Decentral Block Post

After an impressive 73% rally between July 13 and Aug. 13, Avalanche (AVAX) has faced a 16% rejection from the $30.30 resistance level. Some analysts will try to pin the correction as a "technical adjustment," but the network’s deposits and decentralized applications reflect worsening conditions.

To date, Avalanche remains 83% below its November 2021 all-time high at $148. More data than technical analysis can be analyzed to explain the 16% price drop, so let’s take a look at the network’s use in terms of deposits and users.

The decentralized application (DApp) platform is still a top-15 contender with a $7.2 billion market capitalization. Meanwhile, Solana (SOL), another proof-of-work (PoS) layer-1 platform, holds a $14.2 billion market cap, which is nearly twice as large as Avalanche's.

Avalanche’s TVL dropped 40% in 2 months

Some analysts tend to give too much weight to the total value locked (TVL) metic and although this might hold relevance for the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, it is seldom required for nonfungible token (NFT) minting, digital item marketplaces, crypto games, gambling and social applications.

Using the layer-2 solution Polygon (MATIC) as a proxy, it currently holds a $2.2 billion TVL while MATIC’s market cap stands at $7.2 billion, thus a 3.3x MCap/TVL ratio. Curiously, the same ratio applies to Avalanche, which currently holds a similar $2.2 billion TVL and $7.2 billion capitalization.

After an impressive 73% rally between July 13 and Aug. 13, Avalanche (AVAX) has faced a 16% rejection from the $30.30 resistance level. Some analysts will try to pin the correction as a "technical adjustment," but the network’s deposits and decentralized applications reflect worsening conditions.

To date, Avalanche remains 83% below its November 2021 all-time high at $148. More data than technical analysis can be analyzed to explain the 16% price drop, so let’s take a look at the network’s use in terms of deposits and users.

The decentralized application (DApp) platform is still a top-15 contender with a $7.2 billion market capitalization. Meanwhile, Solana (SOL), another proof-of-work (PoW) layer-1 platform, holds a $14.2 billion market cap, which is nearly twice as large as Avalanche's.

Avalanche’s TVL dropped 40% in two months

Some analysts tend to give too much weight to the total value locked (TVL) metic and although this might hold relevance for the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, it is seldom required for nonfungible token (NFT) minting, digital item marketplaces, crypto games, gambling and social applications.

Using the layer-2 solution Polygon (MATIC) as a proxy, it currently holds a $2.2 billion TVL while MATIC’s market cap stands at $7.2 billion; thus, a 3.3x MCap/TVL ratio. Curiously, the same ratio applies to Avalanche, which currently holds a similar $2.2 billion TVL and $7.2 billion capitalization.

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly broke above $25,000 on Aug. 15, but the excitement lasted less than an hour and was followed by a 5% retrace in the next five hours. The resistance level proved to be tougher than expected but may have given bulls false hope for the upcoming $335 million weekly options expiry.

Investors’ fleeting optimism reverted to a sellers' market on Aug. 17 after BTC dumped and tested the $23,300 support. The negative move took place hours before the release of the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) minutes from its July meeting. Investors expect some insights on whether the Federal Reserve will continue raising interest rates.

The negative newsflow accelerated on Aug. 16 after a federal court in the United States authorized the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to force cryptocurrency broker SFOX to reveal the transactions and identities of customers who are U.S. taxpayers. The same strategy was used to obtain information from Circle, Coinbase and Kraken between 2018 and 2021.

This movement explains why betting on Bitcoin price above $25,000 on Aug. 19 seemed like a sure thing a couple of days ago, and this would have incentivized bullish bets.

Bears didn't expect BTC to move above $24,000

The open interest for the Aug. 19 options expiry is $335 million, but the actual figure will be lower since bears were overly-optimistic. These traders might have been fooled by the short-lived dump to $22,700 on Aug. 10 because their bets for Aug's options expiry extend down to $15,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) long-term holders are knuckling down as a record portion of the BTC supply stays dormant for years.

Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode confirms that the percentage of the supply now stationary for at least five years is higher than ever.

2017 BTC buyers not this year's sellers

Bitcoin has recovered almost 40% from its macro lows of $17,600 just two months ago, but for the cryptocurrency’s diamond hands, it has been a non-event.

Those who purchased BTC in 2017 or earlier continue to hodl their stake, and the trend points to more, not less, hodling in recent times.

Not content with the reversion above the 2017 highs of $20,000, long-term holders remain committed to not selling, the Glassnode data shows.

Bitcoin (BTC) shifted higher on Aug. 18 as the latest data confirmed the European Union’s highest ever inflation.

Support and resistance close in on BTC spot price

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD passing $23,500 at the time of writing, having preserved $23,000 as support overnight.

Concerns over a deeper risk asset drawdown had become widespread over the week, with Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) notably unable to crack long-term resistance levels.

With bulls seemingly on the back foot, the mood among analysts was naturally wary.

“BTC did break down from this huge rising channel/wedge everyone seems to be watching,” Daan Crypto Trades wrote in part of his latest Twitter update.

David Schwartz, the chief technical officer of Ripple, didn’t take Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s dig on XRP very kindly. In a discussion that started around the recent $30,000 limit imposed by the Ontario crypto exchange on altcoins purchases barring Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Buterin, in a quoted response to a tweet, lauded the Ethereum community’s pushback against regulations that privilege ETH over other legitimate cryptocurrencies. David Hoffman, the founder of decentralized media and education platform Bankless.eth responded to Buterin and said that he wouldn’t have minded if they had restricted XRP.

Buterin joined on the XRP bashing claiming they lost their right to protection when they tried to “throw us under the bus as China-controlled.” The response from Buterin created a storm among XRP followers on Twitter, and the debate was later joined by Ripple CTO David Schwartz himself.

Buterin was referring to Ripple’s defense in their ongoing court battle against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where they claimed XRP shouldn’t be deemed as security since Ethereum and Bitcoin are similar in nature and even called the top two cryptocurrencies as Chinese controlled. Ripple is fighting a security lawsuit from the SEC over the unlicensed sale and issuance of XRP tokens.

Schwartz reiterated Ripple’s earlier claims of ETH and BTC being security and compared miners in the ecosystem akin to shareholders of eBay. He said: