Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) stayed motionless at the Nov. 1 Wall Street open as traders rooted for clues over possible direction.

Hopes of a breakout remain despite BTC sell wall

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed a narrow range in place for BTC/USD overnight, the day seeing local highs of $20,681 on Bitstamp.

Markets were keenly awaiting news from the United States Federal Reserve on interest rates, these scheduled for 2pm Eastern time on Nov. 2.

Until then, it was a case of “wait and see,” while on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators noted sell-orders already increasing.

“The binance order book is starting to look like a game of Tetris,” it summarized.

Cryptocurrencies broke the $1 trillion market capitalization resistance on Oct. 26, which had been holding strong for the previous 41 days. Despite Bitcoin’s (BTC) modest 5.5% weekly gains, the aggregate value of 20,000 listed tokens increased by 8.5% between Oct. 24 and 31.

The cryptocurrency market was positively impacted by a 6.3% weekly rally in the Russell 2000 mid-capitalization stock market index. Some encouraging news accompanied the positive tailwinds from traditional markets.

For instance, 55,000 BTC was withdrawn from Binance on Oct. 26, a record high. Typically, analysts consider the reduced number of coins deposited on exchanges a bullish indicator, as the immediate selling pressure eases.

Moreover, exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com partnered with payment processing giant Visa to launch a crypto card. The cryptocurrency company revealed on Oct. 26 that there would be no sign-up or annual fees, no transaction fees and users would earn 1% of all purchases back in digital assets.

Instead of focusing on Bitcoin, cryptocurrency traders have spread their bets across altcoins. Consequently, comparing the winners and losers among the top 80 coins provides skewed results, as seven rallied 20% or more over the past week.

Four projects have received some $7 million worth of tokens from the hacker behind the $14.5 million Team Finance exploit on Oct. 27. Over the weekend, the attacker confirmed in a series of messages that they would keep 10% of the stolen fund as a bounty and return the other tokens to the affected projects.

The exploiter — a self-described “whitehat” — drained assets from Team Finance through the Uniswap v2-to-v3 migration. As reported by Cointelegraph, liquidity from Uniswap v2 assets on Team Finance were transferred to an attacker-controlled v3 pair with skewed pricing, explained the blockchain security firm PeckShield.

The stolen funds included USD Coin (USDC), CAW, TSUKA and KNDA tokens. Some of the affected tokens, such as CAW, suffered steep price declines due to the exploit and subsequent liquidity crunch. 

On Oct. 30, Kondux, a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, announced it received 95% of the stolen funds, or 209 Ether (ETH), while Feg Token recovered 548 ETH. Tsuka’s blockchain protocol also confirmed receiving over $765,000 worth of the stablecoin Dai (DAI) and 11.8 million TSUKA. Caw Coin — the biggest victim of the exploit — received back $5 million worth of DAI and 74.6 billion of its native token, CAW.

On Twitter, the protocol urged the hacker to get in contact for a bounty payment. According to Team Finance, its smart contract had been previously audited, and developers had temporarily halted all activity on the protocol. The company was founded in 2020 by TrustSwap, which provides token liquidity locking and vesting services to project executives. The protocol claimed to have $3 billion secured across 12 blockchains.

The crypto community never shies away from deploying new cryptocurrencies that are themed on current events, and Halloween was no exception. The industry saw an influx of Halloween-themed cryptocurrencies hoping to cash in on the hype around the festivities.

Halloween-themed cryptocurrencies have taken over the crypto ecosystem on Twitter, typically offering no real use case or future for investors. Projects like these have a track record of being sourced as an off-the-shelf product, which can be quickly renamed and deployed in the free market for trading. 

Projects like Halloween Token, as shown above, came up just days before the occasion with the sole purpose of amassing $50 million in market cap. Halloween Spook, a project that cropped up on Sept. 2022, claims the status of being the “scariest meme token on Binance Smart Chain (BSC).” The project promotes Halloween Elon (SINK) token, which is based on a recent “let that sink in” meme sported by Elon Musk.

Found again on the BCS network was Halloween Wars Token, which blatantly shares its intent to “ride the hype of what many claim is the most exciting time of the year: halloween.” Despite no attempt to market the project, the project gained 17 followers who remain at risk of losing their assets to market capitulation.

One of the stronger contenders this year was halloween bsc, yet another BCS-hosted project with no apparent goal set for the investors.

The crypto bear market of 2022 has wiped out more than 70% of the market capitalization from the top. The total crypto market cap breached $3 trillion at the bull market's peak last year but currently struggling to remain above $1 trillion.

At a time when the majority of the cryptocurrencies are moving sideways with no significant bullish momentum recorded in months, it can get a little frustrating, especially for those who jumped in at the market top in hopes of making some quick money.

As crypto-winter worsens, the Reddit crypto community shared their coping mechanisms and some “serious” tips to remain on top of their mental health during this cyclic event.

One Reddit user wrote that they are in it for the long term, thus, they ignore the charts and daily fluctuations.

“I ignore the charts as well as ensuring that I have a full-time job so that I always have income that I can rely on. It’s a long-term game for me, so I treat it as such. Daily fluctuations don’t matter if you aren’t going to sell anyway.”

United States-based crypto advocacy group Blockchain Association has come out in support of Ripple Labs amid its ongoing legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), claiming the case could be very important for the future of the crypto industry. 

In an Oct. 28 post, the advocacy group announced it will "stand" with the American crypto economy by filing an amicus brief, also known as "friend of the court" in the SEC enforcement action against Ripple.

Nearly two years ago, the SEC announced they were suing Ripple (XRP), former CEO Christian Larsen, and current CEO Brad Garlinghouse in Dec. 2020 for allegedly raising $1.3 billion through unregistered securities sales through XRP.

"This case, which is just one in a long line of SEC efforts to regulate by enforcement, highlights the SEC's efforts to cement and legitimize its overly broad interpretation of the Howey test,” wrote the association.

The Howey Test determines what qualifies as an investment contract and is therefore what is subject to U.S. securities laws.

Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has tipped 62% of Dogecoin (DOGE) investors into profit, amid speculation that Musk’s Twitter-buy will be positive for the meme token.

DOGE’s price rallied on Oct. 26 when billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk changed his Twitter bio to “Chief of Twit” — the same day he visited Twitter’s San Francisco-based headquarters before officially closing the deal as the new owner on Oct. 28.

In the past seven days, DOGE’s price has surged 98.5% to $0.119 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko.

This means that as much as 62% of DOGE holders are “Making Money at Current Price” according to data from blockchain intelligence platform IntoTheBlock — which even beats out Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) hodlers at 54% and 57% respectively.

The events have also triggered DOGE’s market cap to surpass smart contract platforms Cardano and Solana into becoming the 8th largest cryptocurrency in the world with a $16.3 billion market cap, according to CoinGecko.

Binance Coin (BNB) has hit new all-time highs against Bitcoin (BTC) as excitement grows over the crypto’s future role on Twitter.

Binance Coin sets new record against BTC

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView confirms that BNB/BTC briefly spiked above 0.15 BTC to a record 0.15267 BTC on Oct. 30.

The in-house token of Binance, the largest crypto exchange by volume, has gained around 10% in the past 72 hours.

The strong performance came on the back of reports that Binance was preparing to assist Twitter eradicate bots as part of its new direction under Elon Musk.

Binance had contributed $500 million to Musk’s takeover of the social media platform.

Bitcoin (BTC) continued consolidating into the Oct. 30 weekly close as concerns over a deeper retracement became vocal.

Trader avoids new longs below $21,000

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD circling levels just below $21,000 on the day.

Weekend trading had produced an early return above the $21,000 mark, this short lived as Bitcoin bulls failed to offer the volume to sustain higher levels.

Now, popular trader and analyst Il Capo of Crypto sensed a change of direction was ultimately due for Bitcoin and altcoins alike.

Altcoins themselves had also performed strongly through the weekend, notably led by Dogecoin (DOGE), which was up another 25% in the past 24 hours at the time of writing and at six-month highs.

The Dogecoin (DOGE) price rally extended further on Oct. 29 in hopes that the cryptocurrency would get a major boost from Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition.

Elon Musk boosts Dogecoin price again

Dogecoin price jumped by nearly 75% to reach $0.146 on Oct. 29, the biggest daily gain since April 2021.

Notably, the meme-coin's massive intraday rally came as a part of a broader uptrend that started earlier this week on Oct. 25. In total, DOGE's price gained 150% during the Oct. 25-29 price rally.

The surge was also accompanied by a decent increase in its daily trading volumes. That coincided with a spike in the number of DOGE transactions exceeding $100,000, according to Santiment. Both indicators sugges a growing demand for Dogecoin tokens among rich investors, or so-called "whales."

The jump across Dogecoin's key metrics reflect investors' excitement about Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition on Oct. 27. Earlier this year, the billionaire entrepreneur had flirted with the idea of making Dogecoin a payment method to purchase the Twitter Blue subscription.

Bitcoin (BTC) attempted to retake $21,000 on Oct. 29 as weekend trading began on a strong footing.

Dollar lurks as BTC price rebounds

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it rebounded overnight to local highs of $21,078 on Bitstamp — enough to clinch new six-week highs.

The pair had seen a consolidatory phase ensue after its first trip to the $21,000 mark, the first time it had traded above $21,000 since Sep. 13.

The subsequent retracement was modest in character, Bitcoin not even testing $20,000 before reversing higher once more.

The end of the Wall Street trading week saw BTC price action follow United States equities, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index finishing Oct. 28 up 2.5% and 2.9%, respectively.

The shift of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol opened new opportunities for developers and investors to explore, including the burning of Ether. Now, Ethereum PoS transactions are validated through staking rather than mining. 

Staking impacts the supply and price dynamics of Ether in ways that are different from mining. Staking is expected to create deflationary pressure on Ether as opposed to mining that induces inflationary pressure.

The increase in the total amount of funds locked in Ethereum contracts could also push its price up in the long term. This is because it affects one of the fundamental forces that determine its price, supply.

The percentage of newly issued Ether versus burned Ether has increased by 1,164.06 ETH since the merge. This means since the merge, almost all new minted supply has been burnt through the new PoS Ethereum burn mechanism which is expected to turn deflationary when the network sees an uptick in use.

According to Bitwise analyst Anais Rachel, “all the ETH issued since The Merge will have been taken out of circulation by the end of this week.”

Ethereum (ETH) is setting liquidation records this week as a comparatively modest price uptick reveals how bearish the market has become.

Data from on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant confirmed that U.S. dollar-denominated short liquidations hit a new all-time high on Oct. 25.

Two days, half a billion dollars of ETH shorts

It is not just Bitcoin (BTC) causing bears severe pain this week — data from exchanges also shows that Ethereum shorters have suffered heavy losses.

ETH/USD delivered fairly impressive gains on Oct. 25-26, rising from lows of $1,337 to highs of $1,593 on Bitstamp before retracing, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.

While nothing unusual for crypto and for altcoins in particular, the market changes triggered by the price action stood out.

Dogecoin’s (DOGE) price rallied to its best levels in two months as traders assessed Twitter’s potential to create a cryptocurrency wallet product.

Elon Musk fuels Dogecoin rally again

DOGE’s price jumped to $0.081 on Oct. 27. The price gained roughly 40% two days after Jane Manchun Wong, a popular tech blogger, claimed that Twitter is working on a wallet prototype that supports cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals.

Elon Musk is the thread that connects Dogecoin and Twitter. Earlier this year, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO won the bid to purchase Twitter for $44 billion. Later, on April 11, he flirted with the idea of adding Dogecoin as a payment method for the Twitter Blue subscription service.

DOGE’s price grew 30% to $0.17 in 10 days after Musk’s pro-crypto suggestion to the Twitter board. But the memetoken fell drastically afterward, reaching as low as $0.05 in June as Musk attempted to back away from the deal, citing his concerns over Twitter’s user figures.

Twitter sued Musk in response, eventually prompting the court to rule in its favor. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, the judge overseeing the legal battle, denied attempts by Musk to postpone the trial, noting that the deal should close by 5 pm ET on Oct. 28.

Bitcoin price is up today, and a market-wide rally in crypto prices suggests that BTC and Ether (ETH) could be aiming to wrap up the month of October in the black.

As of October 26, 2022, most major cryptocurrencies are posting single-digit gains. Bitcoin recorded a 5.15% price increase within the last 24 hours and a 5.48% gain within the last 7 days. While the current price is fluctuating, BTC is holding above the psychologically important $20,000 level. The following chart shows the BTC rally since October 24, 2022.

Stocks are beginning the day down as Bitcoin continues to remain over $20,000. Bitcoin’s momentum has continued for 3 days now and is seeing green candles today. The recent price spike pushed Bitcoin’s total market capitalization above the $1T mark and comes after months of narrow sideways trading range of $18,000 and $20,000.

Hand in hand with Bitcoin’s growth, most major cryptocurrencies including Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Polygon (MATIC), Ripple (XRP) and Tron (TRX) registered more than 10% price increases within the last 48 hours. There are several reasons for the crypto rally.

The current rally in BTC and other major cryptocurrencies may indicate an increase in confidence in the market following several key developments; here we give details of the key drivers of the growth

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to $21,000 for the first time since September after the Oct. 26 Wall Street open as buyers solidified gains.

BTC bulls "eat" ask liquidity

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit local highs of $21,012 on Bitstamp.

At the time of writing, the pair continued to explore territory out of reach for over six weeks.

Liquidations also kept flowing, with the past 24 hours delivering $750 million in liquidated positions on Bitcoin alone, according to data from Coinglass.

Cross-crypto liquidations totaled $1.43 billion, adding to what was already the highest tally in 2022 so far.

Bitcoin (BTC) volatility is finally giving BTC bulls what they want — but why now?

After drifting lower for months and spending recent weeks in a tiny trading range, BTC/USD has delivered 24-hour gains in excess of 7%.

Hitting its highest levels since mid-September, the largest cryptocurrency is rewarding those who refused to sell and punishing shorters to the tune of around $1 billion.

The change of trend has come quickly and caught many by surprise, as evidenced by that liquidation tally.

Behind the scenes, however, little has changed — macroeconomic conditions have not undergone major upheaval compared to a week ago, and internal problems for Bitcoin, such as miner strain, remain the same.