Decentral Block Post

Cryptocurrencies broke the $1 trillion market capitalization resistance on Oct. 26, which had been holding strong for the previous 41 days. Despite Bitcoin’s (BTC) modest 5.5% weekly gains, the aggregate value of 20,000 listed tokens increased by 8.5% between Oct. 24 and 31.

The cryptocurrency market was positively impacted by a 6.3% weekly rally in the Russell 2000 mid-capitalization stock market index. Some encouraging news accompanied the positive tailwinds from traditional markets.

For instance, 55,000 BTC was withdrawn from Binance on Oct. 26, a record high. Typically, analysts consider the reduced number of coins deposited on exchanges a bullish indicator, as the immediate selling pressure eases.

Moreover, exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com partnered with payment processing giant Visa to launch a crypto card. The cryptocurrency company revealed on Oct. 26 that there would be no sign-up or annual fees, no transaction fees and users would earn 1% of all purchases back in digital assets.

Instead of focusing on Bitcoin, cryptocurrency traders have spread their bets across altcoins. Consequently, comparing the winners and losers among the top 80 coins provides skewed results, as seven rallied 20% or more over the past week.

Cryptocurrencies broke the $1 trillion market capitalization resistance on Oct. 26, which had been holding strong for the previous 41 days. Despite Bitcoin’s (BTC) modest 5.5% weekly gains, the aggregate value of 20,000 listed tokens increased by 8.5% between Oct. 24 and 31.

The cryptocurrency market was positively impacted by a 6.3% weekly rally in the Russell 2000 mid-capitalization stock market index. Some encouraging news accompanied the positive tailwinds from traditional markets.

For instance, 55,000 BTC was withdrawn from Binance on Oct. 26, a record high. Typically, analysts consider the reduced number of coins deposited on exchanges a bullish indicator, as the immediate selling pressure eases.

Moreover, exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com partnered with payment processing giant Visa to launch a crypto card. The cryptocurrency company revealed on Oct. 26 that there would be no sign-up or annual fees, no transaction fees and users would earn 1% of all purchases back in digital assets.

Instead of focusing on Bitcoin, cryptocurrency traders have spread their bets across altcoins. Consequently, comparing the winners and losers among the top 80 coins provides skewed results, as seven rallied 20% or more over the past week.

A $250 surprise rally took place between Oct. 25 and Oct. 26, pushing the price of Ether (ETH) from $1,345 to $1,595. The movement caused $570 million in liquidations in Ether’s bearish bets at derivatives exchanges, which was the largest event in more than 12 months. Ether’s price also rallied above the $1,600 level, which was the highest price seen since Sept. 15.

Let’s explore whether this 27% rally over the past 10 days reflects any signs of a trend change.

It is worth highlighting that another 10.3% rally toward $1,650 happened three days later on Oct. 29, and this triggered another $270 million of short seller liquidations on ETH futures contracts. In total, $840 million worth of leveraged shorts was liquidated in three days, representing over 9% of the total ETH futures open interest.

On Oct. 21, the market became optimistic after San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly mentioned intentions to step down the pace of interest rate hikes. However, the United States central bank’s previous tightening movement has led the S&P 500 stock market index to a 19% contraction in 2022.

Despite the 5.5% stock market rally between Oct. 20 and Oct. 31, analysts at ING noted on Oct. 28 that “we do indeed expect the Fed to open the door to a slower pace through formal forward guidance, but it may not necessarily go through it.” Furthermore, the ING report added, “It could be that we get a final 50bp in February that would then mark the top. This would leave a terminal rate of 4.75% to 5%.”

Four projects have received some $7 million worth of tokens from the hacker behind the $14.5 million Team Finance exploit on Oct. 27. Over the weekend, the attacker confirmed in a series of messages that they would keep 10% of the stolen fund as a bounty and return the other tokens to the affected projects.

The exploiter — a self-described “whitehat” — drained assets from Team Finance through the Uniswap v2-to-v3 migration. As reported by Cointelegraph, liquidity from Uniswap v2 assets on Team Finance were transferred to an attacker-controlled v3 pair with skewed pricing, explained the blockchain security firm PeckShield.

The stolen funds included USD Coin (USDC), CAW, TSUKA and KNDA tokens. Some of the affected tokens, such as CAW, suffered steep price declines due to the exploit and subsequent liquidity crunch. 

On Oct. 30, Kondux, a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, announced it received 95% of the stolen funds, or 209 Ether (ETH), while Feg Token recovered 548 ETH. Tsuka’s blockchain protocol also confirmed receiving over $765,000 worth of the stablecoin Dai (DAI) and 11.8 million TSUKA. Caw Coin — the biggest victim of the exploit — received back $5 million worth of DAI and 74.6 billion of its native token, CAW.

On Twitter, the protocol urged the hacker to get in contact for a bounty payment. According to Team Finance, its smart contract had been previously audited, and developers had temporarily halted all activity on the protocol. The company was founded in 2020 by TrustSwap, which provides token liquidity locking and vesting services to project executives. The protocol claimed to have $3 billion secured across 12 blockchains.

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied on the back of the United States stock market’s 3.4% gains on Oct. 28, with the S&P 500 index rising to its highest level in 44 days. In addition, recently released data showed that inflation might be slowing down, which gave investors hope that the Federal Reserve might break its pattern of 75 basis-point rate hikes after its November meeting.

In September, the U.S. core personal consumption expenditures price index rose 0.5% from the previous month. Although still an increase, it was in line with expectations. This data is the Federal Reserve’s primary inflation measure for interest rate modeling.

Additional positive news came from tech giant Apple, which reported weak iPhone revenues on Oct. 27 but beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly earnings and margin. Moreover, Apple chief financial officer Luca Maestri said services would grow year-over-year in the fourth quarter. 

Bitcoin futures data shows reluctant buyers

Retail traders usually avoid quarterly futures due to their price difference from spot markets. Still, they are professional traders’ preferred instruments because they prevent the perpetual fluctuation of contracts’ funding rates.

These fixed-month contracts usually trade at a slight premium to spot markets because investors demand more money to withhold the settlement. But this situation is not exclusive to crypto markets, so futures should trade at a 4%–10% annualized premium in healthy markets.

Bitcoin (BTC) is delivering striking similarities to its last bear market, but the recent bottom may be its last, research says.

In a tweet on Oct. 31, popular trading account Stockmoney Lizards furthered the bull case for BTC/USD.

Bitcoin “repeats itself” in 2022

The past few days have seen talk of Bitcoin encountering a “double top,” with two spikes over $21,000.

The implication is bearish: Declining volume suggests that bulls will not be able to flip the level to support, and many expect fresh macro lows to come next.

New analysis offers an alternative, more optimistic, perspective. For Stockmoney Lizards, the similarities between 2022 and 2018 are hard to ignore.

The crypto community never shies away from deploying new cryptocurrencies that are themed on current events, and Halloween was no exception. The industry saw an influx of Halloween-themed cryptocurrencies hoping to cash in on the hype around the festivities.

Halloween-themed cryptocurrencies have taken over the crypto ecosystem on Twitter, typically offering no real use case or future for investors. Projects like these have a track record of being sourced as an off-the-shelf product, which can be quickly renamed and deployed in the free market for trading. 

Projects like Halloween Token, as shown above, came up just days before the occasion with the sole purpose of amassing $50 million in market cap. Halloween Spook, a project that cropped up on Sept. 2022, claims the status of being the “scariest meme token on Binance Smart Chain (BSC).” The project promotes Halloween Elon (SINK) token, which is based on a recent “let that sink in” meme sported by Elon Musk.

Found again on the BCS network was Halloween Wars Token, which blatantly shares its intent to “ride the hype of what many claim is the most exciting time of the year: halloween.” Despite no attempt to market the project, the project gained 17 followers who remain at risk of losing their assets to market capitulation.

One of the stronger contenders this year was halloween bsc, yet another BCS-hosted project with no apparent goal set for the investors.

The crypto bear market of 2022 has wiped out more than 70% of the market capitalization from the top. The total crypto market cap breached $3 trillion at the bull market's peak last year but currently struggling to remain above $1 trillion.

At a time when the majority of the cryptocurrencies are moving sideways with no significant bullish momentum recorded in months, it can get a little frustrating, especially for those who jumped in at the market top in hopes of making some quick money.

As crypto-winter worsens, the Reddit crypto community shared their coping mechanisms and some “serious” tips to remain on top of their mental health during this cyclic event.

One Reddit user wrote that they are in it for the long term, thus, they ignore the charts and daily fluctuations.

“I ignore the charts as well as ensuring that I have a full-time job so that I always have income that I can rely on. It’s a long-term game for me, so I treat it as such. Daily fluctuations don’t matter if you aren’t going to sell anyway.”

Bitcoin (BTC) begins a key week of internal and macroeconomic events still trading above $20,000.

After its highest weekly close since mid-September, BTC/USD remains tied to higher levels within a macro trading range.

The bulls have been keen to shift the trend entirely, while warnings from more conservative market participants continue to call for macro lows to enter next.

So far, a tug-of-war between the two parties is what has characterized BTC price action, and any internal or external triggers have only had a temporary effect. What could change that?

The first week of November contains a key event that has the potential to shape price behavior going forward — a decision by the United States Federal Reserve on interest rate hikes.