Decentral Block Post

Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao has hosed down recent rumors against his firm, assuring its balance sheet and employee retention remain robust, despite the recent market uncertainty.

The Binance boss blamed negative news, rumors, bank runs, lawsuits, the closing of fiat channels, product wind-downs and employee turnovers for creating an environment of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in a Sept. 7 post on X (Twitter). 

He then used the opportunity to clarify Binance’s current financial position:

“Guess what we don't have? No liquidity issues,” CZ emphasized. “All withdrawals (and deposits) are properly handled. All customer funds are #SAFU, and 100% reserved.”

However, observers have noted at least 10 Binance executives have left the helm between July and September alone, including Patrick Hillmann, former chief strategy officer, Mayur Kamat, former product lead, Leon Foong, former head of Asia-Pacific and Steven Christie, former senior vice president for compliance.

A court ruling that cleared Ripple's XRP token of being considered a security offering might signal a turn in the tide against regulatory scrutiny of the cryptocurrency ecosystem in the United States and current lawsuits involving the likes of Coinbase and Binance.US and pending ETF applications.

Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph during the company’s annual Apex developer conference being hosted in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Ripple CTO David Schwartz weighed in on the potential precedent set by a federal judge ruling that XRP was not a security when sold programmatically on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Ripple has been entwined in a protracted legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission since 2020, but its recent part victory may have positive implications for a number of crypto-related lawsuits instituted by the SEC.

Schwartz admitted that the SEC case had cost Ripple business deals that had been on the table, but stressed that the bigger loss was felt in the community as ecosystem support felt stifled by the delisting of XRP across a number of prominent exchanges. This has since changed with the latest ruling in favour of XRP:

“The ruling that we've had so far was sufficient to allow exchanges to relist XRP, and it was big, I think, for the entire ecosystem.”

Bitcoin (BTC) has a chance to end 2023 at $35,000 despite heading lower in between, veteran analyst Filbfilb believes.

In his latest interview with Cointelegraph, the co-founder of trading suite Decentrader reveals some BTC price targets that should resonate with the long-term holder base.

Bitcoin faces multiple obstacles to its current uptrend, and the current cycle offers various key differences to those that came before it. It is not just the Bitcoin spot price exchange-traded fund (ETF) debacle; the entire macroeconomic environment looks markedly different to just a few years ago.

Filbfilb predicts that the April 2024 block subsidy halving will nonetheless have a cathartic effect on BTC price performance. BTC/USD could even trade as high as $46,000 by that time, but losses are “likely” to come next.

Filbfilb eyes "likely" BTC price dip to low $20,000 range

Cointelegraph (CT): On short timeframes, you recently predicted another BTC price dip to “crush the remaining hopium.” Where do you see the long-term floor?

Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading between $25,333 and $26,156 since Sep. 1. Typically, a volatility squeeze is followed by an expansion in volatility but it is difficult to predict the direction of the breakout with certainty. 

CoinGlass data shows that Bitcoin has fallen for six consecutive years in September. This historic data could keep the bulls at bay in the near term and embolden the bears. Additionally, the United States dollar index (DXY) which has an inverse correlation with Bitcoin has risen sharply in the past few weeks. Both these suggest that Bitcoin could remain under pressure in the short term.

It is not all gloom and doom for the crypto bulls because lower levels are likely to attract buyers. The prospect of one or more Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund applications receiving approvals may limit the downside. Several analysts believe this event to be hugely bullish for Bitcoin. Any positive news in this regard may prop prices higher.

From a macro perspective, it looks like there may be near-term weakness but lower levels are likely to be purchased. What are the important support levels to watch out for? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been trading below $26,000 for the past two days and the bears are trying to tug the price toward the vital support at $24,800.

Bitcoin (BTC) tried to break out of its range last week, but the bulls could not sustain the higher levels. Bitcoin is back inside the range and is trading near the $26,000 level. The price action of the past few days has formed two successive Doji candlestick patterns on the weekly chart, indicating uncertainty about the next directional move.

Although it is difficult to predict the direction of the breakout, the downside may be limited in the near term on expectations that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may eventually approve one or more pending applications for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Former commission chair Jay Clayton sounded confident when he said in a recent interview that “an approval is inevitable.”

In the near term, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific catalyst that could shake Bitcoin out of its range. The lack of clarity about Bitcoin’s next trending move has kept most major altcoins under pressure.

Only a handful of altcoins are showing signs of strength in the short term. Let’s study the charts of top-5 cryptocurrencies that may start a rally if they break above their respective overhead resistance levels.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin is back inside the $24,800 to $26,833 range, but a positive sign is that the bulls continue to buy the dips as seen from the long tail on the Sep. 1 candlestick.

Solana (SOL) investment products clocked $26 million worth of inflows since the start of 2023, outpacing all other altcoins including Ethereum, suggesting its the “most loved altcoin amongst investors” according to CoinShares.

In a Sep. 4 Digital Asset Fund Flows weekly report, CoinShares' head of research James Butterfill noted that trading volumes for crypto investment products for the week ending Sep. 1 were 90% above the year-to-date average — with crypto product outflows dropping to $11.2 million.

It marks a seven-week run of negative sentiment that’s seen $342 million leave crypto products over that time but YTD, investment products remain net inflow positive at $165 million.

The outflows haven’t affected Solana products however, which saw weekly inflows of $700,000 — the ninth straight week in a row with inflows of $14.1 million over that time and YTD inflows of $26 million.

Bitcoin (BTC) products were the only other asset to see weekly inflows, totaling $3.8 million, while Short BTC, Polygon (MATIC) and Ether (ETH) products all recorded weekly outflows.

Crypto betting platform Stake has reopened deposits and withdrawals and resumed services for users only five hours after the platform was hacked to the tune of $41.3 million, blockchain security firms estimate.

Stake confirmed that all services resumed at 9:28pm UTC time on Sept. 4 — a few hours after the platform confirmed that several unauthorized transactions were made on Stake’s ETH/ BTC hot wallets:

The betting site said its Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and XRP wallets were not impacted but hasn’t yet shared the cause of the exploit or how much was stolen. Stake however confirmed that user funds remain safe.

Recent analysis by blockchain security firm Beosin calculated the total loss to be $41.35 million, which included $15.7 million on Ethereum (ETH), $7.8 million on Polygon (MATIC) and another $17.8 million from the Binance Smart Chain.

An earlier estimate of $15.7 million by fellow blockchain security firm PeckShield didn’t account for the $25.6 million allegedly lost on BSC and Polygon, according to on-chain analyst ZachXBT.

The United States' equities markets are on a recovery path. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) surged 2.50% last week to record its best week since June. Even though Bitcoin (BTC) also attempted a relief rally, the bulls could not sustain the higher levels. In the end, Bitcoin finished the week with a marginal loss of 0.5%.

One of the main reasons Bitcoin gave back its gains was because the Securities and Exchange Commission delayed its decision on all spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund applications. However, this has not dented the expectations of analysts.

In a recent note, JPMorgan analysts said that the regulator will eventually approve several Bitcoin ETFs.

The short-term price action in Bitcoin remains in flu. But that has not deterred the long-term investors who have held onto their stockpile. Glassnode data shows that the currently mined supply dormant for three years or more has hit a new high of 40.538%.

Could Bitcoin break out of its range in the next few days? What are the important levels to watch out for? Let’s analyze the charts to find out.

Bitcoin (BTC) tried to break out of its range in the first half of last week but the bulls could not sustain the higher levels. Bitcoin is back inside the range and is trading near the $26,000 level.

The price action of the past few days has formed two successive Doji candlestick patterns on the weekly chart, indicating uncertainty about the next directional move.

Although it is difficult to predict the direction of the breakout, the downside could be limited in the near term on expectations that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may eventually approve one or more pending applications for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

Former commission chair Jay Clayton sounded confident when he said in a recent interview that “an approval is inevitable.”

In the near term, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific catalyst that could shake Bitcoin out of its range. The lack of clarity about Bitcoin’s next trending move has kept most major altcoins under pressure.

The total number of wallets on Shiba Inu’s newly launched layer-2 blockchain, the Shibarium network, has surpassed the 1 million mark in a meteoric rise since its relaunch. 

The milestone — announced in a Sept. 3 blog post by the official Shibarium team — means there were at least 900,000 wallets added since Shibarium’s relaunch on Aug. 28, and only two weeks after the Shibarium network first went live — albeit with some technical hiccups.

According to data from the Shibarium blockchain explorer, nearly 100,000 transactions have occurred as of 5:04am UTC Sept. 3, with a peak activity of 132,000 transactions being set on Aug. 25.

While network activity has surged, the total value locked (TVL) on the Shibarium network has yet to surge in response. At the time of publication, Shibarium’s TVL stands at just $1.06 million, suggesting that users are only deploying very small amounts of capital on the network.

In their blog post, Shibarium developers noted that they are currently collaborating with a number of third-party bridges to assist investors with bridging other tokens over to the new blockchain.

The total number of wallets on Shiba Inu’s newly launched layer-2 blockchain, the Shibarium network, has surpassed the one million mark in a meteoric rise since its relaunch. 

The milestone — announced in a Sept. 3 blog post by the official Shibarium team — means there were at least 900,000 wallets added since Shibarium’s relaunch on Aug. 28, and only two weeks after the Shibarium network first went live — albeit with some technical hiccups.

According to data from the Shibarium blockchain explorer, nearly 100,000 transactions have occurred as of 5:04am UTC Sept. 3, with a peak activity of 132,000 transactions being set on Aug. 25.

While network activity has surged, the total value locked (TVL) on the Shibarium network has yet to surge in response. At the time of publication Shibarium’s TVL stands at just $1.06 million, suggesting that users are only deploying very small amounts of capital on the network.

In their blog post, Shibarium developers noted that they are currently collaborating with a number of third-party bridges to assist investors with bridging other tokens over to the new blockchain.

A wallet owned by bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has moved $10 million worth of digital assets from the Solana (SOL) network to Ethereum, sparking concerns it could be the beginning of a series of token dumps amid the exchange’s bankruptcy proceedings. 

According to data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, since Aug. 31, the FTX wallet has transferred $6.23 million worth of Ether (ETH) and more than $4 million in altcoins.

These included $1.2 million of FTX Token (FTT), $1.8 million worth of Uniswap (UNI), $1.3 million of HXRO (HXRO), $550,000 worth of SushiSwap (SUSHI) and $260,000 worth of Frontier Token (FRONT), to another FTX wallet by way of the Wormhole Bridge.

On Aug. 24 FTX proposed a plan to appoint Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Capital Management as the investment manager charged with overseeing the sale and management of its recovered crypto holdings.

According to the plan, the FTX estate would only be permitted to sell $100 million of the tokens per week, however, that limit could be raised to $200 million on an individual token basis. These limits are intended to minimize the impact of token sales while simultaneously allowing FTX to make creditors whole.