Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week above $20,000 but heading for a new bearish record as a key support level remains out of reach.

After a calm weekend punctuated by a brief spike to nearly $22,000, BTC/USD is back near the closing price of June 24 for CME futures markets.

A “round trip” thus allows traders to pick up where they left off at the end of last week’s final Wall Street trading session, but what could lie in store in the coming days?

A familiar cocktail of macro threats and ongoing bearish tendencies make the current climate far from ideal for the average hodler. Despite seeing some relief last week, crypto markets continue to bear the brunt of cold feet, which have defined macro sentiment increasingly throughout 2022.

With the June monthly close fast approaching, meanwhile, Bitcoin faces a few days of reckoning amid what could be its worst monthly performance since 2018.

Alameda Research is a cryptocurrency trading firm and liquidity provider founded by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). Before founding his firm in 2017, SBF spent three years as a trader at the quantitative proprietary trading giant Jane Street Capital, which specializes in equity and bonds.

In 2019, SBF founded the crypto derivatives and exchange FTX, which has quickly grown to become the fifth-largest by open interest. The Bahamas-based exchange raised $400 million in January 2022 and was valued at $32 billion.

FTX’s global derivatives exchange business is separate from FTX US, another entity controlled by SBF, which raised another $400 million from investors including the Ontario Teachers Pension and SoftBank.

The self-made billionaire has big dreams, like purchasing finance giants like Goldman Sachs, and in July 2021, he previously mentioned that “M&A [mergers and acquisitions] is going to be the most likely use of the funds,” raised from investors.

On June 18, crypto brokerage Voyager Digital announced that Alameda Research had agreed to give the company a 200 million USD Coin (USDC) loan and a “revolving line of credit” of 15,000 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $319.5 million at current prices.

The United States equities markets witnessed a sharp comeback last week, led by the Nasdaq Composite which gained 7.5%. The S&P was up about 6.5% for the week while the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a gain of 5.4%.

Continuing its tight correlation with the equities market, the crypto markets are also attempting a relief rally. Bitcoin (BTC) has seen a modest recovery but some altcoins have risen sharply in the past week. This suggests that investors are taking advantage of the sharp fall in the price to accumulate altcoins at lower levels.

Smaller-sized investors have been using the decline in Bitcoin to build their position to at least one Bitcoin. Glassnode data shows that the number of Bitcoin wallet addresses having more than one Bitcoin rose by 873 between June 15 to June 25.

Could the recovery in Bitcoin and altcoins pick up momentum? Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that could charge higher in the short term.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin’s relief rally is facing stiff resistance near $22,000 as seen from the long wick on the June 26 candlestick. This indicates that the bears are not willing to give up their advantage and are selling on rallies.

The United States equities markets witnessed a sharp comeback last week, led by the Nasdaq Composite, which gained 7.5%. The S&P was up about 6.5% for the week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a gain of 5.4%.

Continuing its tight correlation with the equities market, the crypto markets are also attempting a relief rally. Bitcoin (BTC) has seen a modest recovery, but some altcoins have risen sharply in the past week. This suggests that investors are taking advantage of the sharp fall in the price to accumulate altcoins at lower levels.

Smaller-sized investors have been using the decline in Bitcoin to build their position to at least one Bitcoin. Glassnode data shows that the number of Bitcoin wallet addresses that have more than one Bitcoin rose by 873 between June 15 to June 25.

Could the recovery in Bitcoin and altcoins pick up momentum? Let’s study the charts of the top 5 cryptocurrencies that could charge higher in the short term.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin’s relief rally is facing stiff resistance near $22,000 as seen from the long wick on the June 26 candlestick. This indicates that the bears are not willing to give up their advantage and are selling on rallies.

Bitcoin (BTC) made the most of weekend volatility on June 26 as a squeeze saw BTC/USD reach its highest in over a week.

“Unusual whale activity” flagged

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed the largest cryptocurrency as it hit $21,868 on Bitstamp.

Just hours from the weekly close, a reversal then set in under $21,500, Bitcoin is still in line to seal its first “green” weekly candle since May.

The event followed warnings that volatile conditions both up and down could return during low-liquidity weekend trading. On-chain data nonetheless fixed what appeared to be buying by Bitcoin’s largest-volume investor cohort prior to the uptick.

“Unusual whale activity detected in Bitcoin,” popular analytics resource Game of Trades observed:

Ethereum’s native token Ether (ETH) has declined by more than 35% against Bitcoin (BTC) since December 2021, with a potential to decline further in the coming months.

ETH/BTC dynamics

The ETH/BTC pair’s bullish trends typically suggest an increasing risk appetite among crypto traders, where speculation is more focused on Ether’s future valuations versus keeping their capital long-term in BTC. 

Conversely, a bearish ETH/BTC cycle is typically accompanied by a plunge in altcoins and ETH’s decline in market share. As a result, traders seek safety in BTC, showcasing their risk-off sentiment within the crypto industry.

Ethereum TVL wipe-out

Interest in the Ethereum blockchain soared during the pandemic as developers started turning to it to create a wave of so-called decentralized finance (DeFi) projects, including peer-to-peer exchange and lending platforms.

That resulted in a boom in the total value locked (TVL) inside the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem, rising from $465 million in March 2020 to as high as $159 billion in November 2021, up more than 34,000%, according to data from DefiLlama.