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Bitcoin (BTC) consolidated lower on Aug. 9 after familiar resistance preserved a multi-month trading range.

Bitcoin navigates whale price ladder

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD falling under the $24,000 mark overnight after rejecting near $24,200. 

The pair had seen swift gains to start the week but momentum faded as the top of the trading range in place since mid-June came closer.

As such, bulls failed to reclaim new ground or even match the highs seen at the end of July, and the status quo thus continued. At the time of writing, BTC/USD was consolidating near $23,800.

For on-chain analytics resource Whalemap, it was realized price that was now forming major levels to overcome.

Institutional investors are piling into Ether- (ETH)-based digital asset funds, which have recorded seven straight weeks of positive inflows, according to the latest CoinShares report. 

Said inflows reached $16.3 million last week, adding to a total of $159 million in inflows over the last seven weeks.

CoinShares Head of Research James Butterfill on Monday said the rise in market sentiment for Ethereum-focused products is largely due to “greater clarity” relating to the upcoming Merge, which is set for Sep. 19, with Butterfill stating: 

“We believe this turn-around in investor sentiment is due to greater clarity on the timing of The Merge where Ethereum shifts from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.”

The Merge will see the Ethereum mainnet merge with the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain, which will complete the transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. The PoS consensus mechanism is expected to make Ethereum more secure, energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

The U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) recently initiated an attempt to reduce its $8.9 trillion balance sheet by halting billions of dollars worth of treasuries and bond purchases. The measures were implemented in June 2022 and coincided with the total crypto market capitalization falling below $1.2 trillion, the lowest level seen since January 2021. 

A similar movement happened to the Russell 2000, which reached 1,650 points on June 16, levels unseen since November 2020. Since this drop, the index has gained 16.5%, while the total crypto market capitalization has not been able to reclaim the $1.2 trillion level.

This apparent disconnection between crypto and stock markets has caused investors to question whether the Federal Reserve’s growing balance sheet could lead to a longer than expected crypto winter.

The FED will do whatever it takes to combat inflation

To subdue the economic downturn caused by restrictive government-imposed measures during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve added $4.7 trillion to bonds and mortgage-backed securities from January 2020 to February 2022.

The unexpected result of these efforts was 40-year high inflation and in June, U.S. consumer prices jumped by 9.1% versus 2021. On July 13, President Joe Biden said that the June inflation data was "unacceptably high." Furthermore, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell stated on July 27:

The metaverse sector is witnessing its very-own housing crisis moment, thanks to massive declines in the prices of its virtual lands in 2022, led by waning users' interest and a crypto bear market.

Land sales plunge 85% in 2022

In particular, metaverse projects built on the Ethereum blockchain, including the Sandbox and Decentraland, have witnessed substantial declines in their valuations and other key metrics, data from WeMeta shows.

For instance, the average price of lands sold across Decentraland peaked at $37,238 in February 2022. But as of Aug. 1, their costs had dropped to an average of $5,163. Similarly, the Sandbox's average sale price dropped from circa $35,500 in January to around $2,800 in August.

Overall, the average price per parcel of virtual lands across the six major Ethereum metaverse projects dropped from approximately $17,000 in January to around $2,500 in August, or a 85% decline. 

Declining metaverse volumes

Poor land sale volumes further indicate dampening user interest in Metaverse projects.

Bitcoin (BTC) looked to target new August highs at the Aug. 8 Wall Street open as upcoming United States inflation data fueled sentiment.

$25,000 next major BTC resistance

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit $24,246 on Bitstamp, its best since July 30.

The pair was within striking distance of its highest since mid-June at the time of writing, while traders and analysts scanned the charts for signs of resistance.

For on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators, this came in the form of sellers at $25,000 and Bitcoin’s 100-day moving average (MA).

“Bear Market Rally is pumping ahead of this week's CPI report,” it wrote as part of its latest Twitter update.

Bitcoin (BTC) goes into another key macro week in the United States with a welcome break to the upside.

After avoiding a now-familiar breakdown around the weekly close, BTC/USD is surging higher at the time of writing on Aug. 8 to once more tackle resistance in place for two months.

Can the bulls win out? Momentum appears to be strong across crypto, but a host of potential stumbling blocks lie in the way.

With fresh U.S. inflation data due, the macro picture could yet upset the status quo, while sellers likewise show no sign of budging to allow reclaim of levels above $25,000.

Amid continued claims that Bitcoin is enjoying nothing more than a “bear market rally,” Cointelegraph takes a look at the state of play on the market as the new week begins.

The United States jobs data on Aug. 5 was above market expectations, indicating that inflation has not cooled down. The strong numbers reduce the possibility that the U.S. Federal Reserve will slow down its aggressive pace of rate hikes. After the release, the likelihood of a 75 basis points hike in September has risen to 68%, according to CME Group data.

However, analysts at Fundstrat Global Advisors have a different view. They highlighted that three out of six times, the S&P 500 bottomed out six months before the Fed’s last rate hike. Therefore, the firm anticipates the S&P 500 to witness a strong rally to 4,800 in the second half of the year.

If the tight correlation between the equities markets and the cryptocurrency markets maintain, the recovery in the crypto markets may have some more room to run. On-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators said in a Twitter update on Aug. 5 that if Bitcoin (BTC) rises above $25,000, there is no major resistance till the $26,000 to $28,000 range.

Could Bitcoin climb above the overhead resistance and extend its recovery, pulling select altcoins higher? Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that may outperform in the near term.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin has been trading close to the 20-day exponential moving average ($22,719) for the past few days, indicating a tough battle between the bulls and the bears. Although the bulls have held the level, they have not been able to achieve a strong rebound off it. This indicates a lack of demand at higher levels.

Bitcoin (BTC) is in short supply at Tesla, even as its CEO predicts that United States inflation has already peaked.

Speaking at Tesla’s 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders on Aug. 5, Elon Musk predicted that an upcoming United States recession would only be “mild to moderate.”

Musk on costs: "The trend is down"

After recently selling almost all of its $1.5 billion BTC holdings, Tesla is seeing the emergence of exactly the kind of economic landscape in which risk assets thrive.

During a Q&A session at the Annual Meeting, Musk revealed that six-month commodities pricing for Tesla parts is already getting cheaper, not more expensive.

Commodities, he said, are trending down, providing a hint that inflation has already hit its highest levels.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose above $23,000 again into Aug. 6 as new analysis predicted a potential surge of 20% or more.

Daily chart gives trader $30,000 target

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD climbing overnight to once again sit near the top of its established trading range.

After multiple attempts to break out above range resistance at $23,500, the pair appeared still stuck in limbo at the time of writing, but hopes of bullish continuation were already there.

“Expecting more volatility over the wknd,” on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators wrote in part of its latest Twitter update on Aug. 5.

“If the Bear Market Rally can push BTC above 25k there isn't much friction to 26k - 28k range. Losing the trend line would be bad for bullish hopes and dreams.”

Ether (ETH), Ethereum's native toke, has been continuing its uptrend against Bitcoin (BTC) as euphoria around its upcoming network upgrade, "the Merge," grows.

ETH at multi-month highs against BTC

On the daily chart, ETH/BTC surged to an intraday high of 0.075 on Aug. 6, following a 1.5% upside move. Meanwhile, the pair's gains came as a part of a broader rebound trend that started a month ago at 0.049, amounting to approximately 50% gains.

The ETH/BTC recovery in part has surfaced due to the Merge, which will have Ethereum switch from proof-of-work (PoW) mining to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Ethereum's "rising wedge" suggests sell-off

From a technical perspective, Ether stares at potential interim losses as ETH/BTC paints a convincing rising wedge. 

Rising wedges are bearish reversal patterns that occur when the price trends higher inside a range defined by two rising, converging trendlines. As a rule, they resolve after the price breaks below the lower trendline by as much as the structure's maximum height.

Cryptocurrencies have failed to break the $1.1 trillion market capitalization resistance, which has been holding strong for the past 54 days. The two leading coins held back the market as Bitcoin (BTC) lost 2.5% and Ether (ETH) retraced 1% over the past seven days, but a handful of altcoins presented a robust rally.

Crypto markets’ aggregate capitalization declined 1% to $1.07 trillion between July 29 and Aug. 5. The market was negatively impacted by reports on Aug. 4 that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating every U.S. crypto exchange after the regulator charged a former Coinbase employee with insider trading.

While the two leading cryptoassets were unable to print weekly gains, traders’ appetite for altcoins was not affected. Investors were positively impacted by the Coinbase exchange partnership with BlackRock, the world’s largest financial asset manager, responsible for $10 trillion worth of investments.

Coinbase Prime, the service offered to BlackRock’s clients, is an institutional trading solution that provides trading, custody, financing and staking on over 300 digital assets. Consequently, comparing the winners and losers among the top-80 coins provides skewed results, as 10 of those rallied 12% or more over the past seven days:

FLOW rallied 48% after Instagram announced support for the Flow blockchain via Dapper Wallet. The social network controlled by Meta (formerly Facebook) is expanding nonfungible token integration.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw fresh rejection at $23,500 resistance on Aug. 5 as United States equities failed to embrace surprisingly strong payroll data.

"Collapsing real wages" poke fun at payroll print

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as bears kept the market in its intraday trading range.

Wall Street opened with a whimper despite U.S. payrolls for July coming in at twice estimated levels. The curious reaction had some analysts arguing that the numbers did not in fact show economic strength, but rather existing workers taking on second jobs due to inflation.

“The gain of 528K jobs in July as the labor force participation rate fell to 62.1, means that most of the new jobs went to people who already had jobs,” gold bug Peter Schiff responded.

“Collapsing real wages force many workers to moonlight to pay the bills. If the labor market were strong one job would be enough.”

Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded overnight into Aug. 5 as a fresh trendline reclaim opened the door to further gains.

Daily BTC price chart sets up “tentative” long signal

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD bouncing off a local bottom at $22,400 to add around 4.6%.

The pair had reversed direction right at key bid support on major exchange Binance, this helping avoid a more substantial loss of the 200-week moving average (MA) at around $22,800.

While that key zone remained uncertain for bulls, a reclaim of the 21-period MA on the daily chart gave on-chain analytics resource Material Indicators cause for optimism.

BTC/USD might not spark a long signal at the daily candle close, it told Twitter followers overnight.

Flow (FLOW) logged its best daily performance on Aug.4 after becoming the latest blockchain to support Instagram's nonfungible token (NFT) features.

Insta-made FLOW rally

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Aug. 4 that Instagram had expanded its NFT support to 100 more countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas. As a result, more users can post digital collectibles minted on the Flow blockchain on Instagram.

The high-profile integration helped FLOW surge 54% to reach an intraday high of $2.83 a token. Interestingly, the token's massive upside move accompanied a spike in its daily trading volumes, confirming some weight behind the bullish trend. 

Like any blockchain native asset, the ups and downs in FLOW's demand are tied to the adoption of its parent chain. In general, FLOW serves as a legal tender within the Flow's proof-of-stake ecosystem for the following purposes:

That explains the token's bullish response to Instagram's adoption.

Cryptocurrencies’ total market capitalization bounced from $860 billion on June 30 to the current $1.03 trillion, a 20.6% relief in five weeks. Ether (ETH) might have been the absolute leader among the largest smart contract chains, but BNB managed to gain 39% over that period.

BNB token’s year-to-date performance remains negative by 43%, but the current $49.5 billion market capitalization ranks it the third largest, excluding stablecoins. Furthermore, the leading decentralized application (DApp) is PancakeSwap — 843,630 active addresses in the past seven days — which runs on BNB Chain.

The token serves primarily as a utility asset within the Binance exchange ecosystem, enabling traders to earn discounts or participate in token offers. So, technically, the BNB token does not give ownership rights or dividends to any Binance-owned company or service.

However, according to Bloomberg, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating whether the initial coin offering (ICO) of BNB tokens in 2017 consisted of a sale of unregistered securities. A digital asset may fall under the SEC’s scrutiny if buyers intend to profit from the efforts of a company or project funded by the capital raise.

To understand whether BNB's 39% rally in five weeks is justified, investors should analyze network use, including smart contract deposits, active users and decentralized applications adoption.

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to base on Aug. 4 as higher levels gave way to a battle for the 200-week moving average (MA).

Battle for classic Bitcoin price trendline rages 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD falling to repeatedly test the key bear market trendline as support.

The day’s Wall Street open provided only a brief change in the mood, with the pair spiking above $23,000 before continuing previous behavior.

The atmosphere was unchanged by news that investment giant BlackRock had partnered with major exchange Coinbase to provide crypto trading to clients.

Instead, the familiar status quo involving the 200-week MA just above $22,800 entered another chapter, with bulls and bears still tussling for control. On-chain analytics resource Material Indicators noted that one class of whales active on the largest global exchange, Binance, was in a more risk-off mood on the day.

The price of Optimism (OP) has been skyrocketing since the beginning of July due to its proximity to Ethereum.

Notably, OP's price rallied by nearly 300% in over a month to reach $2.31, its second-highest level on record, on Aug. 4. The token received its bullish cues primarily from the euphoria surrounding Ethereum's potential transition to proof-of-stake in September via an upgrade called "the Merge."

Why the "Optimism"

To recap: Optimism is an Ethereum rollup solution. In other words, the so-called layer-2 solution handles a bundle of Ethereum's transaction verifications off-chain to boost scalability on the main chain.

Optimism could benefit from the Merge due to Ethereum's "Rollup-Centric Roadmap," which turns its main chain into a settlement and data availability layer and places scalability in the hands of layer-2 rollups via "danksharding."

"Currently, with the combined rollup and Ethereum architecture, the current Ethereum-only transaction throughput of 15–45 TPS could scale to as much as 1,000–4,000 TPS," noted Ally Zach, a researcher at Messari, adding:

Bitcoin (BTC) is providing overwhelming evidence that it is capitulating, and it is time to flip bullish as a result, new analysis believes.

In a Twitter thread on Aug. 3, Charles Edwards, CEO of crypto asset manager Capriole, revealed what he called the “The 12 Bitcoin Capitulations.”

“Risk-returns skewed positively” for Bitcoin

With BTC price action recovering from multi-year lows but still hovering near key bear market support, opinions vary widely as to what will happen next.

Some are demanding a return to levels even lower than June’s $17,600 trough, while others argue that a “bear market relief rally” could take BTC/USD as high as $40,000 first.

For Edwards, the raw evidence suggests that the past months have been bearish enough and that behind the scenes, Bitcoin has been quietly capitulating.