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Bitcoin (BTC) looked to target new August highs at the Aug. 8 Wall Street open as upcoming United States inflation data fueled sentiment.

$25,000 next major BTC resistance

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit $24,246 on Bitstamp, its best since July 30.

The pair was within striking distance of its highest since mid-June at the time of writing, while traders and analysts scanned the charts for signs of resistance.

For on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators, this came in the form of sellers at $25,000 and Bitcoin’s 100-day moving average (MA).

“Bear Market Rally is pumping ahead of this week's CPI report,” it wrote as part of its latest Twitter update.

The metaverse sector is witnessing its very-own housing crisis moment thanks to massive declines in the prices of its virtual lands in 2022, led by waning users' interest and a crypto bear market.

Land sales plunge 85% in 2022

In particular, metaverse projects built on the Ethereum blockchain, including the Sandbox and Decentraland, have witnessed substantial declines in their valuations and other key metrics, data from WeMeta shows.

For instance, the average price of lands sold across Decentraland peaked at $37,238 in February 2022. But as of Aug. 1, their costs had dropped to an average of $5,163. Similarly, the Sandbox's average sale price dropped from circa $35,500 in January to around $2,800 in August.

Overall, the average price per parcel of virtual lands across the six major Ethereum metaverse projects dropped from approximately $17,000 in January to around $2,500 in August, or a 85% decline. 

Declining metaverse volumes

Poor land sale volumes further indicate dampening user interest in metaverse projects.

Cointelegraph’s Brian Newar spoke with Alex Svanevik, the CEO of blockchain data firm Nansen at the Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2022  held in Seoul and discussed topics like the upcoming Ethereum (ETH) Merge and how it will affect other blockchains. 

According to Svanevik, the industry witnessed a spillover effect in the last bull run. He said that in trading nonfungible tokens (NFTs), newcomers in the blockchain space didn't want to pay hefty transaction fees of up to $100 to purchase NFTs in the Ethereum network. The Nansen CEO noted that this demand for NFTs spilled over to other blockchains where the fees to purchase NFTs weren’t as high as in Ethereum. He explained that:

“It'll be interesting to see to what extent these other ones can continue to have demand if a lot of it was driven by that spillover effect. You might have a lot less usage.”

When asked what he thinks will happen to some other blockchains after the merge, the executive said that many may die off. “Many chains will probably become a ghost town or ghost chains. But I do think that some chains will find their own niches,” said Svanevik.

Related: Web2 adoption key to Metaverse success, Klaytn Foundation — KBW 2022

There was once a time when Bitcoin (BTC) was the only crypto project that was not a scam, and advocating for only BTC made perfect sense. However, according to a Bitcoin Core contributor, this has not been true for a while, as he urged the community to drop the us-versus-them culture. 

In a Twitter thread, Matt Corallo, who contributed to the Bitcoin Core, pointed out to the community that at the moment, instead of BTC proponents advocating why Bitcoin is unique and remarkable, they are spending time attacking other projects.

According to Corallo, this situation is leading to what he described as a narrative war, where crypto projects bash each other. Corallo further explained that Bitcoiners coming after Ethereum (ETH) for the upcoming Merge, saying that proof-of-stake (PoS) will not work, will, in turn push ETH proponents to lobby with regulators against Bitcoin with the same environmental angle.

Lastly, the developer urged Bitcoiners to focus on talking about Bitcoin and its positive aspects and drop the culture of attacking other projects that are not BTC.

Despite the call for more respect and courtesy for other projects, some Bitcoiners still remain unfazed. In response to the thread, Twitter user BitcoinCEOh said that "anything other than Bitcoin is a scam." They said that some projects look legit but are ultimately scams in the end.

The United States jobs data on Aug. 5 was above market expectations, indicating that inflation has not cooled down. The strong numbers reduce the possibility that the U.S. Federal Reserve will slow down its aggressive pace of rate hikes. After the release, the likelihood of a 75 basis points hike in September has risen to 68%, according to CME Group data.

However, analysts at Fundstrat Global Advisors have a different view. They highlighted that three out of six times, the S&P 500 bottomed out six months before the Fed’s last rate hike. Therefore, the firm anticipates the S&P 500 to witness a strong rally to 4,800 in the second half of the year.

If the tight correlation between the equities markets and the cryptocurrency markets maintain, the recovery in the crypto markets may have some more room to run. On-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators said in a Twitter update on Aug. 5 that if Bitcoin (BTC) rises above $25,000, there is no major resistance till the $26,000 to $28,000 range.

Could Bitcoin climb above the overhead resistance and extend its recovery, pulling select altcoins higher? Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that may outperform in the near term.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin has been trading close to the 20-day exponential moving average ($22,719) for the past few days, indicating a tough battle between the bulls and the bears. Although the bulls have held the level, they have not been able to achieve a strong rebound off it. This indicates a lack of demand at higher levels.

Cryptocurrencies have failed to break the $1.1 trillion market capitalization resistance, which has been holding strong for the past 54 days. The two leading coins held back the market as Bitcoin (BTC) lost 2.5% and Ether (ETH) retraced 1% over the past seven days, but a handful of altcoins presented a robust rally.

Crypto markets’ aggregate capitalization declined 1% to $1.07 trillion between July 29 and Aug. 5. The market was negatively impacted by reports on Aug. 4 that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating every U.S. crypto exchange after the regulator charged a former Coinbase employee with insider trading.

While the two leading cryptoassets were unable to print weekly gains, traders’ appetite for altcoins was not affected. Investors were positively impacted by the Coinbase exchange partnership with BlackRock, the world’s largest financial asset manager, responsible for $10 trillion worth of investments.

Coinbase Prime, the service offered to BlackRock’s clients, is an institutional trading solution that provides trading, custody, financing and staking on over 300 digital assets. Consequently, comparing the winners and losers among the top-80 coins provides skewed results, as 10 of those rallied 12% or more over the past seven days:

FLOW rallied 48% after Instagram announced support for the Flow blockchain via Dapper Wallet. The social network controlled by Meta (formerly Facebook) is expanding nonfungible token integration.

The United States Labor market added 528,000 jobs in July, much better than the 258,000 estimate. Wages saw growth of 5.2% year-over-year and 0.5% over the month. This suggests that inflation remains high and the U.S. Federal Reserve may continue with its rate hikes in the near future. 

After staying in close correlation with the U.S. equities markets for the past several months, the crypto space could be ready to chalk out a new course.

Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone and senior market structure analyst Jamie Coutts said in a recent report that Bitcoin (BTC) has started base building similar to the one seen near $5,000 in 2018–2019. They expect the recovery to decouple from stocks and behave more like U.S. "Treasury bonds or gold.”

Although crypto prices have plunged sharply during the ongoing bear market, it has not dented investors’ appetite. A report by crypto analytics firm Messari and Dove Metrics showed that the crypto space raised $30.3 billion in funds in 2022, surpassing the total amount raised in 2021.

Could Bitcoin continue its recovery or will bears pose a strong challenge at higher levels? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Binance announced on Friday that its Binance Card now supports three new altcoins. Card users now have the possibility to access their holdings of Ripple (XRP), Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Avalanche (AVAX). 

The Binance Card allows its holders to “convert and spend cryptocurrencies in over 60 million online and physical stores.” However, the card is only available to European citizens and, according to the website, Ukrainian refugees. Prior to the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, Binance had intentions of expanding its card reach into Ukraine by sometime this year. 

With the latest addition, the card now supports 14 cryptocurrencies, including Cardano (ADA), AVAX, Binance Coin (BNB), Bitcoin (BTC), Binance USD (BUSD), Polkadot (DOT), Ethereum (ETH), S.S. Lazio Fan Token (LAZIO), FC Porto Fan Token (PORTO), Santos FC Fan Token (SANTOS), SHIB, Swipe (SXP), Tether (USDT) and XRP.

New additions to the supported crypto do not change the current payment preferences for those already using the Binance Card.

Related: Binance US will delist AMP following SEC claim token is a security

Blockchain auditing firms are still trying to figure out how hackers gained access to about 8,000 private keys used to drain Solana-based wallets. 

Investigations are ongoing after attackers managed to steal some $5 million worth of SOL and SPL tokens on Aug. 3. Ecosystem participants and security firms are assisting in uncovering the intricacies of the event.

Solana has worked closely with Phantom and Slope.Finance, the two SOL wallet providers that had user accounts affected by the exploits. It has since emerged that some of the private keys that were compromised were directly tied to Slope.

Blockchain audit and security firms Otter Security and SlowMist assisted in ongoing investigations and unpacked their findings in direct correspondence with Cointelegraph.

Otter Security founder Robert Chen shared insights from first-hand access to affected resources in collaboration with Solana and Slope. Chen confirmed that a subset of affected wallets had private keys which were present on Slope's Sentry logging servers in plaintext:

Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded overnight into Aug. 5 as a fresh trendline reclaim opened the door to further gains.

Daily BTC pricechart sets up "tentative" long signal

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD bouncing off a local bottom at $22,400 to add around 4.6%.

The pair had reversed direction right at key bid support on major exchange Binance, this helping avoid a more substantial loss of the 200-week moving average (MA) at around $22,800.

While that key zone remained uncertain for bulls, a reclaim of the 21-period MA on the daily chart gave on-chain analytics resource Material Indicators cause for optimism.

BTC/USD might not spark a long signal at the daily candle close, it told Twitter followers overnight.

The Uniswap Labs community has already begun mulling over a new proposal that would form a Uniswap Foundation based in the United States (U.S.), but first, it's going to cost $74 million.

The proposal has garnered mixed feedback from the community so far, with many praising the foundation’s plans to support and expand the Uniswap ecosystem, while others have balked at its hefty price tag.

The Aug. 5 proposal was put forth by Uniswap Labs’ former Chief of Staff Devin Walsh and Uniswap Grant Program lead Kenneth Ng, noting the foundation's main aim is to “support the Protocol’s decentralized growth, reinvigorate governance, and serve as a Protocol advocate” according to Walsh.

If it passes a vote, the Uniswap Foundation (UF) would be incorporated in Delaware and headed by Walsh as executive director, while Ng will become head of operations. 

To make her vision a reality, Walsh has asked for $74 million in UNI tokens over three years, $60 million of which would be used for its own Uniswap Grant Program (UGP), while another $14 million will be used as “operating budget” to build out a team of 12.

For unlucky crypto investors looking to turn lemons into lemonade — it turns out that digital assets lost during an exploit or hack can potentially be claimed as a tax loss, provided you live in the right country, experts told Cointelegraph. 

Following the news that more than 8,000 Solana wallets had been compromised and that an estimated $8 million dollars in crypto had been stolen due to a security breach in Web3 wallet provider Slope’s network, this may be some much-needed consolation.

In correspondence with Cointelegraph, Shane Brunette, the CEO of Australia-based CryptoTaxCalculator confirmed that crypto lost via a hack or an exploit couldd be declared as a loss for tax purposes in certain jurisdictions. 

“This means the original amount you paid for the asset(s) can be used to offset other capital gains.”

When asked whether there are similar provisions in other tax jurisdictions other than Australia, the country in which the tax software provider is based, Brunette, replied:

Flow (FLOW) logged its best daily performance on Aug.4 after becoming the latest blockchain to support Instagram's nonfungible token (NFT) features.

Insta-made FLOW rally

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Aug. 4 that Instagram had expanded its NFT support to 100 more countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and the Americas. As a result, more users can post digital collectibles minted on the Flow blockchain on Instagram.

The high-profile integration helped FLOW surge 54% to reach an intraday high of $2.83 a token. Interestingly, the token's massive upside move accompanied a spike in its daily trading volumes, confirming some weight behind the bullish trend. 

Like any blockchain native asset, the ups and downs in FLOW's demand are tied to the adoption of its parent chain. In general, FLOW serves as a legal tender within the Flow's proof-of-stake ecosystem for the following purposes:

That explains the token's bullish response to Instagram's adoption.

Cryptocurrencies’ total market capitalization bounced from $860 billion on June 30 to the current $1.03 trillion, a 20.6% relief in five weeks. Ether (ETH) might have been the absolute leader among the largest smart contract chains, but BNB managed to gain 39% over that period.

BNB token’s year-to-date performance remains negative by 43%, but the current $49.5 billion market capitalization ranks it the third largest, excluding stablecoins. Furthermore, the leading decentralized application (DApp) is PancakeSwap — 843,630 active addresses in the past seven days — which runs on BNB Chain.

The token serves primarily as a utility asset within the Binance exchange ecosystem, enabling traders to earn discounts or participate in token offers. So, technically, the BNB token does not give ownership rights or dividends to any Binance-owned company or service.

However, according to Bloomberg, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating whether the initial coin offering (ICO) of BNB tokens in 2017 consisted of a sale of unregistered securities. A digital asset may fall under the SEC’s scrutiny if buyers intend to profit from the efforts of a company or project funded by the capital raise.

To understand whether BNB's 39% rally in five weeks is justified, investors should analyze network use, including smart contract deposits, active users and decentralized applications adoption.

With the price of Bitcoin (BTC) holding above $22,000, more and more market players are turning bullish again. Does this mean that we could see BTC go to $28,000 in the short term or will it fall below its current levels? Join us as we discuss this and other topics with Crypto Jebb and Mr. Wonderful, himself, Kevin O’Leary.

In this week’s episode of Market Talks, we welcome businessman, entrepreneur, author, winemaker and television presenter, Mr. Kevin O’Leary.

O’Leary, best known as the shark on the hit reality TV show Shark Tank, is the chairman of O'Shares Investments and a strategic investor in WonderFi. Mr. O’Leary’s success story starts where most entrepreneurs begin — with a big idea and zero cash.

The main topic of discussion on the show is whether BTC will go as high as $28,000 or re-test the bear market lows of June. With so much uncertainty in the market right now, we also discuss the best way to navigate digital assets for the remainder of the year.

Following the collapse of Terra (Luna) — now renamed Terra Classic (LUNC) — and the insolvencies of Celsius and Three Arrows Capital, we ask Kevin if he thinks, from a business perspective, these companies should have been bailed out.

The price of Optimism (OP) has been skyrocketing since the beginning of July due to its proximity to Ethereum.

Notably, OP's price rallied by nearly 300% in over a month to reach $2.31, its second-highest level on record, on Aug. 4. The token received its bullish cues primarily from the euphoria surrounding Ethereum's potential transition to proof-of-stake in September via an upgrade called "the Merge."

Why the "Optimism"

To recap: Optimism is an Ethereum rollup solution. In other words, the so-called layer-2 solution handles a bundle of Ethereum's transaction verifications off-chain to boost scalability on the main chain.

Optimism could benefit from the Merge due to Ethereum's "Rollup-Centric Roadmap," which turns its main chain into a settlement and data availability layer and places scalability in the hands of layer-2 rollups via "danksharding."

"Currently, with the combined rollup and Ethereum architecture, the current Ethereum-only transaction throughput of 15–45 TPS could scale to as much as 1,000–4,000 TPS," noted Ally Zach, a researcher at Messari, adding:

Victorian Police in Australia will soon be granted new powers to seize cryptocurrency and digital assets from criminals, as well as compel platforms to hand over information about suspects.

According to a statement released by Victorian premier Daniel Andrews on Aug. 2, new laws were introduced to parliament on Tuesday under the Major Crime and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, with the aim of cracking down on organized crime in the state.

The new bill is expected to give authorities “greater power” to identify and seize digital assets, in response to the growing use of digital cryptocurrencies by organized crime.

The laws will uphold also require crypto exchanges disclose information to assist with criminal investigations in the same way that banks would.

“They will be able to compel cryptocurrency platforms to hand over information about suspects like banks currently must, and seize digital ‘wallets’.”

Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins are tracking the United States equities markets higher on Aug. 3 as traders buy the dip.

Smaller investors seem to be making the most of the bear market in Bitcoin as the number of wholecoiners has soared by 40,000 since the sharp fall in June. In comparison, wallet addresses with more than 1,000 Bitcoin have declined by 113 since May.

Some analysts believe that Bitcoin has not yet formed a macro bottom, however. Trading firm QCP Capital expects Bitcoin to gradually rise for most of the third quarter amid high volatility.

They believe Bitcoin’s rally could hit a roof around $28,700. For the long-term, the firm did not rule out a final capitulation in Bitcoin to around $10,000, which may mark a bottom for the bear market.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin miners seem to be in an upbeat mode as they increased their Bitcoin holdings in July following the capitulation in June. According to data from on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, Bitcoin held by the miners hit the highest levels since.