More interest rate hikes are coming from the US Federal Reserve. At least, that was the takeaway from the recently released minutes of the 1st of February meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) earlier this Wednesday. This could be a major medium-term headwind for crypto.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian believes that crypto, and Bitcoin in particular, is here to stay despite the recent unfortunate developments in the industry including the collapse of FTX.
As the Bitcoin (BTC) price continues to go sideways just below the $25,000 level, traders are trying to assess whether the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has enough oomph to muster another breakout above key resistance. For the last five days, sell pressure ahead of the August 2022 highs in the low $25,000s has kept a lid on prices.
Bitcoin has tried and failed to break and hold above the $25,000 level now for five out of the last six days. Some technicians think that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is forming an ascending triangle structure that could proceed an explosion higher towards the next major resistance area around $28,000.
Bitcoin held close to yearly highs just below $25,000 on Monday, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization higher by about 2.0% on the day after rebounding strongly from a brief dip back under $24,000 earlier in the session. Bitcoin’s rebound from the $21,000s last week and ongoing resilience has surprised many analysts.
Another key metric is flashing a Bitcoin buy signal. That’s according to a tweet by popular crypto analyst/influencer Mohit Sorout. According to Sorout, the so-called DCA Indicator, which he called “the mother of all BTC bullish signals” has flashed for only the fourth time ever.
Earlier this week, eight out of eight key on-chain and technical indicators tracked by crypto analytics firm Glassnode’s “Recovering from a Bitcoin Bear” just signaled that the next Bitcoin bull market might be here. That was the first time that all eight indicators had been flashing a BTC buy signal in unison since March 2016.
Bitcoin funding rates on margin positions jumped to their highest levels in over two weeks in the past two days, according to data from the OKX and dYdX cryptocurrency exchanges and presented by crypto analytics website coinglass.com. Positive funding rates suggest that speculators are bullish and suggest that long traders are paying funding to short traders.
Bitcoin short-sellers have taken a battering in the past two days. That’s according to data presented by crypto derivative analytics website coinglass.com, which shows liquidations in short Bitcoin future positions worth around $100 million across major exchanges over the past two sessions, during which time Bitcoin has gained an impressive 8.5%.
American billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban continues to remain bullish on Bitcoin, saying that he even prefers investing in the digital asset over gold.
The miners who power the Bitcoin network, and are still largely incentivized to do so via the printing of new BTC tokens, are benefitting from an uptick in daily network fees, according to data provided by crypto analytics firm Glassnode. At present the Bitcoin network rewards its miners with 6.25 Bitcoins for every block that it mined (about every 10 minutes), though the Bitcoin network also charges a small fee for transactions, which also goes towards miners.
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In wake of Tuesday’s US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which confirmed an expected jump in MoM price pressures and revealed a smaller-than-expected decline in the YoY rate of inflation, Deribit’s Bitcoin Volatility Index (BTC DVol) surprised some analysts by remaining broadly unchanged. The lack of movement in the BTC DVol, which was last at 48 on Wednesday versus 50 on Monday and remains not far above record lows, matches the post-CPI mood seen in the Bitcoin market.
A top analyst at the major US bank Wells Fargo has predicted that the bear market in stocks is over for now – a prediction that could also be good news for crypto.
Despite the recent pullback in cryptocurrency markets from multi-month highs hit earlier this month, options markets suggest that traders still have relatively subdued volatility expectations. Deribit’s Bitcoin and Ethereum Volatility Indices both remain close to record lows, according to data provided by The Block going back one year.