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Bitcoin hit a 2022 low at $17,580 on June 18 and many traders are hopeful that this was the bottom, but (BTC) has been unable to produce a daily close above $21,000 for the past six days. For this reason, traders are uncomfortable with the current price action and the threat of many CeFi and DeFi companies dealing with the loss of user funds and possible insolvency is weighing on sentiment.

The blowback from venture capital Three Arrows Capital (3AC) failing to meet its financial obligations on June 14 and Asia-based lending platform Babel Finance citing liquidity pressure as a reason for pausing withdrawals are just two of the most recent examples.

This news has caught the eyes of regulators, especially after Celsius, a crypto lending firm, suspended user withdrawals on June 12. On June 16, securities regulators from five states in the United States of America reportedly opened investigations into crypto lending platforms.

There is no way to know when the sentiment will change and trigger a Bitcoin bull run, but for traders who believe BTC will reach $28,000 by August, there is a low-risk options strategy that yields a decent return with limited risk.

The "Iron Condor" provides returns for a specific price range

Sometimes throwing a "hail Mary" pays off by leveraging ten times via futures contracts. However, most traders are looking for ways to maximize gains while limiting losses. For example, the skewed "Iron Condor" maximizes profits near $28,000 by the end of August, but limits losses if the expiry is below $22,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) headed toward the upper end of its trading range on June 24 as optimism crept back into traders’ forecasts.

Bitcoin price "ready for $23,000"

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked a broadly stable BTC/USD as it hit local highs of $21,425 on Bitstamp.

The pair had shifted higher since wicking below the $20,000 on June 22, with United States equities similarly cool going into the weekend.

“Bitcoin ready for $23,000,” Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe announced to Twitter followers on the day.

At just above the crucial 200-week moving average (WMA), $23,000 formed a popular upside target for commentators — and sellers.

Bitcoin (BTC) miners may have already sparked a “capitulation event,” fresh analysis has concluded.

In an update on June 24, Julio Moreno, senior analyst at on-chain data firm CryptoQuant, hinted that the BTC price bottom could now be due.

BTC price bottom “typically” follows miner capitulation

Miners have seen a dramatic change in circumstances since March 2020, going from unprecedented profitability to seeing their margins squeezed.

The dip to $17,600 — 70% below November’s all-time highs for BTC/USD — has hit some players hard, data now shows, with miner wallets sending large amounts of coins to exchanges.

This, CryptoQuant suggests, precedes the final stages of the Bitcoin sell-off more broadly in line with historical precedent.

Recently, bad news has abounded, and the resulting fear is real. DeFi is looking dead, altcoins completed their lifecycle by returning back to $0 (I guess that’s a joke), and Bitcoin’s (BTC) price fell lower than even the smartest brains in the room expected. 

A unifying theme of the most recent bull market appears to have been greed. Everyone got too confident and too greedy, and it shows by the amount of debt and leverage that is being unwound as 3AC, Celsius, BlockFi and Voyager contend with the real threat of going belly up.

It seems Bitcoin miners and BTC mining companies also were not immune to the sentiment of over-exuberance and the belief that “up only” was a fact until Bitcoin’s price hit the long-awaited $100,000 target most analysts stuck to.

Historically, Bitcoin miners are an elusive species that are quiet and unwilling to spill the sauce to the public, but Cointelegraph had some success in securing a moment with HashWorks CEO and founder Todd Esse to discuss the current state of the mining industry and his predictions on where the market might head over the next year.

Cointelegraph: Bitcoin is trading below the realized price, and it is also below the miners’ cost of production. The price is also below the previous all-time high and the hash rate is dropping. Typically on-chain analysts pinpoint these metrics hitting extreme lows as a generational purchasing opportunity, thoughts?

The Singapore-based crypto venture firm Three Arrows Capital (3AC) failed to meet its financial obligations on June 15 and this caused severe impairments among centralized lending providers like Babel Finance and staking providers like Celsius.

On June 22, Voyager Digital, a New York-based digital assets lending and yield company listed on the Toronto Stock exchange, saw its shares drop nearly 60% after revealing a $655 million exposure to Three Arrows Capital.

Voyager offers crypto trading and staking and had about $5.8 billion of assets on its platform in March, according to Bloomberg. Voyager's website mentions that the firm offers a Mastercard debit card with cashback and allegedly pays up to 12% annualized rewards on crypto deposits with no lockups.

More recently, on June 23, Voyager Digital lowered its daily withdrawal limit to $10,000, as reported by Reuters.

The contagion risk spread to derivatives contracts

It remains unknown how Voyager shouldered so much liability to a single counterparty, but the firm is willing to pursue legal action to recover its funds from 3AC. To remain solvent, Voyager borrowed 15,000 Bitcoin (BTC) from Alameda Research, the crypto trading firm spearheaded by Sam Bankman-Fried.

Bitcoin (BTC) preserved $20,000 for another day on June 23 with calls for another 20% drop still surfacing.

Bitcoin under $10,000 not impossible

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD ranging just above the $20,000 mark over the 24 hours to the time of writing.

As ever, the behavior reflected moves in United States equities markets, which stayed flat on the day.

Remarks by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell had provided only brief volatility. Cointelegraph noted that Powell's Congress testimony provided no new information regarding macro policy.

As such, crypto commentators stuck to previous assertions — the outlook was uncertain, they said, but a potential fresh drawdown may only involve a trip to $16,000.

Ethereum's token Ether (ETH) could be entering a "bull trap" zone after rebounding back above the $1,000 mark from 18-month lows of $885. 

Ether price paints a "rising wedge"

The first among these indicators is a "rising wedge," a classic bearish reversal setup that forms after the price trends upward inside a range defined by two ascending but converging trendlines. The wedge setup gains further confirmation if the trading volume drops alongside the rising prices.

Theoretically, a rising wedge resolves after the price breaks below its lower trendline and eyes a run-down toward the level at length equal to the maximum height between the wedge's upper and lower trendline

Ether has been forming a rising wedge since mid-June, as shown in the chart below.

Hence, its interim bias appears to the downside, with a decisive breakdown below the lower trendline risking a decline toward the $870–$950, depending on where the breakdown begins. 

Bear markets have historically been challenging to navigate for traders and the conventional set of "reliable" indicators that determine good entry points are unable to predict how long a crypto winter might last.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent recovery back above the psychologically important price level of $20,000 was a sign to many traders that the bottom was in, but a deeper dive into the data suggests that the short-term relief rally might not be enough proof of a macro-level trend change.

Evidence pointing to the need for caution was provided in a recent report by cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital, which suggested that “we need to see a little more pain before we have conviction that a market bottom is in.”

Despite the pain that has already been felt since Bitcoin’s price topped in November, a comparison between its pullback since then and the 2017 market top points to the possibility of further decline in the short-term.

During previous bear markets, the price of BTC fell by roughly 85% from its top to the eventual bottom. According to Delphi Digital, if history were to repeat itself in the current environment it would translate into “a low just above $10,000 and another 50% drawdown for current levels.”

The price of Terra (LUNA2) has recovered sharply nine days after falling to its historic lows of $1.62. 

On June 27, LUNA2's rate reached $2.77 per token, thus chalking up a 70% recovery when measured from the said low. Still, the token traded 77.35% lower than its record high of $12.24, set on May 30.

LUNA2's recovery mirrored similar retracement moves elsewhere in the crypto industry with top crypto assets Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) rising by approximately 25% and 45% in the same period.

The recent bout of buying in the LUNA2 market could trap bulls, given it has come as a part of a broader correction trend.

In detail, LUNA2 appears to be forming a "bear flag" pattern, a bearish continuation setup that appears as the price consolidates upward inside a parallel ascending channel after undergoing a large move downside.

Bitcoin (BTC) sold off into the June 27 Wall Street open as United States equities fell.

$25,000 eyed as bulls' line in the sand

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD following stock markets downhill as the last week of June began.

At the time of writing, the pair traded below $21,000, having hit its lowest in three days after a broadly stable weekend.

Amid a general lack of bullish conviction among traders, expectations for a further drop stayed present, with Bitcoin still below the crucial 200-week moving average (WMA) at $22,430.

"Bitcoin says NO against $21K support. That's all fine. We have got levels structured," Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe wrote in a Twitter debate on the day.

Dogecoin (DOGE) looks ready to extend its rebound move despite the current crypto bear market.

79% chances DOGE will extend its rebound move

DOGE’s price appears to have been painting a bump-and-run-reversal (BARR) bottom since May 11, a technical pattern that points to extended trend reversals in a bear market. It consists of three successful phases: Lead-In, Bump and Run.

The Lead-In phase sees the price consolidating inside a narrow and sideways range, showing an interim bias conflict among investors.

That follows the Bump phase, wherein the price drops and recovers sharply, leading to a price breakout, defined by the Run phase.

Dogecoin appears to be in the Bump Phase while eyeing a breakout above the BARR bottom’s falling trendline resistance. Suppose DOGE breaks above the said price ceiling. Then, as a rule of technical analysis, it would eye a run-up toward the BARR’s origin level.

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 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.

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) slumped on June 16, suggesting that its relief rally, coinciding with the Federal Reserve announcing it will hike the benchmark rate by 0.75%, is at risk.

Ether bulls trapped?

Ether's price slipped by 9.2% to around $1,120 per token a day after it rebounded by 23% after dropping to almost $1,000, its worst level since January 2021.

The ETH/USD pair's upside move, followed by a sharp correction, appeared in tandem with U.S. stocks, confirming that it traded like a risk-asset.

The decline means that Ether has shed 77% of its value since November 2021 and is now trading below its "realized price" of $1,740, data from Glassnode shows.

In addition, a higher interest rate environment adds more selling pressure, with investors leaving high-risk trades and seeking safety in traditional hedging assets, such as cash. 

Bitcoin (BTC) near $20,000 is worrying the market, but after narrowly avoiding breaking support, is the worst really over?

According to multiple on-chain indicators, it seems that max pain has yet to arrive this cycle.

The stakes are high for many hodlers this week — almost 50% of the supply is being held at a loss and miners are upping their shipments of BTC to exchanges.

Even some of Bitcoin’s biggest investors, notably MicroStrategy, are having to defend their conviction on BTC as price action tumbles.

With targets ranging as low as $11,000, Cointelegraph takes a look at how much further the market technically needs to drop to match historical bottom zones.