Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin’s price (BTC) broke below its 55-day support at $27,000 on May 12. In result, the two-day, 7% correction to $26,155 caused $100 million worth of long BTC futures contracts to be liquidated.

However, Bitcoin margin and futures markets displayed strength during the down-move, fueling hope of a recovery toward $28,000.

Regulatory pressure, stronger U.S. dollar bite

Regulatory uncertainty in the United States significantly increased after Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital received yet another subpoena. The publicly traded mining company informed investors on May 10 that it received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concerning whether it may have violated federal securities laws, among other things, by using related-party transactions.

Furthermore, there’s the additional risk of the 627,522 Bitcoins held by the Grayscale GBTC Trust Fund, which has been trading at a steep discount for over a year while Grayscale’s holding company, Digital Currency Group (DCG), struggles with some failing subsidiaries. DCG’s crypto lending and trading firm, Genesis Capital, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January.

Despite having separate corporate structures, Genesis Capital had "intercompany obligations" with the holding company DCG, so the consequences for the administration of the Grayscale funds are unknown. Additionally, the group reportedly owes Gemini's clients about $900 million, and the U.S. SEC charged Genesis and Gemini in January.

The market valuation of Pepecoin (PEPE) has dropped by 65% as of May 12, a week after its record high of $1.54 billion.

Profit-taking appears to be the primary reason behind the extreme price correction, after it rallied from almost nothing to as high as $0.00000372 after its launch on April 14, while emerging as the fastest-growing ERC-20 token in the crypto market's history.

What is PEPE?

Pepecoin captures people's attention by mimicking features of memecoins, based on popular internet memes. The most well-known is Dogecoin (DOGE), which uses the famous Shiba Inu dog meme as its logo. 

Pepecoin is based on the "Pepe The Frog" meme, created by Matt Furie in his 2005 cartoon “Boys Club.” The humanoid frog went on to become a mainstream meme in the mid-2010s, with singers Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj using it in their tweets.

In 2021, BarnBridge founder Tyler Ward launched a low-resolution Pepecoin NFT collection that reaped over $60 million in sales on the OpenSea auction platform.

The market valuation of Pepecoin (PEPE) has dropped by 65% as of May 12, a week after its record high of $1.54 billion.

Profit-taking appears to be the primary reason behind the extreme price correction, after it rallied from almost nothing to as high as $0.00000372 after its launch on April 14, while emerging as the fastest-growing ERC-20 token in the crypto market's history.

What is PEPE?

Pepecoin captures people's attention by mimicking features of memecoins, based on popular internet memes. The most well-known is Dogecoin (DOGE), which uses the famous Shiba Inu dog meme as its logo. 

Pepecoin is based on the "Pepe The Frog" meme, created by Matt Furie in his 2005 cartoon “Boys Club.” The humanoid frog went on to become a mainstream meme in the mid-2010s, with singers Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj using it in their tweets.

In 2021, BarnBridge founder Tyler Ward launched a low-resolution Pepecoin NFT collection that reaped over $60 million in sales on the OpenSea auction platform.

Bitcoin (BTC) is entering prime “buy the dip” territory as the clock ticks down to the 2024 block subsidy halving.

That is the conclusion of several well-known market participants this month, with Bitcoin just one year away from its “very interesting” next halving.

Bitcoin vs. the halving: Time to buy?

Bitcoin halving cycles are known to follow patterns when it comes to price activity in a given period.

These four-year “epochs” have so far contained a macro high and macro low for BTC price, with those events likewise four years apart from one another.

What’s more, in each cycle, the macro low has tended to occur a little over one year before the next halving. For longtime Bitcoin figures, including crypto media guru Pete Rizzo, there is thus little reason to believe that the future will be substantially different.

Bitcoin (BTC) neared two-month lows on May 12 amid fears that a “head-and-shoulders” pattern would put bears ahead.

Analysis of BTC price: “Welcome to bearadise”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching $26,100 on Bitstamp — its lowest since March 17.

Despite encouraging macroeconomic conditions for risk assets, Bitcoin failed to capitalize on the potential for gains as bid liquidity headed lower.

“Welcome to bearadise,” on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators summarized.

A chart uploaded to Twitter the day before showed principal buy support now around $25,750, with BTC/USD eating liquidity higher overnight.

Memecoin buyers are playing the crypto-equivalent of Powerball — with many "playing" hoping for "life-changing money" yet only a few will walk away with the jackpot, says Matrixport’s head of research.

Memecoins have seen a huge resurgence over the last week. Crypto tokens such as Pepe (PEPE) and Milady (LADYS) have boasted staggering price surges despite each having little to no discernable utility. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph on May 10, Matrixport’s Markus Thielen suggested some buyers of memecoins bear resemblance to those that participate in the lottery. 

“There are numerous studies done on how most people in lower socio-economic classes play the lottery [...] as that is their way to get out of their lower economic class,” he said, adding:

“The people that speculate in the lottery are trying to make money lightning fast, and I think that's very similar with crypto.”