The Weekly Report: Crypto Scams and New FSA Head

The beta version of Starbucks Odyssey is now available for public use on the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain whose popularity continues to surge. The post Beta Is Now Live for Starbucks Odyssey on Polygon appeared first on Blockchain, Crypto and Stock News .

Given the success of its ongoing ICO, Oryen is gearing up for its launch on a high, having exceeded expectations. Its current presale 7 price of $0.21 signifies a 320% increase from its debut price of $0.05. The presale project is doing so well that analysts expect ORY to attain 100% before the final phase.

Sales of non-fungible tokens (NFT) have been going downhill, after they became popular last year, reaching a 16 month low. The post NFT Sales at a 16-Month Low Following FTX Implosion appeared first on Blockchain, Crypto and Stock News .

Recently, the crypto blizzard that led to a decline in the price of many coins has created more danger in an already dangerous environment. It is necessary to carefully access the market before jumping in to ensure that investors make a good decision with the projects they add to their portfolios. Some assets, however, can

Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper claims Bitcoin (BTC) will make El Salvador one of the world's richest countries. The post El Salvador Will Become Rich: Billionaire Tim Draper appeared first on Blockchain, Crypto and Stock News .

According to Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) CEO Jeffrey Sprecher, most cryptocurrencies should be regulated like securities. The post CEO of ICE Considers Majority of Crypto as Security appeared first on Blockchain, Crypto and Stock News .

The course is a joint effort by Binance and Coinbase to establish a better ecosystem and avoid new users from losing money. The post Binance Teams Up With Masterclass For Crypto Education appeared first on Blockchain, Crypto and Stock News .

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs is now using a digital tool allowing officers to link cryptocurrency wallets to their owners. The software also has a feature facilitating the monitoring of crypto asset transactions, the department told Russian media. Russian Police Brag About New Crypto Tracing Tool on Eve of Anti-Corruption Day Employees of MVD,

The number of Cardano wallets increased along with rising development activity. TVL witnessed a spike while Cardano’s NFT market took a hit. The number of Cardano [ADA] wallets has increased by 133,00 over the last month. This spike suggested that there was an increasing demand for ADA in the short term. JUST IN: Cardano $ADA

Erlay is a new relay protocol that seeks to minimize the bandwidth usage required to connect Bitcoin full nodes.

Coinbase pushes the adoption of the digital dollar by allowing customers to seamlessly switch from USDT (USD Tether) to the popular USDC (USD Coin) with zero fees. By adopting the convention of USDT, users will be able to switch between these two stablecoins. USDC has quickly become one of the most trusted and reputable digital … Coinbase enables free switch from USDT to USDC, adds 1.5% APY bonus Read More »

FTX ( FTT-USD ) founder Sam Bankman-Fried is in the crosshairs of a fraud case from U.S. prosecutors about the handling of funds, Bloomberg reported Friday. Prosecutors are examining if hundreds of millions of dollars may have been transferred to the Bahamas just as FTX was filing bankruptcy in November, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. Bankman-Fried said earlier Friday he's " willing to testify " on December 13 in front of the House Financial Services Committee. "I still do not have access to much of my data -- professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won't be as helpful as I'd like," Bankman-Fried wrote in a Twitter post in response to requests from House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA). Bankman-Fried has not been charged with any crimes and a spokesman for him declined to comment to Bloomberg on the latest report of an investigation into fraud. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Bankman-Fried was said to be hit with an investigation by federal prosecutors on whether he manipulated the prices of terraUSD ( UST-USD ) and its sister token luna ( LUNC-USD ) this May that led to their implosion and ultimately caused the downfall of his crypto empire.

Contrary to rumors that say Crypto.Com may become a victim of insolvency, the popular exchange has published an audited Proof of Reserves, as a way of rebuilding users’ trust. The publication, which recorded nine in-scope crypto assets, held as customer balances on the Singapore-based centralized exchange, showed that XRP has the third-highest Reserve Ratio on The post Crypto.Com Shares Proof that Shows a High XRP Reserve Ratio: Details appeared first on Times Tabloid .

Whales keep accumulating XRP, and you should know why

Quick Take Ethereum continues to be the largest DeFi ecosystem by far, and has consequently endured significant impacts from the collapse of FTX and Alameda The decrease in liquidity across a large majority of DeFi protocols has been palpable, with some of the withdrawals appearing to have been performed by Alameda directly Meanwhile, both staked ETH and liquid-staked ETH continue to rise as new estimates emerge for the upcoming Ethereum Shanghai upgrade in 2023, which would unlock the ability for validators to withdraw their staked ETH

Summary CleanSpark has scaled production capacity very nicely during 2022 and is now one of the top producers in the industry. The company has been selling production and treasury holdings over the last 4 quarters but really sold aggressively in October. With roughly 500 days until Bitcoin's halving, CleanSpark needs to continue hitting EH/s guidance and try to avoid dilution. It has been an absolutely vicious 2022 for Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) miners to say the least. We've seen the survival of companies like Core Scientific ( CORZ ), Argo Blockchain ( ARBK ) ( ARBKL ), and Iris Energy ( IREN ) become far less certain over the last couple of months. Marathon Digital ( MARA ) and Bit Digital ( BTBT ) have experienced the issues that come from reliance on third-party mining hosts. While some miners have very different business structures, the one thing these companies all have in common is they're at the mercy of the price of Bitcoin; an asset that is very out of favor in the broader investment world at this point in time. YTD (Seeking Alpha) As such, all miner share prices have been bludgeoned year to date and it has been considerably worse over the last few months as crypto companies have collapsed even while Bitcoin hashrate is still very elevated. BTC Hashrate (BitInfoCharts) This creates a huge margin squeeze for the miners as their cost to produce the Bitcoin is increasing while the revenue from production declines. Miner profitability is still at all-time lows and many seem to be waiting on the central bank's next move. Miner Profitability (BitInfoCharts) Given the margin squeeze miners have collectively endured, it's no surprise to see many of the companies now capitulating. Some are losing machines. Others are aggressively selling down their Bitcoin holdings. CleanSpark's Treasury Management CleanSpark ( CLSK ) is one public miner that quietly sold down a large portion of its mining stack in the month of October. The company has been selling down its Bitcoin treasury in a relatively orderly fashion for the last 12 months or so. CLSK's BTC treasury has generally stayed in the 450-600 coin range since the beginning of 2022, that changed in October: CleanSpark HODL (CleanSpark/BCR) In the chart above, I'm showing the BTC 'HODL' stack in green bars. The month over month change is expressed as a black line on a second axis. At the end of October, CleanSpark had just 290 Bitcoin in treasury a month after having 594 - the company's highest figure of the year. That's an aggressive sell down of the stack and it reiterates the point that public miners are feeling the crunch in a big way. BTC HODL Stack Change (Company PR/BCR) The mining companies have taken differing approaches to how they've managed their treasuries. For instance, Iris Energy has made no bones about selling its monthly production to fund operations. On the other hand, Hut 8 Mining ( HUT ) has steadfastly held all of the Bitcoin that it has produced. So far, each of these approaches have had major flaws; Hut 8 is running out of money and Iris Energy is running out of machines. CleanSpark has taken more of a hybrid approach; selling some monthly production while trying to build treasury holdings simultaneously. Depending on how you view the long term viability of these companies, the hybrid approach may not be working very well either. BTC Treasuries Current (Company PR/BCR) At month end, CleanSpark has one of the lowest Bitcoin positions with just 281 coins remaining. CleanSpark won't necessarily be able to take advantage of selling higher to the degree that other companies might. The good news for CLSK is the company's production capacity has scaled very nicely through 2022. Production vs. The Market November Production by Miner (Company PR/BCR) CleanSpark is it is one of the top Bitcoin miners by monthly production. For the month of November, CleanSpark generated 535 Bitcoin, up from 532 in October. A modest increase but an increase in a shorter month at a time when peers have struggled: Production vs October (Company PR/BCR) Of the nine publicly listed miners I've found that have disclosed full month production figures through official press release, only Riot Blockchain ( RIOT ) and CleanSpark produced more Bitcoin in the month of November than they did in October. BTC Production (CleanSpark/BCR) For CleanSpark, this production comes from an operation that has delivered on leadership's year end EH/s guidance. In the Q3 earnings report , CleanSpark guided for 5 EH/s by the end of the year and has already achieved that having reached 5.5 EH/s at the end of November. Given the production issues facing the broad market, I think this is a rather impressive milestone for CleanSpark. The Supply Cap Problem BTC Halving (BitcoinBlockhalf) By design, Bitcoin's block reward diminishes over time. Without significant technological efficiency improvements in the mining rigs themselves or much lower energy prices (unlikely, in my view), the cost of revenue for all of these miners is going to essentially double in 500 days. Without those efficiency improvements, it is imperative that Bitcoin's price rises by at least 100% just to protect the miner margin at current hashrate levels. If miners need ever increasing Bitcoin prices to survive as businesses, then it just makes more sense for investors to directly purchase the Bitcoin and hold it themselves. Short of that, miners that actually hold significant Bitcoin on balance sheet are going to probably perform better than miners that do not, provided shareholder dilution isn't overly extreme. CleanSpark has a year and a half to either continue scaling mining capacity or scale treasury. In a perfect world, it could do both. Summary Bitcoin isn't going anywhere. I'll stand by that statement. Even though many publicly listed miners that over-extended themselves are now in survival mode, I think you could argue this is a time to start making some bets in the mining space. That said, none of these companies have a great setup in the current macro environment in my view. Riot is the only company that grew production and treasury over October - but that company's miner efficiency figures are pretty rough. Riot produced less BTC on 7.0 EH/s than CleanSpark did on 5.5 EH/s. Hut 8 shares should have an immense return if Bitcoin rallies to new highs, but how many more shares will be issued before that happens? CleanSpark has strong production capacity compared to peers but almost no treasury to speak of at this point. That's potentially a problem if CleanSpark can't meaningfully scale its treasury before the block reward is cut in half. If HODLing all production exposes shareholders to dilution risk and selling all production hasn't worked to protect shareholder value either, what happens if a company has no stack and has to dilute shareholders to fund growth anyway? That's not a recipe for higher share prices and that's exactly the risk CleanSpark investors are facing. All this said, given the top tier production capacity and the very low debt to equity level, I don't hate the idea of going long CLSK despite the week treasury holdings. But I have no position currently as I'd like to wait for Q3 earnings.

Summary ETHE's discount to NAV has expanded from 30% back in October to more than 50% today, as expected. The discount is now more than reasonable for all accountable risks and in my opinion justifies a buy - at least if you're bullish in Ethereum. With that being said, there are substantial risks, namely fraud (unlikely) and significant price-depreciation of the underlying (Ethereum). Back in October I predicted the Grayscale Ethereum Trust's ( OTCQX:ETHE ) discount to NAV would expand, and that 30% discount was not enough to go long the product. Originally, I suspected the discount would expand to approximately 42%-45% and that would be that - however due to the collapse of FTX (FTT-USD) the discount has ballooned to a bit more than a 50% discount to NAV. Part of this is likely due to further disinterest in the cryptocurrency market, as well as price declines, but much of it is likely due to FTX-related fears, solvency, and all that. To be very clear before we begin - at the time of writing I have liquidated all of my Ethereum (ETH-USD) holdings including my futures contracts and do not plan to repurchase them until macro conditions change. I believe there is a good chance Ethereum declines again to the $650-850 handle before the bottom is in. Thesis ETHE's discount to NAV has now more than priced in the risks and holding period issues (until redemption or ETF conversion is likely) in my opinion. As a result there are only really two bear cases for the fund left: You believe ETHE, Grayscale, DCG, and most of all C oinbase (COIN) have committed fraud and they do not fundamentally have the Ethereum they claim to have You believe Ethereum is grossly overvalued and much like a tulip A bit hyperbolic you may say, and I'd agree - after all I do not believe the fraud narrative nor do I believe Ethereum is in a tulip-style bubble. Ultimately those are the two reasons to not buy or hold the fund - and if ETHE has the Ethereum it claims to have, then you're effectively buying Ethereum at a 50% discount, meaning even if you believe it's not cheap at these levels it certainly is cheap NAV-adjusted. Let's explore these two bear cases, and find the truth somewhere in between: Reviewing the Fraud Risk I believe the risk is overblown for a variety of reasons, much of which is centered around a fundamental misunderstanding of how financial fraud typically occurs amongst funds, money managers, and large companies - as well as a misunderstanding of how Coinbase's custodian services work. How do Coinbase's Custodianship services work? People seem to think Grayscale can just willy-nilly go in and trade, lend out, and really do whatever they want anytime they want with their Coinbase wallet and that's Coinbase custodianship. That's not how it works - not at all. When Custodianship accounts are opened, they come with multiple account rolls - each user that is part of the custodianship agreement gets one vote and to make any changes, movement of coins, trades, etc. (if they're enabled at all), require majority or full-support of all users. While no clarification has been made as far as I'm aware for Grayscale's products or the current custodianship agreement I remember in the past they required multiple executives of the custodian-seeking company to be signers, as well as one or two C oinbase employees or executives - meaning there couldn't be some nonsense going on with one reckless person, like SBF, transferring funds out. It's simply not realistic. But that's speculative - I'll give that to the bears, but what's not speculative is how their custodianship service operates on an ongoing basis and how the system is set up: Auditors have viewing rights directly with C oinbase to view the accounts, all their actions, all their balances, everything. This means the 10-Q filings, the 3rd-party audits, would have to be part of the fraud if something was going on. Coinbase also released a statement recently. In short, they claim: Funds are not comingled and are separate from Coinbase entirely They have audited the funds and continuously do so to verify their presence All funds belong to Grayscale and are legally owned by Grayscale Coinbase cannot lend or otherwise touch Grayscale's funds Grayscale has 3,056,833.75893012 Ethereum held with Coinbase through the custodianship service as of 9/30/2022 according to their 10-Q filings This was signed off by the CFO of Coinbase Global and CEO of Coinbase Custody. What does this tell us? Nothing regarding Grayscale, but reaffirms that any risk in regards to Coinbase as a custodian, is null - the products are completely separate - Coinbase can't do anything with the funds. In the ETHE (and other Grayscale products) documentation, they have the following clauses: Grayscale/SEC filings In other words, the fund is prohibited from doing essentially anything with the funds - they can't lend it out, they can't trade with it, they can't do anything other than let it sit there and collect their 2% NAV fees. They also mention how the CEO and CFO must sign off on everything, certifying the 10-Q filings, 3rd-party audits, etc., verifying the authenticity of the statements within. This means, fundamentally what we're looking at - if Grayscale's products, including ETHE, do not hold the underlying assets they had: Lied repeatably in SEC filings on a quarterly basis 3rd-party auditors in their pocket Horrible inadvisable setups with Coinbase Custody from the beginning Complicit Coinbase employees, likely high-ranking ones Across the board corrupt management who are hand-in-hand in agreement etc. All of which would entail systemic corruption amongst DCG, Grayscale, Coinbase, and 3rd-party auditors, not to mention regulatory bodies. Financial Fraud, High Return Low Risk Is it possible DCG, Grayscale, Coinbase, and 3rd-party auditor were complicit, especially when they're involved with crypto? Absolutely. Likely? Absolutely not. The thing is, with financial fraud, this isn't how it happens or looks. You don't have a cabal, a huge network and web all working together in a scheme - it's usually a very small high-level executive who hides everything from everyone else - something not possible here. The other thing is, well, financial fraud goes unpunished - or lightly punished - as the folks who commit it generally aren't stupid people. Criminals, heartless, predators, objectively bad people, sure - but they aren't stupid. They do it in a way where there is some level of deniability - maybe they were just truly incompetent fools who made bad loans, maybe they hired the wrong team member who had poor risk management, maybe they got hacked, maybe they weren't organized and accidents happened. That's not what we'd be looking at here. If there is fraud here there's no weaseling your way out of this - it's a shut case. Straight to jail. Securities fraud, stripping of all personal assets, 20 years in prison for the lot of them. Regulators would throw the book at them. While no guarantees can be made of course this doesn't smell like fraud to me - there are too many parties involved, there are too many protections, there's too much risk involved, and realistically for what - the CEO/CFO/etc., Michael Sonnenshein, doesn't have an angle or benefit for compromising the fund - he's well off, has a lot to lose, and has no meaningful connection or obligation to FTX/DCG/etc. The fraud fear is absurd - and the risk is overblown. Let's move on. Is Ethereum/Crypto a Tulip Bubble? Again yes, a bit hyperbolic - however it is still argued by many people. You may expect me to call it absurd as there are thousands of project building on Ethereum, there's this and that, all these big DeFi exchanges, etc. That's true - a reasonable take - but there is some truth in what the Tulip-doomers say. Most of the 1000s of projects are garbage - either outright scams, silly nothingburgers that have bad tokenomics, solve no problems, etc. Let's skip that tired debate, anyone with sense and is still reading knows Ethereum has some value - somewhere - and isn't just going straight to $0. But the real question I'd ask is would you buy Ethereum at $1280~/ETH today? You may have answered yes - I'd like to ask you to read the question again - I said BUY, not hold - would you buy E thereum today with fresh money? I don't think so - nobody I've met, nor have I, felt this way about Ethereum for quite some time now. We look at it and want it to go up, but nobody wants to fill a fresh bag with Ethereum right now. I'd argue this is because we're arguably teetering on a cliff, a deep recession - and with it, combined with more expensive capital generally, investment in startups and tech will decline - already is declining - and with it so will development on Ethereum. Interest will likely fade if the economy deteriorates, more cash will be needed to be raised amongst investors and developers alike, and really what catalyst is left for Ethereum to move up? We've had The Merge, it was a success - we've had the burn, it was a success, we've had DeFi, what is the catalyst now? What is the Catalyst for Ethereum? I don't see any catalysts coming up -- the only catalysts I can even think of is the return of easy money, pushing up the whole crypto market and development - or the decay of existing financial systems, pushing more of finance onto Ethereum or simply into crypto for self-custodianship. With Bitcoin you could have inflation pick back up and that narrative take off, but Ethereum doesn't have that narrative - so really for the 3rd time, what is the catalyst? I couldn't find a catalyst on the horizon, so I sold my Ethereum and decided NOT to take advantage of this -50% discount to NAV, as I believe reality is about to set in over the next few months - and with it Ethereum's price will collapse. Where Does that Leave Us With ETHE? A big discount to NAV, more than is justified - with arguably little to no risk of fraud or wrongdoing - but no real catalyst to the upside. Let's not forget about the macroeconomic headwinds pushing the underlying (Ethereum) down in price and the other potential risks in the crypto-market generally, from Tether (USDT-USD) to further contagion risk amongst exchanges, regulation, etc. I'd like to say ETHE is a buy - I really would, I wanted to - I planned to once we got to this discount to NAV - but I can't. I can't find any reason to take new money and buy ETHE. Actionable Takeaways I do see reason in selling spot Ethereum and using a portion of the funds to buy ETHE. Then if a drop occurs either due to fraud or simply macro forces add spot or ETHE lower. Personally I'm holding off until the macro forces change, Tether blows up, regulation comes, or Ethereum simply dips to below $850, at which point I'll reevaluate the ETHE situation and, likely, buy substantial amounts of ETHE. With this being said these are the trades I'm seeing here: If neutral to slightly bullish on Ethereum, swap 40%-70% of your target NLV of the position to ETHE and hold the extra cash for a dip or clarity If in agreement with my case regarding fraud being unreasonable ( If temporarily bearish on Ethereum price hold no position and wait to sell puts in Ethereum futures as the price breaks $1000 I am opting for Option #3, as I am no longer bullish on Ethereum's price. Risks to Consider Just want to reiterate while I believe the risk of fraud is minimal, and I've been right in the crypto space regarding fraud throughout 2022, there is a chance I'm wrong and if so, not only will the fund have issues, but crypto will collapse in a way much much worse than the FTX-debacle. This is why I believe even if bullish, it is better to limit notional exposure, as ultimately if wrong about ETHE, the opportunity to 'buy the dip' in spot likely recovering a substantial amount of the desired target exposure in ETH terms will present itself.

The class action suit alleges that MoonPay and Guy Oseary worked with Yuga Labs to covertly pay celebrities to boost the popular NFT project.

This week two cryptocurrency exchanges provided proof-of-reserves in order to highlight that the trading platforms are backing customer assets 1:1. Binance published its report on Dec. 7, 2022, and detailed the global auditor Mazars Group conducted the audit. On Dec. 9, 2022, the exchange Crypto.com published proof-of-reserves records and the verification was also conducted by

Elron rebranded as a metaverse-focused project and changed its name to MultiverseX Its DEX, Maiar, also initiated its transition into xExchange Formerly referred to as Elrond [EGLD], the month so far has been marked by a series of significant ecosystem updates for MultiverseX. Early last month, the company announced its decision to move forward under MultiversX

After he agreed to testify, Sam Bankman-Fried is slated to appear before the the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services on Dec. 13.

The crises cryptocurrency experienced in 2022 served as a reminder of some classic bits of investing wisdom.

Summary Despite steep +80% selloffs, Bitcoin has reclaimed new highs within 3.5 years, every time. You will not hear one Bitcoin bear admit the truth, which is that Bitcoin has smashed every single performance record in equities within 15 brief years. The adoption of Bitcoin beyond retail interest is growing. We are seeing more and more institutional investors, economies and businesses adopting Bitcoin. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is the best performing asset of our lifetime. Given the history of Bitcoin’s awe-inspiring returns shown below, the single most important question for every investor in the market today is if this gravity-defying asset can do it again. The bears want you to focus on the -77% bear market, as they have for all of the four major drawdowns Bitcoin has experienced. You will not hear one Bitcoin bear admit the truth, which is that Bitcoin has smashed every single performance record in equities within 15 brief years. I/O Fund (YCHARTS) Yet, there is key evidence that shows how Bitcoin today is stronger than it was during the previous three drawdowns. The reason you don’t want to ignore this is because – despite steep +80% selloffs, Bitcoin has reclaimed new highs within 3.5 years, every time. Therefore, it’s not only the size of gains Bitcoin has provided which places it as the #1 asset of all-time yet it’s the speed in which this is accomplished that is also remarkable. I want my readers to be armed with facts – not emotion – and what I’m presenting below is the culmination of a history of accurate calls that I’ve made in the past on Bitcoin plus new quant-level information presented by Vincent Duchaine of Wealth Umbrella, who has created an automated buy/sell signal in Bitcoin using on-chain metrics. Twitter/I/O Fund Quick Note on the Crypto Panic Below is an illustration of the history of how quickly Bitcoin has reclaimed its all-time high in the previous drawdowns. I/O Fund The average time period for Bitcoin to reclaim its all-time high is between two to three years, with 3.5 years being the maximum amount of time. The chart shows the max drawdown for each bear cycle in red, followed by the recovery in green. Keep in mind, that in order to break even after an 80% drop, it requires a stock or asset to go up 400% just to break even. Qualcomm, for example, suffered a similar drawdown in the dot.com bust. It took about 20 years for QCOM to regain its 2000 high. Cisco, another darling of the late 90s, has never recovered its 2000 peak. This asset came to market during the Great Financial Crisis, and unlike most tech companies on the market today, not only has survived an economic recession, but, in fact, found traction in 2009 during a time when tech was faltering to withstand macro pressures. On January 3 rd , 2009, the bitcoin network was created when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the starting block of the Bitcoin chain. Within the coinbase of this first block was the text "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks". This note references a headline published by The Times and has been interpreted as both a timestamp and a commentary on the instability caused by fractional reserve banking systems. Bitcoin quietly set out to disrupt the centralized banking system, prior to which was inconceivable, at a time that was arguably more uncertain than what we face today. One reason for this is because Bitcoin has successfully accomplished becoming a global store of value – a feat only a handful of currencies/commodities have accomplished. Many have argued against this claim based on bitcoin’s volatility. Those that make this claim fail to see that the two most popular stores of value – the US Dollar and Gold – have terrible track records. In 2022, gold topped with a ~45% drawdown. It took gold nearly 10 years to reclaim this high, which it was unable to hold. As of today, gold is about 8% below its 2011 high. The US Dollar, arguably, is the worst store of value. Since 1913 it has lost 97% of its purchasing power. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is up over 28 million percent since it first started trading in 2010, and has recovered from its bear cycles in a relatively short amount of time. It’s no wonder that citizens of emerging markets – who face extreme inflation - love this store of value. This specific utility in Bitcoin is further backed when we correlate crypto adoption to a specific county’s level of corruption and/or monetary instability. For example, some of the counties with the highest crypto adoption are Ukraine, Russia, Argentina, Turkey, Brazil, just to name a few. To these people, Bitcoin offers a secure and efficient exit from the inflationary turmoil and centralized manipulation of their personal earnings. In essence, the lofty goal Satoshi Nakamoto established in the October 2008 white paper, which was to offer an exit from the fiat system, has manifested today in real-time. Bitcoin’s Upcoming Rally – What You Need to Know Bitcoin has no earnings reports, management overhauls, or supply chain disruptions that can affect its price. Anytime humans come together in a codified arena and begin trading an asset with their instinct for security as the primary driver, patterns develop across price history. Therefore, in order to determine what Bitcoin does next, we must measure sentiment. One of the simplest patterns to measure is that an uptrend moves in 5 waves up, then corrects in a 3 waves pattern down. Once we get 5 waves up and 3 down, we then repeat this pattern in a fractal manner. As of now, since the 2018 low, we only have 4 waves in place, which implies that we have one more 5th wave push before the larger bull cycle is over. I/O Fund A few points I want to make about the above chart. We have from the 2021 top a very complete and filled out corrective pattern. Recently, Bitcoin pushed lower on the FTX (FTT-USD) scandal, which has now provided us with the first bullish divergence on a weekly chart since the 2021 bear market began. This is when price goes lower with less momentum. This tends to mark the near end of large drawdowns. Another one of my favorite patterns can be found in the detrended oscillator below. This is simply measuring the difference between two moving averages, and when set to a seven-year period, it tends to provide very interesting signals. Most importantly, the oscillator is currently finding support at the 2018 low and the oscillator is now building a new uptrend. When a new uptrend is building, this oscillator will tend to build this new uptrend on prior crash lows, which is playing out now. The chart below shows a general early warning sign of when the trend is changing. The red line going down the chart is a 45 degree angle, and has stopped each attempt of a recovery since 2021. Once we reclaim this angle, it will mark an early and meaningful change in trend. As of now, that level is around $18,100. I/O Fund On-Chain Analysis This conclusion is further backed up by on-chain analysis, which is a field of study that ignores price action, and instead looks at the fundamentals, utility, and transaction activity of cryptocurrency and blockchain data. Dr. Vincent Duchaine of Wealth Umbrella is an A.I. and Machine Learning engineer. His team spent several months analyzing on-chain metrics within the Bitcoin ecosystem to create an automated risk-on/risk-off signal for retail investors. Vincent stated that most of the on-chain metrics his team analyzed point towards Bitcoin forming a major bottom. The level of most metrics is such that we could have already seen it at $15.5k, while other metrics suggest that we could see the price drop down to $13.2K in a final spike down. Here are some examples of on-chain metrics from Wealth Umbrella that are providing rare signals that have only been seen around major lows: Shown below , the supply of bitcoin hasn’t moved in more than a year and was barely affected by the FTX scandal. Even after the recent drop, the supply of Bitcoin hovers at a near record high of around 67%, and again, this level hasn’t moved in more than a year Wealth Umbrella Previous major events, such as the Mt. Gox debacle in February 2014, or the price collapse in November 2018, saw a retracement in the range of 2-3% on this metric. Meanwhile, the FTX scare only reduced this value by 0.81%. Ultimately, what this is telling us is that fewer market participants are now willing to sell their Bitcoin, which historically has put a floor under Bitcoin. The recent low also was accompanied by a new considerable spike of outflows from exchanges . Despite a lower low on the price, this indicator didn’t make a new high, which shows that less and less people are now willing to sell their Bitcoin. Wealth Umbrella This type of behavior has been observed at bottoms (particularly in 2015). It’s also worth noting that the June spike was also in the same range than the 2015 bottoming zone and higher than what we saw in 2018. Another interesting metric is the Bitcoin percentage of supply being held in profit for the addresses that were active in the last 7 years . This is helpful to mitigate the effects of long term HODLers or lost supply. Here, we can see that we are now getting pretty close to the all-time low of ~30% of the supply being held in profit, which is the type of capitulation that marks meaningful lows. Wealth Umbrella Overall, most on-chain metrics from any layers of the Bitcoin ecosystem is providing rare readings that tend to flash around major bottoms. Until these metrics recover it is hard to say with accuracy if the bottom is already in or if we have more way to go in this correction. One data set that suggests we could go lower is the relationship between Bitcoin’s Market Cap and its Thermocap. Thermocap is a more realistic means to calculate the size of Bitcoin, instead of using Market Cap. It was first introduced by Nic Carter in 2018, and is the cumulative sum of revenue in USD that miners have generated to secure the Bitcoin network. This can be calculated by doing a summation of the value of each of the roughly 19 million existing Bitcoins at the price they were issued. By using this metric, lost coins and static coins, like the 800,000 coins mined by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, are counted in the total supply at the price they were originally mined. Wealth Umbrella found that the price of Bitcoin relative to its Thermocap is a great method for identifying high value zones that tend to mark lows. We have entered that zone recently, which is rare, but also supporting another low deeper into this value zone is possible. However, this indicator, based on prior extreme drops, suggests that the current drawdown could see us go towards the $13,000 region before putting in that meaningful low. Wealth Umbrella Conclusion In conclusion, the adoption of Bitcoin beyond retail interest is growing. We are seeing more and more institutional investors, economies and businesses adopting Bitcoin. Though we are in the 4 th bear cycle in Bitcoin's history, the prior 3 cycles suggest where we are is a rare buying opportunity. There is ample evidence to support the $15,500 level is either a major low or very close to a major low. Both the technical and on-chain analysis support this. As Bitcoin continues to integrate into the global economy, we expect both the volatility and epic returns to calm down. For now, we are content buying Bitcoin at these lows with a long-term mindset.

A quant has explained why the recent retest of a critical support level by Nasdaq may help Bitcoin reverse its own trend. Nasdaq-100 Has Recently Retested A Critical Support Trendline As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant post, Nasdaq-100 is currently above a support line that has historically been important. Nasdaq-100 (NDX) is a stock market index that includes 102 equity securities issued by 101 of the largest non-financial companies (based on their market caps) listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Here is a chart that shows how this trendline has acted as a bounce in the index’s price over the past decade: The value of the asset seems to have touched this line recently | Source: CryptoQuant As you can see in the above graph, the price of NDX has been supported five times by this trendline since the year 2010. In each of these instances, the line has put a check on the decline in the index, and has consequently reversed it back up. Related Reading: Upcoming FOMC Meeting Is The Most Important Ever For Bitcoin – Watch Out For The Dot Plot Recently, the Nasdaq-100 index has once again made a touch of this trendline, and has so far managed to stay above it. The quant notes that this retest could have been the end of the latest downwards trend, and might have also been the point of return of a bullish trend. However, if the trendline is lost instead, it would show the extreme strength of the downtrend, and would suggest that there is more drawdown ahead for the market. Related Reading: Is Bitcoin Bottom In? This On-Chain Condition Hasn’t Been Met Yet At the same time, Bitcoin has also been testing a support line, as the analyst has highlighted in the chart: Looks like BTC is also just above a support trendline right now | Source: CryptoQuant In the past year or so, Bitcoin has shown to be highly correlated with the stock market. The reason behind this correlation has been the rise of institutional investors in the crypto who treat it like a risk asset. The quant believes that if the current support retest in the stock market proves to be successful, then BTC could also be expected to see a reversal of its own due to its correlation with the stocks. Bitcoin Price At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price floats around $17.2k, up 1% in the last week. Over the past month, the crypto has lost 7% in value. Below is a chart that shows the trend in the price of the coin over the last five days. The value of the crypto seems to have observed a sharp surge to $17.2k over the past day | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView Featured image from Maxim Hopman on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com

Cosmos has excellent blockchain, but will it make altcoin soar?

Notorious exchange's token is rallying after FTX relaunch narrative covers crypto space

A class action lawsuit filed against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and a host of paid celebrity promoters for the now-defunct crypto exchange has been dropped.

Belgian police detained MEP Eva Kaili as part of corruption investigation implicating Qatar. Kaili led crypto policy reports in the European Parliament.

ZenLedger’s revenue increased 100% year-over-year through the October deadline for filing US tax extensions: Blockworks exclusive

A new DappRadar report finds that last month’s crypto market meltdown caused the total value locked (TVL) on smart contract platform Solana (SOL) to freefall. The TVL of a blockchain represents the total capital held within its smart contracts and is calculated by multiplying the amount of collateral locked into the network by the current The post Solana Records Biggest Loss on One DeFi Metric As BNB Chain Shows Resilience: DappRadar appeared first on The Daily Hodl .

Top US-based crypto exchange platform Coinbase is issuing a warning to its customers, advising them to convert their Tether (USDT) stablecoin holdings into USD Coin (USDC). In a new company blog post, Coinbase tells its customers that USD Coin is one of the most trusted reputable stablecoins on the market and says that it would The post Coinbase Advises Clients to Convert Tether (USDT) Into Circle’s USDC, Cites ‘Flight to Safety’ appeared first on The Daily Hodl .

European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili, a key figure in ongoing efforts to regulate crypto in Europe, has been suspended from her party in reaction to reports that she and others are allegedly tied to a wide-ranging corruption scandal involving illicit lobbying activity for Qatar.

Sam Bankman-Fried provided The Block at least $27 million in funding in the last year and a half. It appears that no one at the company was aware of the...

Several news organizations have filed to unveil the creditors of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, which come in at over 100,000.

This article looks at some of the most interesting comments that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who recently bought micro blogging platform Twitter, has made about meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin this year. Popular meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin ($DOGE) was initially released on 6 December 2013, as a “fun and friendly internet currency.” It was created by Billy Markus and Jackson

Here's how crypto mining companies performed on Friday, Dec. 9.

The product aims to deliver market-neutral like returns via hedging against staked ether

Avalanche recently partnered with Alibaba Cloud to offer Node-as-a-Service. There will not be a need for a complex setup for validators with this partnership between Avalanche and Alibaba Cloud. AVAX price could see positive impacts as more validators onboard. Avalanche may have made the decisive move toward facilitating the widespread implementation of decentralization with their

On Dec. 9, 2022, Axios reporter Sara Fischer reported on the CEO of the crypto media The Block after it was discovered that the chief executive was secretly funded by Alameda Research, the now-defunct trading firm co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. According to the report, sources say The Block executive Michael McCaffrey received $16 million in

The fallout from crypto exchange FTX’s implosion continued as data showed the GBTC discount rate to bitcoin hitting a record high. Crypto Markets Today is CoinDesk’s daily newsletter diving into what happened in today's crypto markets.

The 2022 bear market is impacting BTC miners in more extreme ways than previous downturns, especially with so many publicly listed miners struggling with their debt obligations.

The suit claims that celebrity endorsements of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and ApeCoin tokens resulted in financial loss for investors. Yuga Labs called the allegations ""opportunistic and parasitic."

A Friday operational update halted trading of the embattled bitcoin miner in the United Kingdom and United States.

The proof-of-reserves study was conducted by independent firm Mazars.

The LUNA Classic (LUNC) price has noted a fresh decline in the last 24 hours. In that time frame, the altcoin depreciated by 1%. In the past week, LUNC logged gains worth 2.5%. Much of the weekly gains have been lost due to losses on the daily chart. At the moment, LUNC depicts consolidation beneath its immediate resistance mark. With the FTX collapse, LUNC has been teetering under a bearish influence for quite some time. Over the last month, the coin has lost more than 10% of its market value. On the development front, there is a new update. This is the introduction of the new Alpha package for TerraDart. TerraDart is a Dart SDK that is used for writing applications that would be interacting with the Terra blockchain, which has launched a new package called Alpha. The Alpha package has been available to communicate with the LUNC blockchain within Flutter and Dart environments. Related Reading: Yearn Finance: What The Final Quarter Of 2022 Has In Store For YFI Price Luna Classic (LUNC) Price Analysis: One-Day Chart LUNC was exchanging hands at $0.000162 at press time. The altcoin just fell from $0.000170 due to intra-day losses. Even with developments in the ecosystem, the LUNC price remains largely unaltered. The rigid price ceiling was at $0.000175, but demand for the coin was too low for bulls to take charge. Once the altcoin topples above the $0.000175 mark, it will be an easy path to the psychological level of $0.00019. On the flip side, with lesser accumulation, LUNC would eye its closest support line of $0.000148. Falling through the $0.000148 mark will bring LUNC to $0.00012. The amount of LUNC traded in the last session was low, indicating bearish strength. Technical Analysis In the past month, the coin displayed a bullish divergence, after which LUNC noted a slight increase in price. Despite that, the bulls could not build on their strength. The Relative Strength Index was near the 40-mark, which meant that the coin was moving toward the oversold zone. Similarly, the LUNC price was below the 20-Simple Moving Average line, which denoted a lack of demand. The reading also indicates that sellers were driving the price momentum in the market. In regards to buying strength, capital inflows have also declined due to a lack of investor interest. The Chaikin Money Flow depicts capital inflows and outflows at a given point. The indicator was below the half-line which meant low capital inflows. Related Reading: Ethereum: On-Chain And Social Metrics Reveal Bulls Vs. Bears Battle – Who’s Winning? The Directional Movement Index indicates the general price direction and trend of the asset. DMI was negative as the -DI (orange) line was above the +DI (blue) line. The Average Directional Index (red) was below the 25 mark, indicating a loss of strength in the current price action. Presently, LUNC is trading at 100% lower than its all-time high secured approximately eight months ago. Featured image from Wccftech, Chart: TradingView.com

After Bitcoin's surge of 2.32% from the $16,800 support level yesterday, the cryptocurrency market seemed to regain its footing Friday in the $16,800 to $17,300 range. However, as risk asset markets took a turn downward in the afternoon, crypto markets followed the trend, with Bitcoin losing 0.43% so far today at $17,118 and Ethereum losing 1.14%, to trade at $1,263 as of writing. ... Read More: Best Crypto to Buy Today 9 December – IMPT, TWT, D2T, GRT, RIA

A Californian law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against almost 40 people and companies, including Yuga Labs and MoonPay, alleging they were part of “a vast scheme” of undisclosed celebrity endorsements.

The aftereffect of Ethereum’s merge failed to yield a substantial effect on the ETH price. The funding rate flatlined as traders offered no push for increased volume. As the 15 September Ethereum [ETH] Merge approaches its three-month anniversary, traders still remain in hysteria over the impact the event has had. Recall that there was blazing

Bitcoin price aims for support at $17,000, while LTC follows a pre-halving narrative and ETH looks somewhat bullish in its BTC pair.