Decentral Block Post

On its live summit, “The Crypto Winter Recovery Plan,” Cointelegraph Markets Pro revealed how traders could have mostly avoided a gut-wrenching 75% pullback in the crypto market while securing mind-boggling gains. 

The Cointelegraph Markets Pro team argues that while hodlers tied their capital into a capitulating market, nimble Markets Pro members were able to capitalize on real-time, institutional-grade crypto market intelligence to capture significant risk-adjusted profits. The results were staggering!

Cointelegraph Markets Pro traders could’ve secured returns up to 120 times their initial investment — 12,000%, not 120% — using alerts initiated by the NewsQuakes™ indicator, one of several indicators found in its easy-to-use dashboard...

Meaning anybody who would have bought every NewsQuakes™ listing alert and held it for just one hour, from January 2021 until November 2022, would have turned every $100 into $12,000, and every $10,000 into $1.2 million. While over the same period, the crypto market lost two-thirds of its total value.

The secret to the outperformance is the Cointelegraph Markets Pro platform. During the live event, the Cointelegraph Markets Pro team argued that the platform is the most actionable crypto trading service in the world — and the results support this claim.

The United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) won’t be allowed to fine executives involved in Voyager Digital should it end up issuing bankruptcy tokens to help repay impacted customers, bankruptcy judge Michael Wiles has said.

The comments from Wiles came on Mar. 6, the third day of hearings regarding a plan by Voyager to issue a repayment token and sell $1 billion of assets to Binance.US.

The SEC earlier argued that the repayment token would constitute an unregistered security offering, while Binance.US is operating an unregulated securities exchange.

In a supplemental objection statement, it also objected to a legal protection which stated that no U.S. agency, including the SEC, will be able to bring “any claim against any Person on account of or relating to the Restructuring Transactions.”

Essentially, this means that executives and restructuring advisers involved in Voyager’s bankruptcy would be shielded from lawsuits if they implement the bankruptcy plan, as long as it is court-approved.

A former Tornado Cash developer claims to be building a new crypto mixing service that aims to solve a “critical flaw” of the sanctioned crypto mixer — which he hopes will convince U.S. regulators to reconsider its position on privacy mixers.

The code of a new Ethereum-based mixer, “Privacy Pools,” was launched on GitHub on Mar. 5 by its creator, Ameen Soleimani.

In a 22-part Twitter thread, Soleimani explained that the “critical flaw” with Tornado Cash is that users cannot prove that they’re not associated with North Korea’s Lazarus Group or any criminal enterprise for that matter.

With Privacy Pools, however, Soleimani explained that depositors and withdrawers could opt out of an anonymity set that contains an address associated with stolen or laundered funds.

This feature of Privacy Pools is executed with zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, meaning that the privacy of the user is preserved:

The United States equities markets are trying to extend their recovery at the start of the new week. One of the reasons that could be boosting investor confidence is that the yield on the benchmark 10-year note has slipped further to 3.924%.

However, the bullish sentiment of the equities markets has not rubbed off on the cryptocurrency markets which continue to underperform. Bitcoin’s (BTC) tight range trading since March 4 suggests that there is uncertainty about the next directional move.

Generally, periods of low volatility are followed by a pick-up in volatility. The congressional testimony of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on March 7 and March 8 will be watched for the outlook on inflation and rate hikes. Later, on March 10, the release of February's job report could add to the volatility.

Could the strength in the U.S. equities markets and the weakness in the U.S. dollar index(DXY) attract buying in the beaten-down cryptocurrency sector? Let’s study the charts to find out.

SPX

The S&P 500 index (SPX) turned up sharply from 3,928 on March 2, indicating that buyers have not given up and are accumulating at lower levels.

The Frax community recently approved a proposal to make its FEI stablecoin fully backed by USD equivalents, rather than maintaining a partially backed and semi algorithmic stablecoin. With Frax’s decision, the days of experimentation with algorithmic stablecoins could finally be behind us.

The decentralized stablecoin space has only proved effective with ETH, USDC and BTC backed stablecoins. The failure of algorithmic stablecoins (like UST) and depegging of overleveraged stablecoins (like MIM) has become one of the primary reasons for loss of confidence in decentralized stablecoins.

The decentralized stablecoin space is still tiny

Decentralized stablecoins account for 5.5% of the total stablecoin supply. MarkerDAO’s DAI commands the lion’s share of this with 71% dominance. The transfer volumes of decentralized stablecoins are largely dominated in DAI and have declined since Q3 2022, suggesting that activity across the sector is still inhibited.

During the bull run of 2021 and 2022, platforms like Abracadabra and Luna flourished due to higher yields, but when the market took a negative turn these stablecoins were some of the first to collapse. Luna’s UST stablecoin crashed in May 2022 after major withdrawals of the stablecoin disrupted its algorithmic mechanism. 

Before its collapse, UST had become the third largest stablecoin with a larger supply than BUSD and only behind the USDT and USDC. However, the ripple effects of Luna’s collapse caused Abracabra’s MIM stablecoin to lose its peg due to widespread drop in prices of assets backing MIM. Liquidations piled across the platform with no buyers, leading frequent dips below the $1 peg level.

Digital asset investment firms poured $2.7 billion into decentralized finance (DeFi) projects in 2022, up 190% from 2021 as investments into centralized finance (CeFi) projects went the other way — falling 73% to $4.3 billion over the same timeframe.

The staggering rise in DeFi funding was despite overall crypto funding figures falling from $31.92 billion in 2021 to $18.25 billion in 2022 as the market shifted from bull to bear.

According to a Mar. 1 report from CoinGecko, citing data from DeFiLlama, the figures “potentially points to DeFi as the new high growth area for the crypto industry.” It notes that the decrease in funding towards CeFi could point to the sector “reaching a degree of saturation.”

The near three-fold increase in DeFi investment is also a staggering 65-fold increase from 2020, at the start of the last bull run.

According to CoinGecko, the largest DeFi funding in 2022 came from Luna Foundation Guard’s (LFG) $1 billion sale of LUNA tokens in February 2022, which came about three months before the catastrophic collapse of Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) and TerraClassicUSD (USTC) in May.

American rapper and actor Snoop Dogg has been revealed as one of the co-founders of a Web3-powered live streaming app called “Shiller" — adding to yet another Web3 partnership fothe well-known hip-hop artist. 

The app is described as a “live broadcast platform” that aims to combine Web3 technology with real-time live-streaming content. The rap star has been named as a co-founder of the app, along with technology entrepreneur Sam Jones.

It follows a wave of Web3 partnerships by Snoop Dogg in the last year.

In April last year, Snoop Dogg partnered with Sandbox metaverse to launch an NFT collection called “Snoop Avatars” and released a hip-hop single titled “A Hard Working Man,” which was later accompanied by a 50,000-piece NFT drop.

The rap star also partnered with Yuga Labs — the team behind Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks — to perform on a metaverse-transformed stage at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Aug. 29.

The United States equities markets made a strong recovery this week but Bitcoin (BTC) failed to follow suit. This means that cryptocurrency investors stayed away and could be worried by the ongoing problems at Silvergate bank. These fears could be what is behind the total crypto market capitalization dropping to nearly $1 trillion.

The behavior analytics platform Santiment said in a report on March 5 that there was a “huge spike of bearish sentiment” according to their bullish versus bearish word comparison Social Trends chart. However, the firm added that th “kind of overwhelmingly bearish sentiment can lead to a nice bounce to silence the critics.”

Another short-term positive for the crypto markets is the weakness in the U.S. dollar index (DXY), which fell by 0.70 in the past 7 days. This suggests that crypto markets may attempt a recovery over the next few days. As long as Bitcoin remains above $20,000, select altcoins may outperform the broader markets.

Let’s study the charts of Bitcoin and the four altcoins that are showing promise in the near term.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin plummeted below the $22,800 support on March 3. Buyers tried to push the price back above the breakdown level on March 5 but the long wick on the candlestick suggests that bears are trying to flip $22,800 into resistance.

Bitcoin (BTC) is leading the cryptocurrency markets lower and the matter is being exacerbated by Silvergate Banks' ongoing issues. This week the cryptocurrency-focused bank said that it needed additional time to file its annual 10-K report and warned that it may not be able to operate for another 12 months. Reacting to this news, several cryptocurrency companies announced that they were reducing or canceling their partnerships with Silvergate Bank. 

The uncertainty regarding the future of the bank and its overall impact on the cryptocurrency sector may have caused a knee-jerk reaction. However, if the contagion does not spread, the downside may be limited.

Another positive for the cryptocurrency markets is that the United States equities markets are attempting to start a recovery. This suggests that traders continue to add risk to their portfolios at lower levels. This risk-on sentiment may limit the downside in Bitcoin and select altcoins.

What are the important levels on the downside that may act as a support and start a recovery in Bitcoin and the major altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

The failure to rise above the $24,000 level may have tempted traders to book profits. The selling accelerated on March 3 and the bears pulled the price below the immediate support at $22,800.

Cryptocurrency markets experienced a relatively calm month in February as the total market capitalization gained 4% in the period. However, the fear of regulatory pressure appears to be having an impact on volatility in March.

Bulls will undoubtedly miss the technical pattern that has been guiding the total crypto market capitalization upwards for the past 48 days. Unfortunately, not all trends last forever, and the 6.3% price correction on March 2 was enough to break below the ascending channel support level.

As displayed above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January saw its $1.025 trillion market cap floor ruptured after Silvergate bank, a major player in crypto on and off-ramping, saw its stock plunge by 57.7% at the New York Stock Exchange on March 2. Silvergate announced "additional losses" and suboptimal capitalization, potentially triggering a bank run that could lead to the situation spiraling out of control.

Silvergate provides financial infrastructure services to some of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, institutional investors and mining companies. Consequently, clients were incentivized to seek alternative solutions or sell their positions to reduce exposure in the crypto sector.

On March 2, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX revealed a "massive shortfall" in its digital asset and fiat currency holdings, contrary to the previous estimate that $5 billion could be recovered in cash and liquid crypto positions. On Feb. 28, former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud along with wire and commodities fraud conspiracy.

Binance USD (BUSD) market cap has fallen below $10 billion for the first time in almost two years amid a United States regulatory crackdown on its token issuer and a planned delisting from a major crypto exchange.

BUSD’s marketcap has been on a steep downward trajectory since its all-time high (ATH) market cap of $23.49 billion on Nov. 15, just a few days after the shock collapse of FTX.

As of today, the stablecoin’s marketcap has fallen to $9.66 billion — levels not seen since Jun. 29, 2021.

Most recently, BUSD has been the subject of a potential lawsuit against Paxos by the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on Feb. 12 over a possible violation of investor protection laws. Since then SEC, $6.65 billion has been shaved off BUSD’s market cap.

Paxos was also ordered by the New York District of Financial Services (NYDFS) to stop minting and issuing BUSD on Feb. 12 too, which is likely to have contributed to the stablecoin’s market cap fall.

In this week’s episode of Market Talks, Cointelegraph welcomes Adrian Zduńczyk, or as he is known on Twitter, CryptoBirb. He is the founder and CEO of The Birb Nest, a trading community platform. He is also a chartered market technician, chemical engineer, entrepreneur, mentor and influencer with over 655,000 followers on Twitter.

We start things off with a simple question: What is Zduńczyk’s general approach or set of procedures that he goes through when he begins to connect with the markets in the mornings? How does he begin to decide if he should trade on any given day or stay away altogether? What are some comprehensive metrics that he looks at to gauge the overall market direction and sentiment, especially when studying altcoins? 

There was a lot of excitement at the start of 2023 with Bitcoin (BTC) finally breaking out of its sideways action and making a move toward the upside. Now that things have settled down a bit and the price of Bitcoin is lingering around the $23,000 range, we ask Zduńczyk how he feels about the market and if there are any coins that stand out to him during this time.

The next Bitcoin halving is still about a year and a month away, yet people are already starting to talk about it and formulate strategies for it. We get Zduńczyk’s insights into how he thinks this cycle might be developing.

It’s already March, and it seems that Zduńczyk thinks that it might not be as kind as February was for Bitcoin — we ask him for his reasoning behind this claim. Bitcoin seems to be touching the $25,000 mark and coming back down to hover around $23,000. What needs to happen for Bitcoin to flip $25,000 to support and move past it?

In Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s latest VORTECS™ Report, the institutional-grade crypto trading platform displayed how its members could have captured a cumulative 223% gain by following five trades based on three different Markets Pro indicators. The report depicts trading alerts generated between February 12 – 18, 2023. 

The potential gains available to Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers significantly outperform a simple buy-and-hold strategy during the same period, which would’ve yielded a maximum return of 13% for Bitcoin (BTC) and 12% for Ethereum (ETH).

Cointelegraph Markets Pro used the VORTECS™ Score, NewsQuakes™ and Tweet Volume indicators to alert subscribers of these price changes before they occurred. In a previous article, it was explained how using these alerts in conjunction with indicators can help traders find higher-probability trades on a consistent basis.

VORTECS™ Alerts

1. HXRO — 100% gain

The biggest gainer last week came from a VORTECS™ Score alert on HXRO. The asset was trading at $0.10 when a string of VORTECS™ Scores as high as 95 lit green. Scores this high emphasize that current conditions for the token strongly resemble bullish trends from the past.

Four days later, the price skyrocketed to $0.20, an incredible increase of 100%!

Trading platform Robinhood has launched its Web3 wallet on Apple’s App Store, becoming available to iOS users in over 130 countries.

Robinhood shared the news in a Mar. 1 post, stating that users would no longer need to sit on a waitlist to access the new multi-chain, self-custody wallet. It added that it will be supported on Android “later this year.”

Since the beta launch of the Robinhood Wallet in September, the trading platform integrated Ethereum — in addition to already supporting Polygon — and added 50+ ERC tokens to be bought, sold and held on the self-custody wallet.

Among the tokens now supported include USDC, UNI, MATIC and SHIB.

These tokens can be traded without paying transaction fees and users are able to use these cryptocurrencies to interact with a range of decentralized applications (Dapps).

Polygon, a layer-2 scaling protocol for Ethereum, has launched a zero-knowledge decentralized identity solutionto the public nearly a year after announcing its development.

The Polygon ID service uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) that use cryptographic techniques to allow users to verify their identity online without having their sensitive information passed or potentially stored with a third party.

Polygon Labs publicly released Polygon ID on March 1, almost 12 months after the project was officially launched in a closed-source environment.

The Polygon team says Polygon ID was built to “solve the issue of digital trust.”

“What sets Polygon ID apart from most other decentralized ID frameworks is its implementation of zero-knowledge technology, allowing users to verify their identities or other credentials without necessarily revealing sensitive information,” Polygon said.