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Ether (ETH) price has been dealing with some strong headwinds and on Sept. 11, the price of the altcoin endured a critical test when it plunged to the $1,530 support level. In the days that followed, Ether managed to stage an impressive recovery, by surging by 6%. This resurgence may signal a pivotal moment, following a month that had seen ETH endure losses of 16%. 

Even with the somewhat swift recovery, Ether’s price performance raises questions among investors about whether it has the potential to climb back to $1,850, and ETH derivatives and network activity might hold the key to this puzzle.

Macroeconomic factors have played a significant role in mitigating investor pessimism given that inflation in the United States accelerated for the second consecutive month, reaching 3.7% according to the most recent CPI report. Such data reinforces the belief that the U.S. government's debt will continue to surge, compelling the Treasury to offer higher yields.

Scarce assets are poised to benefit from the inflationary pressure and the expansive monetary policies aimed at bridging the budget deficit. However, the cryptocurrency sector is grappling with its own set of challenges.

Regulatory uncertainty and high network fees limit investors’ appetite

There's the looming possibility of Binance exchange facing indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice. Furthermore, Binance.US has found itself entangled in legal battles with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), leading to layoffs and top executives departing from the company.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been stuck inside a large range since April, indicating indecision about the next directional move. Efforts by the bears to sink the price below the support of the range were thwarted by the bulls on Sep. 11. However, Bitcoin is not out of the woods yet. 

Jamie Coutts, a chartered market technician and crypto market analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, while speaking to Cointelegraph said that if the tightening cycle extends, followed by “an uptick in unemployment and more stress in the banking sector, then there could be a bit more pain for risk assets like Bitcoin.”

Cryptocurrency traders have also remained cautious. A Bitfinex report shows that the cryptocurrency industry witnessed capital outflows of $55 billion in August. The drop in liquidity has caused isolated events to “have a bigger impact on market movements,” the report added.

Will Bitcoin turn down and retest its pivotal support? Could Bitcoin’s weakness trigger further selling in altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin broke and closed above the 20-day exponential moving average ($26,228) on Sep. 14, indicating that the downside momentum is weakening.

For a long time, Solana (SOL) has been associated with the founder of now insolvent crypto exchange FTX and hedge fund Alameda Research, Sam Bankman Fried. He was an early investor in the project and invested in numerous Solana ecosystem projects during the 2020-2021 bull mania.

So when FTX collapsed toward the end of 2022, Solana and other “Sam coins” plummeted significantly, falling to lows of $9.89 — down 96.3% from the peak of $259.96.

Since the start of 2023, Solana’s price staged a recovery to gain 175% to reach a peak of $27.37 as the ecosystem also witnessed growth.

However, more recently, SOL came under tremendous selling pressure after the Delaware Bankruptcy Court approved the sale of FTX’s digital assets, which includes 55.75 million SOL worth $1.062 million. However, the unlock schedule of FTX’s holdings and derivative market positioning suggest that a counter move to the upside could happen instead.

After Judge John Dorsey made the ruling at a hearing on Sept. 13. SOL price touched a weekly low of $17.96 after the court ruling.

The hackers behind cryptocurrency casino Stake’s $41 million hack have shifted another $328,000 million worth of Polygon (MATIC) and Binance Coin (BNB) tokens — its latest moves following the Sept. 4 exploit, according to blockchain security firm CertiK.

The most recent transfer involved 300 BNB tokens worth about $61,500 to an externally owned address “0x695…” which were then bridged to the Avalanche blockchain on Sept. 11 at 4:09 pm UTC.

Another 520,000 MATIC tokens worth over $266,000 were also moved to Avalanche seven hours earlier at 7:18 am UTC.

The 520,000 MATIC and 300 BNB — totaling $328,000 — add to the $4.5 million in stolen funds that were bridged to the Bitcoin blockchain (in the form of BTC) on Sept. 7, according to blockchain security firm Arkham.

The total $4.8 million transferred however only represents 1.2% of the total $41 million stolen from the hackers.

Arbitrum (ARB) has emerged as a leading contender within the Ethereum network's layer-2 scalability solutions, boasting a significant total value locked (TVL) and notable activity. However, between Sept. 9 and Sept. 11, the price of ARB tokens experienced a sharp decline of 14.5%, marking its lowest point in history.

Investors are now eagerly seeking insight into the factors driving this movement and questioning whether Arbitrum still possesses the competitive edge, especially considering that irrespective of ARB token performance, the network TVL exceeds $1.6 billion.

It is worth noting that the past week has been challenging for most cryptocurrencies but among Ethereum's scaling solutions, none experienced a drop exceeding 9%, except for Arbitrum.

ARB governance proposals bring questionable benefits

One potential source of concern stems from the absence of any instances of fraud proof issuance since the launch of the Arbitrum mainnet in August 2021. Offchain Labs confirmed this information to Cointelegraph on Sept. 4. Developers, however, have explained that this situation aligns with the intended operation of the system, as validators with malicious intentions risk losing their entire stake. Consequently, this data is unlikely to have significantly impacted the price in the past week.

Additional factors that may help elucidate the recent price downturn are associated with governance proposals. The first proposal, posted on Sept. 2, aims to allocate up to 75 million ARB tokens from the project's treasury to address "short-term community needs" for active decentralized applications (dApps) within the ecosystem. However, even if approved, this allocation represents less than 2% of the DAO treasury holdings and is unlikely to have triggered the ARB token price correction, regardless of one's stance on the proposal.

Cryptocurrency asset outflows for the week of Sept. 3 through 9 totaled $59.3 million, bringing the current run to $249 million over four consecutive weeks. 

Bitcoin (BTC) experienced the bulk of activity last week, with its $68.9 million in outflows offset by Short Bitcoin inflows in the amount of $15.2 million and $0.7 million from XRP (XRP).

According to CoinShares, regulatory and financial market insecurity are to blame for the streak:

“We believe continued worries over regulation of the asset class and recent dollar strength are the most likely reasons for this. Trading volumes also dropped significantly, by 73% in comparison to the prior week to just US$754 million for the week.”

Last week also brought an end to Solana’s (SOL) recent run. After nine weeks of inflows totaling $14.1 million prompted CoinShares to suggest that it was “the most loved altcoin amongst investors,” Solana saw $1.1 million in outflows.

The price of Solana (SOL) has plunged more than 6% the last 24 hours, amid fears that bankrupt crypto exchange FTX may soon liquidate its significant portions of the token and other Solana-affiliated crypto assets. 

According to a combination of data from Solscan, which has added up the value of the three publicly available FTX cold storage wallets, the FTX estate holds a combined $1.5 billion in crypto assets on the Solana network.

Of that weighty figure, Solana tokens account for just $128 million.

The rest of the amount is comprised of numerous Solana-based altcoins such as Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Maps token (MAPS), Serum (SRM) and a number of other tokens colloquially referred to as “Sam coins” — a jest at the former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

Still, the idea that liquidators may soon unleash $128 million worth of SOL and hundreds of millions worth of other SOL-affiliated tokens onto the market hasn’t inspired much confidence in the market.

Not a single fraud proof has been submitted on Arbitrum since it first launched its mainnet with the built-in security feature in August 2021, according to Ed Felten, co-founder and chief scientist of the Arbitrum-building Offchain Labs.

Operating as an Ethereum layer-2, Arbitrum’s interactive, multi-round fraud proofs work by allowing a layer-1 verifier contract to decide whether the challenger’s fraud-proof submission is valid. If so, the fraudulent validator’s stake is slashed.

Fraud proofs are submitted by challenging validators when it considers another validator to have fraudulently or otherwise incorrectly assembled an incoming batch of transactions into the next block.

However, Arbitrum’s mainnet is yet to see a fraud-proof attempt let alone a successful challenge, Felten told Cointelegraph at Korean Blockchain Week on Sept. 4:

“Not on mainnet. We did have one or two on Ethereum proof-of-work (POW). After the Merge, [...] there was a version of Arbitrum running on the Ethereum POW fork and somebody did try to steal all the data and there was a successful challenge which defeated that.”

Ethereum staking protocol Lido Finance has assured both Lido DAO (LDO) and staked-Ether (stETH) tokens remain safe despite hackers allegedly exploiting a known security flaw in LDO’s token contract.

Lido didn’t confirm any exploits, but acknowledged the security flaw was known and reassured LDO and stETH funds remain safe in response to a Sept. 10 post by blockchain security firm SlowMist.

SlowMist said LDO’s flawed token contract allows bad actors to facilitate “fake deposit” attacks on exchanges because LDO’s token contract enables users to execute transactions even where they don’t have sufficient funds. This code deviates from the Ethereum Request for Comment 20 (ERC-20) token standard, according to SlowMist.

However, Lido Finance argued the flaw is built into all ERC-20 tokens — not just Lido’s LDO token:

SlowMist said the “fake deposit” attacks came from LDO’s token contract executing transfers where the value is larger than what the user actually owns, triggering a false return as opposed to reverting the transaction. While the firm said Lido's token contract has recently been exploited via this attack, no on-chain evidence was provided.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded in a narrow range this week and is on target to form the third consecutive Doji candlestick pattern on the weekly chart. The cryptocurrency markets did not receive any support from the United States equities markets, which ended the week on a negative note. The S&P 500 Index dropped 1.3% while the Nasdaq closed down 1.9%. 

Bitcoin’s weakness has dragged several altcoins lower, with many testing multi-week lows. This indicates that the broader crypto market is in a firm bear grip. Negative markets make it difficult for buyers to identify short-term bullish trades as rallies hardly sustain. However, it could be a good time for long-term investors to build a portfolio.

According to a recent Amberdata report, 24% of asset management firms are appointing senior executives dedicated to the implementation of digital strategies. Down the line, 13% more firms plan to adopt a digital assets strategy. This indicates “seriousness about implementation as well as senior management buy-in,” the report added.

Could Bitcoin break out to the upside, boosting buying interest in altcoins? Let’s study the charts of top-5 cryptocurrencies that are showing promise in the near term.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been trading near the $26,000 level for the past few days, indicating a tussle between the bulls and the bears.

Pepecoin (PEPE) price has crashed nearly 85% from its record high of $0.00000448 in May 2023. What's more, its bearish momentum is likely to continue in September. 

Back-to-back Pepecoin security breaches

Pepecoin has suffered two concerning security breaches in the last two weeks.

First, on Aug. 24, Pepecoin's rogue founding team members transferred $16 million worth of PEPE tokens to exchanges to potentially sell them. That created concerns across the community about a potential "rug pull scam," causing a 30% decline in the PEPE market.

Then, on Sep. 9, Pepecoin's official X (aka Twitter) handle confirmed that an anonymous entity dubbed "lordkeklol" had hacked their accredited Telegram channel. 

PEPE price has dropped over 12% since the news, hinting that the back-to-back security breaches have eroded investors' confidence in the memecoin project.

Stellar (XLM) token experienced a notable 11.5% increase in value between Sept. 2 and Sept. 8, a novelty given that Bitcoin and most altcoins are down for the week. The surge came after XLM tested the $0.113 support level, which marked its lowest point in the past eight weeks. The price upswing followed a preliminary announcement made by Stellar Org on social media. 

While the announcement was somewhat cryptic, it hinted at something significant occurring on Sept. 12, with phrases like "something cool is dropping" and "change" on the horizon.

More recently, on Sept. 7, Stellar Org further heightened expectations by teasing a potential partnership. However, similar to the earlier announcement, no specific details were provided, with only words like "brand" and "real world" used, suggesting a possible rebranding and a shift towards real-world assets (RWA)like stocks, bonds and real estate.

Caroline Pham, one of the five commissioners of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), emphasized on July 17 that recent court decisions regarding the classification of cryptocurrency assets would ultimately lead to regulatory clarity. Commissioner Pham also stressed the significance of RWAs and highlighted the opportunities for modernizing financial markets through the tokenization of money market funds on blockchain technology.

No, it’s not likely that Elon Musk is coming to save XLM

Unfounded rumors circulated regarding Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) could potentially integrate XLM after the social network obtained a currency transmitter license from regulators on Aug. 28. It's worth noting that X had previously received approvals from six other states prior to this latest announcement.

The bulls tried to shake Bitcoin (BTC) from its slumber on Sept. 7 but the rally was short-lived. This suggests a lack of clarity between the bulls and the bears about Bitcoin’s next directional move. Analyst CryptoCon said on X (formerly Twitter) that Bitcoin could remain in a “mid cycle lull” until the start of the next bull run in November 2024.

On similar lines, ARK Invest said in a report that cryptocurrencies could continue to face headwinds in the remainder of 2023 due to several macroeconomic issues such as interest rates, gross domestic product estimates, unemployment, and inflation.

In comparison, the bulls will be closely following the decision of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on the various Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications. In addition to that, the race for a spot Ethereum ETF also began officially on Sep. 6 with filings from VanEck and ARK Invest. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart expects more Ethereum ETF filings to happen in the next few days.

Could Bitcoin’s range-bound action increase the selling pressure on altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin reached the 20-day exponential moving average ($26,419) on Sep. 7 but the bulls could not overcome this obstacle. This suggests that the bears are fiercely guarding the 20-day EMA.