to diversify risks. According to The Block, the number of investors in the bitcoin ecosystem has grown by 4.5 million since January 1, 2022.
It is noteworthy that the number of bitcoin addresses with a balance of at least 0.01 BTC reached an all-time high of 10.7 million this month. About 47% of holders remain in profit, despite the flagship cryptocurrency's prolonged drawdown relative to its historical maximum.

- Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz suggested that a reversal could form in the stock market in October. The expert also stressed that the Fed's policy is likely to remain aggressive. And there are no clear signs so far that the US department is ready to cut interest rates, as such a drastic move would harm efforts to combat inflation. However, the expert did not rule out that the regulator may re-initiate the quantitative easing procedure at some point in order to stabilize the market situation.
The head of Galaxy Digital believes that bitcoin looks quite stable in the current macroeconomic conditions, and that BTC will still be able to reach $500,000 within a few years.

- Unlike many optimists, cryptocurrency strategist and trader Cantering Clarke expects BTC to crash to five-year lows amid stock market weakness. According to his calculations, bitcoin could fall by almost 40% from current levels if the S&P 500 stock index resumes its bearish trend. “If the S&P 500 drops to the next major area between 3,200-3,400 [pips], I think the correct assumption is that the crypto crash will be 2-3 times greater. This means at least that BTC will re-test the largest protrusion in five years: about $12,000-13,000,” the trader warns.
However, in the short term, he believes bitcoin bulls could bring back some confidence to the market if they manage to gain a foothold above $20,000. “If we can break these local highs, I think BTC will see some momentum,” Cantering Clark predicts.

- Social media users are vigorously discussing the fact that October 7 will be a key day for the cryptocurrency market this week. The fact is that the US authorities will announce updated data on unemployment and wages in the non-agricultural sector of the country this Friday. Employment and CPI data will signal how much the Fed will raise interest rates at its next meeting in November.
Experts are clearly divided on the future of the industry. Some of them predict a rapid growth in the exchange rate of the flagship cryptocurrency and altcoins due to the geopolitical situation in the world. Others, on the contrary, predict a protracted crisis. In their opinion, the industry will face a crypto winter in the next few years, so there is no point in waiting for prices to rise.

- According to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, failure to regulate cryptocurrencies could harm the entire US financial system. According to her, this industry, left without regulation, is fraught with risks, although they do not pose a “real threat” to financial stability so far.
A true cascade of defaults and bankruptcies in the crypto industry has led firms like Celsius, Voyager, and Three Arrows to file for bankruptcy and prevent clients from withdrawing funds. We can recall the fall of the Luna token and the Terra stablecoin associated with it. All this led to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) deciding to increase its focus on the digital asset market by doubling its crypto division staff in May. And SEC chief Gary Gensler even called this entire industry the “Wild West”.

- Increased regulation of cryptocurrencies is often frowned upon by crypto investors, and the threat of such increased regulation has often been a bearish factor for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees the US futures market, believes that proper regulation could have a powerful bullish effect on the price of BTC.
CFTC chief Rostin Behnam explained that a clear regulatory framework could help increase the number of institutional investors. According to him, “these incumbent institutions in the crypto space see a huge opportunity for an institutional influx that will only happen if a regulatory structure is put in place around this market.” Behnam also noted that the bill submitted to the US Senate would make the CFTC the main regulator of the crypto industry, expanding the commission's powers and requiring crypto firms to register with the CFTC.

- The founder and CEO of The Birb Nest brand Ardian Zdunczyk shared his thoughts on bitcoin and what cryptocurrency can expect in the last quarter of the year. He noted that historically the fourth quarter was successful for BTC, and it would be interesting to see if the leader of the crypto market can repeat the previous successes. Zdunczyk cited historical data, proving that investors can expect good returns over the next two months. True, he made a reservation that no one would give guarantees.
Another argument in favor of the pre-New Year rally is the fact that the coins have risen slightly compared to their 200-day trends. Unlike fiat currencies that show roller coasters, bitcoin is stable in the range of $19,000 to $20,000. And now all markets are waiting for stability. They are already tired of the recession, the fall in company shares, the IMF's gloomy forecasts, and the ill-conceived policies of the Central Banks. Therefore, against such a background, bitcoin is becoming more and more attractive.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Analytical software provider MicroStrategy purchased an additional 301 BTC for $6 million. This is stated in the report submitted to the SEC. Michael Saylor, founder and ex-CEO of the company, said that purchases were made between August 2 and September 19 at an average price of $19,851 per BTC. MicroStrategy's previous investment in the first cryptocurrency took place in June: the firm purchased 480 BTC worth about $10 million.
MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries currently own 130,000 BTC, purchased at an average exchange rate of $30,638 per coin. Thus, unrealized losses on this investment exceed $1.5 billion. 

- The monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve has led to the emergence of "tumors" like bitcoin. This was stated by the philosopher and author of the cult work “Black Swan” Nassim Taleb. “I believe we had 15 years […] of Disneyland which basically destroyed the economic structure. The Fed missed the mark by cutting interest rates too much. Zero interest for a long period of time damages the economy, bubbles are created, tumors like bitcoin are created,” he said, calling for a return to “normal economic life.”

- Willy Woo, a well-known bitcoin investor and analyst, believes that the BTC rate is being held back for political reasons. As he noted, it is currently theoretically possible to sell unlimited amounts of BTC due to futures contracts, although in reality the offer is limited to 21 million coins. “Futures markets can control the BTC rate,” the investor says. “CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) has set up a kind of bitcoin casino where you can play in US dollars. Wall Street hedge funds loved it. What are the current restrictions on the sale of bitcoin? None, because fiat has no restrictions.”
Woo believes that due to the structure of the futures market, major players can suppress BTC by exerting pressure in the form of selling an asset: “Bitcoin should not be killed. Just the ability to short BTC is enough to suppress the exchange rate. Bitcoin will not be able to make a global impact without a high price. The SEC's policy is now aimed at increasing liquidity and the predominance of futures by approving futures ETFs, while spot ETFs are being rejected. Everything has turned into a political game now.”

- Nicholas Merten, an analyst and founder of DataDash, believes that after BTC's unsuccessful attempt to stay above $19,000, it will fall to $14,000. In his opinion, this is influenced by both technical and macroeconomic factors.
Thus, BTC's 200-week moving average (WMA) has become a resistance level, not a support level. Bitcoin has almost always remained above this indicator throughout its existence, with rare breakdowns to the downside, marking the bottom of the cycle. Currently, the 200-week WMA is around $23,250, and bitcoin is struggling to rise above this level.
Merten concluded that BTC's recent exchange rate movement could signal the end of a 10-year bull market, and it can no longer be a leading asset compared to other commodities and stocks. According to the analyst, the next bottom of BTC could be around $14,000, which would mean an 80% correction from the all-time high, as in the case of previous bear markets. “$14,000 is a potential low at the moment. However, investors should consider an even sharper fall to $10,000.”
As for ethereum, Merten expects the asset to retest the $800-$1,000 range, although he doesn't rule out a move lower.
The decline is facilitated by the actions of the Fed, whose hawkish monetary policy caused the collapse of the cryptocurrency and stock markets in 2022. Despite the potential dangers to the economy, Merten does not expect the US Central Bank to stop raising rates until a confident victory over inflation.

- An analyst with the nickname DonAlt believes that BTC will update the lows of 2022 against the backdrop of weak stock market performance. He predicts a fall below the $18,000-20,000 range and a new cycle low. “It often happens with such ranges that after it is broken, an increase occurs. And now there is a good chance to break through the $18,000-20,000 range and then form a bullish momentum. The only question is how low bitcoin can go because it can easily go all the way to $15,000.” “My forecast is based on the S&P 500 and looks terrible,” DonAlt writes. “It looks like this index is in for a serious drop and a return to support at 3680.”

- The ongoing cryptocurrency bear market is unlike any before it as the Fed is running the ship this time around. Ethereum has fallen by about 15% since September 15, the completion date for The Merge update. Bitcoin has fallen by about 3% over the same period.
Ethereum’s price had roughly doubled from its yearly lows in June, by far outpacing bitcoin’s rise, ahead of the network upgrade. And Vijay Ayyar, vice president of the Luno crypto exchange, believes that the Merger had already been “factored into the price” of ETH, and “the actual event has become a “news selling” situation.
Traders are now moving investments from ethereum and other altcoins back to bitcoin, Ayyar said, “as bitcoin is expected to do better in a few months.” At the same time, the specialist believes that any “change in the macroeconomic environment in terms of inflation or unexpected interest rates” could lead BTC to fall below $18,000, and the coin will test levels up to $14,000.

- Investors are wondering if ethereum’s regulatory status could change after the Merge. The reason for concern was the words of Gary Gensler, Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This official said last week that cryptocurrencies operating under the Proof-of-Stake model that applies to ETH can be classified as securities. Thus, these assets fall under the competence of the regulatory authorities. Gensler did not specifically name ethereum, but it is clear that in this case, the coin will attract close attention of the SEC.

- Takis Georgakopoulos, head of the payments division at JPMorgan investment bank, said that customer demand for cryptocurrencies has plummeted over the past six months. Most likely, the situation is related to the fall of the crypto market, which dragged on for several months. More than $2 trillion has disappeared from the market. Well-known companies working with digital assets are on the verge of bankruptcy. For example, Celsius and Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy in July due to lack of liquidity.
Recall that JPMorgan strategists recommended at the end of August that investors focus not on cryptocurrencies, but on stocks and long-term bonds until the economic situation stabilizes.

- Bloomberg Senior Analyst Mike McGlone is convinced that market signals indicate that the value of bitcoin is growing. The expert compared the current fall in cryptocurrency quotes with the fall of the NASDAQ index in 2002 and subsequent stable growth over a long period of time. Mike McGlone argues that bitcoin will benefit from a "new chapter in the economy" in which speculation is driven by more than just how much money the Fed is printing. “The days when unsustainable companies could exist are over. Now, if a business doesn't work, it's sinking. And this is good, because now that the market has cleared after a wave of bankruptcies, it is open to solid business,” he said.

- Central Bank Governor Patrick Njoroge complained at a meeting of the Kenyan Parliament that even in his inner circle there are many people who are trying to convince him to convert reserves countries into bitcoins. The official called the idea insane. And he added that if the country takes the path of legalizing bitcoin, he will oppose it, even under the threat of going to jail. “Can cryptocurrencies be called the best means for making settlements and payments? Are cryptocurrencies safer than a bank account? The answer is no," the governor of the Kenyan Central Bank said.
It is worth noting here that many Central Banks like to keep their reserves in gold bars. And according to a survey conducted by Paxos among regular buyers of physical gold, almost a third of respondents consider BTC as the best alternative to the precious metal. So the idea under discussion might not be that crazy.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Inflation in the US in August that was published on September 13, has amounted to 8.3%. Although this is less than the previous indicator of 8.5%, the figures have not lived up to market expectations. The forecast had assumed a decline to 8.1%. Market participants decided that the US Federal Reserve will tighten its monetary policy more actively and raise interest rates in such a situation. It is expected that the rate will rise by at least another 0.75% next week. As a result, against this background, the dollar began to rise sharply, and risky assets, including bitcoin and ethereum, started to fall. BTC fell below $20,000, ETH fell below $1,550.

- Analysts recorded the largest outflow of funds from crypto funds since June. According to CoinShares, it amounted to $63 million from September 03 to September 09 against $8.7 million a week earlier. Over the past five weeks, the cumulative withdrawal of funds from cryptocurrency products amounted to $99 million. Trade turnover (~$1 billion) was 46% below the average for this year.
The outflow from Ethereum funds continued for the third week in a row at even higher rates ($61.6 million vs. $2.1 million a week earlier). Analysts attributed this to investors' fears about possible problems of The Merge scheduled for September 15.

- The transition of the Ethereum network from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) will not solve the problems of scalability or high fees, but may lead to wider institutional adoption. The notable decrease in power consumption after The Merge will allow some investors to purchase this altcoin for the first time. This opinion was expressed by analysts of Bank of America (BofA).
“The ability to place ETH and generate higher quality returns (lower credit and liquidity risk) as a validator or through staking […] could also drive institutional adoption,” BofA admitted.

- A trader and analyst under the nickname filbfilb allowed in an interview with Cointelegraph the bitcoin to fall from current levels to $10,000-11,000. According to the specialist, bitcoin has become highly correlated with the Nasdaq, which is under enormous pressure due to the Fed's policies. The first cryptocurrency behaves as a risky asset, not as inflation insurance.
The expert noted that the upcoming winter will be a serious test for residents and politicians of the European Union, the consequences of which will have a negative impact on hodlers. The important thing will be how the countries of the Old World will cope with the energy crisis. According to him, everything is in the hands of diplomats who are able to prevent an emergency. Otherwise, risky assets will face a difficult future, which will also affect the positions of cryptocurrencies. The dialogue between Russia and NATO is important: the sooner it starts, the higher the bitcoin low will be, filbfilb emphasized.
The expert called the rally of bitcoin in the Q1 2023 "obvious". He sees two reasons for this. The first is the seasonal factor. Downtrends end 1000 days after the halving (which will be early next year. The second is a change in sentiments to positive ones, based on game theory. With a probability of 2/3, the expert suggested that Europe will survive the coming winter. But if things go badly, it will increase the likelihood of a dialogue with Russia that will bring stability in the short term.
The specialist also commented on the upcoming Merge on the ethereum network. He noted that the reduction in the issue of the asset could spur the growth of the coin. At the same time, filbfilb has not ruled out a dump after the event itself, citing the reaction of bitcoin after the halving, which is similar in effect to the merge.

- Another analyst and trader with the nickname Rekt Capital believes that everything is moving towards the final phase of bitcoin's decline. “A significant part of the BTC bear market is behind us, and the entire bull market is ahead. The bottom of the bear market will be in November, December or the beginning of the Q1 2023.”
The trader noted that the data signal a possible rise in BTC by 200%, but there is one caveat: Bitcoin could fall even more before it goes up. “Of course, in the short term, the BTC price could fall by 5%-10%,” Rekt Capital writes. “But in the long term, a rally of more than 200% is very likely.”

- Cryptocurrency analyst with the nickname Rager does not believe in the decline of BTC to $12,000. He noted that there are no guarantees when dealing with bitcoin, but it is very likely that the asset is forming a bear market bottom above $19,000. “A significant part of investors are wondering if the current levels are the low of the cycle. It is likely, but it is also worth noting that these levels are a good option for accumulating BTC for the long term. Everyone has seen bitcoin bounce around $19,000 several times, Rager writes. In addition, the analyst believes that the coin is still highly correlated with the S&P 500 index. And therefore, we will not see new cycle lows as long as it is above 3,896 points.

- The dependence of BTC on the US stock market weakened sharply in August and was at the annual low. However, it has begun to grow again and, according to the TradingView service, the correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 index has reached 0.59. The situation is similar with the Nasdaq. The correlation with it fell to 0.31 in August, and it rose to 0.62 in September. Analysts remind that the dependence of the crypto sphere on the stock market becomes strong after the correlation index rises above 0.5. When 0.7 is reached, the dependence becomes ideal. 

- Despite the depreciation of BTC, MicroStrategy intends to continue the acquisition of this asset. It will reportedly sell $500 million worth of its own shares. The proceeds from these sales will be used, among other things, to replenish the cryptocurrency stocks.
Earlier, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor stepped down as CEO to focus on the company's plans to acquire BTC. MicroStrategy has grown its holdings of bitcoin under his leadership, making it the largest corporate holder of the asset. It currently owns 129,699 coins purchased at an average exchange rate of $30,664. The last purchase (480 BTC) was made in June.

- Eugene Fama, American economist, and Nobel Prize winner in 2013, believes that the first cryptocurrency will only have value if it is used as money. However, according to the scientist, the viability of bitcoin as a means of payment is greatly reduced due to its high volatility. “Monetary theory says that a unit of account will not survive unless it has a sufficiently stable real value. Its real price should not rise and fall sharply,” the Nobel laureate believes.
Fama disagrees with the claim that BTC is a store of value. According to him, the idea that bitcoin has value should be considered a temporary phenomenon. “There has to be something really useful in the product so that people want to keep it for a very long time. But bitcoin has nothing that gives it value other than the investors who hold it. […] So bitcoin will collapse at some point,” the economist says.

- Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners, does not agree with Eugene Fama. He noted during his interview at the SALT conference that he is optimistic about the immediate prospects for the crypto-currency industry. In his opinion, many digital currencies can demonstrate their practical value in the foreseeable future. Novogratz also focused on the fact that the actions of market participants are formed taking into account the general rhetoric regarding a particular crypto project, and not its real functionality.
The expert added that BlackRock's entry into the crypto industry can be considered a monumental event that can have a significant impact on the entire segment in the future. Recall that BlackRock, Inc. is one of the world largest investment companies and the largest in the world in terms of assets.

- According to a survey conducted by Harris Poll, 70% of US crypto investors hope to become billionaires. Harris Poll interviewed 1,900 Americans from all age groups. Those who claim that cryptocurrencies can bring them billions are mostly millennials or generation Z. Analysts emphasized that American youth do not trust traditional financial instruments, while digital currencies, on the contrary, are becoming more and more attractive to them.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- A covert mining campaign has allegedly infected thousands of computers in 11 countries around the world with malware. The company is associated with Turkish software developer Nitrokod, which has been active since 2019. The company offers supposedly free programs, the official desktop versions of which do not exist. This was reported by experts at Check Point Research (CPR).
The attackers installed covert mining utilities into free apps based on popular services like Google Translate or YouTube Music. The popularity of the underlying source ensured high positions in the search results. The software is distributed through well-known free software platforms like Softpedia or uptodown.
Attackers managed to go unnoticed for a long time due to the complex and multi-stage infection. The hidden module for installing the mining utility was activated only a few weeks after installing the program on the computer. 
The malware injection process was divided into six time-separated stages, disguised as updates. At all stages, the installer removed traces in the logs, making it difficult to detect.

- With the exception of a few dozen tokens, most of the crypto assets on the market are “junk”, and the real options for using digital currencies are underdeveloped. This opinion was expressed by Umar Farooq, the head of the Onyx blockchain division of the financial conglomerate JPMorgan. He noted that regulation has lagged behind the growth of the industry. This deters many traditional financial institutions from participating in the market.
The CEO of Onyx also believes that the technologies of the crypto industry are not mature enough to be used, for example, to conduct high-value transactions between institutions or to place such products as tokenized bank deposits.

- The turnover of cryptocurrency investment products ($901 million) fell to the lowest level since October 2020 from August 20 to 26, and the outflow of funds continued for the third week in a row. Such estimates were given by CoinShares analysts. “While […] part of this dynamic is due to seasonal effects, we also see continued apathy after the recent price decline. It seems to us that caution is associated with the hawkish rhetoric of the Fed,” the experts explained.

- Bitcoin is “a purely speculative asset with no utility,” due to the lack of technological progress. This was stated by Justin Bons, the founder and chief investment officer of the Cyber Capital fund. He used to be a vigorous advocate for bitcoin, but changed his point of view, calling it “one of the worst cryptocurrencies”. “The world has moved forward. It used to be said that digital gold would simply embrace the best technology. This thesis, obviously, has not been fully confirmed. Bitcoin doesn’t have smart contracts, privacy technologies, or scaling breakthroughs,” Bons explained.
“The economic properties of bitcoin are incredibly weak as well. It competes with cryptocurrencies that can achieve negative inflation, high storage capacity and utility, such as post-merger ETH.” “People, for the most part, invest in the first cryptocurrency only because they believe in the price increase. They act on the same principle as participants in Ponzi schemes,” the founder of Cyber Capital believes.

- Analyst Justin Bennett decided to warn crypto investors of a possible sharp correction. According to him, the recent sell-off in the stock market will inevitably lead to a fall in the bitcoin rate: “The stock sale that has taken place confirms a major bull trap and is likely to cause prolonged decline. That is, the S&P500 will fall by about 16%, and BTC by 30%-40%, to the level of $12,000.”
“BTC is testing the 2015 trend line again,” the analyst writes. -"Do not believe those who consider it a healthy phenomenon. The two long bottom wicks of 2015 and 2020 indicating strong demand are worth looking out for. This time we are seeing exactly the opposite.” According to Bennett, the main target for the bears is the pre-COVID-19 high of $3,400.
Regarding ethereum, Bennett believes that the asset is forming the top of the “head and shoulders” pattern on the chart with a downward target near $1,000: “The right shoulder of this pattern is starting to form and ETH’s drop below $1,500 is the confirmation.”

- A similar scenario is given by Bloomberg analysts. They are also predicting ETH to fall below $1,000 despite its recent comeback from the August 29 lows. This is largely due to the volatility of the ethereum price in bearish market conditions. “Technical indicators of momentum and price trends show that the token’s decline from a peak near $2,000 in mid-August to the current zone near $1,500 is likely to continue,” Bloomberg said in their report.
Ethereum has been largely outperforming bitcoin lately as sentiment in the ETH community remains optimistic due to the upcoming merger. However, this has not provided the asset with any immunity to the recent unfavorable macroeconomic conditions.
Ethereum has established promising support on its 50-day moving average. However, after the market fell on August 25-26, the asset has been below this support, which indicates the risks of a further collapse and a retest of support around $1,000.

- CryptoQuant experts note that the fall in the price of bitcoin below the $20,000 threshold woke up the “ancient” bitcoin wallets that were active 7-10 years ago. Historically, a surge in the activity of such wallets happens when the first cryptocurrency makes unprotected movements or reaches long-awaited targets or support levels. Amid the panic in the cryptocurrency market, long-term holders can join the sellers and start dumping their holdings to avoid further losses. This trend is usually one of the first signs of capitulation among investors.
It is reported that 5,000 bitcoins are currently in motion from 10-year-old addresses. Despite the significance of the transaction, this is a relatively small volume. Similar wallets have Previously activated up to 100,000 BTC in a short period, creating huge pressure on the market. But even with a larger amount, there is no reason to panic, since the transfer can only be a redistribution of funds. During periods of high volatility, whales tend to spread their assets across different wallets in order to manage them more efficiently. 

- According to Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, there are a lot of incomprehensible and useless terms in the cryptocurrency market. Because of this, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand for both experienced and novice traders and investors.
As Steve Huffman pointed out, almost no one in his company uses specific cryptocurrency terminology. It is incomprehensible to customers, completely confusing them. In his opinion, all this hype with complex terms that developers use only hides their illiteracy and misunderstanding of the cryptocurrencies basics.
The reason is probably that the crypto market is becoming more and more like a classic stock market. As a result, bureaucratization, expressed in incomprehensible terms, begins to dominate more and more. Many regulators from different countries introduce their own rules, developers try to show that they are smarter than competitors, startups write white papers so that investors can see that they understand all the intricacies. And it is almost impossible to read the laws dedicated to cryptocurrencies, they are so overloaded with mysterious terminology.

- Jordan Belfort, former stockbroker, commonly known as “The Wolf of Wall Street”, has admitted that his initial bitcoin zero prediction was wrong. “At the time, I really hated cryptocurrencies and I confirm everything I said about them in 2017, except for one thing: I was wrong about bitcoin zeroing out. Here I lacked attention, because it seemed to me that all digital assets are a scam,” Belfort said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
The crypto winter of 2018 changed his mind. Moreover, the former stockbroker said that he came to understand that bitcoin harbors the qualities of digital gold. In his opinion, if cryptocurrencies are regulated, it is likely that BTC will start trading as a store of value, and not as growth stocks.

- John Wu, the head of the Avalanche (AVAX) platform, believes that despite the fall in the cryptocurrency market due to the correlation with stock assets, crypto investors expect “cosmic profits”. “The market needs to understand that in the crypto-asset space, investors will receive more than the average return on the market, the so-called alpha. There are very good reasons for this. The market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has fallen, but stablecoins have not. This suggests that many investors hold them and are ready to deploy stablecoins in the market.”

- Investor and broadcaster Kevin O'Leary questions bitcoin's ability to rise above the $25,000 price level under the current conditions. O'Leary has drawn attention to the fact that the price of bitcoin is stagnating, as there is no regulation that allows institutional investors to invest in this sector. And without a regulatory framework, cryptocurrency cannot be considered a full-fledged asset class.
“You need to use the trillions of dollars that sovereign wealth manages, but they are not going to buy bitcoin because there is no regulation,” says O'Leary. “People forget that 70% of the world's wealth is in pension and sovereign wealth funds. Accordingly, if they are not allowed to buy this asset class, they do not bet on it. But I believe that we will get the regulation within the next two or three years. And then, finally, we will be able to achieve institutional participation.”


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Charles Edwards, the founder of the Capriole Investments crypto fund, came to the conclusion based on the data of the Difficulty Feed indicator that the surrender period of bitcoin miners has passed. This, he said, is "a great signal to buy." According to his observations, the last phase of surrender is the third longest in history (71 days). It is longer than in 2021, but two days shorter than in 2018. “Historically, the surrender of bitcoin miners recorded major price lows and served as excellent buy signals,” Edwards said.

- Meltem Demirs, Strategy Director at CoinShares, spoke of what awaits the two top coins at the end of Q3. According to her, now there is a summer lull in the crypto market, as a significant part of people do not trade actively during the holidays. But despite this, “we have seen a lot of buying on drawdowns with regard to BTC. There is capital willing to accumulate bitcoin.”
Demirors does not expect a significant increase in the price of bitcoin until the end of September: “Until the end of the 3rd quarter, BTC does not have catalysts that could contribute to growth. It is highly dependent now on macroeconomics, which was observed in the example of a significant correlation with the shares of companies in the technology sector.”
As for ethereum, the CoinShares strategist believes that investors are ignoring the general situation in the market, amid the hype around the transition of ETH to the PoS mechanism. And that, despite the benefits of the merger for the ethereum network itself, it is not certain that this event will attract significant investment capital: “While there is significant enthusiasm in the crypto community for a merger that can rapidly reduce supply and increase demand, the reality is more prosaic: investors are concerned about rates and macro indicators. I believe that significant amounts of new capital are unlikely to enter ETH. There are certain risks that need to be played out in the market because the merger has been used as an excuse to buy on the rumor and sell on the news. How will these risks be played out? Most likely it will be on the institutional side or through trading, but through options rather than outright purchases of the asset.” (Recall that the ethereum network upgrade is scheduled for the period from September 15 to 20.”

- For the first time since summer 2020, the average cost of a transaction in the BTC network has become less than $1, thus expanding the possibilities of using the asset as a means of payment. The need to pay significant fees when transferring small funds caused inconvenience and dissatisfaction among users. Previously, BTC transactions were slow and expensive, but improvements like the Lightning Network and Taproot give hope that this situation will never happen again. Currently, the average cost of BTC transactions has decreased to $0.825, which is the lowest level since June 13, 2020.

- Analyst Justin Bennett warned that BTC could face another sell-off. According to him, bitcoin has gone below the diagonal support level, which has kept the bullish sentiment over the past few months, and now the situation resembles a correction in May-June this year. “Bitcoin is currently looking almost identical to what we have seen a couple of times over the past few months, and it is moving below the bear flag.” According to Bennett, the BTC rate fell by more than 30% the last two times in such situations.
Although the analyst is bearish, he predicts a small short-term rise in BTC to $23,000, which should be retested as resistance. Then a decline to $19,000 is expected. Bennett believes that bitcoin’s reaction at $19,000 should determine its behavior for the rest of the year: “The question will be whether we see a rebound and higher lows, or if we get lower lows for the rest of the year.”
Crypto analyst and trader Neko believes the $21,700 level is key for bitcoin as it is the combined average breakeven of all bitcoin holders.

- Bitcoin on-chain activity has reached the same levels as at the end of the 2018-2019 bear market. This opinion was expressed by Glassnode analysts. However, despite the signs of the end of the “crypto winter”, network indicators still do not signal a reversal of the macroeconomic trend. The researchers note that the bitcoin network still does not record the presence of demand for cryptocurrency from investors, which is essential for a sustainable uptrend. “Recent price increases failed to attract a significant wave of new active users, which is especially noticeable among retail investors and speculators,” Glassnode notes. The lack of hype is also indicated by the falling fees in the bitcoin network. As noted, its average size has fallen below $1.
Despite this, the current consolidation phase of the bottom of the cycle is “most likely,” according to Glassnode. According to experts, it is at the current price levels that bitcoin can try to form a solid foundation for future growth. However, the coin is still trading in the middle of the corrective pattern that has been present since June 18, and the further direction of the trend remains unclear.

- The cryptocurrency market has been under pressure in recent months, however, according to Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael, bitcoin is entrenched in the financial system forever. The specialist is sure that the first cryptocurrency will show significant growth in the coming years. Cryptocurrency platform Bakkt provides digital assets and futures trading services for institutional investors, and their interest in the market is only growing, according to Michael.

- JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon warns of "something worse than a recession" in the US economy, with a 20-30% chance of this happening, which is a lot. Quantitative tightening (QT) by the Fed and macroeconomic factors increase the chances of a worsening recession, with which World Bank President David Malpass agrees. “The global economy is in danger again,” the financier says. “It is facing high inflation and slow growth at the same time. Even if a global recession is averted, the pain of stagflation could linger for several years.”
Members of the crypto community tend to interpret these statements as a growth factor for the crypto market. For example, Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of Skybridge Capital, believes that the price of bitcoin could rise to $300,000 over the next 12-24 months. At the same time, the same Anthony Scaramucci said that bitcoin is still “not mature enough” to be considered a full-fledged hedging asset. The capitalization of the first cryptocurrency is now at around $410 billion, which, of course, is not enough to hedge the inflation of the world's major economies.

- Entrepreneur Kim Dotcom believes that a strong drop would be good for the cryptocurrency market, as it would lead to the exit of most speculators who are focused only on making money on short-term fluctuations in the exchange rate. In his opinion, the crypto sphere will get a “second wind” when digital assets will be perceived by participants precisely as financial instruments with great potential. Dotcom also spoke about the future of the global economy. In his opinion, the US will not cope with the burden of its financial problems, and the US dollar will depreciate greatly.
For reference: Kim Dotcom is a German-Finnish entrepreneur, the former owner of the largest file hosting service Megaupload, the owner of the new file sharing service Mega from January to September 2013. Kim Dotcom was sentenced in Germany for using insider information. He was arrested on January 19, 2012 in New Zealand at the request of the FBI, but was released on bail on February 22.

- Crypto strategist Benjamin Cowen expressed his opinion on what could be the most negative scenario for ethereum. “In my opinion,” the expert says, “this is the logarithmic regression band, which signals a possible area of ¬$400-$800. I think it is worth considering this opportunity as a great option for savings.”
At the same time, Cowen also noted the possibility of ETH moving in the other direction: “At the same time, ETH can demonstrate a rally if the transition to PoS goes without significant problems (you need to be aware that some software updates do not always go smoothly) and the Fed changes its monetary politics."

- Unknown hackers broke into the settings of General Bytes bitcoin ATMs on August 18, with the help of which they were able to transfer cryptocurrencies deposited through devices to their wallet. The incident was confirmed by company representatives. According to experts, the hackers "scanned open servers, including those hosted in the General Bytes cloud service." They added themselves as administrator from there. The hackers then proceeded to change the “buy” and “sell” settings so that any cryptocurrencies received by the bitcoin ATM would go to their wallet. General Bytes added that previous security checks had not revealed this vulnerability.
For reference: General Bytes owns and operates 8,827 Bitcoin ATMs in over 120 countries. The company headquarters is in Prague, Czech Republic. ATM customers can buy or sell over 40 different cryptocurrencies.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Bitcoin Core team member Matt Corallo called the maximalists of the first cryptocurrency an “endangered species” and urged them to stop attacking other projects. According to him, the “most vocal proponents” are attacking other communities counterproductively instead of promoting the “greatness and uniqueness” of digital gold. In his opinion, in the context of the current policy of confronting projects in the crypto community, many of the Ethereum community (as with Ripple before) will begin to set regulators against bitcoin, relying on ecology.

- Law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Kazakhstan conducted a special operation, as a result of which the gang that controlled cryptominers was neutralized. 23 people were detained during several raids.  Weapons, black bookkeeping, as well as more than 6,000 items of mining equipment worth about $7 million were seized during the searches. It is reported that the criminals made a profit of $300-500 thousand per month due to the activities of the mining farms under their control.

- The number of cryptocurrency ATMs worldwide has increased to 39,015, according to the Coin ATM Radar service. The figure was 25,154 a year ago. The United States holds the leading position by a wide margin: 87.9% of the total number of bitcoin ATMs are concentrated there. Canada ranks second with 6.3%.

– Bitcoin is trading at a significant discount in a sustained bull market. This was stated by Mike McGlone, senior strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence. “The first cryptocurrency hit an all-time low in July compared to its 100-week moving average,” he explained.
The analyst emphasized the high importance of the stock market, with which bitcoin shows a noticeable correlation, and mentioned the key role of the US Federal Reserve, which is pursuing aggressive rate hikes in 2022. This could potentially create barriers to risky assets, including cryptocurrencies and stocks. At the same time, Mike McGlone urged not to try to fight the Fed.

- Some on-chain indicators signaled the passing of the capitulation period and an improvement in investor sentiment in July. This is stated in an analytical report by ForkLog. Against the background of consolidation and the subsequent smooth recovery of the price of bitcoin, the Puell Multiple indicator began to exit the deep oversold zone. The Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) metric has moved into the hope/fear zone and is heading towards optimism. The MVRV Z-Score crossed the upper boundary of the deep oversold zone at 0.1 on July 28. This is another signal about the passage of the "bottom" of the market cycle.

- An analyst with the nickname Guy noted that the release of economic data expected this month could have a significant impact on the crypto markets. According to him, 3 important factors can interrupt the current uptrend. The first is the US Personal Consumption Expenditure Index (PCE). “PCE data for July will be released on August 26. Given that PCE is the Fed's favorite inflation indicator, a high value could lead to markets collapse in anticipation of an aggressive rate hike."
The second factor is the US gross domestic product for the second quarter: “Revised GDP data for the second quarter will also be published on August 26. Pay attention to them. If these figures are revised upwards, that is, in fact, the US will no longer be in a technical recession, this may push the Fed to raise interest rates even more.”
And finally, the third factor is the annual economic symposium at Jackson Hole, where US financial authorities, prominent figures from Central banks and a number of other sectors discuss global economic problems. The symposium will take place from August 25 to 27, which coincides with the release dates of the two above-mentioned statistics.
These factors could influence the decisions of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, which will have a cascading effect on the crypto market. “If the statistics turn out to be unimportant, and Powell is not in the best mood, then the crypto market will have a bad time. Although there are chances that he will keep his thoughts to himself long enough for the cryptocurrency market to continue its recovery rally.”

- Mike Novogratz, CEO of investment company Galaxy Digital, said that bitcoin is unlikely to rise above $30,000 anytime soon. He noted in an interview with Bloomberg that he does not observe an influx of institutional investors into the first cryptocurrency at the moment. The billionaire himself “would be happy” if BTC stopped for a while in the range of $20,000 to $30,000.
(Note that a recent survey of institutional investors by Cumberland showed that the majority of respondents expect bitcoin to rise to $32,000 by the end of the year.)
As for ethereum, Mike Novogratz believes that this altcoin could reach the $2,200 mark, given the momentum leading up to the upgrade to change the consensus algorithm from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), which is expected in end of September.

- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that the market has not yet taken into account the upcoming transition of the network to Proof-of-Stake, which should take place in September. “Once the merger actually happens, I expect investor sentiment to improve,” he said. “In my opinion, […] the main impact on the ETH rate will be provided after the completion of the merger process.”

- The World Tourism Organization at the UN has included El Salvador in its list. According to the President of the country Nayib Bukele, it was bitcoin that helped the significant growth of the tourism industry. The head of state stressed that only a few countries managed to return tourism indicators to pre-pandemic levels. The adoption of bitcoin as legal tender, as well as the creation of a "bitcoin beach", has attracted tourists from all over the world to El Salvador. The President also noted the growth of domestic tourism due to the decrease in crime. Nayib Bukele presented statistics from the search giant Google: El Salvador is marked on the map as a country with "higher than expected" tourist activity.
Morena Valdez, Minister of Tourism of El Salvador, said earlier that tourism in the country has grown by 30% thanks to bitcoin. At the same time, cryptocurrency enthusiasts stay in El Salvador for a longer period and spend more money. If the daily expenses of a tourist in the country ranged from $113 to $150 earlier, they exceed $200 now.

- The American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and the largest investment company BlackRock entered into a partnership agreement last week. BlackRock manages over $10 trillion in assets at the moment. Based on this, a popular crypto analyst under the nickname InvestAnswers believes that the influx of funds into cryptocurrencies from BlackRock clients could push the BTC rate to $773,000.
“If BlackRock places 0.5% of its assets in BTC, then, taking into account the leverage, the capitalization of bitcoin will increase by $1.05 trillion, which means the price will rise to $75,000. And this, I think, is very likely. If BlackRock clients stake 1% of their holdings, then the capitalization will increase by $2.1 trillion, and bitcoin will reach $173,000. And if BlackRock places 5% of its assets, the bitcoin rate will reach $773,000. Although I think this is too aggressive, it may be possible within 3-5 years,” the analyst wrote. (It should be noted here that InvestAnswers calculations are correct only for investments with a leverage of 1:21 or more).

- According to Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of the FTX crypto exchange, crypto winter is probably coming to an end, and spring is just around the corner. “I think we've already seen the worst. There's still a little more to go, but it's not that bad,” said the multi-billionaire, better known as SBF. “Some bitcoin miners might have some problems, but I think we are talking about a few hundred million dollars in total pain, not billions.”
However, the SBF’s spring forecast was not without a “but”: “If Nasdaq is left to fall another 25%, and if interest rates do rise to 7%, and if we are in a recession for two and a half years […], bitcoin could drop to $15,000 or $10,000,” said the CEO of FTX.
The crypto winter froze a number of once-thriving companies such as Three Arrows Capital, Terraform Labs and Voyager Digital, but FTX survived the cold. Commenting on the incident, its head said that the recession "became a healthy weed" for the industry.

- Despite the decline in the price of the first cryptocurrency in 2022, the number of addresses with a balance of 1 BTC and more is growing steadily (+9.4% since the beginning of the year). The indicator reached a historical high of 891.009 at the end of July. The situation is even more pronounced with balances of more than 1 ETH, the number of which has grown by 15.7% over seven months.
This trend indicates the desire of investors to accumulate. Analytical resource The Balance posted a report stating that 39% of US investors began to invest more in cryptocurrencies. According to the author of the report, these Americans are looking for new areas of investment to maintain their savings amid economic uncertainty. Among millennials and Gen Z investors (aged 41 and younger), almost 50% prefer cryptocurrencies. Among investors of generation X and older, they are just under a third.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The increase in the outflow of cryptocurrencies from exchanges and the growth of net inflow to stablecoins signal a bullish momentum in the market. This conclusion was made by analysts of Bank of America. They noted the “easing of pressure from sellers” with the transition of the initiative to buyers of digital assets. The experts pointed to the stability of the trend despite the Fed's increase in the key rate by 0.75% at once.
Bank of America estimated the amount of withdrawn bitcoins from cryptocurrency platforms to cold wallets at ~$508 million, ethereum at ~$381 million (data from July 2 to August 1). The first asset has risen in price by 19% over this period, the latter - by 56%.

- If bitcoin holds the $20,700 level, the price will soon be in the $27,000-$28,000 range. This is stated in the latest report from Arcane Research. A series of rising local lows has been forming on the chart since July. But “if bitcoin falls below $20,700, it will mark a falling low. This is a bearish signal in the context of technical analysis.”
The company emphasized that much depends on the dynamics of the US stock market, with which the price of bitcoin is closely correlated. The dynamics of the Fed's key rate also plays an important role. “Rising interest rates increase the cost of capital and thus cause stock prices to fall. Tech stocks are declining the most. As the degree of institutionalization has increased, bitcoin has become closely associated with traditional financial markets,” the researchers explained. According to them, if the stock market continues to fall, the downtrend of digital gold will continue.

- On the contrary, Glassnode has doubted the continuation of bitcoin's recovery rally. The rise in prices of BTC and ethereum in recent days is not accompanied by a fundamental improvement in the readings of on-chain indicators. And this does not give confidence in a fundamental change in the market situation, the company's analysts believe.
The number of active bitcoin addresses remains within the downtrend channel. With the exception of brief bursts during periods of capitulation, network activity remains subdued. This indicates a small influx of new demand. Similar trends are observed in the ethereum blockchain. Despite the recent powerful price movement, the network load in terms of the number of transactions has been systematically decreasing since May 2021 to the lowest levels since the summer of 2020.
There has been a surge in activity in recent weeks, which analysts have associated with the consolidation of coins in wallets. They explained that they would change their mind if this trend proved sustainable. Glassnode experts had previously warned that it might take additional time to form a solid foundation. This is evidenced by long-term indicators such as URPD. To increase the chances of a market reversal, it is important to see the transition of speculative coins into the category of “held by long-term investors” (in other words, the “age” of coins from the moment of purchase must exceed 155 days).

- North Korean hackers plagiarize online resumes from legitimate LinkedIn and Indeed profiles to get remote jobs at US cryptocurrency companies. This is reported by Bloomberg with reference to security specialists from Mandiant Inc. As a rule, North Koreans communicate actively on the profile site GitHub, pretending to be from other countries, ascribe to themselves specialization in the technology industry and extensive experience in software development. After getting a job, they are engaged in theft and laundering of illegally obtained digital assets. Naturally, the DPRK government denies any involvement in such crimes.

- The crypto analyst aka Dave the Wave, who correctly predicted the collapse of the crypto market in May 2021, is now talking about the approach of a bullish rally. The basis for this, according to him, are the signals of the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) indicator, which was accurate to indicate the 300% BTC rally in 2019.
Dave the Wave noted that many traders are currently concerned about the uncertainty that is caused by macro-economic factors. However, in his opinion, these factors may not have such a strong impact on bitcoin as the market thinks. “Despite macro factors, BTC is doing its job,” the analyst said optimistically.

- According to Mark Yusko, managing partner at Morgan Creek Digital, the current structure of the bitcoin market indicates a bottoming out process. “I am not ready to say unequivocally so far whether the bottom has been reached,” the investor said. “But if you look back, you can see that bitcoin has made several higher lows and highs. […] This is a pretty good bullish trend, and a crypto spring is possible.”
Yusko agrees with the narrative that the main cryptocurrency goes through speculative cycles. In his opinion, BTC is in the “spring” part of the cycle and forms the basis for the next “summer” bull run, which should occur shortly before the next halving (2024): “In my opinion, the crypto spring has begun. If we look at the last two cycles, we see the same number of days in the cycle where spring began and winter ended. The crypto spring can last for months, and we don't need a bull market right now. When we get to the crypto summer, we will see the next bull run and it should happen in anticipation of the next halving in 2024.”
The head of Morgan Creek also believes that the current price of the first cryptocurrency is unfair. In his opinion, despite the forecasts of experts about a possible fall below $18,000, the "fair value" of the coin should be about $30,000. 
Recall that Yusko said last year that the price of the asset could soar to $250,000 by 2026. He also suggested that the market cap of BTC will be equal to the market cap of gold, as this digital asset has become a “perfect store of value” and is on its way to replacing the precious metal.

- Crypto trader and investor Bob Loukas agrees that halvings are driving market trends. And after bitcoin hits a new all-time high, the digital asset market, in his opinion, could plunge into a “true crypto winter” in 2026.
According to the Bob Lucas model, bitcoin market movements can be measured in cycles of 16 years, consisting of four micro cycles of 4 years each. In this case, the cycles must be counted from one local low to another. “In theory, bitcoin’s 2026 lows could form below the 2022 lows. Although, it’s hard to believe,” the investor said.
Recall that halving is a two-fold reduction in the reward to miners for a mined block in the blockchain embedded in the bitcoin code. Initially, miners received 50 BTC, this amount decreased to 25 BTC on November 28, 2012, to 12.5 BTC on July 9, 2016, to 6.25 BTC on May 11, 2020. The next reward cut to 3.125 BTC is expected in 2024 at block number 840,000.

- According to the results of July, receipts in cryptocurrency investment products amounted to $474 million (the maximum since the beginning of the year), $81 million for the week from July 23 to July 29. The influx continued for the fifth week in a row. Such data is provided by CoinShares experts. On the other hand, trading activity remains low. The volume of transactions with crypto products at the end of the last reporting week amounted to $1.3 billion, which is almost half the average since the beginning of the year ($2.4 billion).

- Jurrien Timmer, a macroeconomist at one of the largest American holding companies Fidelity, said that bitcoin and ethereum are comparable in terms of their market share and level of dominance in crypto industry with such a tech giant as Apple. “According to Metcalfe's law, the larger an ecosystem becomes, the more its value grows exponentially. Apple is an example. [...] The more iPhones and other devices it sells, the more exponentially it grows. And it grows until it becomes so powerful that a giant abyss forms around it, which cannot be overcome even if something much better than the iPhone is invented tomorrow,” the expert is sure.
Trimmer believes that other crypto projects will continue to compete with the two leading digital assets, but will not be able to win against the giant ecosystems of BTC and ETH.

- Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead believes the digital asset market has nearly bottomed out. There are still companies that are in the process of liquidation in bankruptcy court. However, the largest defaults have already occurred in May and June, when the pressure on the industry reached its peak. “I think we are really close to the end of the market crisis. The market has been falling for eight months now. We observed the most severe manifestations of the crisis in November, May and June. It seems that we have seen everything that we should have,” said the CEO of Pantera Capital.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The number of attacks using ransomware has significantly decreased against the backdrop of the fall in the price of bitcoin, experts from the American company SonicWall noted. Researchers counted 236 million ransomware infection attempts in the first half of 2022. This is 23% less compared to the same period last year. According to the report, the number of ransomware incidents peaked in 2021. The targets of the attackers then were large companies that were forced to pay large amounts of cryptocurrency to hackers.

- The price of bitcoin bounced up from the $20,000 level, which concentrated the greatest attraction of speculators. This happened as a result of the transfer of coins from surrendered hodlers to "new" optimistic buyers. Glassnode experts emphasize that there was also demand from speculators earlier at the $30,000 and $40,000 levels.
Glassnode warns that it may take additional time to form a solid foundation. This is evidenced by such long-term indicators as URPD. To increase the chances of a market reversal, it is important to see the transition of speculative coins into the category of “held by long-term investors” (in other words, the “age” of coins from the moment of purchase must exceed 155 days).

- Peter Brandt, the head of Factor LLC, trader with 45 years of experience, criticized MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who called bitcoin an ensured digital commodity. “It is ensured with energy only because of its excessive consumption, without ensuring an economic function. It's a huge myth that bitcoin is somehow more than just a consumer of energy,” Brandt wrote.
In response, Saylor emphasized that "all products consume energy." According to him, the economic function of bitcoin is to create a free global settlement network. "Since bitcoin is a commodity, it can fulfill the role of global digital money. The economic function is to grant property rights to 8 billion people, as well as to create a global settlement network that has already transferred $17 trillion of value in 2022,” he wrote.
Note that despite the criticisms of bitcoin, this cryptocurrency is one of the largest assets in the portfolio of Peter Brandt.

- Bitcoin continues to resist selling pressure and managed to stabilize above the $20,000 level on the eve of the US Federal Reserve meeting. According to a number of analysts, the main role in this was played by the whales (investors with a balance of 1000+ and 10000+ BTC), who maintain hodle sentiment and continue to buy bitcoin on exchange rate drawdowns.
It is worth noting the activity of the owners of small BTC balances. For example, the number of addresses with a balance of 0.01+ BTC has reached an all-time high of 10,543,548.

- A well-known analyst named PlanB, the creator of the Stock-to-Flow model, predicted the day when both US stocks and bitcoin reach new all-time highs. “Some people are afraid of macroeconomics, bitcoin's relationship with the stock market, etc.,” he tweeted. “My opinion is that the S&P 500 will be in the range of $5,000-$6,000 over the next 5 years, and bitcoin will be between $100,000 and $1 million.

- Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of the FTX crypto exchange, said that the adoption of cryptocurrencies is currently best in Latin America, and has huge prospects. The potential is estimated at $128 billion. Digital currencies will be used in various areas of life, primarily as a means of payment.

- Analysts from Forex Suggest analyzed different countries and regions in terms of parameters characterizing the availability of cryptocurrencies for citizens. Several parameters were evaluated: the number and availability of crypto ATMs, regulation of cryptocurrencies at the state level, startup culture, and taxation.
Hong Kong came in first with 8.6 points, ahead of the US and Switzerland with 7.7 and 7.5 points respectively. These two countries have a better cryptocurrency infrastructure and more ATMs per 100,000 people (in the US - 10, Switzerland - 6.5, in Hong Kong - only 2), but Hong Kong won in the availability of these devices for the population due to its compactness.
Low taxes on cryptocurrency income are also important. Hong Kong, Switzerland, Panama, Portugal, Germany, Malaysia and Turkey win here. But the number of requests for cryptocurrencies in search engines is the highest in Australia (4,579 requests per 100,000 population). Ireland and the UK are in second and third place.

- Jim Rogers, a major American investor, co-founder of Quantum Fund and Soros Fund Management, said that it will be necessary to enlist government support for this sector before considering cryptocurrency a reliable investment. BTC is only a gambling tool, not real money. Bitcoin is well suited for speculation but will eventually fail as a currency.
The specialist stressed that he will consider buying BTC if the European Union accepts it as an official currency and introduces it into the region's payment system. However, he will not buy cryptocurrencies at the moment, regardless of the prices at which they can be traded. Recall that Jim Rogers predicted in 2020 that the price of the main cryptocurrency will eventually fall to zero.

- Hollywood producer Ryan Felton pleaded guilty to receiving $2.4 million through a cryptocurrency scam. This is stated in the US Department of Justice press release. He raised the money through an initial coin offering for a streaming platform FLiK. The producer said that the company has the potential to bypass Netflix. In addition, the team behind the platform which was introduced to the market at the height of the 2017 ICO boom, claimed to be entering into licensing agreements with major film and television studios. In addition, Felton promoted another ICO in 2018: the CoinSpark crypto exchange, promising investors a 25% profit in the form of dividends.
As a result, the investors' funds were transferred to Felton's accounts and cashed out. he used them to buy a house for $1.5 million, a Ferrari for $180,000, a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV for $58,250, and jewelry for $30,000.

- British IT engineer James Howells became famous all over the world for admitting that he lost his hard drive in 2013, which contained a wallet with 7,500 BTC. This loser threw a disk from an old computer that he used for mining back in 2009 in a landfill. The poor man did not follow the news and did not know that these bitcoins were worth about a million dollars even at that time.
Almost 10 years have passed since then, but he is still trying to find the loss. James Howels has repeatedly requested the Newport City Administration to organize a massive search for the HDD over the past few years. Officials refused him time after time, citing inevitable environmental problems and a trivial stench throughout the city when digging up the entire territory of the landfill. In 2021, the treasure hunter offered the city authorities 25% of the value of his BTC (about $72 million at that time), but this did not help either.
Now, disillusioned with people, Howels decided to bet on robots. He will order two search robots-dogs of the Spot type worth $75,000 each from the American Boston Dynamics. Iron friends will be nicknamed Satoshi and Hal in honor of the creator of bitcoin and the cryptographer who received the first transaction. It remains a mystery how robot dogs with cameras or even metal detectors will be able to find a laptop HDD in a giant garbage field, already deep under the surface. And what happened to the disc after nine years of lying in a landfill? The magnetic recording is most likely damaged, although there is still a chance to recover information on specialized equipment.

- Crypto analyst Nicholas Merten believes that an unexpected rise in the market is likely, which will be a big surprise for the bears. “Bitcoin skyrocketed from $29,000 to $53,000 last July, up 80% within a month. I suppose that the market can grow up again now and retest the previous consolidation area around $30,000. There are no major resistance zones ahead and the moving averages are leading right into this point, giving bitcoin a great upside opportunity. Most people do not believe in this possibility, but the rally can surprise you with its scale in a market with excessive volumes of derivatives.”
Note that although Merten does not exclude BTC growth in the short term, he doubts that the asset will reach the bottom: “Many believe that the bottom was reached on June 18. Yes, we saw a huge sell-off and a good rebound. The market also got rid of significant amounts of borrowed funds used for crypto speculation. But one cannot discount the reality of the continued impact of the macro market, which will continue to limit long-term investment in cryptocurrencies.”

- The next big rise in cryptocurrency prices will occur before the next halving in the bitcoin network, which is scheduled for May 2024. This is the opinion of financial analyst Florian Grummes, Managing Director of the investment company Midas Touch Consulting. In his opinion, despite the recent minor recovery, the cryptocurrency winter is far from over. The rise to $35,000 will occur in 6-12 months. This will be a so-called "auxiliary rally" that may precede a larger rally.
In the long term, Grummes is confidently optimistic, but warns that since the crypto market is directly correlated with the stock market, one must be prepared for deviations not only upwards, but also downwards at the current stage.
This expert predicted BTC to rise to $100,000 in the 1st quarter of 2022 in the past, which did not happen. Therefore, his forecasts, as well as all other ones, should be treated with sufficient caution now as well.

- Raoul Pal, co-founder of Real Vision Group and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, believes that cryptocurrency markets are preparing for a serious positive trend reversal. The markets are mainly driven by liquidity, which comes from the M2 money supply, he said. This money supply correlates with the total amount of currency in circulation, plus it is highly liquid non-cash assets that can be easily converted into cash.
Most crypto investors believe that miner rewards at the next halving will drive up the price. However, Pal argues that the role of M2 is greater than that of halving: “Cryptocurrency is not driven by the business cycle, but by global liquidity. So the main indicator of the growth of bitcoin is the rate of change of M2. Every time there was an increase in the money supply, there was always a reversal, the specialist says.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Congress and the SEC should take a tougher stance on the cryptocurrency industry. This was stated by a member of the US Senate Banking Committee Elizabeth Warren. “I am sounding the alarm about cryptocurrencies and the need for stricter regulations for consumer protection and financial stability. Too many companies have managed to deceive customers and rub ordinary investors in their face,” said the senator.
Warren's words came against the background of ongoing problems in the crypto industry. For example, Celsius Network suspended the withdrawal of funds “due to extreme market conditions” in June, after which it filed for bankruptcy. It became known about the introduction of limits on the withdrawal of funds by the CoinLoan platform on July 5, and the Vauld platform announced a possible restructuring.

- Assuming the market cycle repeats, the bearish phase of bitcoin will end in the first half of autumn. Such a conclusion can be drawn from the historical data provided by the analysts at Grayscale Investments. It took bitcoin 1,290 and 1,257 days to form a full cycle in 2012 and 2016, respectively. It took 391 and 364 days to fall from the peak by 73% in 2012 and by 84% in 2016. The duration of the current cycle, which began in 2020, has reached 1206 days (as of July 20, 2022). In other words, it may take another two or three months before the bottom is reached.

- A crypto strategist with the nickname Rekt Capital came to similar conclusions. In his opinion, despite the oversold signals, the downward exchange rate movement may continue for quite a long time. The analyst noted that the Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the BTC monthly timeframe is now below the lowest levels of the bear markets of 2015 and 2018, which could become new resistance levels for bitcoin.
According to Rekt Capital, the short-term prospects of the coin do not look very good, and the bottom can be reached only in a few months: “Bitcoin has about 650 days before the next halving (April 2024). Historically, it bottomed around 517-547 days before its halving. In the event of a repeat of history, bitcoin will need another 100-150 days before reaching the bottom, which will form in the fourth quarter of 2022.”

- Analysts at the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange use the 200-week moving average on the bitcoin chart as their main indicator. In particular, they drew attention to the multipliers with which BTC traded in the past relative to its 200-week SMA. Thus, having rebounded from the SMA200, bitcoin grew 15.2 times in December 2017. The growth was 13.2 times in November 2013. At the moment, BTC is trading close to its 200-week moving average. Its current value is about $22,485. If the coin shows a multiplier in the range of 13x - 15x again, it may rise to about $300,000.
Of course, the multiplier for BTC was not always 10x when touching the SMA200. Growth peaked at 5.8x in March 2021 before the crypto market began to decline noticeably. However, even with this value of the multiplier, bitcoin can rise to $130,000.

- The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned of a rise in fake applications for investing in cryptocurrencies. It is common for attackers to impersonate legitimate financial institutions in order to gain the trust of potential victims. They then persuade people to install fraudulent mobile apps and deposit money, which they then steal. According to FBI estimates, cybercriminals have recently managed to steal about $43 million in this way.
The Bureau recommended that cryptocurrency owners enable multi-factor authentication for all their accounts, reject requests to install suspicious applications, and verify phone numbers and email addresses on the official websites of companies allegedly acting on behalf of scammers.

- Edward Dowd, a former top manager at Blackrock investment firm, believes that despite the recent turmoil, bitcoin will become an integral part of any investment portfolio. The specialist believes that gold will remain a viable investment, but BTC is more likely to become a store of value. “At least BTC can be sold or exchanged digitally, but it is much more difficult with gold. Although I am not against gold, having a small amount of it is also a good idea,” says Dowd.
As the cryptocurrency industry matures, bitcoin will stand out from the rest of the market, the ex-CEO of Blackrock believes. He compared the cryptocurrency market to the era of the dot-com crisis, when the vast majority of Internet companies closed down, and only stronger competitors managed to survive. Dowd cited the example of Amazon, which is still considered one of the largest technology giants. Last month, Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe also compared the current bearish trend in the cryptocurrency market to the dot-com crisis.

- American businessman Thomas Peterffy, whose capital is estimated at $18.4 billion, is ready to buy bitcoins when the value of the cryptocurrency drops to $12,000. This chairman of Interactive Brokers admitted in a recent interview with Forbes that he already owns digital assets and plans to acquire a few more coins if BTC drops in price. The billionaire does not intend to buy cryptocurrency at the current, high in his opinion, price, as he believes that in the future bitcoin is likely to depreciate or be banned in the United States. Despite the high financial risks associated with buying cryptocurrencies, Peterffy advised investors in January to invest 2-3% of assets in bitcoin in case “money goes to hell.”
Last week, Finder portal experts made a forecast for a decline in the value of bitcoin to $13,676. Analysts doubt that the price will fall below this value, and then Thomas' plan will not come true.

- Despite the fall of the cryptocurrency market, a poll on the social network Weibo with the participation of more than 2,200 people showed that Chinese traders are waiting for further decline in the price of bitcoin. 8% of respondents said they would buy BTC at $18,000 per coin. 26% of respondents will start purchases at $15,000. But if the bitcoin rate falls to $10,000, 40% of respondents will buy the first cryptocurrency.
Recall that trading in cryptocurrencies is prohibited in China. The People's Bank of China reported in March that the volume of BTC transactions in the country decreased by 80%, which indicates the effectiveness of the ban.

- Bitcoin rose above $23,000 as the US dollar weakened. The DXY index, which determines the strength of the USD, finally broke the rally that began on February 24 and rebounded from its twenty-year high at around 109.294 points, registered on July 14. At the time of publication, this drop has reached almost 2.5%.
The maximum price of BTC at the time of publication on 07/20/2022 was $23,911. Thus, bitcoin has grown by 26.6% compared to the low of July 13 ($18.886). This movement could be regarded as a technical rebound; however, the main cryptocurrency has overcome an important psychological level in the form of a 200-week moving average. According to analysts at the Binance crypto exchange, if the bulls manage to close the week above this level, it will be possible to ascertain the restoration of strong support characteristic of bitcoin bearish cycles.

- Bitcoin's break above the 200-week SMA caused a surge of enthusiasm among investors. Amsterdam Stock Exchange trader Michael van de Poppe first tweeted out a graphical forecast anticipating a cryptocurrency rally to $28,000 and then compared the current market situation to the recovery from the memorable collapse triggered by the announcement of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. At that time, bitcoin collapsed to $3,782, but then rose by 1.600% over the next 13 months (to $64,853 in April 2021).


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CryptoNews of the Week


- 60% of investors surveyed by Bloomberg believe that a decline in the price of bitcoin to $10,000 is more likely. The remaining 40% are waiting for a recovery to $30,000. The study involved 950 respondents. Compared to institutions, there were more skeptics among retail investors. Almost every fourth called the first cryptocurrency “garbage” (18% of professional market participants).
Respondents expressed confidence that recent developments in the crypto market will prompt regulators to tighten their supervision of the industry. This can increase trust and lead to further popularization of digital assets. At the same time, the majority of respondents expressed confidence in the strong positions of bitcoin and Ethereum in the next five years, despite the active preparation by Central banks to launch their own digital currencies (CBDC).
As for NFTs, only 9% of the study participants see them as an investment opportunity. For the rest, non-fungible tokens are art projects and status symbols, which will no longer return to the previous hype.

- The inflow of funds into cryptocurrency investment products amounted to $15 million in the first week of July. The rate of inflows into bear funds, which allow bitcoin shorts, has slowed from $51 million a week earlier to $6.3 million, according to data from investment firm CoinShares. There was an inflow to Ethereum-based products for the third week in a row. Analysts have linked this to Ethereum's upcoming transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. Investors remain interested in products based on several assets. Investments in them have amounted to $217.3 million since the beginning of the year.

- Gold advocate and critic of the first cryptocurrency, Peter Schiff, said he was ready to sell his Euro Pacific bank for bitcoins or for any other digital asset. “Actually, yes, I would sell the bank for anything if the regulators let me do it. My main goal is to protect clients,” he wrote.
Recall that regulators in Puerto Rico closed Euro Pacific in early July due to allegations of insolvency and non-compliance. Schiff said that government authorities are taking revenge on him for criticizing excessive taxation and control by the authorities. According to him, the regulators have no evidence of violations, the bank has no loans or debts, but there are enough funds to fully pay all depositors.

- Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said in an interview with CNBC that he does not believe in the possibility of reducing the price of the first cryptocurrency to $13,000. “There is a feeling that we are 90% over this deleveraging. […] The problem is that further growth requires more faith and new capital,” he said. According to Novogratz, companies in the cryptocurrency market had too many leveraged positions. This led to the bankruptcy of some of them. He also predicted a sideways trend in the digital asset industry until the US Federal Reserve stops raising the base rate. According to the head of Galaxy Digital, it will take about 18 months.
Rockefeller International CEO Ruchir Sharma also noted that bitcoin needs to get rid of excess leverage in order to become sustainable again.

- Ethereum should be classified as a security, since the asset was originally distributed to investors as part of an ICO. This was stated by the head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor, who added that the periodic software updates of the Ethereum network, behind which the development team stands, are another argument in favor of such a classification. In his opinion, for a cryptocurrency to be considered a commodity, it should not have an issuer or someone who would “make decisions”.
Saylor also stated that the tokens of all networks based on Proof-of-Stake are securities. According to him, investing in these assets is “extremely risky” due to potential problems with regulators. According to the top manager, this is one of the key reasons why MicroStrategy only invests in bitcoin.

- Soo Kim, a former CIA analyst, said that North Korea will continue to focus on cyberattacks on cryptocurrency and technology companies as the DPRK regime faces severe shortages of food and other resources.
These attacks will become more sophisticated over time as the country struggles with lingering economic sanctions and profiting from cyberattacks has become a "way of life" for North Korea. According to the analyst, the country takes this job very seriously: it's not just some person sitting in the basement and trying to steal cryptocurrency. Pyongyang provides its hackers with the best equipment and education as they bring it a critical income stream. First of all, according to Kim, hackers pay attention to unsuspecting employees of technology companies and try to find vulnerabilities through them, and often get a job in one of the Western or Asian companies themselves.
Earlier, Reuters experts estimated that due to the downturn in the market, the cryptocurrency stolen by North Korea over the past year has fallen in price by $400 million.

- Miners in the US began to move to new states in order not to burn out on rising electricity prices. According to the US government, electricity costs in the country will grow by an average of 5% this summer. But it all depends on each individual state. For example, according to the forecast of the US Chamber of Commerce, electricity growth in New England will be 16.4%, while in the Southwest it will be only 2.4%.
However, moving is far from the only way to save your mining investment. There are many incentives for renewable energy in the US. For example, when installing large solar panels, miners can receive incentives from the government, sometimes reaching 50% of the electricity bill.

- Macroeconomics expert Lyn Alden believes that although there are no clear bullish signals in the crypto market, the time for global capitulation has already passed. In her opinion, the worst part of the bearish trend ended along with the volatile first half of 2022, when BTC lost over 56% of its value. The macro strategist believes that bitcoin can recover as the massive BTC sell-off has stopped.
However, Alden warns that bitcoin could still go down one step. “Macroeconomically, there are still not many bullish catalysts at the moment, and I would not rule out further price movement down.” “We have seen that, for the most part, bitcoin is very strongly correlated with the growth of the money supply, especially in dollars. So, when we have had a huge increase in the money supply around the world over the past couple of years, bitcoin has also done very well,” explained Alden. Now the reverse is happening as the US Federal Reserve and other Central banks try to tamp down inflation. And this, accordingly, affects the price of the cryptocurrency.

- CEO of Rockefeller International, formerly chief strategist at Morgan Stanley, Ruchir Sharma believes that bitcoin will soon return to growth and reach new heights. The financier recalled the situation with Amazon in the early 2000s, during the dot-com bubble, when the retailer's share price collapsed by 90%. However, stocks then bounced back, and rose another 300 times over the next 20 years. The top manager of Rockfeller International believes that a similar situation could happen with the first cryptocurrency.
Sharma noted that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have become victims of a “global speculative mania.” At the same time, the deleveraging process is not over yet, and the bitcoin rate may further decline in the next six months against the backdrop of a fall in the stock market. Sharma recalled that a bearish trend usually lasts about a year in the stock market, and stock indices fall by 35%. At the moment, the market has decreased by only 20%. “I would not say that we are already at the bottom. The bearish trend in the US, which is the driver of demand for risky assets around the world, is still ongoing,” Sharma said.
According to the head of Rockfeller International, the position of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency is currently under threat. At the same time, he does not see competitors from other fiat currencies, but a “window of opportunity” has opened for cryptocurrencies. Sharma believes that top cryptocurrencies will become much more stable within three to five years, which will allow them to displace the US dollar.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The record decline in the price of bitcoin in June practically took the rest of the “market tourists” out of the game, leaving only hodlers “at the front”. These are the conclusions made by Glassnode analysts. In the context of monthly dynamics, the situation was worse only in 2011. The number of daily active addresses has dropped from over 1 million in November to the current 870,000.
The outflow of bitcoin from centralized exchanges has emptied reserves to levels last seen in July 2018. Monthly rates reached 150,000 BTC (5-6% of the total) in June. The decline in exchange reserves is complemented by the indicator of “illiquid supply”. In June, it rose to a record 223,000 BTC since July 2017. 
Aggressive accumulation of coins is observed among so-called shrimps (balances less than 1 BTC) and whales (over 10,000 BTC). The monthly coin accumulation rate was the first to reach 60,460 BTC (0.32% of the market supply), which is higher than the previous record of 52,100 BTC in December 2017. As for whales, they withdrew 8.99 million BTC from exchanges. In June, the rate reached 140,000 BTC, the second result in five years. 

- Deutsche Bank strategists believe that the arguments for bitcoin as “digital gold” have fallen apart. Cryptocurrency has not become a safe haven amid falling stock markets, physical gold “has behaved better” in this regard.
In their opinion, bitcoin is more like diamonds, a “high-market asset” that relies mainly on marketing. They recalled that the largest player in the market, De Beers, managed to change consumer attitudes towards precious stones with an advertising campaign in the 1950s. “By selling an idea rather than a product, they have created a solid foundation for the $72 billion a year industry that has dominated for the past 80 years. What is true for diamonds is true for many goods and services, including bitcoin,” the experts said.
Deutsche Bank specialists believe that the price of bitcoin can recover to the level of $28,000 by the end of 2022. This rise will be associated with a rally in the US stock market as cryptocurrencies correlate increasingly with the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indices. These benchmarks will recover to their January levels by the end of the year, holding bitcoin in their wake.

- Former hedge fund manager Cramer & Co and host of CNBC's Mad Money show Jim Cramer believes the US Fed has won a "remarkable victory" in the fight against cryptocurrencies. “There is a front in the war against inflation with the Fed's outstanding victory: it's a battle against financial speculation. [...] The work on destroying cryptocurrencies is almost complete, but they don't seem to know about it yet,” he said.
According to Cramer, digital assets do not protect investors from anything, and the Fed needs to continue to fight inflation, especially in the issue of wages.

- The financier Michael Burry, who predicted the 2007 mortgage crisis, has admitted that the current market situation is just the middle of a bear cycle for bitcoin. The investor, who became the prototype of the hero of the movie "The Big Short", believes that the first cryptocurrency can continue to fall. «Adjusted for inflation, 2022 first half S&P 500 down 25-26%, and Nasdaq down 34-35%, Bitcoin down 64-65%. That was multiple compression. Next up, earnings compression. So, maybe halfway there,” wrote Burry.
Recall that, according to Arcane Research researchers, the potential for a decrease in the price of bitcoin remains until the level of $10,350.

- The worst of the bear market may be behind us as the strong players in the crypto industry “rescue” the weak ones to contain the “infection”. This was stated by JPMorgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou. The specialist could have in mind the interest of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange in buying the BlockFi landing platform. The media also mentioned the online broker Robinhood as a target for the takeover. Previously, the FTX exchange supported the cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital. The expert mentioned the high rates of venture financing in May-June as an additional factor for optimism.
Panigirtzoglou also added that "the echoes of the deleveraging process will continue for some time yet," citing the default of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

- Crypto trader with the nickname Rekt Capital believes that the market will face an exhaustion of sellers, and long-term investors will have the opportunity to purchase BTC in a price range that offers the maximum reward. “Historically, the 200-week moving average has been considered a bottom indicator for BTC. Things may be a little different in the current cycle. Instead of bottoming out at the SMA200, bitcoin could form a macro range below it. In fact, anything below will represent a peak buying opportunity,” wrote Rekt Capital.
The trader noted that while bitcoin remains in a strong downtrend, the prerequisites for a new bull cycle will eventually open up: “Bitcoin may still be in the acceleration phase downtrend, and it will precede the stage of multi-month consolidation, followed by the stage of a new upward macro trend.”

- Former stockbroker Jordan Belfort believes that investing in bitcoin can protect investors' funds from inflation in the long run. “If you look beyond the 24-month horizon, you can definitely make money if you're lucky. If you take a three- or five-year period, I will be shocked if you do not make money, because the basic principles of bitcoin are unshakable,” he said, explaining that the supply of the first cryptocurrency is limited to 21 million digital coins, and inflation in the world continues to grow.
Belfort believes that bitcoin is now behaving like a tech stock, correlating with the Nasdaq index. However, investments by institutional investors in the first cryptocurrency cannot yet be called large-scale, since bitcoin is still in its infancy. For an extensive influx of institutional money into the crypto-currency sector, well-designed regulation of crypto-assets is necessary.
Recall that earlier Jordan Belfort was convicted of fraud related to the securities market. His memoir inspired director Martin Scorsese to create the famous film The Wolf of Wall Street. 

- Charles Erith, CEO of ByteTree investment company, believes that bitcoin and gold will be important components of investment portfolios for many years to come. Not because they are guaranteed to increase in price, but because they work as insurance against mistakes in an era of inflation. However, according to the financier, a lot depends on the policy of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks.

- The cost of bitcoin will fall under the pressure of the American factor in the coming months. The US economy is entering a recession, so capital will leave risky assets. This is the opinion of Timothy Peterson, investment manager from Cane Island Alternative Advisors. According to his calculations, the probability of a recession in the US has risen to 70% and the BTC price may collapse by 20% or even 40% by the end of summer.
The expert recalled that he had already predicted the continuation of the negative trend in the crypto market, and in the end he was right. The quarter turned out to be the worst for bitcoin in the last ten years.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Concerns about the crypto winter have not dampened investor interest in the industry. This is stated in the analytical report of Bank of America (BofA). “Customer engagement continues to grow. The focus continues to be on the rapid development of blockchain technology.” BofA believes regulatory clarity is critical to corporate and institutional outreach. Many are currently refraining from taking action until a comprehensive legal framework is in place.
Some participants in the BofA survey recalled that the most innovative projects came from previous market downturns. The low points of the cycle are "likely beneficial for the development of the ecosystem in the long run," they added.

- Cryptocurrency payments will become a reality in the future, but they are currently not economically efficient. This was stated in an interview with Cointelegraph by one of the directors of American Express, Gonzalo Pérez del Arco. According to him, crypto payments are not relevant for a number of reasons at the moment, including high transaction costs and the unwillingness of merchants to accept digital assets.

- The recession in the cryptocurrency market will last for about 18 more months, and the industry will see the first signs of recovery after the easing of the Fed’s monetary policy. This was stated by the head and founder of the Galaxy Digital cryptobank Mike Novogratz in an interview with New York Magazine. “I hope we have already seen the worst. I would be more confident about this if I knew what inflation would be like in the next two quarters. [...] I think the Fed will have to abandon the rate hike by the fall, and I believe that will make people calm down and start building again,” said the head of Galaxy Digital.
According to Novogratz, the crisis has changed people's attitudes towards high-risk assets like cryptocurrencies. He noted that the past few months have shown the industry's dependence on leverage, which no one knew about. And it will take time now for the bankruptcy of weak players and the sale of collapsed assets. According to the head of Galaxy Digital, the situation is similar to the global financial crisis of 2008, followed by a wave of consolidation in the investment and banking industries. 

- Mining companies in need of liquidity in Q3 are able to continue to exert downward pressure on the quotes of the first cryptocurrency. This is the conclusion reached by JPMorgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtsoglou, Bloomberg writes. According to the expert's calculations, public mining companies account for about 20% of the hash rate. Many of them sold bitcoins to cover operating expenses and service loans. Due to the more limited access to capital, private miners took similar steps as well. “Unloading will continue in Q3, if the profitability of production does not improve. This was already evident in May and June. There is a risk that the process will continue,” the strategist believes.
According to Panigirtzoglou, the cost of mining 1 BTC dropped from $18,000-$20,000 at the beginning of the year to about $15,000 in June due to the introduction of more energy-efficient equipment.

- The first cryptocurrency is “technically oversold”, if you look at the current price in the context of the exponential growth in wallet activity and an increase in the number of use cases. This was stated by Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of the SkyBridge Capital investment fund. The hedge fund manager advised investors to evaluate bitcoin in retrospect. With this approach, the asset will turn out to be "very cheap due to excess leverage, which is worth taking advantage of."
Scaramucci was philosophical about the collapse of Terra, which he had supported, as well as Three Arrows Capital's liquidity problems. “I have seen such mistakes made several times,” he explained. According to the financier, during periods of "easy money", when new industries or technologies are being formed, young representatives of the sector "tend to lose relevance."

- Crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen doubts that the forecasts for a high BTC rate for 2023 can come true. In particular, he spoke about the forecast of venture capital investor Tim Draper, according to which the price of bitcoin could grow by more than 1000% from current levels and reach $250,000.
“I used to believe that BTC would be above $100,000 by 2023, but now I am skeptical about this idea. Especially after the Fed's policy has changed so much over the past six months,” Cowen wrote. "I also look at other things, like social media statistics, and I see that the number of people interested in cryptocurrencies is in a downtrend. If it is difficult for people to buy gasoline, it will be even more difficult to buy bitcoin.”
Instead of a huge rally, Cowen predicts an uninteresting BTC market over the next two years: “I think the bear market will end this year, and then the accumulation phase will begin, as in 2015 and 2019. Then there will be slow preparations for the next bitcoin halving, and the Fed may lower interest rates due to the victory over inflation during this period.”

- According to the cryptanalytic platform CryptoQuant, most cyclical indicators (Bitcoin Puell Multiple, MVRV, SOPR and the MPI BTC Miner Position Index) indicate that bitcoin is close to the bottom. The readings of these indicators are based on a historical pattern that has preceded an uptrend several times. Indicators also suggest that bitcoin is currently undervalued, signaling an imminent rally. A significant amount of unrealized losses confirms this forecast.

- A crypto strategist with aka Dave the Wave, who had previously predicted the May collapse of bitcoin in 2021, expects to see a rapid increase in the BTC rate in the coming years. He uses a logarithmic growth curve (LGC) model and believes that BTC can grow by 1100% within 4 years and reach $260,000. In the short term, Dave the Wave predicts the possibility of bitcoin rising to $25,000.

- Robert Kiyosaki predicted the collapse of the financial markets in autumn 2021. In his opinion, due to the actions of the US financial regulators, the value of all assets, including bitcoin, gold and securities, should have collapsed. Now, the author of the bestselling book Rich Dad Poor Dad predicts another 95% drop in bitcoin and is waiting for bitcoin to drop to $1,100. And when “the losers capitulate and leave the market,” according to the economist, he will replenish his stocks of the first cryptocurrency.
Recall that Kiyosaki has previously repeatedly stated that the US dollar is dying, and called for buying more BTC, gold and silver, because, according to him, these assets help to ride out hard times.

- It is possible that the long-standing dispute over whether cryptocurrencies are securities or commodities will be put to an end. In an interview with CNBC, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler stated that, according to his ideas, bitcoin meets all the characteristics of a commodity. The head of the SEC noted that his opinion concerns only bitcoin, and he is not going to discuss other cryptocurrencies.
A similar view was expressed a month earlier by Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Rostin Behnam, who also said that bitcoin and ethereum are commodities.
The cryptocurrency community enthusiastically supported the position: “This makes it almost impossible to change this classification in the future,” digital asset manager Eric Weiss tweeted.

- Yifan He, CEO of Chinese blockchain company Red Date Technology, published an article comparing cryptocurrencies to pyramid schemes. He mentioned the May collapse of the Terra project, when the LUNA crypto asset fell to almost zero in just a few days, and the UST token lost its peg to the dollar.
In his opinion, all crypto assets are similar to a Ponzi scheme, it’s just that each has its own level of risk, depending on the market capitalization and the number of users. He added that he has never had a cryptocurrency wallet, has not bought cryptocurrencies and does not intend to buy them in the future. Even if digital assets become regulated by governments, this is unlikely to increase their value, He said.
The businessman believes that the authorities of El Salvador and the Central African Republic (CAR), who decided to legalize bitcoin, are in serious need of basic financial education. According to He, the leaders of these states put entire countries at risk, unless their original intention was to fraud their own citizens.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin supported The Daily Gwei creator Anthony Sassano, who called on the popular PlanB analyst to delete his account. The reason is the failure of the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, which PlanB has been actively promoting in recent years. 
“It's rude to gloat, but I think financial models that give people a false sense of confidence about asset growth are harmful and deserve ridicule,” Buterin wrote. The Ethereum co-founder added a chart to his post that shows a significant divergence between the real price of bitcoin and its S2F forecast.
PlanB reacted to Buterin's criticism with restraint. He said that in the aftermath of the crash, many are looking for scapegoats, including leaders. PlanB then presented a chart of five different bitcoin rate prediction models. According to the illustration, the most accurate picture is given by estimates based on the complexity and cost of mining the first cryptocurrency. The S2F model, in turn, offers an overly optimistic view.

- The internet is talking again about the death of bitcoin. The number of search queries on this topic has returned to its highest levels against the backdrop of the collapse in the price of the first cryptocurrency. The bitcoin dead request scored 93 points on Google Trends in the week ending June 18. This is just one point less than the maximum recorded in December 2017. Canada, Singapore and Australia are among the leaders among the “pessimists”. The United States and Nigeria follow them, even though the population there is much larger.

- Bitcoin's return to levels above $20,000 does not mean that it has bounced off the bottom. This was stated by Peter Schiff, a well-known cryptocurrency critic, President of Euro Pacific Capital. According to this gold supporter, the $20,000 mark will be the same “bull trap” as the $30,000 level was before. “Nothing falls in a straight line. In fact, it's a very orderly crash in slow motion. There is no sign of capitulation so far, which usually forms the bottom of a bear market,” Schiff said.
The head of Euro Pacific Capital had said Earlier that the collapse of the cryptocurrency market is good for the economy. He also added that even if digital assets have a future, bitcoin will never be part of it. Recall that Peter Schiff predicted back in May that bitcoin would test $8,000. And the investor suggested in mid-June that the minimum could be even lower, around $5,000.

- El Salvador President Nayib Bukele advised bitcoin investors not to worry about the quotes of the first cryptocurrency. “My advice is to stop looking at charts and enjoy your life. If you have invested in BTC, your investment is safe, its value will rise immeasurably after the end of the bear market. The main thing is patience,” he wrote.
In response, the aforementioned Peter Schiff stated that Bukele's advice was as bad as his "buy the top" recommendation. The latter is likely a reference to the "buy the dip" stock exchange slogan that Bukele often mentioned.
For reference, there are 2,301 BTC in El Salvador's public bitcoin fund, purchased at an average price of $43,900. Thus, at the moment, the loss on them has amounted to about 55%.

- An analyst aka Capo, who had correctly predicted the collapse of the cryptocurrency market this year, updated his forecast for top crypto assets. According to him, investors are fooling themselves into believing that a short-term rally means bitcoin has reached the bottom of the cycle. According to Capo, bitcoin is only rising because investors are liquidating their holdings of altcoins and investing in BTC in order to exit it: “Bull trap. Funds from altcoins flow into BTC, which will also be sold, but a little later. There is no bottom yet." The analyst shared his updated forecast regarding the fall levels of these assets: BTC is expected to decline to $16,200, and ETH to $750.

- According to crypto strategist Kevin Svenson, bitcoin has a chance to bottom in the $17,000-18,000 range, after which a short-term rally to above $30,000 could occur. At the same time, although Svenson expects this short-term growth, he does not see the prerequisites for launching a new bull market in the near future: “Overcoming the main downward resistance is the main obstacle and the process may last until the end of the year.”
According to the strategist, after the breakthrough of the diagonal resistance, bitcoin can trade in a narrow range for several months and start a new uptrend only by 2024 year.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen proposed his bottom search model for bitcoin. He believes that the bottom can be predicted based on the correlation of inflation, the S&P 500 stock index and the BTC price. The analyst argues that the S&P 500 index does not historically sink to the very bottom until inflation peaks and reverses. Accordingly, BTC cannot reach the bottom for the same reason. “Macroeconomic indicators look incredibly bleak at the moment. If you go back to the 1970s, you'll see a very similar type of move where the S&P bottomed just as inflation hit its first peak. By this point, the S&P was down about 50%,” writes Cowen.

- Shark Tank business TV show co-host Kevin O'Leary says big companies shouldn't be afraid of bankruptcy during the crypto winter, as their departure forms a promising market bottom. “This is good for all other companies as they will learn from this. I think we will soon see a wave of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency market. I don't know who it will be, but I assure you that I have seen it before. Later you will recognize those who have taken a high-risk position. They have been destroyed, and that's good,” said the millionaire.
Crypto channel InvestAnswers, in turn, named 3 possible catalysts for the market collapse. The BTC price may fall even more if MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor decides to sell the bitcoins in the company's reserves. In addition, the potential collapse of the stablecoin Tether (USDT) and the problems of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital may also contribute to further capitulation of BTC. According to InvestAnswers, we should not forget about the possible sale of crypto assets by Tesla.
MicroStrategy reported a $1.2 billion loss last week due to the fall of bitcoin. As for the Three Arrows Capital fund, it now has about $2.4 billion left in assets out of $18 billion.

- Despite the low current rate of bitcoin, many participants in the crypto industry believe in its future growth. For example, there is a belief that BTC could reach $100,000 by 2025. Bloomberg Senior Strategist Mike McGlone is one of them. He has no doubt that the widespread use of cryptocurrencies and, in particular, bitcoin, can lead to a rise in the price of BTC to six figures.
Cryptocurrency is about 1% of the total market capitalization of all stocks on the planet. It was only 0.01% just a few years ago. According to Mike McGlone, this indicates a growing adoption of the new asset class. In addition, investors tend to buy gold during inflation, but now they have a digital alternative to it. Another reason is that the adoption of the asset occurs against the background of a reduction in its emission. This allowed the expert to conclude that prices could skyrocket in the coming years.

- The fall of bitcoin was one of the factors stimulating the growth in the number of addresses in the network with a balance of more than one coin. Glassnode estimates that investors stepped up in May and June during each pullback. In the last week alone, the number of such holders increased by 13,091. There are currently 865,254 addresses holding more than 1 BTC. 
The number of small bitcoin holders has also grown significantly. The number of wallets holding at least 0.1 BTC has come close to 3.06 million since the beginning of last week. However, the number of "whales" with a balance of more than 100 coins has on the contrary decreased by 136 addresses.

- The Bangkok police arrested a suspect in a jewellery store robbery. According to Thai PBS, the man stole gold jewellery worth about 1.8 million baht (over $50,000) at gunpoint. After his arrest, he told the police that he was under great stress and was in dire need of money since he had recently suffered large losses from investing in bitcoin.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The collapse of the cryptocurrency market on June 13 and 14 was not caused by the announcement of the Celsius Network crypto-lending platform to suspend the withdrawal of funds, but by the general negative macroeconomic background. This opinion was expressed by industry participants in a survey conducted by The Block.
Celsius suspended withdrawals, exchanges, and transfers between accounts on June 13 “due to extreme market conditions.” As of May, the platform managed $11 billion in user assets.
However, many experts believe that the crypto markets “would have fallen regardless of Celsius.” Bloomberg notes that the market has entered "a period of selling everything except the dollar." Traders are leaving for a "safe harbor", fearing that due to rising inflation, the US Federal Reserve may start raising interest rates more aggressively than was previously expected. Wall Street analysts believe that the rate will rise in June by 1.0% straight away, and not by 0.5%. Such a result could have negative implications for risky assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Against this background, the price of bitcoin fell to $20,000 on June 15, ethereum fell to $1,000, and the crypto market capitalization fell to $0.86 trillion. Recall that it reached $2.97 7 months ago, in November 2021.

- The widespread adoption of the first cryptocurrency may occur faster than previous innovative technologies and reach 10% by 2030. This is stated in the Blockware Intelligence study.
Analysts studied the historical curves of adoption of cars, electricity, the Internet and social networks, as well as the pace of bitcoin adoption since 2009. “All disruptive technologies follow a similar exponential S-curve […] but new network technologies continue to be introduced much faster than the market expects,” the report says. However, Blockware Intelligence emphasizes that the model used at this stage is just a concept and is not an investment recommendation.

- Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal also compared the rate of adoption of cryptocurrencies by society with the development of the Internet. The macroeconomist concluded that the slowdown in the development of the industry will begin in four years. He stated that “if the pace of development of the industry remains at the same level, we will have five or four billion people using cryptocurrency by 2030.”

- Well-known trader and analyst Tony Weiss believes that the real capitulation for bitcoin will take place soon. Weiss reviewed the Bitcoin Momentum Reversal Indicator (MRI), which predicts trend lifecycles based on an asset's momentum. According to him, MRI points to a few more days (4-5) of falling, after which a market reversal may occur.
According to Weiss, most likely, the BTC rate will not fall below $19,000. But a further fall is not ruled out: “Is it possible to reach $17,180? I think so. But if the downward movement continues, the next level could be around $14,000. In my opinion, bitcoin will not fall so much, and the lowest level will be $19,000,” the expert believes.

- Bank of America analyst Jason Kupferberg told CNBC in an interview that the bank conducted a large survey among Americans in June 2022. The expert noted that about 90% of respondents answered unequivocally that they plan to buy a certain amount of cryptocurrency over the next few months. It is noteworthy that Bank of America itself does not yet plan to provide digital currency trading services.
The survey also showed that the majority of respondents had previously acted as short-term investors. About 77% of them held digital coins in their portfolio for less than one year. Almost a third spoke in favor of the fact that they are not going to sell their assets for the next six months.
According to Jasonf Kupferberg, this user interest is due to the increase in the number of crypto-fiat products. For example, the appearance of the Coinbase Visa card has significantly simplified the process of exchanging digital assets for fiat money. He also confirmed that cryptocurrencies are closely correlated with high-risk assets like stocks of fast-growing technology corporations.

- The American Express international payment service, together with the Abra crypto company, will offer its customers a Crypto Rewards credit card with cryptocurrency bonuses. According to public information, cardholders will be rewarded for purchases of any amount in more than 100 different cryptocurrencies supported by Abra, with no fees for transactions.

- The bear market upsets all investors. But the two largest institutional bitcoin holders have been particularly distinguished. They lost a total of about $1.4 billion on this asset. According to the analytical resource Bitcointreasuries.net, almost 130,000 bitcoins owned by Microstrategy and 43,200 bitcoins owned by Tesla made their owners significantly poorer (we are talking about an unrealized loss yet).
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor spent almost $4 billion ($3,965,863,658) on 129,218 BTC, which is approximately 0.615% of the total issuance of the first cryptocurrency. The fall in the price of bitcoin depreciated the company's investment to $3.1 billion, thus the loss amounted to $900 million. Apart from this, Microstrategy shares also fell to their lowest levels in recent months.
The investment of Elon Mask, whose car company Tesla bought more than 40,000 bitcoins during the 2021 bull market, has also taken a big hit. He lost about $500 million on his investments.

- Anthony Scaramucci, founder of $3.5 billion investment fund SkyBridge Capital, shared his thoughts on the current bear market. In an interview with CNBC, he called what was happening "a bloodbath", adding that he managed to survive seven "bear" markets. The former politician and White House communications director hopes he will be able to "get out" of the eighth one as well.
“I am encouraged by the fact that bitcoin exceeds currently 50% of the total market capitalization of the crypto market. This is another sign that proves its value,” said Scaramucci, recommending that investors keep buying bitcoin and stay calm. The financier believes that it is better to stick to a long-term investment strategy, but at the same time do without borrowed funds.
“All cryptoassets have a long-term perspective as long as they don’t face short-term losses. Then investors begin to tear their hair out and bang against the wall. It is better to buy a quality crypto asset (BTC or ETH) without being distracted by others, and maintain discipline without looking back at the bear markets that sometimes happen. If you remain calm during these periods, you will get rich,” says SkyBridge Capital's managing partner.

- The collapse of the bitcoin rate did not lead to a quick recovery. However, bulls have managed to protect an important level so far. We are talking about the 200-week moving average (200WMA), which served as a strong support in all previous bear market phases. Bitcoin has never managed to gain a foothold below this line so far. (By "gaining a foothold" traders mean the closing of the candle below a certain level). After dropping to almost $20,000, there was a quick rebound that took the price above the critical $20,400 mark.
Big buying saved the day, according to Material Indicators analysts, but “it's still too early to tell if support can be sustained. The eyes of the entire market are focused on the meeting of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) of the US Federal Reserve, which will be held on June 15 at 22:00 CET, at which a decision will be made to increase the key interest rate.

- The Crypto Fear & Greed Index BTC fell to 7 points out of 100 ahead of the FOMC meeting, which is comparable to March 2020 values. Then the price of bitcoin bottomed out at $3,800. According to Arcane Research analysts, the index has been in the Fear zone for 56 days, which is a record. “Market participants are undoubtedly tired of this, many capitulate. Historically, buying has been a profitable strategy in times of fear. However, it is not easy to catch a falling knife,” the researchers shared their thoughts.
The company noted that $20,000 is a critical level for bitcoin in the context of technical analysis. “Therefore, a possible visit below this level could lead to the capitulation of many hodlers and deleverages.” There is also significant open interest in bitcoin options around the $20,000 mark. This is a factor of additional pressure on the spot market if the above level does not withstand the onslaught of bears.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The PayPal payment company has opened the option of transferring bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin) between client accounts, as well as their withdrawal to third-party wallets. This option will be supported for all US customers in the coming weeks. PayPal Vice President Richard Nash said earlier that the company is making every effort to integrate blockchain and cryptocurrencies into its services.

- 202 new Bitcoin ATMs were installed globally in May according to Coin ATM Radar. The last time the indicator was at such low values was in 2019. The slowdown in device installations began in January 2022. However, in June, the trend changed to positive: 863 crypto-ATMs were already available in the first days of the month. Currently, there are 37,836 such devices in the world. The United States holds the leading position: 87.9% of the total number of cryptocurrency ATMs are concentrated there.

- Bitcoin’s short-term volatility doesn’t matter as long as there is an understanding of the fundamentals of the leading cryptocurrency and how difficult it is to create something better. This opinion was expressed by the head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor in an interview with The Block. “Bitcoin is the most reliable thing in a very volatile world. It is more reliable than other 19,000 cryptocurrencies, than any shares, than owning property anywhere in the world,” the top manager emphasized.
Commenting on the collapse of Terra and the subsequent market correction, the head of MicroStrategy doubted that what was happening was evidence of a bearish phase. “I don’t know if this is a bear market or not, but if it is, we have had three of them in the last 24 months,” he stressed.
Saylor added that he prefers not to get carried away by short-term prices. According to him, people who pay too much attention to the charts, "guess on coffee grounds." “If you don’t plan to hold it [bitcoin] for four years, you are not an investor at all, you are a trader, and my advice to traders is: don’t trade it, invest in it,” the businessman concluded.

- Consumers lost more than $1 billion in digital asset fraud from January 2021 to March 2022. This is stated in the report of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The agency cited 46,000 people who reported the hoax. “Nearly half of the consumers who reported cryptocurrency fraud said it started with an ad, a post, or a social media message,” the FTC said.
According to the press release, victims of fictitious investment schemes have lost more than others: $ 575 million since January last year. Scams related to dating and romantic relationships are in the second place. The third are fake representatives of companies or of the government. The average amount lost was $2,600. Most often, victims transferred bitcoins (70%), USDT (10%) and Ethereum (9%) to scammers.

- Katie Wood, founder and CEO of ARK Invest with assets of $60 billion, predicts a significant growth in bitcoin. According to her, network indicators hint that BTC is forming a bottom. “According to our data, short-term holders have capitulated, and this is great news in terms of hitting the bottom. The share of long-term holders is at an all-time high: 65.7% (they hold BTC for at least a year). Although there is still a possibility of capitulation of some of them to mark the bottom.
In addition to network indicators, Wood is watching the bitcoin futures market, hinting at a period of increased volatility for the asset. “It is still difficult to say exactly which direction it will go, but we believe that there is a high probability of the next burst of volatility in the upward direction.”
Despite some optimism, one has to exercise caution after the collapse of Terra (LUNA). “At the same time, we are on the alert,” says the CEO of ARK Invest. “Terra’s collapse was a fiasco for cryptocurrencies, and regulators have more reason to impose tighter restrictions than anticipated.”

- Crypto analyst Justin Bennett, giving a forecast for the coming weeks, hinted at a repetition of the June 2021 chart. According to him, the immediate line of defense for the bulls is $28,600. If the asset goes below this level, it risks revisiting the May lows at $26,580-26,910.
According to the analyst, if bitcoin follows the June 2021 scenario, it will form new lows for the current year: “In the event of a sell-off, the downward movement could go to the $24,000-25,000 range. But I do not think that this will be the minimum of the current cycle.”
After the formation of a new annual low, Bennett predicts some growth for bitcoin. “Most likely it will be a short-term rally to a lower macro high.” According to his calculations, the BTC price in July could rise to $35,000 during this short-term growth.

- Jurrien Timmer, macro analyst and director of investment company Fidelity, has updated his long-term forecast for the BTC rate. He refers to the once popular Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model of an analyst with the nickname PlanB, according to which the price of BTC was predicted based on supply shocks caused by asset halvings. However, he added to the S2F model two more models that track the rate of adoption of the Internet and mobile phones.
According to Timmer, based on the mobile phone adoption model, the price of bitcoin could rise sharply to $144,753 by 2025 (about a year after the next halving). But if BTC follows the pace of Internet adoption, then it turns out that the asset has already peaked and can trade at only $47,702 in 3 years. The average value derived from Timmer's modified supply model was $63,778.

- American economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman called cryptocurrencies a scam, comparing them to the real estate crisis in 2008. In an interview with Fox News, he mentioned the movie The Big Short, which tells the story of the financial crisis of the 2000s, which resulted from the collapse of the real estate market. Real estate prices were extremely high, but this did not stop people. The same situation is happening in the cryptocurrency market, Krugman explained.
The economist criticized people who claim that crypto assets are the future of finance. According to Krugman, bitcoin, which appeared in 2009, has not yet found significant practical use over the years, except for use in illegal activities.
“Cryptocurrencies have become a large asset class, and their supporters are increasing their political influence. Therefore, it sounds implausible to many that cryptocurrencies have no real value. But this is only a house built on sand. I remember the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis, so I can say that we have gone from a big short game to a big scam,” said the Nobel laureate.

- According to Reuters, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has laundered $2.35 billion of illegal funds in 5 years. The transactions involved hacks, investment fraud, and illegal drug sales. So, the crypto exchange has been processing transactions of the world's largest drug market, the Hydra darknet website, during all these years. Reuters relied on court records, law enforcement statements and blockchain data in its statement.

- American investment strategist Lyn Alden said that bitcoin is now one of the most reliable assets, along with gold and real estate. The macroeconomist added that she does not expect inflation to fall anytime soon as the US continues to print money to meet its financial obligations.
“Most of my holdings are in long-term hard assets such as shares of pipeline energy companies, profitable producers of real products, bitcoin, some gold, various types of exchange-traded instruments and real estate,” explained Lynn Alden and added that such a diversified set of real assets not only has the necessary liquidity, but also allows her to rebalance the portfolio at any time if there are problems in the global market.

- Bloomberg expert Mike McGlone believes that the highest in the last 40 years inflation is starting, which will cause the largest economic crisis, after which assets such as cryptocurrencies, US bonds and gold will show unprecedented growth. He stated in an interview to Kitco News that "this may be reminiscent of the consequences of 1929. Although I am more inclined to the version that it will be more like the consequences of the 2008 crisis or maybe the consequences of the 1987 crash.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Bitcoin remains an asset free from interference from governments and corporations, inspiring confidence “in this uncertain world.” The head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor stated this in an interview with Fox News. In his opinion, the markets have entered bearish territory: bonds act as derivatives of currency, losing their value along with shares in conditions of high inflation.
The top manager noted that in such an extremely emotional market, the investor needs the protection that the first cryptocurrency can provide. “Two years after the crisis began, the money supply in the United States has increased by 36%. Gold has risen in price by 7%. The S&P index has risen by 29%, the Nasdaq index - by 19%. Bitcoin has added 229% in price,” he explained. 
Saylor noted that as soon as he or the company has extra money, he will continue to invest in this cryptocurrency. MicroStrategy currently holds 129,218 BTC worth about $4 billion.

- An analyst at crypto channel InvestAnswers has looked at 3 likely price points for bitcoin that it could reach by 2030. He considered the market capitalization of gold and believes that in the end, bitcoin will be able to reach 40%, 60% or 100% of the capitalization of the precious metal. In this case, the price of BTC could be around $515,000, $786,000 or $1,300,000, respectively, by 2030. If we take a combination of all 3 aforementioned rate benchmarks, the average expected target is around $867,000. 
And the analyst determined another target level by choosing the average value of a selection of forecasts from Fidelity, ARK Invest and other companies. By combining some of the well-known crypto models, he came to the BTC rate around $1,555,000 per 1 coin.

- According to a report by analyst firm Glassnode, long-term BTC holders are the only ones who didn’t lose their heads in the bear market and continue to buy the asset around the $30,000 mark. The current accumulation process mainly involves wallet owners with balances of less than 100 BTC and more than 10,000 BTC. The volumes of the former have increased by 80,724 BTC, the latter - by 46.269 BTC. The BTC accumulation trend indicator has returned over the past few weeks to a near-perfect value of above 0.9. And, despite the sale of some long-term BTC holders, the total volumes held in their wallets have returned to an all-time high of 13.048 million BTC. 
At the same time, the total number of wallets with non-zero balances indicates the absence of new buyers. A similar situation was observed after the May 2021 sale. Unlike the sales of March 2020 and November 2018, followed by a surge in online activity and new bullruns, the latest sale does not yet boast an influx of new users. 

- Crypto analyst under the nickname Capo, who had previously predicted the fall of bitcoin below $30,000, considers the current small rally to be a typical bull trap. Capo himself still expects a significant decline in altcoins and BTC in the near future: “My opinion has not changed, and I expect altcoins to fall by 40-60%, and bitcoin by 25-30%. Then it will take 1 to 3 months to recover.”
The analyst noted that the S&P 500 index is now in the region of a strong resistance level. And this could be the reason for the resumption of the bearish trend for both the stock and cryptocurrency markets.

- Another crypto strategist and trader, Kevin Swanson, predicts bitcoin will continue to rise to $37,000 in the coming weeks, which will alternate with sharp declines.
Swanson's take on bitcoin's upward bounce is based on his thesis that BTC made a temporary bottom around $26,700 earlier this month. “Looking at this 2021 low [$29,000], one would think that bitcoin is unlikely to go lower. This makes me think that this bottom [$26,700] could act as a long-term support zone.”

- Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius crypto company, believes that the fall in the market has been too long and cryptocurrencies are waiting for a bullish trend with an eight-fold increase in bitcoin. In an interview with Kitco News, he stated that the cryptocurrency markets will recover and even inflation will not be a long-term problem for them. "You can push the spring as hard as you want, but the harder you push, the more it bounces." 
The head of Celsius recalled that “when bitcoin recovers, it usually rises five to eight times compared to where it was. Or even more. At the same time, the stock market will only grow by 30-50-70%. Thus, the rebound of cryptocurrencies is always stronger, forward to new higher highs.”
Mashinsky noted that even large investment bankers are increasingly involved in cryptocurrency. “Even JPMorgan, which usually doesn't talk about cryptocurrency, released a report the other day claiming that panic may be exaggerated and is expected to rebound to $38,000 from where we we are today.”

- According to a study by the largest US bank JPMorgan, the dynamics of the volatility of gold and bitcoin caught up and they began to move in unison. This can be seen both in the charts of the last three months and half a year. Moreover, experts do not exclude the possibility that in the future, the capitalization of the two investment assets will be equal, since in the eyes of investors, bitcoin is more in line with the role of a hedge asset.
At the same time, despite the fact that the general dynamics of volatilities for bitcoin and gold is almost identical, the number 1 cryptocurrency still has a larger range of price fluctuations. Therefore, JPMorgan believes that reducing the volatility of bitcoin is an important condition for bringing its capitalization closer to the total capitalization of gold.

- Scott Minerd, Chief Investment Officer at Guggenheim, commented on the JPMorgan study at the Davos Forum. According to his analysis, the “fundamental price of bitcoin” is in the region of $400,000. Such a high estimate is due to the effect of the "unrestrained printing of US dollars" by the US Federal Reserve. At the same time, he believes that the market may see a bottom for bitcoin in the $8,000 area.
According to Minerd, institutional investors have not yet fully appreciated the potential of bitcoin. The image of the flagship is a bit obscured by the fact that "we see that there are 19 thousand types of digital assets, but most of them do not really represent any real value."

- Ki Young Ju, head of market data platform CryptoQuant, believes BTC will not fall below $20,000. This statement was supported by the expert with the remark that "support by institutional investors is at an unprecedented high level."
Ju provided data on the operation of the custodial service for storing digital assets of the Coinbase Custody exchange. According to the charts, the volume of bitcoins under management has continuously increased for 5 quarters, from October 2020 to December 2021. The increase was 296% at the end of the period, reaching 2.2 million BTC.
The analyst also demonstrated a decrease in digital storage stocks in the first quarter of this year, for the first time since the end of 2020. This, according to the head of CryptoQuant, was a reaction to the weakening of the market ability to support the price of the leading asset. However, 1.4 million BTC remains in general storage at the moment.
Based on the data obtained, Ju concluded that in order to reduce the cost of BTC to the level of $20,000, it is necessary to sell off all the capital accumulated during the period of consolidation to the level of 500 thousand dollars. BTC.   According to the crypto analyst, institutions are not yet ready for this step. The expert added that the value of the coin is likely to have already reached the bottom of this decline cycle.

- “I want cryptocurrencies to disappear,” these are the words of Dogecoin co-founder Jackson Palmer, who is famous for his scandalous statements, who believes that digital currencies are a technology for tax evasion and government oversight.
Palmer would like the Terra crash to end cryptography, “but it didn't happen.” According to him, “more and more people do nothing, earning money on doing nothing”. “Honestly, I thought the crypto market would explode a lot faster and people would learn their lesson. But in the past six months, I have noticed a continued insistence on investing in cryptocurrencies from companies with big money, which means that the process is not slowing down. We have stopped developing.”
However, Palmer now sees that "there is a revival coming because people are losing money." “I think that there will be a catastrophe in the cryptocurrency market that will be much more painful than before, and unfortunately, most of those who are at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy will suffer.”
Despite Dogecoin's successes, Palmer does not have the best opinion of Tesla CEO Elon Musk: “He's a scam, he's selling his vision in the hope that one day he can deliver what he promises. But he doesn't know for sure. He's just really good at pretending to know."

- Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal, amid the recent fall of altcoins, continues to believe that cryptocurrencies like Ethereum will deprive bitcoin of leadership in the future. The macroeconomist agrees that BTC is the best crypto asset and outperforms ETH in terms of market cap, trading volume, and number of active wallets. “However, if you look at the development of Ethereum, the rate of growth in the number of wallets and transactions in the last couple of years has far outstripped bitcoin, and this is really beneficial for the development of the industry.”

- Venture capitalist Tim Draper confirmed his prediction that the price of bitcoin will exceed six figures in the coming months. In a new interview, he reiterated that the coin will reach a price of $250,000 "by the end of this year or the beginning of next". Tim Draper believes that women will drive the adoption and growth of bitcoin, and the fact that they will increasingly use this cryptocurrency for purchases will be a catalyst.
“Recently we had 1 woman for 14 bitcoin holders, now it's something like 1 to 6. And I think there will be more eventually. What I mean is that women control about 80% of retail spending. If suddenly all women have crypto wallets and they buy things with bitcoins, everything will change. And you will see the price of the coin, which will surpass my estimate of $250,000,” the investor said.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The collapse of LUNA and the general weakening of the market affected the expectations of crypto derivatives market participants. According to Glassnode, the ratio of open puts and calls in bitcoin has increased from 50% to 70%, indicating an increased desire of investors to secure positions from continued negative dynamics.
The largest open interest (OI) in call contracts with expiration at the end of July this year is concentrated around the $40,000 mark. However, participants give the greatest preference to put options, which will bring profit in case of price reduction to $25,000, $20,000 and $15,000. In other words, until the middle of the year, the market focuses on hedging risks and/or speculating on a further price reduction.
Optimists predominate over the longer distance. Contracts maturing at the end of the year have the most open positions in the range of $70,000 to $100,000. In the put option, the largest OI is concentrated between $25,000 and $30,000, that is, it is in the zone of current values.

- The rate of burning ethereum through EIP-1559 fell to a record low. 2,370 ETH was withdrawn from circulation Last week, which is 50% less than in early May. The share of coins not subjected to this procedure reached a record 81.6%, which has also put pressure on the price.

- Most Americans consider digital assets as an investment tool, not a means of payment. This is stated in the annual Fed report on the state of US households. According to the document, 12% of adult citizens of the country have owned or interacted with cryptocurrencies. But only 2% have used them for purchases, and only 1% have used them to send funds.

- Against the background of the increase in the key interest rate and the tightening of the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve, the price of bitcoin may fall below $8,000. Guggenheim Partners investment director Scott Minerd said this in an interview with CNBC. “When you “break through the $30,000 level, $8,000 is the ultimate bottom. So, I think we still have a lot of room to decline, especially with the Fed acting tough,” he said.
The investment director of the Guggenheim compared the situation in the crypto market to the dot-com bubble. According to him, most digital assets are “junk”, but bitcoin and ethereum will survive the crypto winter.
Minerd emphasized that the digital asset industry has not yet come to the right design for cryptocurrencies. In his opinion, the currency should store value, be a means of exchange and a unit of account. “There is nothing like that, they [cryptocurrencies] have not even come to a single basis,” he concluded.

- The PayPal payment company is making every effort to implement “all possible” integrations with blockchain and cryptocurrencies into its services. This was stated by PayPal's Vice President Richard Nash during the World Economic Forum in Davos. “We are looking to work with other [projects] to cover everything we can, whether it be the coins we have today in PayPal digital wallets, private digital currencies or CBDCs in the future,” Nash said.
The payments giant’s VP also hinted that he has also invested in crypto assets: “I have a lot of things that I work on at PayPal and I enjoy using the services myself, so I think it’s natural.”

- Unidentified people hacked into the Twitter account of Mike Winkelman, an artist known under the pseudonym Beeple, posting phishing links on it. Users were invited to a website purporting to be Beeple's partnership with Louis Vuitton fashion house.
Clicking on this link resulted in an unauthorized withdrawal of funds from the user's wallet. The cybercriminals got 135 ETH and 45 NFTs worth about $438,000. The hackers retained control of the artist's account for approximately five hours before he managed to get it back.

- The crypto strategist aka Credible believes that, despite the general bearish mood in the markets, BTC is ready to take off. According to him, bitcoin has been in a bull market for the last decade, and the bear markets of 2014 and 2018 became periods of correction: “After the peaks of 2013 and 2017, there were major bear markets and it took 3 years to return to the highs. The current corrections are somewhat smaller, and this will be proven when BTC soars to new all-time highs in a few months.”
Credible uses the Elliott wave theory for technical analysis, which predicts the behavior of the rate based on the psychology of the crowd, which manifests itself in the form of waves. This theory assumes that a bull market cycle goes through 5 impulse waves, with the asset correcting during the 2nd and 4th waves and rallying during the 1st, 3rd and 5th waves. In addition, each major wave consists of 5 smaller sub-waves.
According to the analyst, bitcoin is now in the middle of the main 5th wave that began at the start of 2019. In addition, BTC is currently still in the 5th sub-wave, which can push the asset to a new all-time high above $100,000. “I understand that my approach is controversial,” says Credible. “Most do not expect a new record high until the next halving in 2024, and I expect it sooner.”

- According to another crypto analyst nicknamed Rager, given the length of BTC’s bearish cycles in 2014 and 2018, the asset has a long way to go to the bottom, from 6 to 8 months. “If BTC is declining and rebounding from the 200-week moving average, as in past bearish cycles, then this is a good sign. There will be a decline of only 68% from the maximum, although it had reached 84% in the past. If we take the current realities, a pullback of 84% will lead to the rate of $11,000.”
Rager believes that the price of bitcoin will depend on the strength or weakness of the US stock market in the short term: “You should not look at the bitcoin chart, it is better to watch the chart of the S&P 500 index. There is limited upside potential for BTC right now, but it won’t get stronger until the stock markets turn around.”

- Rekt Capital, one of the most followed analysts on Twitter with over 300,000 followers, has warned that bitcoin could briefly drop 28% below its 200-week moving average. He explained that this SMA is playing the role of an ever-growing latest support. Bitcoin has fallen below this line in the past, but these periods of capitulation were very short-lived. The weekly candlestick has never closed below this SMA yet, but its shadows were as high as 28%. If this happens again now, the cryptocurrency rate will be at the level of $15,500. The 200-week moving average is currently in the $22,000 zone.

- Galaxy Digital CEO and bitcoin proponent Mike Novogratz believes that even despite a significant drop from their all-time highs, altcoins risk losing more than half of their value.
Novogratz defines the outlook for the entire financial market as bleak, which means that a further decline in crypto assets should be expected. However, despite the bearish macroeconomic background, the head of Galaxy Digital remains optimistic and believes in the recovery of the crypto market in the future: “Cryptocurrency is not going away. The number of new users is not decreasing, the pace of creating decentralized infrastructure is not slowing down, the GDP of projects in the metaverse is growing. The crypto community is resilient, it believes in innovation and believes that the markets still provide early entry opportunities.”

- The analytical company Santiment has published the data of its Weighted indicator, which calculates negative and positive comments on an asset in social networks. Based on this information, a kind of mood of the crypto community is determined. According to the readings of this instrument, bitcoin has already reached the global bottom and can be expected to rise in the coming weeks.
“History shows that prices most often rise when investor sentiment is low. Now is the moment when bitcoin has every chance of a limited strengthening,” analysts at Santiment believe.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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