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Does Ethereum's new ETHPoW fork stand a chance? ETHW price falls 65% post-Merge

ETHPoW, a separatist Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain forked from Ethereum's Merge, went live on Sep. 15. However, the chain suffered technical issues after the launch, which put downward pressure on its ETHW token. 

ETHW price down 65% amid "ChainID" fiasco

The price of ETHW has dropped by 65% since ETHPoW's launch to around $14 on Sep. 16, according to CoinMarketCap. At its lowest, the token was changing hands for $9.50.

ETHW price performance in the past seven days. Source: CoinMarketCap

The losses coincided with a technical issues related to ETHPoW's ChainID."

ChainIDs are identifiers that help users identify one blockchain from another. Thus, ETHPoW required a new ChainID to separate its transaction data from the original Ethereum blockchain after the Merge, otherwise, it risked creating duplicate transactions.

The team behind ETHPoW announced on Sep. 15 that its unique ChainID is 10001. However, data from Chainlist shows that a cryptocurrency project called Smart Bitcoin Cash, operating under the ticker BCHT, had the same ID. This issue resulted in errors on the Metamask cryptocurrency wallet.

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Bitcoin price threatens $19.6K as Ray Dalio predicts 30% stocks crash

Bitcoin (BTC) attempted to violate local lows on Sep. 16 as the latest cross-crypto downtrend intensified.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

No relief for BTC bulls post Merge

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD approaching $19,600 at the time of writing, with buyer support just avoiding a further drop.

The level had remained in place as an intraday floor as the Ethereum Merge concluded, only to spark a sell-off, which took Ether (ETH)/BTC toward three-week lows.

ETH/BTC 1-day candle chart (Binance). Source: TradingView

Amid the gloomy mood, traders and analysts showed little inclination to reassess their market outlooks.

“I feel confident with the scenario of quick pump to 23k on BTC and 1800 on ETH and big dump from there,” Il Capo of Crypto wrote, reiterating a long-held theory:

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Most of the crypto market is down, but Cosmos (ATOM) price is up — Why?

The Ethereum Merge has finally happened. It’s over, and fortunately it went smoothly without any major hiccups. As predicted by many, the event turned out to be a “buy the rumor sell the news” style event, or perhaps, the hotter-than-expected consumer price index print on Sept. 12 was the real catalyst that pushed the market in its current direction. 

Regardless of the reasons for this week’s downturn, the Merge is over and in its wake, bulls are left holding a whole lot of nothing. It’s likely that a new bullish narrative will need to emerge, or analysts will need to keep a close eye on smart money to see what assets they elect to rotate into.

Remember, “The Merge,” according to so many “smart” people, was meant to be a bullish event that would possibly send Ether price higher and the treasure trove of hardfork ETH POW tokens was meant to magically materialize multi-billions of dollars in liquidity which would likely inflow to Bitcoin and help the ailing asset to break out of its current range.

Well, none of that happened. It’s not to say that it won’t happen, but the current reality is a market painted in a bright shade of red. Bitcoin’s Sept.15 drop below $20,000, induced a market-wide correction resulting in double-digit losses for a majority of altcoins and at the moment, there isn’t an easily graspable story for investors to interpret as bullish.

Not everything is dumping

There does happen to be an outlier, and its name is Cosmos (ATOM). To the surprise of some, it’s one of the few green assets on the charts on Merge day. Currently, the altcoin reflects a 9.4% gain and it has rebounded strongly off its Sept.14 low at $13.19.

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Ethereum traders shorted ETH price in record numbers during the Merge — 50% crash ahead?

Ethereum successfully completed its long-awaited transition to proof-of-stake via "the Merge" on Sept. 15, while traders have been increasingly shorting Ether (ETH) in anticipation of a sell-the-news event.  

Ethereum funding rate plumme

Ether's futures funding rates across leading derivatives platforms dropped below zero—to their worst levels to date—before the Merge. The rate dropped to as low as -0.6% on BitMex. 

ETH funding rates history. Source: Coinglass

Funding rates are a percentage of the fee paid to either short or long position holders. The platform decides the fee based on the difference between the perpetual futures contract and the spot price.

Therefore, traders consider a market bullish when the funding rate is positive. Conversely, a negative funding rate hints at a bearish sentiment in the market. Let's understand why with an example.

Currently, Ether's funding rate average is around -0.1%. In other words, traders with a $1 million short ETH position are willing to pay those with long positions $1,000 every eight hours (based on when platforms recalculate the funding rates).

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Bitcoin price loses $20K, ETH price drops 8% after 'monumental' Ethereum Merge

Bitcoin (BTC) spent a second day threatening $20,000 support on Sept. 15 as markets processed the Ethereum (ET Merge.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

BTC stuck between price magnets'

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD spiking below $20,000 again overnight to recover marginally above the boundary for a brief period.

The largest cryptocurrency broadly failed to regain lost ground after surprise United States inflation data on Sep. 13 sent risk assets into a tailspin.

Down 13.5% versus the week’s top at the time of writing, Bitcoin offered little inspiration to traders who were still eyeing further losses.

“Bullish above or after a reclaim of $20,800 or something like this and maybe up,” popular trader Crypto Ed summarized in his latest YouTube update.

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Powers On… Insider trading with crypto is targeted — Finally! Part 2

This is the second part of my column about the crackdown on insider trading involving crypto. In the first part, I discussed the criminal indictment of Nathaniel Chastain, a former product manager at the OpenSea NFT marketplace. I also discussed the SEC’s allegations against former Coinbase employee Ishan Wahi, his brother and his friend, based on the “misappropriation” theory of insider trading.

Powers On… is a monthly opinion column from Marc Powers, who spent much of his 40-year legal career working with complex securities-related cases in the United States after a stint with the SEC. He is now an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law, where he teaches “Blockchain & the Law.”

Since the United States v. O’Hagan Supreme Court case in 1997, the misappropriation theory of insider trading liability has been explicitly recognized. Both before that date and after, “misappropriation” of company secrets or confidential information used in connection with stock trading has been an active area of Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement and criminal prosecutions.

Examples include a former writer for The Wall Street Journal in United States v. Winans; employees at the magazine stand Hudson News in Securities Exchange Commission v. Smath; a printer at a company that printed tender offer documents in Chiarella v. United States; and more recently, financial analysts in United States v. Newman and Salman v. United States. On the same date as the SEC filing against Ishan Wahi and his two associates, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed a parallel criminal indictment that charged these same three defendants with wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy.

Tippees that receive material, nonpublic or confidential information from a tipper violate insider trading rules if they know the tipper breached a duty they owed to another and received some sort of personal benefit from the tip. The Supreme Court said in the 2016 Salman case that the personal benefit need not be financial or pecuniary. The benefit requirement is satisfied by bestowing a gift of this information on a trading relative or a close friend. 

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Analyst on $17.6K BTC price bottom: Bitcoin 'not there yet'

Bitcoin's (BTC) market behavior is not yet “synonymous” with previous bear market bottoms, one of the leading crypto analysts argues.

In a Twitter thread on Sept. 14, statistician Willy Woo, creator of data resource Woobull, offered three examples of why BTC/USD should still have further to fall.

Despite many calling a new macro price bottom during June’s trip to $17,600, not everyone is confident that Bitcoin will avoid a retest.

For Woo, there is still reason to believe that lower levels will mark the new price floor — and this could be anywhere, including below $10,000.

"Underwater" supply short of bottom zone

One metric Woo flags is the percentage of the overall BTC supply held at a loss — now worth more than the price at which it last moved.

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Guide to real-life crypto OGs you’d meet at a party (Part 2)

In Part 1, we detailed three of the different kinds of crypto OGs you might meet at an industry party.

They were: (1) shadowy super coders and/or anon founders, (2) “reputable” and respected OG industry leaders like Vitalik Buterin and Brian Armstrong, and (3) the comeback OGs, who were trying to shake off the stink of a failed project.

This time around, we meet even more categories of crypto OGs, with insight from the insiders most familiar with them.

 

 

Sam Bankman Fried in a Youtube interview
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Selling the rumor? Biggest Ethereum Merge staker Lido DAO loses 40% in 30 days

Lido DAO (LDO) has declined by more than 40% in the last 30 days with more room to fall in the coming days amid a potential sell-the-news event, i.e. the Merge.

Lido DAO Ether deposits surge 160% in 2022

Lido DAO is Ethereum's biggest staking service, having deposited over 4.14 million of the blockchain's native asset, Ether (ETH), into the Ethereum 2.0 smart contract on behalf of its users, according to the latest data.

ETH 2.0 total value staked by provider. Source: Glassnode

In comparison, Lido DAO's total staked amount was around 1.6 million ETH at the beginning of this year. The boom reflects a growing demand for Lido DAO services ahead of Ethereum's scheduled transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake via the Merge on Sep. 15.

LDO, a governance token in the Lido DAO ecosystem, has also undergone an unprecedented price rally in recent months, up more than 350% after bottoming out at $0.39 in June.

Still, the token's sharp correction in the past month raises the possibility of an extended downtrend now that the pre-Merge hype is nearing its end. In addition, a technical setup also alerts about a potential price decline ahe.

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BTC price clings to $20K as US stocks lose the equivalent of 4 Bitcoin market caps

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly lost $20,000 support overnight into Sep. 14 after hot United States inflation sent risk assets crashing lower.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

Markets lose big in bid to "fight the Fed"

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit lows of $19,870 on Bitstamp — its worst since Sep. 9.

The move came amid a stocks rout triggered by Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data for August coming in above expectations.

Despite still being lower than July, the market had hoped for a quicker cooling of inflation more broadly and hence the chance of a quicker loosening of policy by the Federal Reserve.

With that prospect now appearing slim, equities indexes hemorrhaged value, with Apple losing $154 billion — the sixth-biggest daily loss in U.S. stock market history.

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Hot CPI report puts a dent in Bitcoin and Ethereum rally, stocks also lose ground

Crypto and stock markets are feeling the pain after the Sept. 13 inflation report printed an unexpectedly hot figure that showed headline inflation rising by 0.1% month-over-month.

Even with gas prices falling to multi-month lows and a cooling housing market, core inflation saw a 0.6% month-over-month bump and year-to-year inflation sits at 8.3%.

While market participants and investors had estimated the next Federal Reserve interest hike to be a hefty 0.75 basis points, many also subscribed to a loosely held assumption that Sept. 13’s CPI report would come in softer than projected.

Given that the market had supposedly “priced in” a 0.75 bps hike, crypto traders expected Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and select altcoins to break out to the upside.

Well, obviously the complete opposite occurred.

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Bitcoin margin long-to-short ratio at Bitfinex reach the highest level ever

Sept. 12 will leave a mark that will probably stick for quite a while. Traders at the Bitfinex exchange vastly reduced their leveraged bearish Bitcoin (BTC) bets and the absence of demand for shorts could have been caused by the expectation of cool inflation data.

Bears may have lacked confidence, but August's U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in higher than market expectations and they appear to be on the right side. The inflation index, which tracks a broad basket of goods and services, increased 8.3% over the previous year. More importantly, the energy prices component fell 5% in the same period but it was more than offset by increases in food and shelter costs.

Soon after the worse-than-expected macroeconomic data was released, U.S. equity indices took a downturn, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index futures sliding 3.6% in 30 minutes. Cryptocurrencies accompanied the worsening mood, and Bitcoin price dropped 5.7% in the same period, erasing gains from the previous 3 days.

Pinpointing the market downturn to a single inflationary metric would be naive. A Bank of America survey with global fund managers had 62% of respondents saying that a recession is likely, which is the highest estimate since May 2020. The research paper collected data on the week of Sept. 8 and was led by strategist Michael Hartnett.

Interestingly, as all of this takes place, Bitcoin margin traders have never been so bullish, according to one metric.

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Bitcoin price falls under $21K as traders send 84K BTC to exchanges

Bitcoin (BTC) fell further after the Sept. 13 Wall Street open as the dust settled on unexpectedly high United States inflation.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

BTC price eyes 9% daily losses

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD giving up $21,000, down up to 8.45% on the day.

Bearish tendencies set in after the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) print for August arrived 0.2% higher than expected.

This, in turn, boosted the likelihood of a 75 or 100-basis-point key rate hike next week by the Federal Reserve — something that would pressure already creaking risk-asset markets.

Fed target rate probabilities chart as of Sep. 13, 2022. Source: CME Group

Bitcoin proved especially sensitive to the event, with downside nonetheless contained by anticipated support at $20,800.

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3 reasons SOL price is up 30% in two weeks — Will Solana's uptrend continue?

Solana (SOL) ticked higher on Sep. 13, mirroring similar upside moves in the broader cryptocurrency market, led by Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

On the daily chart, SOL's price gained over 4% to $39, its best level in 3 weeks. The token's intraday gains came as an extension of a prevailing uptrend that has seen its price gaining 30% in just 2 weeks.

SOL/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView

In comparison to Solana, Bitcoin and Ether underperformed, securing 16% and 22% gains in the same period. Let's look at the mix of fundamental and technicals that may have prompted SOL to rally higher.

Helium's merge with Solana

On Aug. 30, core developers behind the Helium Network, which offers decentralized wireless 5G network coverage by enabling users to become hotspots, announced a governance proposal to migrate to the Solana blockchain from its native chain. 

The Helium developers cited their "need to improve operational efficiency and scalability" while seeing Solana as an ideal fit.

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Ethereum is eating the world — ‘You only need one internet’

There’s a version of the future that’s tantalizingly possible in which Ethereum becomes the base layer for pretty much everything.

Recent advances in a technology called zero-knowledge Rollups — from StarkWare, Polygon and zkSync — enable the blockchain to move from fewer than 20 transactions per second to… well, an infinite number of TPS.

In theory, it would allow the entire world’s financial system to run on Ethereum.

“I think it’s theoretically possible,” explains Declan Fox, product manager for rollups at Consensys, which provides Ethereum infrastructure and apps like MetaMask. “We have the technology to achieve that kind of throughput necessary.”

“With recursive rollups and proofs, we theoretically can infinitely scale.”

StarWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson and Cointelegraph Magazine’s Andrew Fenton
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Bitcoin price sheds $1K in 3 minutes as US CPI inflation overshoots

Bitcoin (BTC) crashed below $22,000 instantly on Sept. 13 after United States inflation data failed to meet estimates. 

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

CPI print sparks major crypto rout

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD swiftly falling $1,000 after Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation for August came in at 8.3% year-on-year.

The consensus was that 8.1% would be the latest figure, and the overshoot suggested that inflation was not slowing at the expected pace.

Nonetheless, versus July, year-on-year growth was still down 0.2%, preserving the overall trend of slowing CPI inflation.

This was not enough to avoid a crypto rout, however, and at the time of writing, Bitcoin was below $21,500, down 4% on the day.

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Bitcoin battles whales above $22K as BTC price faces US CPI data

Bitcoin (BTC) continued to battle major resistance on Sep. 13 as markets prepared for United States inflation numbers.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

"Serious" whales present new BTC price hurdl

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked BTC/USD as it sought to push through $22,500.

Bulls had attempted to vanquish a wall of seller interest in the range just above $22,000, this proving especially stubborn and leading to an overnight consolidation phase.

On-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators highlighted the struggle in a screenshot of the Binance BTC/USD order book the day prior.

For fellow analytics platform Whalemap, meanwhile, it was no wonder that the current range was a sticking point for bulls.

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Time for a breakout? Bitcoin price pushes at key resistance near $23K

On Sept. 12, Bitcoin is doing Bitcoin things as usual. Since Sept. 9 the price has broken out nicely, booking a near 16% gain and rallying into the long-term descending trendline which appears to have resistance at $23,000. 

BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView

Perhaps BTC and the wider market are turning bullish ahead of the Ethereum Merge which is scheduled for Sept. 14, or maybe the elusive bottom is finally in. Weekly chart data from TradingView shows that on June 27 and Aug. 15, Bitcoin’s relative strength index had dropped to lows not seen since 2019.

BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView

Currently, the metric has rebounded from a near oversold 31 to its current 38.5 reading. Some traders might also note a bullish divergence on the metric, where the RSI follows an ascending trendline while Bitcoin’s weekly candlesticks trend downward. Bitcoin’s moving average convergence divergence (MACD) has also crossed over as purchasing volume surged and BTC price attempts to break from its current 90-day range.

As pointed out in previous analysis, since Jan. 21, Bitcoin price has simply been range trading in what have turned out to be successive bear flags that see continuation to new yearly lows. Price has consistently encountered resistance at the overhead descending trendline and the price action witnessed today and in the past 90-days is not a deviation from the trend.

Traders should watch for BTC price to push secure a few daily closes above the trendline resistance and setting a daily higher high above $25,400, or even a breakout to the 200-MA at $30,000 would be an excellent sight of either a trend change or at least a leg up to a new consolidation range. Until that occurs, the standard practice among traders is to not go long at long term resistance and wait to see whether the bullish momentum holds or the prevailing trend remains intact.

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Bitcoin hits 3-week high as trader says 'all signs there' to short BTC

Bitcoin (BTC) kept grinding higher at the Sept. 12 Wall Street open as traders called for an imminent correction.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

$23,000 proves essential to flip

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $22,481 on Bitstamp, its highest since Aug. 19.

The pair had preserved existing gains over the weekend, with a declining U.S. dollar providing a catalyst for risk assets as the week began.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index both traded up 1.1% after the first two hours’ trading. By contrast, the U.S. dollar index (DXY) was down 0.7% on the day.

U.S. dollar index (DXY) 1-day candle chart. Source: TradingView

Analyzing the situation, popular trader Crypto Ed said that the time had now come to eye a corrective move on BTC/USD.

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Elon Musk, Cathie Wood sound 'deflation' alarm — is Bitcoin at risk of falling below $14K?

Bitcoin (BTC) has rebounded by 20% to almost $22,500 since Sep. 7. But bull trap risks are abound in the long run as Elon Musk and Cathie Wood sound an alarm over a potential deflation crisis.

Cathie Wood: "Deflation in the pipeline"

The Tesla CEO tweeted over the weekend that a major Federal Reserve interest rate hike could increase the possibility of deflation. In other words, Musk suggests that the demand for goods and services will fall in the United States against rising unemployment.

Rate hikes have been typically bad for Bitcoin this year. In context, the period of the Fed raising its benchmark rates from near zero in March 2022 to 2.25%-2.50% in August 2022 has coincided with BTC price declining over 50%.

To this point, the labor sector has been very resilient. Nonetheless, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows that the jobless rate has risen to 3.7% from 3.5% in August. Even Alphabet (Google) warned that they could turn to layoffs soon to stay 20% more efficient.

But Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has asserted that the central bank could hike rates further to bring inflation down to their preferred target of 2%.

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