Decentral Block Post

The total size of tokenized illiquid assets, including real estate and natural resources could reach $16.1 trillion by 2030, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

In a newly released report from BCG and digital exchange for private markets ADDX, authors including BCG managing director Sumit Kumar and ADDX co-founder Darius Liu noted that “a large chunk of the world’s wealth today is locked in illiquid assets.”

According to the report, illiquid assets include pre-IPO stocks, real estate, private debt, revenues from small and medium businesses, physical art, exotic beverages, private funds, wholesale bonds, and many more. 

Reasons for this asset illiquidity are attributed to factors such as limited affordability for mass investors, lack of wealth manager expertise, limited access — such as when assets are restricted to elite cliques (in the case of fine art and vintage cars), regulatory hurdles, and other scenarios in which users have difficulty acquiring or trading an asset. 

On-chain asset tokenization could solve this problem, a market that surpassed $2.3 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $5.6 billion by 2026, as per the report.

On Sept. 12, Bitcoin is doing Bitcoin things as usual. Since Sept. 9 the price has broken out nicely, booking a near 16% gain and rallying into the long-term descending trendline which appears to have resistance at $23,000. 

Perhaps BTC and the wider market are turning bullish ahead of the Ethereum Merge which is scheduled for Sept. 14, or maybe the elusive bottom is finally in. Weekly chart data from TradingView shows that on June 27 and Aug. 15, Bitcoin’s relative strength index had dropped to lows not seen since 2019.

Currently, the metric has rebounded from a near oversold 31 to its current 38.5 reading. Some traders might also note a bullish divergence on the metric, where the RSI follows an ascending trendline while Bitcoin’s weekly candlesticks trend downward. Bitcoin’s moving average convergence divergence (MACD) has also crossed over as purchasing volume surged and BTC price attempts to break from its current 90-day range.

As pointed out in previous analysis, since Jan. 21, Bitcoin price has simply been range trading in what have turned out to be successive bear flags that see continuation to new yearly lows. Price has consistently encountered resistance at the overhead descending trendline and the price action witnessed today and in the past 90-days is not a deviation from the trend.

Traders should watch for BTC price to push secure a few daily closes above the trendline resistance and setting a daily higher high above $25,400, or even a breakout to the 200-MA at $30,000 would be an excellent sight of either a trend change or at least a leg up to a new consolidation range. Until that occurs, the standard practice among traders is to not go long at long term resistance and wait to see whether the bullish momentum holds or the prevailing trend remains intact.

The 13% gains in the six days leading to Sept. 12 brought the total crypto market capitalization closer to $1.1 trillion, but this was not enough to break the descending trend. As a result, the overall trend for the past 55 days has been bearish, with the latest support test on Sept. 7 at a $950 billion total market cap.

An improvement in traditional markets has accompanied the recent 13% crypto market rally. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index gained 6.2% since Sept. 6 and WTI oil prices rallied 7.8% since Sept. 7. This data reinforces the high correlation versus traditional assets and places the spotlight on the importance of closely monitoring macroeconomic conditions.

The correlation metric ranges from a negative 1, meaning select markets move in opposite directions, to a positive 1, which reflects a perfectly symmetrical movement. A disparity or a lack of relationship between the two assets would be represented by 0.

As displayed above, the Nasdaq composite index and Bitcoin 50-day correlation currently stand at 0.74, which has been the norm throughout 2022.

The FED’s Sept. 21 decision will set the mood

Stock market investors are anxiously awaiting the Sept. 21 U.S. Federal Reserve meeting, where the central bank is expected to raise interest rates again. While the market consensus is a third consecutive 0.75 percentage point rate hike, investors are looking for signs that the economic tightening is fading away.

The United States equities markets and the cryptocurrency markets have started the new week on a strong footing. This suggests that investors expect the Federal Reserve's possible 75 basis point rate hike in the Sept. 20 to 21 meeting to be priced in and it also could mean that investors believe inflation has peaked.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) rally above $22,000 cleared the closely watched metric of the realized price, which according to Glassnode is at $21,700. The next major barrier on the upside is the 200-week moving average near $23,330. A break and close above this resistance could indicate that the bear market may be ending.

The current bear market has not driven away institutional investors who continue to believe in the long-term prospects of the asset class. One such example was given by Irfan Ahmad, the Asia Pacific digital lead for State Street’s crypto unit State Street Digital, who said that their institutional clients continued to place strategic bets in the cryptocurrency space in June and July.

Could Bitcoin and altcoins continue their up-move in the near term? Let’s study the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin is attempting to form a bottom. Buyers pushed the price above the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA) ($20,831) on Sept. 9 and the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) ($21,944) on Sept. 12. This suggests that the bears may be losing momentum.

At the beginning of 2021, Filecoin was a relatively unknown decentralized peer-to-peer storage service with a total network capacity barely making a dent in the digital storage space. Less than 2 years later, the Filecoin team claims the blockchain has grown to eclipse 10% of the storage capacity of Amazon Web Service, the most popular vendor in the cloud infrastructure services market. This includes the use of the storage — by well-known blockchain firms such as OpenSea and Magic Eden — of some 239.03 terabytes of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), worth an estimated $26.6 billion as of early September.

NFT storage on Filecoin | Source: NFT.Storage

How did Filecoin become so successful? And what motivates its developers to grow the ecosystem? Colin Evran, ecosystem lead at Protocol Labs, which is the creator of Filecoin, says a big factor in his desire to join Filecoin was his disillusionment with how things operate in Web2. 

"It's still going in the wrong direction," he said. "A handful of companies are now controlling the world's data, in my opinion, without checks and balances in many ways. And I just thought such levels of centralization over a period of many decades isn't going to be the answer for everyday users. 

"I fundamentally believe if you zoom out 40 years from now, the answer is not like AWS storing 100% of the world's data. I don't think that's good for society. I don't think that's what users really want," he said. 

Bitcoin (BTC) kept grinding higher at the Sept. 12 Wall Street open as traders called for an imminent correction.

$23,000 proves essential to flip

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $22,481 on Bitstamp, its highest since Aug. 19.

The pair had preserved existing gains over the weekend, with a declining U.S. dollar providing a catalyst for risk assets as the week began.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index both traded up 1.1% after the first two hours’ trading. By contrast, the U.S. dollar index (DXY) was down 0.7% on the day.

Analyzing the situation, popular trader Crypto Ed said that the time had now come to eye a corrective move on BTC/USD.

Reggie Fowler, a former NFL team owner and alleged "shadow banker" who might face up to 30 years of imprisonment, asked the court of the Southern District of New York for a six-month adjournment. 

Technically, it was Fowler’s lawyer Ed Sapone who requested an “unusually long adjournment,” justifying it with his “serious medical condition” as well as with the necessity to obtain information relevant to the case from financial institutions, entities and individuals located in Europe.

According to independent journalist Amy Castor, who reported this development, Sapone made his request on Saturday — three days before the scheduled sentencing. As the prosecutors didn’t protest the adjournment, it will grant Fowler at least six months of freedom. He now resides in Arizona on bail.

The 63-year-old is being accused of operating the shadow bank to the crypto sector, Crypto Capital, which was at the center of controversy in the court case against iFinex Inc — the parent company of crypto exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin issuer Tether. U.S. prosecutors allege that Fowler provided unlicensed money-transmitting services to several crypto firms, along with bank fraud and laundering funds on behalf of Columbian drug cartels.

Related: Mt. Gox creditors fail to set repayment date, but markets to remain unaffected

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a pivotal week on a firm footing as bulls succeed in wiping out weeks of losses.

After closing the latest weekly candle at $21,800, its highest since mid-August, BTC/USD is back on the radar as a long bet.

The end to an extended period of downside interspersed with sideways price action now appears firmly at an end, with volatility expected to form a major theme in the coming days.

In fact, few weeks in Bitcoin’s history have been as hectic as this one is likely to be.

In addition to the Ethereum Merge on Sept. 15, the United States inflation trend will come under scrutiny on Sept. 13 with the release of August Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. The recipe for unpredictability is there.

As the upcoming Terra Classic (LUNC) burning mechanism gained more hype, some crypto exchanges thought it would be a good idea to express their support. However, the crypto community quickly responded, calling out the exchanges for what some believe to be public relations stunts. 

On Sept. 1, Terra community member Edward Kim submitted a proposal to implement a 1.2% tax burn for every on-chain LUNC transaction in an effort to revive the crypto. The transaction tax will be sent to a dead address, removing part of the circulating supply permanently. Following the proposal, the LUNC token soared by 250%, as the hype surrounding the project showed signs of life.

Because of this, crypto exchanges KuCoin, Gate.io and MEXC Global decided to express their support for the token-burning efforts of the Terra community. However, some were unhappy with the announcements, calling out the exchanges. 

After posting an announcement to express that the exchange is supporting the token burn, KuCoin was called out by the pseudonymous Terra researcher FatMan, asking what they are doing to support it, given that the tax burn is implemented on-chain. The researcher described the announcement as a “nothingburger PR post” and suggested taxing actual trades instead. 

In response to the criticism, Johnny Lyu, the CEO of KuCoin exchange, told Cointelegraph that their trading platform is neutral and people-focused. "We always respect the communities’ choice and are happy to help them in the way we can. The same on the tax proposal,” Lyu added. 

While on-chain insurance has been around since 2017, only a measly 1% of all crypto investments are actually covered by insurance, meaning the industry remains a “sleeping giant,” according to a crypto insurance executive.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Dan Thomson, the CMO of decentralized cover protocol InsurAce said there is a massive disparity between the total value locked (TVL) in crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and the percentage of that TVL with insurance coverage:

“DeFi insurance is a sleeping giant. With less than 1% of all crypto covered and less than 3% of DeFi, there’s a huge market opportunity still to be realized.”

Though plenty of investment has poured into smart contract security audits, on-chain insurance serves as a viable solution for digital asset protection — such as when a smart contract is exploited or the frontend of a Web3 protocol is compromised.

The collapse of Terra (LUNA) and the resulting depeg of Terra USD provides a textbook example of how on-chain insurance can protect investors, notes Thompson, adding that InsurAce “paid out $11.7 million to 155 affected UST victims.”

The Algorand Foundation has revealed a $35 million USDC hole in its balance sheet as a result of exposure to embattled cryptocurrency lending firm Hodlnaut, which has paused withdraws since Aug. 8. 

Algorand is an institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure with embedded smart contract functionality. The Algorand Foundation is a not-for-profit community organization focused on developing the Algorand ecosystem.

The announcement was made on the Algorand Foundation website on Sept. 9, with the Foundation stating that it's “pursuing all legal remedies to maximize asset recovery.”

Hodlnaut’s financial situation first fell into deep waters when its $300 million investment into TerraUSD (UST) on the Anchor protocol fell dramatically following the de-pegging of UST and collapse of the LUNA token, resulting in the crypto lending firm pausing withdrawals and halting all trading activity, citing a liquidity crisis.

Weeks later, the firm was placed under interim judicial management, a form of creditor protection program, by the Singapore court.

The United States equities markets rallied sharply last week, ending a three-week losing streak. The S&P 500 rose 3.65% last week while the Nasdaq Composite soared 4.14%. Continuing its close correlation with the U.S. equities markets, Bitcoin (BTC) also made a strong comeback and is trying to end the week with gains of more than 7%.

The sharp rally in the stock markets and cryptocurrency markets are showing signs of a bottoming formation but it may be too early to predict the start of a new bull move. The equities markets may remain on the edge before the release of the U.S. inflation data on Sept. 13 and the Federal Reserve meeting on Sept. 20-21.

Along with taking cues from the equities markets, the cryptocurrency space has its own important events to look forward to. Both the Ethereum’s Merge and Cardano’s (ADA) Vasil hard fork scheduled in the next few days could heighten volatility in several cryptocurrencies.

Although choppy markets increase the risk, they may offer short-term trading opportunities to nimble traders. Let’s study the charts of five cryptocurrencies that look interesting in the near term.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin soared above the 20-day exponential moving average ($20,662) on Sept. 9, which was the first indication that the selling pressure could be reducing. The bears are attempting to stall the recovery at the 50-day simple moving average ($21,946) but a positive sign is that the bulls have not given up much ground.

Terra has become a controversial blockchain project after the collapse of its native token LUNA and stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) in May. But its recent gains are hard to ignore for cryptocurrency traders. 

LUNA rising from the dead?

After crashing to nearly zero in May, LUNA is now trading for around $6, a whopping 17,559,000% price rally in less than four months when measured from its lowest level. 

Meanwhile, LUNA's performance in September is particularly interesting, given it has rallied by more than 300% month-to-date after a long period of sideways consolidation.

Terra ecosystem in September

It is vital to note that LUNA also trades with the ticker LUNA2 across multiple exchanges.

In detail, Terraform Labs, the firm behind the Terra project, divided the old chain into Terra Classic (LUNC) and Terra LUNA 2.0 (LUNA/LUNA2).

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) issued a warning sharing insights into identifying robocall scam marketing auto warranties, which includes being asked to pay for the services via gift cards and cryptocurrencies. 

Consumer complaints against increasing robocall scams — wherein scammers use prerecorded calls to market and sell fraudulent services — led the Enforcement Bureau to order phone companies to avoid carrying robocall traffic.

Regardless of the methods used by scammers to contact potential victims, the FDACS newsletter highlighted five red flags that indicate scams.

Stressing on some of the go-to payment methods often being recommended by the scammers, the announcement read:

“Payment Type: If you are asked to pay with a gift card or cryptocurrency, it’s a scam.”

Many traders frequently express some relatively large misconceptions about trading cryptocurrency futures, especially on derivatives exchanges outside the realm of traditional finance. The most common mistakes involve futures markets’ price decoupling, fees and the impact of liquidations on the derivatives instrument.

Let’s explore three simple mistakes and misconceptions that traders should avoid when trading crypto futures.

Derivatives contracts differ from spot trading in pricing and trading

Currently, the aggregate futures open interest in the crypto market surpasses $25 billion and retail traders and experienced fund managers use these instruments to leverage their crypto positons.

Futures contracts and other derivatives are often used to reduce risk or increase exposure and are not really meant to be used for degenerate gambling, despite this common interpretation.

Some differences in pricing and trading are usually missed in crypto derivatives contracts. For this reason, traders should at least consider these differences when venturing into futures markets. Even well-versed derivatives investors from traditional assets are prone to making mistakes, so it’s important to understand the existing peculiarities before using leverage.

Bitcoin (BTC) sought to overturn August resistance on Sep. 10 as whale buy-levels dictated BTC price action.

Whales provide short-term price ceiling

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting new multi-week highs of $21,671 on Bitstamp.

The pair capitalized on a short squeeze which began early on Sep. 9, taking it around 10% higher after plumbing the lowest levels since the end of June.

Analyzing the events, on-chain monitoring resource Whalemap noted that clusters of buy-ins by whales had effectively allowed Bitcoin to put in a floor.

$19,000 had been a high-volume zone of interest for buyers previously, and this thus remained unviolated during the visit to two-month lows.

The listing of ETHPOW (ETHW) across multiple crypto exchanges has been followed by a huge drop in price despite some initial success. 

ETHPOW drops 80% 

On the daily chart, ETHW's price dropped by more than 80% to $25 on Sept. 10, over a month after its market debut.

For starters, ETHPOW only exists as a futures ticker, for now, conceived in anticipation that an upcoming network update on Ethereum could result in a chain split.

Ethereum will undergo a major protocol change called the Merge by mid-September, switching its existing consensus mechanism from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Therefore, Ethereum will obsolete its army of miners, replacing them with "validators," which are nodes that would perform the same tasks by merely staking a certain amount of tokens with the network.

Crypto degens have wasted no time after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, flooding the crypto market with more than 40 new Queen-related meme tokens, and hundreds of new nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in the same vein.

New tokens launched on decentralized exchanges on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Ethereum over the past 24 hours include names such as Queen Elizabeth Inu, Save the Queen, Queen, QueenDoge, London Bridge is Down and Rip Queen Elizabeth.

According to data from Dex Screener, the Queen Elizabeth Inu token on BSC-based Pancake Swap has since had the biggest price value gain over the past 24 hours with an eye-watering 28,506% pump to $0.00008000 at the time of writing.

Its $391,000 worth of 24-hour trade volume pales in comparison to the Elizabeth token, however, which has seen $2.7 million worth of trade volume in just under 12 hours. The asset has also had a meteoric pump of 8,442% to sit at $0.059931.

It’s worth noting that both Queen Elizabeth Inu and Elizabeth have just $17,000 and $204,000 worth of liquidity behind them, indicating a lack of serious backing behind and a potential for short-lived pump and dump, similar to the infamous Squid Games token which crashed and burned in October last year.

Terra Classic (LUNC) has outperformed all top-ranking cryptocurrencies so far in September gaining nearly 100% in the past seven days alone.

Terra Classic outperforms crypto market

The token surged more than 250% month-to-date to reach $0.000594 on Sept. 8, its best level on record. Whereas Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 4% and Ether (ETH) gained only 3.5% in the same period.

The profits in the Terra Classic market appeared despite its association with the defunct Terra (LUNA) token, a $40 billion project that collapsed in May. Terra Classic is a rebranded version of the same Terra project and thus has been the subject of skepticism from analysts and investors since its debut.

But, traders have ignored such warnings in recent weeks, with a flurry of fundamental catalysts influencing them to purchase LUNC.

Staking service

A new staking service went live on the Terra Classic chain on Aug. 27, serving as the first major cue behind the ongoing LUNC price rally.