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After the sharp fall on Aug. 17, Bitcoin (BTC) remained stuck inside a tight range over the weekend. This suggests indecision between the bulls and the bears about the next directional move. 

After the latest fall, about 88% of Bitcoin held by Short-term Holders (STHs), owning Bitcoin for 155 days or less, has plunged into loss, according to Glassnode’s weekly newsletter, “The Week On-Chain.” Glassnode warns that the STH cohort is “increasingly price sensitive.”

In comparison, the long-term holders have neither panicked nor gone on a shopping spree during the current fall.

Traders are likely to keep a close watch on the United States Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Aug. 25. If Powell does not spring a negative surprise, then the event may turn out to be bullish for risky assets. History suggests that U.S. stocks generally rise in the week after Jackson Hole.

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

More than $40 billion in investor assets were lost in the crash between May 5 and May 13, 2022. Less than a year later, Do Kwon was arrested after allegedly attempting to flee prosecution for criminal activity associated with the losses.

Volumes have since been written discussing the breakdown, which saw the Luna coin plummet and Terra’s UST stablecoin de-pegged from the U.S. dollar.

Now, for what appears to be the first time, scientists have applied statistical mechanics to essentially reverse-engineer the crash using the same techniques used to study particle physics.

The research, conducted at King’s College London, concentrated on transaction events and orders occurring during the crash. Per the team’s preprint research paper:

“We view the orders as physical particles with motion on a 1-dimensional axis. The order size corresponds to the particle mass, and the distance the order has moved corresponds to the distance the particle moves.”

The founder of layer-1 blockchain Jurat has defended his protocol against potential haters, arguing that on-chain legal enforcement is a necessary trade-off for crypto mass adoption. 

On Aug. 8, a U.S. District Court used Jurat’s on-chain enforcement tool to lock several sanctioned individuals out of their crypto accounts. These individuals were sanctioned for money laundering and using ransomware to extort cryptocurrency payments to benefit North Korea’s weapons program.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Mike Kanovitz, the founder and CEO of Jurat said the judicial order was the first of its kind.

The Jurat blockchain was launched in late 2022, formed via a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain. The technology connects blockchain nodes with court dockets to enforce court orders.

Kanovitz admits that such technology will likely garner criticism from die-hard supporters of decentralization.

Trader sentiment has turned bearish following Bitcoin’s (BTC) 11% slump this week. Although Bitcoin is taking support near $25,000, several analysts are factoring in another leg down toward the crucial $20,000 level.

The weakness is not limited to the cryptocurrency markets alone. United States equities markets also witnessed a losing week. The S&P 500 Index fell 2.1% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped about 2.6%, both indices recording a three-week losing streak. This suggests that traders are in a risk-off mode in the near term.

The fall in Bitcoin dragged several altcoins lower, indicating a broad-based sell-off. However, amongst the sea of red, there are a few altcoins that have stood out either by bouncing off strong support levels or by continuing their up-move.

Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that may buck the negative trend and stay positive over the next few days.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been range-bound between $24,800 and $31,000 for the past several days. After failing to sustain above the resistance, the price has dipped near the support of the range.

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

Over two weeks after Curve Finance’s multiple pool exploits, the DeFi protocol has assured the hack victims that it is assessing each impacted user for reimbursement. This comes after the exploiter returned 73% of the stolen funds.

The DeFi ecosystem moved beyond the Curve dilemma only to face another set of exploits this past week, with Zunami Protocol seeing its stablecoins pools exploited, resulting in a net loss of over $2 million. However, the week was also filled with optimistic developments as ConsenSys completed the public launch of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM), Linea, with $26 million worth of Ether (ETH) bridged.

In another development, Fantom-based decentralized exchange SpiritSwap was rescued from its shutdown at the last moment through a community resolution.

Curve Finance vows to reimburse users after $62 million hack

Curve Finance has officially stated its intention to reimburse users impacted by its recent hack, which resulted in $62 million in losses. According to an X (formerly Twitter) post from its official account, ongoing investigations are yielding progress, with approximately 79% of the funds successfully recovered. The platform also said it would assess each impacted user for reimbursement.

A tight range usually resolves with a range breakout and that is what happened in Bitcoin (BTC) on Aug. 17. Bitcoin fell sharply, resulting in a $1 billion liquidation for derivatives traders, the biggest since the FTX collapse in 2022.

It is difficult to pinpoint any specific reason for the sell-off but analysts believe that the confusion arising from the alleged write-down of SpaceX’s $373 million Bitcoin holdings may have been one of the potential triggers.

Whatever the reason, the decline has started. The next major question troubling investors is how low could Bitcoin fall. Several analysts have turned bearish and expect Bitcoin to continue its downtrend in the near term.

Will Bitcoin continue to drop, dragging the rest of the cryptocurrency markets with it? What are the important support levels to keep an eye on? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin’s narrow range resolved to the downside on Aug. 17, triggering a long liquidation, which pulled the price to $25,166.

Update (Aug. 18 at 2:09 pm UTC): This article has been updated with both sides’ perspectives and additional information. Further commentaries are expected from both sides.

Crypto influencer Evan Luthra has brought a lawsuit against crypto exchange Bitget for freezing his account after a new token listing in March. According to Luthra, the exchange suspended his withdrawals and froze $200,000 in Tether (USDT) while attempts to seek clarification went unanswered. 

Luthra’s involvement with the ReelStar project serves as a backdrop to these events. The influencer was hired as an adviser to ReelStar, a startup developing a social media app for creators. As compensation, Luthra was offered Reel Tokens (REELT), the project’s utility token. Upon its listing, the influencer sold 1.3 million REELT tokens on Bitget. Luthra’s account was then frozen under suspicion of market manipulation. A spokesperson from Bitget told Cointelegraph about the decision:

“Bitget faced a manipulative attack by a group of traders attempting to profit by manipulating trades on the exchange. Their target was a new coin called REELT, which they tried to dump immediately after its listing on Bitget, causing a large drop in the coin’s price.“

Additionally, Bitget claims to have contacted the crypto influencer for an explanation: “In response, he admitted to selling the tokens. However, when we asked for the reasons behind this abnormal behavior, we did not receive active feedback or satisfactory response.“

SpaceX's Bitcoin write-down report on Aug. 18  sparked confusion among the crypto community. The report published in Wall Street Journal puzzled many, who questioned whether SpaceX held $373 million worth of Bitcoin and sold it in 2021-22 or whether they only reduced their Bitcoin exposure by the same amount.

Several social media outlets reported that SpaceX had sold its entire BTC holdings while others expressed uncertainty, claiming they were unable to confirm the amount based on the wording of the report.

Elon Musk revealed in 2021 that SpaceX holds Bitcoin, as does Tesla, on their balance sheet. While Tesla’s Bitcoin holdings were made public, there were no estimations around SpaceX’s BTC holdings which has been key to the ongoing confusion. Tesla once held $1.5 billion worth of BTC purchased during the bull market, but revealed it sold 72% of its holdings in Q2 of 2022

The SpaceX write-off claims were also believed to be one of the key catalysts behind the $2000 BTC price drop, although several others denied it being a cause. Elon Musk hasn’t addressed the issue yet, but the market FUD made him a target of Bitcoin proponents who questioned his strategy of buying high and selling low while a few others called it a market FUD.

One Reddit user wrote that Musk is running out of cash across all his companies while suggesting that Musk might sell “all of his Bitcoin and doge within the next 6 months.”

The Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) 90-day price volatility hit a new multi-year low in August as the top two cryptocurrencies continue to trade under their key resistance of $30,000 and $2,000 respectively.

According to data shared by crypto analytic firm Kaiko, the 90-day volatility of BTC and ETH hit 35% and 37% respectively making it less volatile than oil with volatility of 41%. Such a decline in the price momentum of the top two crypto assets was last seen in 2016.

The chart above indicates that BTC and ETH price volatility is more than half at the same time last year. While August is considered a bullish month for the crypto ecosystem, the declining price fluctuation is considered bullish by many.

Apart from the 90-day volatility at its lowest in 7 years, the daily Bitcoin volatility is also at 5-year low.

Bitcoin technical analyst who goes by the social media name of Cryptocon took to X platform to share observations about Bitcoin price volatility decline and what actually follows the period of low volatility.

The launch of the Shibarium mainnet — a layer 2 scaling solution for the Ethereum network — appears to have gotten off to a rocky start, at least when it comes to the price of its related tokens. 

Many Shiba Inu (SHIB) holders had held out hope for a sharp appreciation of SHIB, Shibarium’s governance token BONE and the LEASH token with the launch of the Shibarium network on Aug. 16.

However, those aspirations have been dashed rather quickly.

At the time of publication, the price of SHIB is down 8.1% in the last 24 hours while BONE has fallen more than 14% in the same timeframe. The ecosystems’ LEASH token — a low supply staking rewards coin — fared the worst, dropping 23.5% on the day.

The price dip comes amid reports of a potential hiccup in the launch.

Shiba Inu launched the Shibarium mainnet, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, on Aug. 16 after months of testing that saw millions of users participate and 21 million wallets created.

Shibarium is built on a new consensus mechanism called proof-of-participation (PoP), which works by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency. This is done to avoid the computational cost of proof-of-work schemes. The new L2 blockchain solution is designed to interact with the primary Ethereum layer-1 blockchain, providing a more scalable and cost-effective transaction platform.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) rose to popularity during the bull market of 2020–2021, even briefly overtaking the OG meme cryptocurrency, Dogecoin (DOGE). However, it couldn’t hold onto its gains for long and lost more than 80% of its valuation during the bear market.

The price decline didn’t deter the Shiba Inu community, which built a decentralized ecosystem around the cryptocurrency comprising a decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap, and a native token, BONE, along with a metaverse and a Web3 game. The price of SHIB also surged to a new multiweek high in anticipation of Shibarium’s launch.

Prior to the mainnet launch, Shiba Inu’s lead developer, who goes by the pseudonym Shytoshi Kusama, noted that the L2 has already gained a lot of traction from new projects. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the developer shared a screenshot of companies currently developing on Shibarium, suggesting over 100 companies are already using it.

Bitcoin (BTC) continues to trade inside a narrow range with no clear signs of a breakout from it. Trading platform QCP Capital said in their latest market update that Bitcoin may remain quiet for a few more weeks before making its move in September. 

Delphi Digital co-founder Kevin Kelly believes that the cryptocurrency markets are in the early stages of a new bull cycle. Based on a study of Bitcoin’s four-year cycle patterns, Kelly expects Bitcoin to hit a new all-time high by Q4 2024 and a new cycle peak by Q4 2025.

Similarly, Bitcoin investor and author Jesse Myers also maintains a bullish view for the long term but he does not expect Bitcoin to reach $100,000 before the next halving. Myers believes that the market will take 12-18 months after halving to price-in the effects.

Will Bitcoin and the major altcoins remain range-bound in the near term or is a breakout on the horizon? What are the important levels to watch out for? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin rose above the 20-day exponential moving average ($29,383) on Aug. 14 but the long wick on the candlestick shows selling at higher levels.

SpiritSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) on Fantom, will no longer shut its doors in September after having treasury funds stuck on troubled cross-chain protocol Multichain.

In an Aug. 16 community vote, SpiritSwap users passed a resolution to transfer the project to Power, a fellow nonfungible token platform and DEX that is also based on Fantom. In consideration, Power will deploy 200,000 USD Coin (USDC) into the SpiritSwap treasury.

“Initially, I had requested a deposit of 20-30K to the treasury to cover the essential costs of SpiritSwap. However, the Power team is willing to go above and beyond by depositing 200,000 USDC," wrote Nzaru, head manager at SpiritSwap, who announced that he would depart the DEX after receiving a new job offer. “On the 30th, I will finalize the new team and conduct orientation sessions to prepare for the upcoming month,” he said.

Prior to the acquisition, Power developers stated: “We have the means and the desire to inherent SpiritSwap. This would be a direct benefit to the PNFT holders, the POWER community, and the SpiritSwap community.”

On Aug. 9, SpiritSwap said it would wind down operations by Sept. 1 if it could not find a team to take over after the Multichain exploit drained its entire treasury. Interestingly, Power was also exposed to the Multichain fiasco but only suffered “small” losses, as its treasury assets were not bridged to Multichain.