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Bitcoin (BTC) saw continued strength on June 21 as Wall Street trading opened with a trip to near $21,500.

Analyst eyes diminishing BTC stocks correlation

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it reached $21,633 on Bitstamp, its best performance since June 16.

The largest cryptocurrency managed to avoid fresh losses into the new week; so far, these are reserved for the weekend. As such, futures markets reopened without being subjected to the dip to $17,600.

While some planned to short BTC at current levels, the mood among market participants was broadly one of "wait and see" as U.S. equities opened up. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 both added around 2.5% on the open. 

Popular trader Bierre was eyeing the 200-period moving average (MA) on the four-hour chart. For him, breaking it on the day would be a sign of strength not seen for multiple weeks.

The price of CEL, the native token of Celsius Network, has almost quadrupled since June 19 in what appears to be a frenzy stirred up by day traders.

CEL price short squeeze

CEL's price rose from $0.67 on June 19 to $1.59 on June 21, a 180% spike compared to the crypto market's 12.37% rise in the same period.

Notably, the rally started after PlanC, an independent market analyst, announced a $20 million bounty for anyone who could prove that the Celsius Network suffered a coordinated attack at the hands of a third party, which prompted the crypto lending firm to suspend withdrawals last week.

The announcement led to a frenzy on Twitter, with many accounts placing the hashtag #CelShortSqueeze in their bio and thus reflecting their intentions to target investors who bet that CEL's price would fall.

The hashtag was trending higher in the United States on Twitter. Meanwhile, internet queries for the keyword, "CEL short squeeze" also reached a perfect score of 100 between June 12 and J 18, according to data tracked by Google Trends. 

A week after it started its withdrawal freeze, crypto lending platform Celsius Network warned the community of a rise in fake social media accounts claiming to be affiliated with the company. 

In a blog post, the lending firm urged the community to be more vigilant, as there’s an increase in accounts that are “falsely purporting to be associated with Celsius.” In the same post, the firm announced that it will pause some of its communication channels, namely its Twitter Spaces and ask-me-anything (AMA) sessions, to focus on its ongoing liquidity and operations issues.

Additionally, the firm has highlighted that it’s working and communicating with regulators about the withdrawals, swap and transfer pauses, and is trying to find a solution. However, the firm did not mention any updates on when its users can resume withdrawals of their funds.

Meanwhile, the Gamestop-style short squeeze movement for Celsius (CEL) on Twitter with the hashtag #CELShortSqueeze has trended in the Business and Finance category. Twitter users have been posting their CEL buys to show their support for the project.

Twitter user TheTwitOnline expressed their hopes that Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky could notice how the community is supporting the project in hopes that its team will work to give CEL further value and utility. 

Cloudflare, a significant infrastructure provider for the internet, recently experienced widespread problems, leaving many crypto exchanges down.

The content delivery network (CDN) confirmed via an update posted on Tuesday that it is experiencing issues with its services and network, and a fix is currently being implemented. However, the firm has yet to provide information regarding what went wrong, causing services across the world to come to a halt.

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX tweeted that its platform and other sites will be difficult to access for many people, claiming that the exchange is now in “post-only” mode. Crypto exchanges Bitfinex and OKEx also tweeted about the issue, with the latter asking if there is a Web3 alternative in the future.

Cloudflare, which became public about three years ago, offers web network infrastructure to businesses, allowing them to publish their material online. The infrastructure also provides security services, including distributed denial of service protection (DDoS).

This isn’t the first time that a Cloudfare outage has had ripple effects in the cryptocurrency world. In August 2020, a similar outage brought Bitfinex and other major websites to a halt.

Bitcoin (BTC) continues to face a tough battle near the psychological level of $20,000 as the bulls and the bears attempt to assert their supremacy. Trading firm QCP Capital said in their latest market circular that funding rates on derivatives markets were stable and bearish conditions were fading.

Another ray of hope for the Bitcoin bulls is that Bitcoin miners may be capitulating as the recent decline in the price has made some mining machines unprofitable. Data from Arcane Research shows that public Bitcoin mining companies that had only sold 30% of their mined production from January to April of this year had dumped 100% of their Bitcoin production in May. Some analysts believe that miners giving up was a bullish signal.

However, one metric suggests that Bitcoin may not have bottomed out. Historically, Bitcoin signals a bottom when less than 50% of the Bitcoin addresses remain profitable. Glassnode data as of June 20 shows that 56.2% of Bitcoin addresses are in profit, increasing concerns of another down leg.

Could Bitcoin and the altcoins sustain the recovery or will bears pull the price lower? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

The bulls are attempting to start a recovery in Bitcoin but the long wick on the June 21 candlestick suggests that bears are not willing to surrender their advantage.

Major stablecoin company Tether is expanding its stablecoin offering with a new cryptocurrency pegged to the British pound sterling (GBP).

Tether officially announced on Wednesday that its upcoming GBP-pegged stablecoin, GBPT, will launch in early July and will initially be supported by the Ethereum blockchain.

GBPT will be a stable digital currency pegged on the 1:1 ratio to the GBPT, aiming to provide a faster and cheaper option for asset transfers.

GBPT joins a family of four other fiat currency-pegged Tether (USDT) tokens, including the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, USDT. Other stablecoins include the euro-pegged EURT, the offshore Chinese yuan-egged CNHT as well as the recently launched MXNT, the Mexican peso-pegged stablecoin.

According to the announcement, GBPT will be built by the team of developers behind Tether USDT and operate under its main website, Tether.to:

Avalanche (AVAX) is down 45% in 30 days and in the same time the cryptocurrencies total market capitalization shrank by 29%.

Despite the recent downturn, this decentralized application (DApp) platform remains a top contender in the layer-1 and layer-2 race and it ranks high in terms of smart contract deposits and active addresses. Yet, the lackluster token price is still causing investors to rethink whether the network remains a “serious” competitor.

The brutal sell-off on risk assets caused AVAX to test the $14.80 support multiple times, while the current market capitalization stands at $4.8 billion. It’s important also to note that the network’s total value locked (TVL) holds an impressive $3.2 billion.

As a comparison, Solana (SOL) offers incredibly low network fees and holds a $2.1 billion TVL. Yet, SOL token’s market cap stands at $12.9 billion, which is almost three times larger than Avalanche’s valuation at the $14.80 price level.

The TVL indicator is extremely relevant because it measures the deposits on the network’s smart contracts. If we use Polygon (MATIC), an Ethereum layer-2 solution, as a proxy, the network holds a $1.8 billion TVL while the token's market capitalization stands at $3.5 billion.

Noma, a Japanese film studio, has announced that it is producing three feature films that are based on the world of cryptocurrencies. The first film, titled The Rhetoric Star, is already in production and will be released in 2024. 

In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph on Tuesday, Taichi Ito, the founder of Noma and a producer of the series, said that the trilogy aims to impart knowledge about the crypto industry through creative storytelling. Additionally, Ito proudly shared that their team is working with Bitcoin (BTC) experts and the award-winning sound designer Sefi Carmel. He also expressed confidence that The Rhetoric Star will “change the way” audiences learn about crypto.

The film series is also produced by Mai Fujimoto, the CEO of Tokyo-based blockchain firm Gracone, and Ryo Nakatsuji, an executive at Japanese publisher CoinPost. Meanwhile, Japanese animator Haruna Gohzu, who has worked in popular anime like Pokémon, Fairy Tail and Demon Slayer will be taking the lead in the films’ animations.

Sefi Carmel, who is designing the sounds for the films, mentioned that the team wants to create a series that relays insights from the world’s crypto experts to the masses in a “creative and accessible” way. He said that he’s honored to join the team and excited as the world steers towards “a virtual future dependent on blockchain, cryptocurrency, NFTs and the like.”

Related: Japanese business giant Nomura to explore crypto and NFTs with new unit