1. Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stalls Near $50K Ahead of Options Expiration Date
Bitcoin slipped below $50K and will likely consolidate this week, analysts say.
Bitcoin stalled after approaching the $50,000 resistance level on Monday. The cryptocurrency was trading at about $49,500 at press time and is up about 8% over the past week. Analysts expect a period of consolidation ahead of Friday’s option expiration date and news from the Federal Reserve’s annual economic policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
“The trend is bullish; however, caution is to be exercised at these levels due to the decline in volume as well as resistance from April and May,” Marcus Sotiriou, a trader at GlobalBlock.
“$51K would be a natural place for a short-term pause in the rally,” Katie Stockton, managing director of Fairlead Strategies, wrote in a Monday newsletter.
“Long-term momentum behind bitcoin has strengthened and the 200-day (40-week) moving average is rising again, supporting a bullish long-term outlook,” she wrote.
Latest prices
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin (BTC) $49218, +1.14%
Ether (ETH) $3303, +4.25%
Traditional markets:
S&P 500: 4479.5, +0.85%
Gold: $1803, +0.57%
10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.251%, compared with 1.261% on Friday
Several analysts noted that extreme overbought conditions have unwound since April, which is providing support for the crypto rally.
“Right now, bitcoin and other cryptos have enjoyed technical support (as they were becoming mildly oversold),” Santiago Espinosa, a strategist at MRB Partners. “At this juncture, some cryptos can continue to do well if policymakers neglect inflationary pressures and regulatory issues don’t become a mainstream problem.”
Bitcoin options expiry
Roughly 25% of bitcoin options open interest is set to expire on Friday. The largest concentration of open interest is seen at the $50,000 strike price, which is also a key technical resistance level.
2. Tether Starts Printing Again After 2-Month Pause
The issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin has minted 2.3 billion new USDT tokens since the start of August.
Tether, issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT (-0.03%), has started printing again after a roughly two-month halt that sparked investors’ concerns and speculation.
Tether has minted at least 2.3 billion USDT since Aug. 1, pushing the token’s market cap to $65 billion, a Tether representative told us. USDT, which is pegged to U.S. dollars, usually trades at $1.
In June and July, USDT’s market cap stagnated around $62 billion despite small fluctuations. Industry experts attributed the reduced demand to China’s crackdown on crypto, the rise of the competing stablecoin USDC (+0.05%) and investor concerns over Tether’s own vulnerability.
Demand for USDT has recently rebounded, according to Tether and industry experts, as crypto market sentiment has turned increasingly positive. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap, bitcoin (BTC, -1.44%), has rebounded from its July low of around $29,600, trading at $49,540 as of press time, up 1.8% over the past 24 hours.
“From a supply/demand perspective, as crypto prices go up, more stablecoins and fiat are needed to buy the assets and expand the total market cap of crypto,” Gary Pike, director of sales and trading at crypto services firm B2C2, told us.
3. CryptoPunk NFTs Break Sales Record as Visa Sparks Buying Frenzy
Monday set a new sales record in CryptoPunks for a single day, and August sales have also set a monthly record, with prices for the NFTs averaging nearly $200,000.
Sales of CryptoPunk non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are soaring to new record levels, in another sign of just how frenzied the market has become as credit-card giant Visa jumps into the fray.
On Monday, sales volumes of CryptoPunks topped $86 million, a daily record, according to data from the industry tracking website CryptoSlam.
And sales so far in August have already reached $332 million. Prior to August, the largest single monthly sales total was $135.2 million during July. This month’s average price for a CryptoPunk is $199,069, more than double last month’s average.
4. Cardano Alonzo Hard Fork: What You Need to Know
Cardano prepares to enter the decentralized application space as smart contract functionality arrives.
Cardano’s Alonzo update brings the network much closer to its full capabilities.
The Alonzo hard fork is a major upgrade on the Cardano network that sees the much-anticipated implementation of smart contract functionality. Smart contracts are pieces of computer code that automatically execute when certain predefined conditions are met. After the Alonzo update, anyone will be able to create and deploy their own smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain, paving the way for native decentralized applications (dapps).
The system update, which is expected to roll out fully sometime in the third quarter, signifies the end of the Shelley era of Cardano and the beginning of the Goguen phase. Although there is no set date for the end of the Alonzo hard fork, developers all across the network have been working hard on testnets and have stuck to a defined road map with specific milestones in the form of “eras.”
The eras of Cardano
Cardano’s development road map is divided into six main stages, or “eras,” each focused on expanding the functionality of the network.
Byron — Sets up the foundation code of Cardano. Allows users to exchange the ADA (+0.88%) currency, named after revolutionary programmer Ada Lovelace, and mine ADA with their proof-of-stake consensus algorithm
Shelley — Focuses on decentralizing the network by setting up incentives for users to host their own nodes. The main goal of this era is to make sure the nodes, or individual computers, are run by a diverse group of network participants rather than a small, centralized group of users
Goguen — Introduces smart contract capabilities to the network allowing developers to create decentralized applications on top of Cardano
Basho — Improves the underlying performance of the Cardano network to be able to process more transactions and scale up. This era also introduces side chains, which is a means of scaling a network using multiple blockchains
Voltaire — Adds a voting and treasury system for self-sustaining governance. Users will be able to stake their funds to influence future development on the network
Cardano is now in the final stages of the Shelley era. This development phase added a host of new features to Cardano such as a proof-of-stake protocol known as Ouroboros, an incentives and delegation scheme that rewards participants and better hard wallet support.
5. El Salvador Will Not Require Bitcoin Acceptance, President Bukele Confirms
In contrast to the original law, the government will not force any of the nation’s residents to receive the cryptocurrency as a form of payment, the president said Monday.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele confirmed that the use of bitcoin (BTC, -1.59%) as legal tender will not be mandatory, in a Twitter thread on Monday.
Echoing El Salvador’s finance minister, Alejandro Zelaya, who said the same thing last week, Bukele said the government would not force any of the nation’s residents to receive bitcoin as a form of payment.
“If someone wants to continue to carry cash, not receive a sign-on bonus, not win over customers who have bitcoin, not grow their business and pay commission on remittances, they can continue to do so,” Bukele wrote.
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