Decentral Block Post

The United States equities markets saw their worst performance of 2023 as concerned investors dumped stocks on Feb. 21, fearing continued rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Although the cryptocurrency markets also gave back some of the gains, the fall was comparatively muted. UTXO Management senior analyst Dylan LeClair said that Bitcoin’s (BTC) correlation to the S&P 500 index has fallen to the lowest since late 2021.

After the sharp recovery from the lows, Glassnode data showed that only 21% of the coins sent by Long-Term Holders to exchanges at the start of this week moved at a loss. That is a huge improvement from mid-January when 56% of LTH coins sent to exchanges were moved at a loss.

The decoupling of the crypto and the U.S. equities markets is a positive sign but traders must remain cautious. If stocks turn sharply lower and a risk-off sentiment develops, then the crypto rally may find it difficult to continue its gains.

What are the important levels that could arrest the correction in Bitcoin and altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

The capacity of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network (LN) recently surpassed an all-time high of 5,000 Bitcoin (BTC). 

The Lightning Network is a neutral protocol built on top of Bitcoin, and it currently does not have a “native” token attached to it like many decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

Although the Lightning Network’s total liquidity is less than 0.5% of the Ether (ETH) in DeFi contracts, the uptrend in Bitcoin’s LN capacity versus a downtrend in the amount of ETH locked in smart contracts is encouraging for LN development.

While the liquidity on the LN has been rising consistently, the number of channels on the peer-to-peer network dropped drastically in November following the FTX collapse. It could be due to an exodus of miners operating LN nodes besides running mining clients.

However, the likely end of miner capitulation and the rise of Bitcoin-based applications like nonfungible tokens could mark an end to LN channel capitulation. Since the start of 2023, over 2,000 new channels have been added to the network.

Bitcoin (BTC) hodlers need to watch the central banks of China and Japan as well as the United States as BTC/USD battles “huge” resistance.

That was the opinion of trading firm QCP Capital, which in its latest crypto market research piece, “The Crypto Circular,” warned that Bitcoin faces risks far beyond the Federal Reserve.

Bitcoin “most direct global liquidity proxy”

Having survived the latest flood of macroeconomic data from the U.S., Bitcoin is nonetheless flagging right below $25,000 as bulls run out of momentum.

For QCP Capital, there is now reason to believe that risk factors for price performance will come not just from the Fed — but China and Japan.

Market participants must now contend with such issues as China’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) as well as the U.S. equivalent, along with Japanese central bank policy changes.

In technical analysis, a flag pattern indicates short-term price movements inside a parallelogram coounter to the previous long-term trend. Traditional analysts view flags as potential trend continuation indicators.

There are two types of flag patterns: bull flag and bear flag. While their outcomes are different, each flag exhibits five key characteristics, as listed below:

In this article, we discuss bull and bear flag patterns and how to trade them.

What is a bull flag pattern?

A bull flag is a technical pattern that appears when the price consolidates lower inside a downward-sloping channel after a strong uptrend. The said channel comprises two parallel, rising trendlines. Kindly note that the pattern could be a wedge or a pennant if the trendlines converge.

The volume typically dries up during consolidation, implying that traders associated with the preceding trend have less urgency to buy or sell during the consolidation period.