Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) investors in China plan to buy the dip despite an ongoing market correction and a nationwide crypto ban, a new survey shows.

Consensus sees Bitcoin at $10K

A survey of 2,200 people conducted on China-based social media platform Weibo found that 8% would buy Bitcoin when its price hits $18,000, according to Wu Blockchain. While 26% of the respondents prefer to wait until BTC reaches $15,000.

But a majority anticipated the price to fall even further with 40%, saying they would buy BTC at $10,000.

Chinese investors more cautious on Bitcoin than U.S.

Interestingly, another survey conducted by Bloomberg MLIV Pulse earlier in July yielded a similar outcome, with 60% of the net 950 respondents on Wall Street calling for a $10,000 Bitcoin price.

The two polls show a striking similarity in the bearish sentiments of crypto speculators in the United States and China. Nonetheless, on-chain activity shows that investors in the U.S. have been more bullish on Bitcoin versus their Asian counterparts since June 2022.

Crypto investors found cause for celebration on July 14 as the market experienced a positive trading session just one day after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) posted a June print of 9.1%, its highest level since 1981. 

The move higher in the market wasn’t entirely unexpected for seasoned traders who have become familiar with a one to two-day bounce in asset prices following the most recent CPI prints. These traders also know there’s nothing to get too excited about as the bounces have typically been followed by more downside once people realize that the high inflation print is a negative development.

Nevertheless, the green in the market is a welcome sight after the rough start to 2022.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Uniswap (UNI), Polygon (MATIC) and Aave (AAVE).

Robinhood lists UNI

Uniswap, the top decentralized exchange by volume, saw its token price head higher on July 13 after hitting a low of $5.23. The token has since climbed 36% to hit a daily high of $7.11 on July 14 amid a 104% spike in its 24-hour trading volume to $449 million.

Unlike bull markets where traders can basically throw a dart at a list of coins to pick one that will go up, bear markets require much more effort to find projects that could perform well over the long-run.

One project that has continued to show signs of mainstream adoption despite the onset of a crypto winter is Polygon (MATIC), a layer-two scaling solution for the Ethereum (ETH) network that is looking to build a sustainable Web3 infrastructure on the top smart contract platform.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $0.316 on June 18 during the worst of the crypto market sell-off, MATIC has climbed 118% to $0.70 where the price now sits at a major support and resistance level that first appeared in March 2021.

Three reasons why the long-term outlook for Polygon remains positive include its continued adoption by mainstream entities, the migration of multiple projects to the Polygon network and an increase in the platforms offering liquid staking services for MATIC.

Major adoption announcements

Adoption by influential mainstream companies is one of the best forms of marketing that a blockchain platform can receive as it exposes them to a large pool of potential users.

Most Bitcoin (BTC) traders would rather see a sharp price correction and a subsequent recovery than agonize for multiple months below $24,000. However, BTC has been doing the opposite since June 14 and its most recent struggle is the asset’s failure to break above the $22,000 resistance. For this reason, most traders are holding back their bullish expectations until BTC posts a daily close above $24,000.

Events outside of the crypto market are the primary factor impacting investors' perspectives on digital assets and on July 14, United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that inflation is "unacceptably high" and she reinforced the support of the Federal Reserve’s efforts. When questioned about the impact of rising interest rates on the economy, Yellen recognized the risk of a recession.

On the same day, JPMorgan Chase reported a 28% decline in profits versus the previous year despite recording stable revenues. The difference comes chiefly from a $1.1 billion provision for credit losses because of a "modest deterioration" in its economic outlook.

Bitcoin’s correlation to the S&P 500 remains incredibly high and investors fear that a potential crisis in the global financial sector will inevitably lead to a retest of the $17,600 low from June 18.

The correlation metric ranges from a negative 1, meaning select markets move in opposite directions, to a positive 1, which reflects a perfect and symmetrical movement. A disparity or a lack of relationship between the two assets would be represented by 0.

Bitcoin (BTC) avoided losses as United States equities dived on the July 14 Wall Street open, but traders remained nervous.

Analyst: "No way" Bitcoin bottomed at $17,500

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it lingered around $20,000 on the day.

Wall Street opened with losses, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index both down around 1.8% at the time of writing.

Bitcoin nonetheless managed to hold its own as the largest cryptocurrency's correlation to stocks fell to its lowest levels of 2022 so far.

That said, few were willing to say that the worst was over for hodlers.

Polygon (MATIC) reached lofty price levels this July 14, a day after getting selected for the Walt Disney Company's benchmark business development program.

MATIC's price surged 22.5% to $0.657 a token, its highest level in a month. In doing so, the token also climbed above its 50-day exponential moving average (50-day EMA; the red wave), a curvy resistance level that had been capping MATIC's upside attempts since January 2022.

Polygon enters the Disney World

MATIC's move upside appeared synchronous with similar intraday recovery actions witnessed elsewhere in the crypto market.

Nonetheless, Polygon fared better than most of its top-ranking rivals, including the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

And at the core of MATIC's better performance could be the Walt Disney Company.

Bitcoin (BTC) found a new focus just under $20,000 on July 14 as U.S. dollar strength hammered out yet another two-decade high.

DXY moves bring yen, euro into focus

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD rebounding from lows sparked by a fresh 40-year high for U.S. inflation as per the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

After briefly dipping under $19,000, the pair took a flight above $20,000 before consolidating immediately below that psychologically significant level.

For on-chain analytics resource Material Indicators, it was now "do or die" for BTC price action when it came to a key rising trendline in place since mid-June.

On the day, that trendline stood at around $19,600, with BTC/USD now preserving it as support.

The Bitcoin (BTC) price chart from the past couple of months reflects nothing more than a bearish outlook and it’s no secret that the cryptocurrency has consistently made lower lows since breaching $48,000 in late March.

Curiously, the difference in support levels has been getting wider as the correction continues to drain investor confidence and risk appetite. For example, the latest $19,000 baseline is almost $10,000 away from the previous support. So if the same movement is bound to happen, the next logical price level would be $8,000.

Traders are afraid of regulation and contagion

On July 11, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), a global financial regulator including all G20 countries, announced that a framework of recommendations for the crypto sector is expected in October. The FSB added that international regulators need to supervise crypto markets in line with the principle of “same activity, same risk, same regulation.”

In a written speech on July 12, Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor for financial stability at the Bank of England, said that crypto is somehow over and it should not be a concern anymore. Cunliffe added: “innovation has to happen within a framework in which risks are managed.”

To date, investors still haven’t figured out the total losses from deposits on crypto lenders Celsius and Voyager Digital, and both firms continue to seek either a recovery plan or bankruptcy. According to Voyager, the firm still holds $650 million worth of “claims against Three Arrows Capital,” so the exact numbers of customer assets remain unknown.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell $800 in minutes on July 13 as the latest United States Consumer Price Index (CPI) data came in far ahead of estimates.

Dollar smashes new 20-year highs on hot CPI

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it dived under $19,000 minutes after the June CPI print, which put U.S. inflation at 9.1%.

Expectations had favored 8.8% CPI year-on-year, this still being the highest reading since the start of the 1980s.

With inflation all but guaranteeing further rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, the mood among risk assets — including crypto — swiftly turned sour.

"Peak inflation is here with CPI coming in at 9.1%," Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe reacted, adding that $19,500 should have held for BTC/USD to avoid "cascading south some more."

Dogecoin (DOGE) has missed a much-anticipated technical upside target and is down nearly 10% over the past week amid an ongoing spat between Elon Musk and Twitter.

Musk hurts DOGE price

To recap: Musk, whose companies Tesla, SpaceX, and Vegas Loop accept DOGE payments, had suggested introducing the same checkout option on Twitter this April.

Nonetheless, the Musk-Twitter deal has turned sour after the billionaire attempted to walk away from his $44 billion takeover bid. In response, the platform has sued Musk, alleging that his heart changed after suffering personal losses in the ongoing global market carnage.

Some Dogecoin traders had eyed Musk's Twitter takeover to stay bullish on DOGE/USD, considering the deal would boost the token's adoption across the platform's 330 million monthly active users.

Dogecoin misses IH&S target

Dogecoin dropped by 19.5% after Musk called off the Twitter deal on July 8. In doing so, DOGE also invalidated its prevailing "inverse head and shoulders (IH&S)" pattern that could have pushed its price per token toward $0.112, as shown below.

Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded from overnight lows on July 13 as markets nervously waited for United States inflation data.

Countdown to “highly elevated” inflation reveal

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD climbing from $19,250 to $19,900 at the time of writing, up 3.3% on the day.

With three hours to go until the release of Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for June, crypto markets showed little sign of advance volatility.

Previously, the U.S. government had warned that the CPI figures were expected to be “highly elevated,” with unofficial projections from other sources indicating a year-on-year inflation increase of nearly 9%.

“CPI coming out at 8.8% today. Watch. I’ve got a strong feeling this is the number,” popular crypto YouTuber Ben Armstrong agreed.

Positive price movement during bear markets are notoriously hard to come by due to the non-stop FUD of media and lackadaisical interest from crypto investors.

One crypto that managed to flash green on June 12 is the Nervos Network (CKB), an open blockchain protocol designed for universally accessible decentralized applications (DApps).

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that CKB put on a 50% gain in July after climbing from a low of $0.0033 on June 30 to a daily high of $0.005 on July 12.

Three reasons for the positive gains for the Nervos Network include the launch of the network's layer-2 (L2) solution Godwoken, the integration of the Celer c-Bridge within the Godwoken protocol and the launch of a new nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace on the Nervos mainnet.

Nervos launches a layer-2 solution

The recent price rally for CKB was ignited on June 29 when the protocol announced that its L2 solution “Godwoken” had officially launched on the Nervos Network mainnet.

Bear markets are always tough, but one of the positives is they clear the clutter and this allows legitimate projects to stand out. 

While most investors are focused on the latest centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finances (DeFi) scandal, the blockchain gaming sector has quietly weathered the storm better than other niches of the market.

As shown on the chart above, all sectors of the market have experienced a noticeable decline in active users, but the gaming sector has proven to be the most resilient at retaining users as the bear market intensified.

Transactions continue to rise

Further proof of the continued engagement by gamers can be found by looking at the number of transactions occurring in the top sectors of the market.

With a current count of 173.17 million, the number of gaming-related transactions is significantly higher than any other sector of the market, with the second closest sector being decentralized finance with 8.86 million.

The total crypto market capitalization has fluctuated in a 17% range in the $840 billion to $980 billion zone for the past 28 days. The price movement is relatively tight considering the extreme uncertainties surrounding the recent market sell-off catalysts and the controversy surrounding Three Arrows Capital.

From July 4 to 11, Bitcoin (BTC) gained a modest 1.8% while Ether (ETH) price stood flat. More importantly, the total crypto market is down 50% in just three months, which means traders are giving higher odds of the descending triangle formation breaking below its $840 billion support.

Regulation uncertainties continue to weigh down investor sentiment after the European Central Bank (ECB) released a report concluding that a lack of regulatory oversight added to the recent downfall of algorithmic stablecoins. As a result, the ECB recommended supervisory and regulatory measures to contain the potential impact of stablecoins in European countries' financial systems.

On July 5, Jon Cunliffe, the deputy governor for financial stability at the Bank of England (BoE) recommended a set of regulations to tackle the cryptocurrency ecosystem risks. Cunliffe called for a regulatory framework similar to traditional finance to shelter investors from unrecoverable losses.

A few mid-cap altcoins rallied and sentiment slightly improved

The bearish sentiment from late June dissipated according to the Fear and Greed Index, a data-driven sentiment gauge. The indicator reached a record low of 6/100 on June 19 but improved to 22/100 on July 11 as investors began to build the confidence in a market cycle bottom.

Bitcoin (BTC) fought to reclaim $20,000 on the July 12 Wall Street open as the U.S. dollar cooled its surge to new two-decade highs.

Dollar bull run takes fresh breather

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView revealed a tug-of-war between buyers and sellers following seven-day lows for BTC/USD.

The intraday losses had come at the hands of a rampant U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), which hit its highest levels since October 2002 at risk assets' expense thanks to inverse correlation.

A subsequent pause gave U.S. equities room to breathe, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq stemming losses on the day. 

With the July 13 Consumer Price Index (CPI) print in focus, however, optimism around crypto on shorter timeframes was barely perceptible.