Decentral Block Post

A July 9 post by @PricedinBTC on the "cost to mine Bitcoin" in the United States gathered the crypto community's attention, especially considering the recent headlines that BTC miners have made. The crypto bear market and growing energy costs have caused a perfect storm for the mining sector and this has led some companies to lay off employees and others to defer all capital expenditures. Some went as far as raising concerns of Bitcoin miners hitting a “death spiral.”

However, Raymond Nasser, the CEO of Arthur Mining, a professional mining company operating in the United States told Cointelegraph that their margins don't full concur with the data from @PricedinBTC.

Arthur Mining's current capacity is 25 megawatts (MW) and the company focuses on environmentally friendly energy sources. At first, one could dismiss their numbers as listed companies like Marathon Digital Holdings have 300 MW plants, but these rely on the traditional grid energy — even if a portion of the power originates from hydro-electric plants.

To achieve the best environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices, the smaller scale mining operations utilize undervalued flare and stranded gas from the oil and gas industry. Their secret is mobile Bitcoin mining facilities, tapping greener, more efficient and more profitable energy sources compared to traditional solutions.

Regarding the $16,000 production cost for miners, Nasser said:

The United States equities markets recovered from their intra-week lows last week, suggesting demand exists at lower levels. On similar lines, Bitcoin (BTC) also recovered from $18,910 last week, indicating that traders may be getting back into risky assets. 

However, analysts remain divided in their opinion on the recovery in Bitcoin. While some believe that the relief rally is a bull trap, others expect the up-move to retest the crucial resistance at the 200-week moving average ($22,626).

The current bear phase has damaged sentiment as seen from the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, which has remained in the “extreme fear” zone since May 6. According to Philip Swift, creator of on-chain analytics platform LookIntoBitcoin, the time spent in the “extreme fear” category is longer than during the 2018 Bitcoin bear market.

Could the sentiment stage a turn around boosting crypto prices higher? Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies to identify potential breakout assests.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin rose above the 20-day exponential moving average ($20,894) on July 15, but the bulls have not been able to build upon this advantage. The bears are likely to defend the resistance line of the symmetrical triangle with vigor.

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) saw a modest pullback on July 17 after ramming into a critical technical resistance confluence.

Merge-led Ethereum price breakout

ETH's price dropped by 1.8% to $1,328 after struggling to move above two strong resistance levels: the 50-day exponential moving average (5-day EMA; the red wave) and a descending trendline (black) serving as a price ceiling since May.

Previously, Ether rallied by over 40% from $1,000 on July 13 to over $1,400 on July 16. The jump appeared partly due to euphoria surrounding "the Merge" slated for September.

Meanwhile, a golden cross's appearance on Ethereum's four-hour chart also boosted Ether's upside sentiment among technical analysts.

ETH price risks fakeout

Ether's 40%-plus price rally since July 13 also had its price break above a critical horizontal resistance that somewhat constitutes an "ascending triangle pattern."

Bitcoin (BTC) spiked to one-week highs on July 17 amid warnings that traders should not trust current BTC price action.

Binance inflows see multi-week high

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching $21,600 on Bitstamp, its best performance since last Sunday. 

The pair saw a fresh leg up during the weekend, this nonetheless coming on the back of thin, retail-driven "out-of-hours" liquidity with institutions out of the picture.

With Bitcoin prone to "fakeout" moves both up and down in such conditions, there was thus little appetite to believe that current trajectory would endure as the weekly close loomed.

"Don't let CT noise change your vision of how things really are," popular social media account, Il Capo of Crypto, told followers on the day, referencing Crypto Twitter narratives.