Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) climbed back above $24,000 at the Feb. 17 Wall Street open as analysis favored “consolidation and continuation” higher.

Bitcoin faces key level to “break” bear trend

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD recovering some overnight losses after dipping to $23,369 on Bitstamp.

The pair had hit fresh six-month highs the day prior, these facing stiff resistance in the form of two weekly moving averages (MAs) and a heavy sell wall.

Scott Melker, the trader and podcast host known as “The Wolf Of All Streets,” stressed the importance of levels acting as lines in the sand for bulls.

“$25,212. I’ve been screaming about this number for weeks. A break above (ideally close) makes a higher high for the first time since $69,000,” he tweeted about the weekly chart on Feb. 16.

A Bitcoin (BTC) price indicator has flashed green for just the fourth time ever this week in a major warning to bears.

In a tweet on Feb. 16, crypto market analyst Mohit Sorout announced that the dollar cost average (DCA) indicator was now “suggesting a raging bull market.”

DCA breakout last preceded 640% BTC price upside

The latest Bitcoin metric to flip bullish on long timeframes, the DCA indicator is even getting attention from major Bitcoin investment circles.

Its buy signals are rare, with Sorout seeing just three throughout Bitcoin’s history, each precluding serious BTC price upside.

“Today marks the 4th time this signal is suggesting a raging bullmarket,” he wrote in comments, describing the event as “the mother of all btc bullish signals.”

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC's) lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon could be seen as an SEC “roadmap” to taking down other stablecoins, according to a lawyer.

Gabriel Shapiro, general counsel at investment firm Delphi Labs, explained to his 33,800 Twitter followers on Feb. 16 that the SEC’s arguments in its complaint against Kwon and Terraform were “more thorough than usual.”

Shapiro’s analysis follows the SEC’s Feb. 16 lawsuit against Kwon and Terraform alleging they “orchestrat[ed] a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.”

Shapiro suggested the case could serve as a “roadmap” for how the regulator may sue other stablecoin issuers in the future. He acknowledged the SEC made the case that Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin, TerraClassicUSD (USTC), constitutes a security:

“[The SEC] will allege that integration, promotion, marketing, commercial deals etc building the stablecoin ecosystems are ‘efforts of others’ that are ‘reasonably expected’ and can lead to profits in connection with the stables.”

Only days after reports of United States regulatory scrutiny of Paxos and Binance USD (BUSD), cryptocurrency exchange Binance has minted nearly $50 million worth of TrueUSD (TUSD).

The transaction took place on Feb. 16, according to data from Etherscan, and also comes two days after Binance CEO Chanpeng 'CZ' Zhao said in a Feb. 14 Twitter Spaces that Binance would look to “diversify” its stablecoin holdings away from BUSD.

Despite minting nearly $50 million in TUSD from the TrustToken platform’s smart contract on Feb. 16, CZ had earlier said the recent regulatory action by the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) over the long term may lead to a fall in the dominance of U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins.

“I think with the current stances taken by the regulators on the U.S. Dollar-based stablecoin, the industry will probably move away to a non-U.S. Dollar-based stablecoin, back to algorithmic stablecoins.”

“There’s multiple agencies putting applied pressure there. It is just going to shrink the U.S. Dollar-based stablecoin market,” he added.