Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) bears have been in control since Nov. 11, subduing BTC price below $17,000 on every 12-hour candle. On Nov. 28, a drop to $16,000 shattered bulls' hope that the 7% gains between Nov. 21 and Nov. 24 were enough to mark a cycle low at $15,500.

The most likely culprit was an unexpected transfer of 127,000 BTC from a Binance cold wallet on Nov. 28. The huge Bitcoin transaction immediately triggered fear, uncertainty and doubt, but the Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, subsequently announced it was part of an auditing process.

Regulatory pressure has also been limiting BTC’s upside after reports on Nov. 25 showed that cryptocurrency lending firm Genesis Global Capital and other crypto firms were under investigation by securities regulators in the United States. Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission, confirmed that its state and several other states are investigating Genesis' alleged ties to securities laws violation.

On Nov. 16, Genesis announced it had temporarily suspended withdrawals, citing "unprecedented market turmoil." Genesis also hired restructuring advisers to explore all possible options, including but not limited to a potential bankruptcy, as reported by Cointelegraph on Nov. 23.

Let's look at derivatives metrics to better understand how professional traders are positioned in the current market conditions.

On Nov. 28, users of decentralized finance, or DeFi, lending platform Compound Finance passed a proposal to impose restrictions on the maximum borrowing of 10 tokens on the protocol. The proposal was put forth by financial modeling firm Gauntlet and passed with a majority "Yes," although total turnout amounted to less than 7% of the COMP tokens in circulation. 

Most notably, tokens such as Uniswap (UNI) and COMP had their borrow limits slashed from 11,250,000 and 150,000 to 550,000 and 18,000, respectively. Other less liquid altcoins on Compound, such as year.finance (YFI), had its borrow cap reduced from 1,500 to just 20. Coins such as wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), which previously had no borrow limit on Compound, have been slapped with a ceiling of 1,250 on maximum borrow.

According to Gauntlet, the proposal would prevent "insolvency risk from liquidation cascades," "price manipulation Mango squeeze exploits," "risk of high utilization," and "risk from shorting assets from a short position on Compound of significant size relative to the circulating supply of the asset." Although the related incident was not directly referenced, Gauntlet also conducted modeling and risk assessment for DeFi lending protocol Aave. 

On Nov. 22, it was uncovered that Mango Markets hacker Avraham Eisenberg attempted to exploit the protocol by shorting high amounts of Curve (CRV), which was an illiquid token on Aave at the time, and forcing the protocol to liquidate the position at a loss due to significant slippage. However, it turned out that the slippage was far less than expected, resulting in an estimated $10 million loss after a CRV short squeeze.

Gauntlet then proposed to freeze a series of tokens on Aave V2 that may be at risk of an exploit due to lack of liquidity. Currently, the Compound Finance protocol has $654.7 million in total borrowings collateralized by $2.146 billion worth of assets. 

China witnessed a spike in Covid cases and that has resulted in strict lockdown restrictions in several parts of the country. This triggered widespread protests in China and has possibly pulled the global stock markets lower. 

In addition to the turmoil in China, the cryptocurrency markets, which are already in a bear grip, are reeling under pressure from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by BlockFi and its subsidiaries. Bitcoin (BTC) is down 21% in November, on track to its worst November performance since 2018.

The sharp fall in Bitcoin’s price has drastically reduced the number of wallets holding more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin. There were 112,898 millionaire wallets on Nov. 8, 2021, but Glassnode data shows that as of Nov. 25, only 23,245 wallets boast of a Bitcoin balance worth $1 million or more.

Could the weakness in the S&P 500 index (SPX) pull Bitcoin below $16,000? Let’s study the charts to find out.

SPX

The recovery in the S&P 500 index has risen close to the downtrend line. The bears are likely to defend this level as they had done on two previous occasions.

Bitcoin (BTC) hovered above $16,000 on the Nov. 28 Wall Street open as analysts diverged on what to expect from the next market move.

Bitcoin spot price near key support

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD maintaining the $16,000 support level at the time of writing amid misgivings over China’s impact on risk assets.

After a modestly higher weekly close, the pair still lacked volatility as one commentator warned of a “teleport” toward $12,000 should $16,000 break.

“When it breaks below 16k, it teleports to 12k-14k,” Il Capo of Crypto insisted.

Popular Twitter account Credible Crypto asked where the volatility had gone, while Crypto Tony likewise identified $16,000 as a line in the sand for his own trading strategy.