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Bitcoin’s (BTC) rebound off $28,701 on Aug. 7 shows that lower levels continue to attract buyers. The recovery has kept the price stuck inside the range as traders await the start of a new trending move. A recent report by ARK Invest said that “Bitcoin’s volatility dropped to a 6-year low during July.” 

Traders who expected a strong move in either direction have been disappointed by the ongoing range-bound action in August. If history repeats itself, then August and September may turn out to be washout months as their average moves have been 0.73% and -5.01% respectively.

Although the short-term is uncertain, the long-term continues to look attractive. Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, citing sources at BlackRock and Invesco, said that the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund in the United States may be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in “four to six months.”

Such a move is expected to be hugely positive for the crypto space. In the meantime, let’s look at the important resistance levels to watch out for in Bitcoin and altcoins. Could bulls overcome the roadblock? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin’s strong relief rally from the $28,861 support shows that the bulls have not yet given up and they continue to view the dips as a buying opportunity.

In the most recent episode of The Market Report, analyst and writer Marcel Pechman delves into the topic of crypto exchange Binance’s proof-of-reserves. This report reveals a significant decline in USD Coin (USDC) balances, plummeting from $3.4 billion on March 1 to a mere $23.9 million by May 1. 

According to insights from on-chain analyst Aleksandar Djakovic, this decline signifies that Binance utilized the $3.4 billion to procure 100,000 Bitcoin (BTC) and 550,000 Ether (ETH) during that period, totaling approximately $3.5 billion. The central question, as posed by Pechman, revolves around whether this investment was initiated by Binance users, thereby distancing Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and the company from direct involvement.

Pechman disagrees with this conjecture, although he does acknowledge the possibility of the exchange accessing a portion of its USDC reserved for margin or derivatives trades. Nevertheless, he finds the notion of depleting the entire balance without client awareness or impacting the exchange’s day-to-day functions implausible.

Transitioning to the next segment of the show, Pechman delves into PayPal’s imminent launch of a stablecoin, announced on Aug. 7. This stablecoin, issued by Paxos Trust and built on the Ethereum blockchain, bears striking similarities to USDC and Paxos USD (USDP). Yet, Pechman highlights a distinguishing factor in the integration of the stablecoin with PayPal and Venmo.

Ultimately, Pechman concludes that there is no discernible benefit for end users in adopting this new stablecoin. Other stablecoins, he points out, offer both yield and a more extensive presence in the decentralized applications market.

Amid the approaching deadline for opting out of the current $22 million settlement with Block.one (B1), EOS Network Foundation (ENF) has called on plaintiffs to drop the lawsuit.

The ENF took to Twitter on Aug. 8 to encourage plaintiffs to reject the $22 million settlement Block.one, the firm that was the original seller of EOS (EOS) in a $4 billion initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018.

The EOS foundation argued that the existing settlement “does not adequately compensate” community members for losses caused by Block.one’s “misrepresentations and bad acts.” The ENF emphasized that the settlement amount is a tiny fraction of the amount raised by Block.one as well as $1 billion that it falsely promised to invest in the EOS network and community.

“$22 million is too small a price for Block.one to pay to avoid having to be held to account for their bad acts in the future,” the announcement reads.

Additionally, the settlement bars class action participants’ rights to file new complaints against Block.one and its founders in the future, the ENF stressed, adding:

The price of Shiba Inu (SHIB) is up today amid a broader crypto market upswing and a supportive fundamental factor.

What's driving SHIB's price upward?

On Aug. 9, the SHIB price jumped nearly 5.75% to $0.00001005, continuing a rebound trend that started two days ago. Overall, the price has reversed approximately 15% from its recent low of $0.0000947.

A huge chunk of these gains came on Aug. 8, when BitPay, a crypto payment processing company, announced "Bill Pay," a new service that enables cryptocurrency users to pay bills directly from their wallet.

Shiba Inu is one of the many listed tokens in the service, which may have boosted its upside prospects among traders on Aug. 9. In addition, the token may have rallied under the influence of the cryptocurrency market's overall gains, led by hopes about a spot Bitcoin ETF approval in the U.S.

Bitcoin (BTC) has jumped nearly 4.25% from its recent market low of around $28,650, driving altcoins higher alongside.

FTX’s former primary counsel Fenwick & West LLP has been hit with a class action suit claiming it aided the crypto exchange’s alleged multi-billion dollar fraud.

An Aug. 7 filing by a group of FTX customers in a California District Court alleged the law firm set up several “shadowy entities” allowing FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other executives to adopt “creative but illegal strategies” to perpetuate fraud.

The suit claims Fenwick & West provided services to FTX that “went well beyond those a law firm should and usually does provide” such as structuring acquisitions by FTX US in ways that circumvented regulatory scrutiny and supplying staff to execute strategies the law firm proposed.

The “shadowy entities” were named as North Dimension and North Wireless Dimension which the suit alleged siphoned misappropriated FTX customer funds.

The plaintiffs said Fenwick & West aided and abetted FTX’s alleged fraud by choosing not to intervene in a series of misrepresentations supposedly made by FTX to its customers.

Moon and Brick, two tokens created by users of social media platform Reddit, are up 48% and 443%, respectively, in the past week after being listed on cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.

In an Aug. 7 announcement, Kraken announced the listing of Moon and Brick for spot trading and perpetual futures. At the time of publication, users could only deposit the two tokens via the Arbitrum Nova network. 

Moon is a community token created for the r/CryptoCurrency subReddit. Tokens are given as rewards for users' comments and posts. Users can also exchange Moon for badges and emojis for use within in the subReddit. The token also grants voting rights for r/CryptoCurrency community polls.

Meanwhile, Brick is a community token created for the namesake Battle Royale Game's subReddit r/FortNiteBR. Bricks are stored in Reddit's native crypto wallet, Reddit Vault, and distributed to users based on their Karma, or reputation points, every four weeks. Bricks can then be exchanged for special memberships and unlock features within r/FortNiteBR.

At the time of publication, Moon has a fully diluted market cap of $44.3 million, while Brick has a fully diluted market cap of $17.0 million. The r/CryptoCurrency subReddit has 6.6 million members compared to 2.7 million for r/FortNiteBR.

The price of Cardano (ADA) risks falling by over 20% in August as it enters a breakdown stage of a classic technical pattern that could be offset by some promising fundamentals. 

ADA price risks falling to June lows

Dubbed Bump-and-Run-Reversal (BARR), the pattern develops when excessive speculation drives the prices higher quickly, eventually leading to a "bull trap" situation. As it forms, the price trend undergoes three stages — Lead-in, Bump, and Run — as shown below.

The Lead-in stage sees the price trending upward in an orderly fashion — without any excess speculation. But the Bump stage witnesses a sharp advance in prices, followed by a complete wipeout of the spike.

In the Run stage, the price breaks below the support from the Lead-in trendline. Currently, Cardano appears to have entered the Run phase of its BARR pattern, as shown below.

If the pattern is confirmed, BARR's downside target is measured after subtracting the breakdown point at the support line from the pattern's maximum height. That brings ADA's price target near $0.22 in August or early September, down 20% from current levels.

Less than 16 hours have passed since the launch of PayPal’s new stablecoin (PYUSD), and opportunists, degens and potential scammers are already attempting to cash in on the hype with their own copycat tokens.

According to data from decentralized exchange scanner DexScreener, nearly 30 new token pairs sporting the ticker “PYUSD” have cropped up in the 16 hours since the announcement.

The look-alike tokens have been minted on a variety of different chains including Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Coinbases’ newest layer 2 Base.

It’s important to note that the real PayPal USD token was created in November last year, and can be verified at the following contract address.

PayPal explicitly stated that PayPal USD could only be sent between verified PayPal and other compatible wallets, making it extremely unlikely that any of the tokens listed with the same ticker on UniSwap or any other decentralized exchange are the real thing.

Paypal’s new Ethereum-based stablecoin, PYUSD has been seen as bittersweet news for the crypto community.

While it could finally see Ethereum find its place in mainstream adoption, it could also spell trouble for decentralization and personal control of assets, warns the community.

The new stablecoin, Paypal USD, was launched on Aug. 7 and is issued by Paxos Trust Co. — the firm behind Binance USD (BUSD). It’s built on Ethereum and “designed for digital payments and Web3,” with the firm saying it will soon be available to United States customers.

The launch has been seen as a boon for Ethereum adoption. Ethereum bulls Anthony Sassano and Ryan Sean Adams believe the ERC-20 stablecoin will push the blockchain closer towards becoming the money layer of the internet.

The number of daily active users on Ethereum currently hovers between 300,000-400,000, according to Etherscan.

Weekly cryptocurrency asset flows for the week ending Aug. 4 reconciled at $107 million in outflows, continuing a three-week negative trend totaling $134.8 million.

Once again, the lion’s share of movement was attributed to Bitcoin (BTC). With $111 million in outflows, Bitcoin funds negated the majority of inflows for the week.

According to CoinShares’ Digital Asset Fund Flows weekly report, this indicates further “profit taking” on the heels of the previous cycle’s gains. For the month leading up to the recent spate of outflows, inflows of $742 million into crypto funds were seen, with 99% of that coming from Bitcoin.

Weekly trading volumes in investment products saw a dip below the year-to-date average, according to the report, with broader on-exchange market volumes down 62% against the relative average.

Regionally, only Australia and the United States show inflows with $0.3 million and $0.2 million incoming, respectively. The largest regional outflows came from Canada with $70.8 million and Germany with $28.5 million.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading near the $29,000 level for the past few days. This suggests a lack of strong demand at higher levels but the only solace for the bulls is that they have managed to sustain the price above the immediate support.

The uncertainty about the next directional move may have tempted short-term traders to book profits. CoinShares said in its latest weekly report that Bitcoin investment products witnessed $111 million in outflows, the largest weekly outflows since March.

While the short-term price action remains uninspiring, crypto bulls remain confident that Bitcoin will rally before its next halving in 2024. Blockstream CEO Adam Back said in a conversation on X (previously known as Twitter) that Bitcoin will hit $100,000 by the end of March.

Could Bitcoin extend its decline in the near term or will it turn up? Will the altcoins outperform Bitcoin over the next few days? Let’s analyze the charts to find out.

S&P 500 Index price analysis

The S&P 500 Index (SPX) is witnessing a tough battle between the bulls and the bears near the 20-day exponential moving average (4,511). Sellers pulled the price below the 20-day EMA on Aug. 2, indicating that the bullish momentum is weakening.

MakerDAO, one of the early pioneers of decentralized finance, has sparked criticism over its decision to block virtual private network (VPN) users from accessing its recently launched lending platform, Spark Protocol.

At the time of writing, VPN users that attempt to access the Spark Protocol website will be met with an error: “Accessing this website via VPN is not allowed.”

The measure appears to be linked to Maker’s attempt to restrict United States users from accessing the crypto lending platform — discussed in Spark Protocol’s terms of service updated May 9 — which also warns against the use of VPNs to circumvent the block. 

In an Aug. 6 tweet, DeFi analyst Chris Blec was among those saying he was “disgusted” with the decision, highlighting it effectively acts as a blanket ban on VPNs across the globe, not just in the U.S.

“It's one thing to block US residents,” Blec said, adding that “it's a whole other thing to block anyone in the entire world who is using a VPN for privacy,” said Blec, adding it is an “actual war on privacy.”

Bitcoin (BTC) continued its boring price action over the weekend, indicating that the bulls and the bears are not waging large bets as they are uncertain about the next directional move. Nevertheless, traders should continue to keep a close watch because a period of consolidation is usually followed by an increase in volatility. 

Although it is difficult to predict the direction of the breakout with certainty, some analysts point to the Bitcoin whales increasing their exposure as a positive sign. On-chain analyst Cole Garner believes the bull move could continue till September when the summer seasonality kicks in and the shakeout happens.

Bitcoin rose sharply in the first few months of the year but the major altcoins struggled to keep pace. That could change as the current consolidation in the largest cryptocurrency is giving an opportunity for select altcoins to play catch up.

What are the top-5 cryptocurrencies that are looking positive in the near term? Let’s study their charts to determine the resistance levels to keep an eye on.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin formed an inside-day candlestick pattern on Aug. 5, indicating indecision among the bulls and the bears. The price is getting squeezed between the 20-day exponential moving average ($29,430) and the horizontal support at $28,861.