Decentral Block Post

A two-month-long lull in cryptocurrency optimism has seen online search interest for “crypto” and other common cryptocurrency terms stumble down to late 2020 levels.

According to data from Google Trends, the term “crypto” currently has a score of 17, which is well off its reference point of 100 in May 2021. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum have followed a similar downward trajectory.

However, search interest for these terms has been in a relatively consistent decline since May 2022, about a month after much of the Terra Luna ecosystem collapsed. A small spike in interest came in early November when the crypto exchange FTX collapsed.

The fall in interest comes as Bitcoin (BTC) has held steady around $28,000 for 10 weeks now — something which Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz recently described as “lackadaisical,” due ta lack of “institutional excitement right now.”

Guy Turner, commonly known as “Coin Bureau Guy” suggested in a June 4 Twitter post that the fall in interest also coincides with lower trading volumes on exchanges, which he claims to have reached a 32-month low last month:

The United States equities markets welcomed the debt ceiling deal and the May nonfarm payrolls data on June 2 with strong rallies. The S&P 500 rose 1.8% during the week while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 2%. This was the sixth successive week of gains for the Nasdaq, the first such occasion since January 2020.

In addition to the above, the expectation of the Federal Reserve remaining in a pause mode during the next meeting may have acted as a catalyst for the rally. CME’s FedWatch Tool is showing a 75% probability of a pause, with the remaining 25% expecting a 25 basis points hike in the June 14 meeting.

Rallies in the equities markets failed to trigger a similar performance in Bitcoin (BTC) and the altcoins. However, a minor positive is that several major cryptocurrencies have stopped falling and are trying to start a recovery.

Could bulls maintain the momentum and surmount the respective overhead resistance levels? If they do, which are the top five cryptocurrencies that may lead the rally?

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been trading close to the 20-day exponential moving average ($27,233) for the past three days. This suggests that the bulls are buying the dip near $26,500.

On June 2, the price of Arbitrum jumped alongside the top-ranking cryptocurrencies after the United States Senate voted to raise the debt limit.

Why is the ARB price up today?

The price of Arbitrum (ARB) rose 9% to an intraday high of $1.25, beating the crypto market’s total overall gains of 1.5% in the same period.

Arbitrum’s outperformance coincided with some strange buying activity associated with popular trader Andrew Kang’s crypto addresses.

Notably, on June 2, the Mechanism Capital co-founder deposited $1 million worth of stablecoins into Arbitrum pools and spent over 20% of it buying RDNT, the native token of decentralized finance lending platform Radiant Capital.

Later, Kang exchanged his newly bought and existing RDNT reserves for $867,000 worth of ARB. Then, he deposited the proceeds to Radiant Capital to borrow Circle’s USD Coin (USDC), according to data resource Lookonchain.

The United States equities markets rallied sharply on June 2 even though the nonfarm payrolls in May rose 339,000, blowing past economists’ expectations of a 190,000 increase. A few analysts pointed out that the market was possibly encouraged by the slower growth rate of hourly earnings which was slightly below estimates and an uptick in the unemployment rate.

The rally in the equities markets failed to act as a tailwind to the cryptocurrency markets, which remain stuck in a range. Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said in an interview with CNBC that the lack of enthusiasm in the crypto markets was due to absence of institutional buying.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) historical performance in June does not give a clear advantage either to the bulls or the bears. According to CoinGlass data, between 2013 and 2022, there have been an equal number of positive and negative monthly closes in June.

Will buyers defend the respective support levels and start a strong recovery in Bitcoin and select altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been trading inside a descending channel pattern for the past few days. The price closed below the 20-day exponential moving average ($27,239) on May 31 but the bears are struggling to maintain the lower levels.

Bitcoin (BTC) bounced near multiple support trend lines into June 2 as market indecision remained in force.

Traders bet on $27,500 BTC price ceiling

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting lows of $26,519 on Bitstamp after the daily close.

The pair showed little signs of trend change as a stalemate between bulls and bears continued to produce little volatility.

The collection of moving averages (MAs), as well as the short-term holder (STH) realized price, near $26,000 thus stayed untested on intraday timeframes.

Analyzing the current setup, popular trader Crypto Ed considered the potential for upside topping out at $27,500.

In episode 22 of Hashing It Out with Cointelegraph’s Elisha Owusu Akyaw, Sara Gherghelas, blockchain research analyst at DappRadar — a cryptocurrency data tracking platform — discusses the recent hype around memecoins, while looking at on-chain data. Gherghelas also provides insights on how other sectors, such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), are faring as memecoins take off.

Gherghelas believes we are in a memecoin era. From her perspective, when you mention Web3 or cryptocurrencies in 2023, many people will associate the terms with memecoins. Gherghelas says there have been multiple memecoin cycles in the cryptocurrency space, but this time is different because the trend has been sustained for a more extended period.

The blockchain analyst associates the trend with the popularity of memecoins on social media and the creation of tight-knit communities that people want to be a part of. What’s more, the price action of memecoins in this cycle has attracted a large crowd of traders looking to make returns, according to Gherghelas. She also adds that memecoins are more accessible and inclusive due to their low barrier of entry.

“You can be a millionaire in Shiba, but you can never afford one million Bitcoin or one million Ethereum.“

Memecoins could be more than just a social media trend or an attempt to make quick returns. Gherghelas highlighted projects like Shiba Inu, which is building a decentralized exchange and layer-2 network, and Floki Inu, which is building a metaverse. The blockchain research analyst believes that memecoins are not a zero-sum game for the cryptocurrency industry because most people who come in through memecoins may stay and discover other aspects of crypto.

Tether-issued USDT (USDT) stablecoin broke past a new all-time-high market cap of over $83 billion as it continues its stablecoin market dominance.

The new ATH market cap for the USDT stablecoin comes in a year when other stablecoin issuers are struggling to remain afloat due to regulatory ire. The same was pointed out by cryptocurrency exchange Binance’s CEO Changpang Zhao aka CZ.

CZ in a quote tweet drew attention towards BUSD, a Binance stablecoin issued by Paxos. The Binance CEO said that “BUSD was a fully regulated stablecoin that was ‘capped’ by NYDFS at a $23 billion and currently sits at a $5 billion market cap and since then USDT has seen tremendous growth.”

In February earlier this year, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) ordered Paxos to stop any new issuance of BUSD citing violations of security laws.

At a time when USDT has reached its ATH market cap, its competitors such as Circle-issued USD Coin (USDC) or Binance’s BUSD are struggling to maintain their market dominance. USDC the second largest stablecoin’s market cap stands at $28.8 billion with a difference of over $50 billion. For context, at one point UDC's market dominance was nearing that of USDT and its market cap reached an ATH of $55.8 billion in June 2022.

Pepe (PEPE) price has dropped by more than 70% three weeks after establishing its record high of $0.00000449. And the memecoin could fall even more in the coming days, according to a mix of technical and fundamental indicators.

PEPE charts flash a classic bearish reversal pattern

From a technical standpoint, the price of PEPE could drop sharply from its current levels. At the core of this bearish outlook lies the classic head-and-shoulders (H&S) pattern.

Analysts who use technical analysi view the H&S pattern as a bearish reversal indicator for the unversed. It forms when the price forms three peaks atop a common neckline support; the middle peak, called "head," is higher than the other two, called the "left shoulder" and "right shoulder."

The H&S pattern resolves after the price breaks below its neckline. Meanwhile, as a rule of technical analysis, traders measure the pattern's downside target by adding the maximum distance between the head and neckline to the breakdown point.

On May 22, PEPE broke below its H&S neckline near $0.00000156. That puts its downside target near $0.00000041 in June, down around 70% from current price levels.

After rising for four successive months, Bitcoin (BTC) is on track to end May with losses of about 7%. Another noteworthy thing in May is that Bitcoin’s 30-day volatility dropped to 1.52%, which is far below the yearly average 4% and higher. Glassnode data shows that Bitcoin’s low volatile periods have only lasted for 19.3% of its total price history. Hence, there is an expectation for volatility to pick up in June.

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Glassnode lead on-chain analyst James Check said that Bitcoin could rally to $32,000, which is its “true cost basis.” Analysts at Glassnode arrived at this level after focusing on active Bitcoin investors and removing coins that are lost forever.

In the near term, the outcome of the vote on the debt ceiling in the United States House of Representatives could provide direction. If the vote succeeds, as is widely accepted, it could lead to a knee-jerk reaction to the upside. But if the vote fails, then Bitcoin is likely to break below $25,000.

The short-term charts of Bitcoin and select major altcoins suggest that the bulls may be losing their grip. What are the important support levels that the bulls need to hold to avoid a collapse? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin reversed direction from the downtrend line on May 29, indicating that the bears continue to sell near crucial resistance levels.

The cryptocurrency market experienced a dull month with Bitcoin (BTC) dropping 7.37%, its worst performance since November 2022 and Ethereum (ETH) losing 0.22% in May. 

The average loss across the market stands at 5.62% on the last day before the monthly close.

However, some outliers posted impressive gains thanks to popular investment narratives and the growth of the Ethereum staking sector.

In the first half of May, memecoins grabbed headlines with Pepecoin (PEPE) leading the narrative. The memecoin cycle guzzled up a lot of gas on Ethereum in the first half of May.

PEPE’s market capitalization surged to a peak of $1.54 billion in the first week of May, according to CoinGecko. It has witnessed a sell-off since then as token holders booked profit. However, the token still ended the month with over 300% gains.

Swiss nonprofit Anoma Foundation has secured a significant funding boost to continue the development and research of its third-generation blockchain architecture.

A third fundraising round secured $25 million for the organization, which is building what it describes as a generalized intent-centric blockchain architecture. The technology is touted to enable the development of completely decentralized applications (DApps) and services, ranging from decentralized exchanges (DEXs) to blockchain rollup protocols.

Anoma co-founder Adrian Brink told Cointelegraph that its third-generation architecture offers more composability and ease of use than existing smart contract protocols like Ethereum and its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Brink highlighted the evolution of blockchain systems, with Bitcoin (BTC) being the first generation of scriptable settlement architectures. Ethereum became the second generation with programmable settlement architecture, while Anoma looks to further the decentralization of existing blockchain-based applications and platforms:

“Anoma is the first architecture that is intent-centric, marking the third generation of architectures that contrast with the current transaction and blockchain-centric architectures.”

The Chinese government continues to crack down on the cryptocurrency industry with a new investigation targeting a major Chinese yuan stablecoin issuer.

The team of Trust Reserve, the issuer of the Chinese yuan-pegged stablecoin CNHC, has been detained by the Chinese police, the local blockchain publication PANews reported on May 31.

According to the report, Trust Reserve employees have been out of reach since afternoon May 29 due to multiple arrests. Some employees’ family members have also been reportedly notified about the detentions.

PANews also learned that Trust Reserve’s office in Pudong, Shanghai was empty as of May 31. The door was sealed on May 29, with a notice saying “Judicial seizure, strictly no vandalism.”

Trust Reserve, formerly known as CNHC Group, is the issuer of the Chinese CNHC stablecoin as well as the Hong Kong dollar-pegged stable currency HKDC.

Ben.eth, the pseudo-anonymous memecoin creator behind at least three controversial token launches in recent weeks could fall under the crosshair of United States regulators, crypto lawyers suggest.

A previously little-known personality in the crypto community, Ben.eth has seen his Twitter following blow up nearly five-fold in May. The influencer has launched at least three memecoins in recent weeks — Ben Coin (BEN), PSYOP, and LOYAL.

Pre-sales of these memecoins — which require Ether (ETH) to be sent directly to the creator himself — have allowed Ben.eth to gather thousands of ETH. Currently, his wallet holds 10,946 ETH, equivalent to $20.8 million.

While Ben.eth’s supporters have defended the legitimacy of the token sales, others warn that the influencer’s actions could face the wrath of regulators and disgruntled investors alike. 

Michael Kanovitz, a partner at Loevy & Loevy told Cointelegraph, the Psyop launch “is a classic example of the concerns the SEC has identified in actions like those against Kim Kardashian and Paul Pierce.”