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Avalanche (AVAX) bulls should brace themselves for impact led by a growing divergence between severalkey indicators on the daily-timeframe chart.

AVAX price chart paints bearish divergence

The daily AVAX chart shows a classic bearish divergence between its price and relative strength index (RSI), a momentum oscillator forming since Jan. 11.

In other words, the price of AVAX has been making higher highs since the said date. But, on the other hand, the coin's daily RSI has been forming lower highs. This divergence suggest a slowdown in the  momentum of the AVAX/USD pair, which may lead to a price reversal.

In addition, the declining volumes during the course of AVAX's ongoing uptrend also hints at the same bearish cues.

The price-RSI and price-volume divergences appear as AVAX price continues its 2023 uptrend . Notably, Avalanche has rallied by more than 100% year-to-date to $22.50 as of Feb. 2, helped by improving risk-on sentiments and  news of its partnership with Amazon.

Stablecoins have been under much scrutiny after the implosion of the third-largest stablecoin by market cap, TerraUSD (UST), in May 2022. The UST saga led to a lot of skepticism that caused consumers to question the safety of stablecoins. 

In the seventh episode of Hashing It Out, Cointelegraph's Elisha Owusu Akyaw (GhCryptoGuy) interviewed Paolo Ardoino, Tether's chief technology officer, about how stablecoins work alongside a discussion on frequently asked questions about stable tokens.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) rocked the boats of stablecoin issuers after the third most popular stablecoin, TerraUSD, depegged in 2022. Tether was one of such issuers at the receiving end of the FUD. Paolo Ardoino claimed that some of the FUD was being spread privately and publicly by competitors. Nevertheless, the Tether CTO said that the FUD only served to improve trust between consumers and the company.

"I like the FUD so much because we can respond to it with facts."

One such fact was the ability of the company to withstand the pressure that came as a result of panic in the market. Ardoino points out that Tether was able to process $7 billion in redemptions in 48 hours, which was 10% of the company's reserves. According to him, it is an achievement that will be recorded in the history books of global finance.

Bitcoin’s bullish surge in January has helped the Nasdaq Crypto Index to register its third-highest monthly gain, with a 38% surge. The cryptocurrency market started the year on a bullish note, defying major bearish market outlooks. Bitcoin (BTC) and a number of altcoins touched new multi-month highs as inflation cooled off. 

NCI recorded its third-biggest monthly gain since its inception in February 2021. The crypto asset index was launched by Brazilian asset manager Hashdex in partnership with the United States stock exchange. The index consists of eight cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Chainlink's LINK, and Stellar's Lumen (XLM), among a few others.

BTC has the highest weightage in the index, with 69.8%, followed by ETH (27.08%). The rest of the other altcoins have a weightage of less than 1%.  Thus, the subsequent rise of BTC and ETH, which have surged over 35% in the past month, reflected on the index as well. The index weightage refers to the share of stocks invested in a particular digital asset.

Related: Bitcoin bulls must reclaim these 2 levels as 'death cross' still looms

With a prolonged crypto winter throughout 2022, Bitcoin ended the last year at around $16,500 and the majority of the altcoins also tested their yearly lows towards the end of the last year. Many market pundits had warned that the bearish sentiment might continue into the new year owing to the FTX saga folding out on a daily basis. However, the crypto market showed resilience and started the year on a bullish note and registering a market-wide double-digit gain for the past month.

A small-scale decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) has suffered a rather sizeable smart contract exploit leading to an estimated $120 million being stolen from its protocol.

BonqDAO, which is behind the Bonq protocol, told its Twitter followers on Feb. 1 that its protocol was exposed to an oracle hack that allowed the exploiter to manipulate the price of the AllianceBlock (ALBT) token.

An independent analysis from blockchain security firm PeckShield has estimated the loss from the Bonq hack to be around $120 million, comprising $108 million from 98.65 million BEUR tokens, and $11 million from 113.8 million wrapped-ALBT (wALBT) tokens.

While the exploit took effect over several transactions, the largest was $82.19 million at 6:32pm UTC time on Feb. 1, according to multi-chain portfolio tracker DeBank.

Most of the high-scale transactions took place on the Polygon network.

Bitcoin (BTC) gained about 40% in January, its best finish in the first month of the year since 2013. The sharp rally caused a change in sentiment and the futures markets which saw backwardation in November and December started trading at a healthy contango in January, according to Glassnode.

Coming out of a bear market low, a rally driven by the leaders rather than the laggards is a sign that the bottoming process may have begun. The rise in Bitcoin’s dominance from about 38% in November to above 42% in January is an indication that smart investors may have started accumulating Bitcoin at lower levels.

After the strong up-move in January, the next big question is how will Bitcoin perform in February. Coinglass data shows that since 2013, Bitcoin has closed February in the red only in 2014 and 2020. If history repeats itself, the possibility of a positive close in February is high but the pace of the rally may slow down.

Could Bitcoin and altcoins stay range-bound and consolidate the gains or will traders book profits, dragging prices lower? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin dipped below the breakout level of $22,800 on Jan. 30 but the bulls purchased at lower levels and pushed the price back above $23,000 on Jan. 31.

There are rumors that Dogecoin could switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake (PoS). 

Do I know if Dogecoin is switching to PoS?

No.

Do I think it’s going to PoS? Probably not.

But I love the “what if” game.

The rally in cryptocurrency markets started in early January with a spike in heavily-shorted altcoins and Ethereum (ETH) liquid staking derivative (LSD) tokens due to the upcoming network upgrade in March. Soon gains started to show across the board as buyers started to play catch up. 

The improving macroeconomic conditions, such as reduced inflation and a stable job sector in the United States, provided additional tailwinds for the positive rally. Bitcoin (BTC) is en route to its most impressive closing for January since 2013. Its price has gained 40% year-to-date from the opening value of $16,530.

Another important catalyst for January 2023’s rally was a short squeeze across the crypto market. After the FTX debacle and the lack of bullish narratives for the niche space, most investors expected growth to slow down in 2023.

There are unresolved issues such as potential a Digital Currency Group fallout, geopolitical tension between Russia and Ukraine, and recession risks due to Fed’s aggressive quantitative tightening policies. Thus, most traders didn’t expect strong price rallies so early into the year.

As it turns out, negative sentiment and crowded positions in the futures market continued to fuel more upside. There’s a strong chance of a pullback soon after steep gains. It remains to be seen if the pullback levels are attractive enough for buyers to turn it into a medium-to-long-term bullish trend. Let’s take a look at the top performing cryptocurrencies for January.

Arguably the most dynamic segment within the crypto ecosystem, decentralized finance (DeFi) projects have been revolutionizing how cryptocurrency investors can employ their tokens to access capital and even earn additional income on their crypto holdings. However, using DeFi products such as yield farming, liquidity mining and staking pools can often be a cumbersome experience for most crypto investors. 

To solve this problem, a new class of crypto tokens was introduced in 2021 that integrated self-generating passive income mechanisms to reward investors with supplementary crypto tokens. Known as reflection or reward tokens, these digital assets are increasingly gaining traction among crypto investors who are looking to harness the long-term potential of holding on to their cryptocurrency portfolio.

Understanding reflection tokens

Apart from the long-term price appreciation potential of cryptocurrencies, crypto investors are often found wanting an option to earn additional income from their tokens during the holding period. Considering that cryptocurrency markets can witness volatile price actions, short-term trading where traders try to record gains by selling high and buying low can be an extremely risky proposition. 

Similarly, DeFi products that require investors to deposit their crypto holdings in lieu of daily, weekly or monthly returns are a plausible option but are fraught with concerns, such as suffering from impermanent loss, rebalancing losses and even smart contract hacks that allow scammers to steal investor funds. 

In stark contrast, crypto reflection tokens or reward tokens encourage investors to hold on to their tokens, thereby promoting market stability while still offering investors the chance to earn incremental income on all transactions being made on the protocol. 

Despite a challenging year for crypto, 82% of millionaire clients had looked into investing in digital assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) in 2022, according to a recent poll conducted by financial advisory firm deVere Group. 

The poll results, released on Jan. 30, found that eight out of 10 of the firm's high net worth (HNW) clients surveyed with between $1.2 million and $6.1 million of investable assets sought advice on crypto from financial advisers in the last 12 months.

Nigel Green, the CEO and founder of deVere Group said that despite the surveyed group being "typically more conservative," he believes the interest stems from Bitcoin's core values of being "digital, global, borderless, decentralised and tamper-proof."

Previous years’ studies from the firm have shown a trend increasing interest in crypto investments from wealthy investors.

A 2020 study from deVere found that 73% of the 700 surveyed HNW individuals either already own or are looking to invest in cryptocurrencies before the end of 2022, while the firm's 2019 study found that 68% of global HNW individuals were already invested or planning to invest in crypto by the end of 2022.

Traders tend to lighten up positions before important events because they hate uncertainty. The United States Federal Reserve’s policy decision is on Feb. 1, where the central bank is expected to hike rates by 25 basis points.

Market observers will keenly watch for any hints about how high the rates could go. That could be one of the reasons for the profit-booking in Bitcoin (BTC) and select altcoins on Jan. 30. 

Bitcoin’s sharp recovery in January could also be signaling the start of a new bull market, according to certain on-chain metrics. The Profit and Loss Index from on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant has given its first buy signal since 2019.

Blockware Solutions head analyst Joe Burnett believes that Bitcoin will not break above its all-time high of $69,000 until the next Bitcoin halving which is scheduled to occur in March 2024. Burnett anticipates Bitcoin’s next bull market top to be between $150,000 to $350,000, which isa massive increase from the current levels.

What are the important support levels to watch out for in Bitcoin and the altcoins? Let’s study the charts to find out.

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has released an accountant-verified report of its treasury reserve holdings backing more than $44.5 billion worth of tokens currently in circulation.

Circle’s December 2022 reserve report, which was reviewed by GrantThornton accountancy group, breaks down the current make-up of the stablecoin issuer’s reserve vault. According to Circle, 44,553,543,212 USDC is currently backed by $44,693,963,701 U.S. dollars held in custody accounts.

It is worth noting that a significant portion of the latter amount is invested in a variety of U.S. Treasury bonds. As per Circle’s VP of accounting Timothy Singh, the fair value of assets in the USDC reserve is the total balance of USD denominated assets, including a mix of cash and treasury bonds.

Circle’s Reserve Fund is registered as a government money market fund. The equity interests in the fund are fully owned by Circle and include 14 different US Treasury Bills valued at over $23.5 billion. The fund also holds $48.9 million in cash while a further $33 million is due to the Fund, offset by ‘timing and settlement differences’.

Related: Stablecoin settlements can surpass all major card networks in 2023: Data

Bitcoin (BTC) has rallied nearly 40% so far in January, which is the best start to the year since 2013. The sharp up-move has turned several on-chain signals bullish, according to on-chain analyst Cole Garner.

Usually, a sharp recovery from the market lows, driven by the leader, is a sign that strong hands may be buying aggressively. That could be because traders believe the selling may have been overdone in the near term or they found the valuation to be attractive.

After the initial runup, a swift correction could be expected, which will shake out the weak hands. The next fall will also confirm whether Bitcoin has formed a bottom or not. If the low is confirmed, several altcoins may start to outperform Bitcoin in the near term.

Which altcoins are showing promise in the near term? Let’s study the charts of Bitcoin and select altcoins to see which could extend their up-move in the next few days.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin has been trading above $22,800 since Jan. 25, which suggests that bulls are trying to flip the level into support.

Azuki, a popular nonfungible token (NFT) project, had its Twitter account compromised on Jan. 27 leading to hackers stealing over $750,000 worth of USD Coin (USDC) by posting a malicious “wallet drainer link” posed as a virtual land mint.

Hackers stole $751,321.80 USDC from a single wallet within half an hour of the malicious links being tweeted, according to Etherscan data provided to Cointelegraph by crypto wallet security firm Wallet Guard.

The data also revealed that hackers stole a further $6,752.62 worth of USDC from various wallets holding 11 NFTs and over 3.9 Ether (ETH).

Wallet Guard stated that the total amount stolen was $758,074.42.

Emily Rose, community manager for the anime-inspired NFT project confirmed via Twitter on Jan. 27 that the Azuki account was hacked, warning users not to click any links from Azuki’s Twitter account.

Despite the recent negative crypto and macroeconomic newsflow, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization broke above $1 trillion on Jan. 21. An encouraging sign is that derivatives metrics are not showing increased demand from bearish traders at the moment. 

Bitcoin (BTC) price gained 8% on the week, stabilizing near the $23,100 level at 18:00 UTC on Jan. 27 as the markets weighed the potential impact of Genesis Capital's bankruptcy on Jan. 19.

One area of concern is Genesis Capital's largest debtor is Digital Currency Group (DCG), which happens to be its parent company. Consequently, Grayscale funds management could be at risk, so investors are unsure if the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) assets could face liquidation. The investment vehicle currently holds over $14 billion worth of Bitcoin positions for its holders.

A United States appeals court is set to hear the arguments relating to Grayscale Investment's lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 8. The fund manager questioned the SEC's decision to deny their asset-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF) launch.

Regulatory concerns also negatively impacted the markets after South Korean prosecutors requested an arrest warrant for Bithumb exchange owner Kang Jong-Hyun. On Jan. 25, the Financial Investigation 2nd Division of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutor's Office sentenced Kang and two Bithumb executives on charges of conducting fraudulent illegal transactions.

Aptos’ APT reached a new all-time high of $20.39 after posting gains exceeding 400% since the start of 2023. While the rally could just be a pump-and-dump event due to the perception of weak fundamentals, increasing negative sentiment toward the token will likely fuel the prices in the short term.

Let’s explore some of the factors that could be propelling the Aptos price rally.

A rich history and strong investor backing

Aptos is a byproduct of Facebook’s attempt with the Libra blockchain, which regulators forcibly shut down. Two of Libra’s leadership team members, Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, later found Aptos, a decentralized version of the abandoned blockchain project.

The project is based on the Move programming language and introduces a new class of layer-1 blockchains that will compete against the likes of Solana and Cardano. The primary reasons behind the tailwinds for the APT token include investors’ hope for a technological breakthrough that could finally provide a scalable, secure, decentralized blockchain.

Aptos raised $350 million in 2022, which included a $200 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz and a $150 million Series A funding round led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto. Later, Binance made a follow-on strategic investment to help boost the Aptos ecosystem.

A bill introduced to the New York State Assembly on Jan. 26 would allow state agencies to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment for fines, civil penalties, taxes, fees, and other payments charged by the state.

New York State Assembly Bill A523 was introduced by Democratic Assemblymember Clyde Vanel, who is often seen as a crypto-friendly politician. It allows state agencies to enter into “agreements with persons to provide the acceptance, by offices of the state, of cryptocurrency as a means of payment” for various types of fees, including “fines, civil penalties, rent, rates, taxes, fees, charges, revenue, financial obligations or other amounts, including penalties, special assessments and interest, owed to state agencies.”

The bill does not obligate state agencies to accept crypto as payment, but it does clarify that state agencies can legally agree to accept such payments and that these agreements should be enforced by the courts.

The bill defines “cryptocurrency” as “any form of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency [...] Including but not limited to, bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash.”

Depending on how this definition is interpreted, it may or may not include stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT). On the one hand, the supply of stablecoins is usually regulated by the issuer instead of by cryptography. On the other hand, the bill does recognize that some cryptocurrencies have an “issuer,” and it provides that agencies can charge the payor an extra fee if such a fee is charged by the cryptocurrency’s issuer.