Posted: September 21, 2023

• The native version of USDC has been launched on Polkadot.
• Polkadot has seen a surge in network activity in the last week.

Stablecoin issuer Circle has launched the native version of USD Coin [USDC] on Polkadot [DOT], allowing the network’s users to mint, redeem, and transfer USDC directly on the network’s parachains without having to bridge it from another chain.

Realistic or not, here’s DOT’s market cap in BTC’s terms

The launch of native USDC support on Polkadot is part of a broader trend of USDC being launched natively on multiple chains in the last month. The stablecoin has been launched on Optimism [OP], Coinbase [BASE], and Near [NEAR] within the last 30 days. 

USCD’s aggressive launch across multiple chains is due to the need to shore up its plummeting market share. The coin’s market share took a hit in March after Silicon Valley Bank [SVB] unexpectedly collapsed.

On 11 March, Circle confirmed it could not access $3.3 billion of its $40 billion in USDC reserves locked up at SVB. This immediately caused USDC to lose its $1 peg, and it traded as low as $0.96 on 12 March before finally regaining its peg on 16 March.

Moreover, in a recently published insight, Glassnode found that USDC’s supply has declined by over $16 billion since the current cycle lows set in November 2022. In terms of dominance, USDC’s dominance has since fallen from 38% to 22%. 

Polkadot in the last week

In the last week, Polkadot’s network activity has seen an uptick. Information from The Block’s data dashboard showed that since 13 September, the daily count of unique addresses active on Polkadot either as a sender or receiver has increased by 49%.

As of 19 September, 7,140 addresses completed transactions on the chain.

Source: The Block

Due to a jump in the active address count, the number of transactions executed on the chain has also rallied. Information retrieved from the same data provider revealed that within the period under review, Polkadot has witnessed a 32% increase in its daily number of transactions. 

As expected, network fees and revenues have also gone up. Data from Token Terminal revealed that these have climbed by 40% in the last seven days.

Source: Token Terminal

Is your portfolio green? Check out the DOT Profit Calculator

While existing users may have actively engaged with Polkadot in the last week, the period has been marked by a dearth of new demand.

Data from TheBlock showed that after the number of unique addresses that appeared for the first time in a transaction on Polkadot peaked at 1,100 on 17 September, it has since plummeted. As of 19 September, only 970 new addresses were created on the blockchain. 

Source: The Block

Posted: September 20, 2023

• Ethereum’s network effectiveness recently dropped to its lowest level since the Shapella upgrade.
• This resulted from a decline in validator activity on the Proof-of-Stake network. 

The Ethereum [ETH] network experienced performance issues on 18 September, with network effectiveness falling to its lowest level since the Shapella upgrade and the percentage of missed blocks doubling compared to the previous 30-day average.

How much are 1,10,100 ETHs worth today?

Ethereum’s network-wide effectiveness is a measure of how well the Layer 1 (L1) blockchain network is performing. It is calculated by taking the average block time and dividing it by the theoretical block time. 

A block is deemed to have been “missed” when the Ethereum network fails to produce a new block on time. 

Data tracked by Rated revealed that Ethereum’s network effectiveness fell to a low of 93.5% on 18 September, while its count of missed blocks on that day totaled 130. 

Ethereum suffered a decline in validator activity

A further assessment of the chain revealed that the decline in network effectiveness and surge in the number of missed blocks recorded was due to a drop in validator activity.

According to data from Glassnode, Ethereum began to experience an uptick in the number of validators who voluntarily exited the chain’s validator pool on 16 September. By 18 September, the daily count of validators that left had increased by over 250%. 

Source: Glassnode

To ensure that the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network runs optimally, there has to be a high degree of participation by validators on the network. A high participation rate indicates reliable validator node uptime and, thus, fewer missed blocks and superior blockspace efficiency. 

On 15 September, validators’ participation rate began to fall, and by 18 September, it slipped to its third-lowest point in 2023. Data retrieved from Glassnode showed that this fell to 98.93%, the lowest since the 96% recorded on 12 May. 

Source: Glassnode

Falling validator count suggests…

As the active validator count depleted, the network also experienced a shortfall in the number of new validators onboarded. For context, on 16 September, the daily count of new validators on the Ethereum network fell to its lowest since April.

The surge in validator exits in the past few days might result from ETH’s narrow price movements in the past few months. This is because validator rewards are paid out in ETH, and these returns increase when ETH prices are high.

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price prediction 2023-24

Moreover, the Estimated Annual Issuance ROI Per Validator metric showed a consistent fall since the year began. This metric tracks how much ETH a validator can expect to earn each year, based on the number of validators participating in consensus.

Source: Glassnode

Additionally, dwindling ETH prices in the past few months have made it difficult for some validators to remain incentivized. 

Posted: September 20, 2023

• TON’s value climbed by almost 90% in the last month.
• However, the price ventured into overbought highs, signaling a possible retraction. 

Toncoin’s [TON] value has rallied by over 85% in the last month due to a seven-fold increase in active TON addresses on the Ethereum [ETH] network, on-chain data provider IntoTheBlock noted in a recent tweet on X (formerly Twitter).

Read Toncoin’s [TON] Price Prediction 2023-24

At press time, the Telegram-endorsed crypto asset exchanged hands at $2.54. Data tracked by CoinMarketCap revealed that TON ranked as the asset with the most gains in the last seven days, with a 38% uptick during that period. 

Source: CoinMarketCap

Apart from the hype surrounding the coin’s integration into Telegram, the price hike in the last month is also attributable to the non-significant correlation TON shares with leading coin Bitcoin [BTC].

During the same period, BTC’s value increased by a mere 3% and continues to face significant resistance at the $26,000 price mark. 

Is the end here?

TON’s price movements on a daily chart confirmed the state of bullishness amongst the coin’s daily traders. When the alt’s price began its uptrend, the surge in accumulation put TON buyers above its sellers in the spot market, and they have since remained in control. 

The coin’s Directional Movement Index (DMI), which measures the strength and direction of a price movement, showed the Positive Directional Indicator (green) positioned above the Negative Directional Indicator (red) at press time. 

When the green line rallies above the red line, it indicates that there is more upward pressure on the price than downward pressure, as buyers’ power exceeds the sellers.

Despite the fact that TON accumulators are in control of the market, the asset has been pushed to overbought levels. This suggests that a price retraction may be on the horizon.

When an asset is deemed “overbought,” it can be a sign that it is due for a correction. This is because the price has risen to an unsustainable level in the long term.

Realistic or not, here’s TON’s market cap in BTC’s terms

The primary indicator of this was TON’s Chaikin Money Flow, which diverged from its price on 6 September. While the asset’s price has rallied since then, its CMF continues to trend downwards. This creates a bearish divergence that is often interpreted as a sell signal. 

Likewise, TON’s key momentum indicators were stationed at overbought highs that the bulls might be unable to support. The coin’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Money Flow Index (MFI) were 76.55 and 92.62 at press time. At these levels, a price pullback is common. 

Source: TON/USDT on TradingView

Posted: September 20, 2023

• The TVL of Lido on the liquid staking protocol increased last week.
• Interest in LDO has flattened amongst the token’s futures market participants.

Lido [LDO], a liquid staking protocol for Ethereum [ETH], saw its total value locked (TVL) surge in the past week due to an uptick in ETH and Solana [SOL] deposits, the protocol noted in its latest weekly update on X (formerly Twitter). 

Between 11 and 18 September, ETH and SOL deposits on Lido grew by 0.53% and 8%, respectively, resulting in a 1% growth in Lido’s TVL. 

Is your portfolio green? Check out the LDO Profit Calculator

During that period, the values of these Layer 1 (L1) coins grew by 0.18% and 3.01% respectively. This is noteworthy, as the fall in the prices of these assets often impacts Lido’s TVL growth. 

At press time, Lido’s TVL stood at around $14.35 billion, with a 3.11% rally in the last month. 

During the period under review, the liquid staking platform led as the protocol with the most net new deposits to the Ethereum Beacon Chain.

According to data from Dune Analytics, new deposits to the Ethereum Beacon Chain through Lido totaled 68,096 ETH in the form of staked coins. This represented a 20% jump from the 56,512 ETH recorded in new deposits in the previous week. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Over the last week, the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of the protocol’s staked Ether [stETH] assessed on a seven-day moving average saw a minor decline of 2%.

For context, Lido’s APR has trended downward since May. On 12 May, Lido’s stETH APR peaked at 7.17% and has since fallen by 49%.

Source: Dune Analytics

Further, within the period under review, the amount of wrapped staked Ether [wstETH] deposited for trades across decentralized finance (DeFi) pools increased by 0.08%. This came after the previous week’s decline of 5.72% due to stETH’s removal from the Lybra Finance pool.

Regarding Layer 2 (L2) platforms, data from Dune Analytics showed a 2% and 14.13% increase in the amount of stETH bridged to Arbitrum [ARB] and Polygon [MATIC], respectively. 

On the other hand, Optimism [OP] recorded a 4.43% decrease in the amount of bridged stETH over the past week. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Interest in LDO is low in the futures market

Amongst the participants in LDO’s futures market, interest in the token has remained low since the beginning of the month. An assessment of the token’s Open Interest showed that it has lingered between $37 million and $40 million since 1 September.

Realistic or not, here’s LDO’s market cap in BTC’s terms

When an asset’s Open Interest flattens out in this manner, it suggests that the total number of outstanding derivative contracts for that asset have not been settled has not changed significantly. 

This has often been interpreted to mean a lack of interest in the market during the material time. 

Source: Coinglass

Posted: September 19, 2023

• With a recent proposal, ApeCoin DAO is seeking the establishment of a sister DAO to acquire “influential NFTs.”
• APE’s price has dropped by almost 30% in the last month as demand craters.

A proposal to establish a “sister DAO” and allocate 750,000 APE tokens to it, in a bid to acquire influential non-fungible tokens (NFTs), was being voted on by the ApeCoin DAO community. It had an approval rate of 65% at press time, snapshot data revealed. 

How much are 1,10,100 APEs worth today?

The proposal, first published in July, sought an initial allocation of 750,000 APE tokens from the protocol’s treasury to acquire “culturally significant” NFTs.  These digital collectibles would be held in a community-run vault, with decision-making power resting in the hands of APE holders. 

As contained in the proposal:

“The objective of this proposal is to position ApeCoin as the web3 culture token to power the broader web3 ecosystem”

The proposed list includes eight Bored Ape Yacht Club [BAYC], 12 Mutant Ape Yacht Club [MAYC], 15 Bored Ape Kennel Club, 15 Mocaverse, 15 World of Women, 15 Cool Cats, 15 Otherdeed, 12 Pudgy Penguins, and 20 Sandbox [SAND] NFTs. 

As of this writing, 4.4 million APE tokens have been deployed toward voting in favor of the proposal. 

APEs have little demand for the metaverse-based token

Exchanging hands at a one-month low of $1.13, APE’s value has plummeted by 27% in the past thirty days due to a shortfall in daily active address count and new demand for the token. After attaining their respective peaks on 17 August, these have dwindled significantly.

As of 18 September, only 1452 addresses completed transactions that involved APE. This represented a 94% decline from the 17,000 addresses that traded the alt on 17 August.

The count of new addresses created to trade the alt was less than 250 addresses on 18 September, data from Santiment showed. Since 17 August, new demand for APE has dropped by 98%. 

Source: Santiment

Amongst the token’s spot traders, daily accumulation has slowed. Key momentum indicators observed on a 24-hour chart were spotted at regions that suggested that the altcoin would soon become “oversold.” 

For example, APE’s Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) trended downward and was positioned below its center line at -0.17. It is trite to note that a negative CMF value signals significant market bearishness, with the consistent removal of liquidity needed to induce a price rally.

Realistic or not, here’s APE’s market cap in BTC’s terms

Likewise, the K line (blue) of the altcoin’s Stochastic RSI indicator inched close to the 20% level. The Stochastic RSI indicator measures momentum and identifies overbought and oversold conditions in the market.

A Stochastic RSI value below 20 typically suggests increased distribution. It shows that an asset has been oversold, and until sentiment improves, the price will continue to plummet. 

Source: APE/USDT on TradingView

Posted: September 19, 2023

• Digital asset investment products saw outflows of almost $60 million last week.
• Bitcoin accounted for 85% of all funds withdrawn.

Digital asset investment products recorded outflows totaling $54 million last week, marking the fifth consecutive week of outflows, digital asset investment firm CoinShares found in a new report.

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24

As the report highlighted, liquidity worth $455 million had been removed from crypto exchange-traded products for eight out of the last nine weeks. 

This suggested that crypto market participants mostly harbored bearish sentiments toward the assets that comprise the investment category. As a result, year-to-date (YTD) net inflows fell below $100 million, CoinShares noted.

Notably, Germany, Canada, and Sweden also experienced negative sentiment. However, investors in the USA accounted for 77% of all crypto fund outflows last week. The predominant negative sentiment in the USA could be primarily attributable to the ongoing regulatory uncertainty surrounding crypto in the region. 

Despite recent setbacks in court, in his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee hearing on 12 September, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler reiterated his view that crypto assets are securities and should be regulated by his agency.

According to Mr. Gensler:

“There is nothing about the crypto asset securities markets that suggests that investors and issuers are less deserving of the protections of our securities laws…Given that most crypto tokens are subject to the securities laws, it follows that most crypto intermediaries have to comply with securities laws as well.”

Bitcoin suffers the most

Bitcoin [BTC] investment products saw the removal of $45 million last week from crypto funds, accounting for almost 90% of the total outflows recorded. With the leading coin registering only outflows since the month began, last week’s liquidity exit brought the coin’s month-to-date outflows to $118 million.

Further, the coin’s YTD net inflows continued to plummet weekly as sentiment grew poorer. Last week, BTC’s YTD net inflows fell to $155 million, down from $200 million the previous week.

Following 19 weeks of consecutive outflows, Short-Bitcoin products recorded “its largest single week of inflows since March 2023” in the previous week. However, this “proved to be short-lived,” as the asset category saw outflows of $3.8m last week.

However, despite recent troubles,

“It remains the most loved investment product with month-to-date inflows at US$12m.”

Ethereum takes a backseat

While other leading altcoins posted inflows, leading altcoin Ethereum [ETH] witnessed withdrawals amounting to $4.8 million. This brought its YTD outflows to $118 million.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the BTC Profit Calculator

CoinShares opined that the liquidity exit occurred,

“Despite what we believe are attractive investment fundamentals and high demand for its staking yield.”

The report further found that,

“Other altcoins, such as Binance and Polygon, saw minor outflows of US$0.3m each. Some altcoins continue to buck the trend, with Solana, Cardano, and XRP all seeing inflows of US$0.7m, US$0.43m, and US$0.13m, respectively.” 

Posted: September 19, 2023

• Monthly average count of players on Axie Infinity has dropped to its lowest so far this year
• After a brief uptick in price, AXS has resumed its downtrend

The number of average monthly players on leading play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain game Axie Infinity [AXS] has plummeted to its lowest level of the year, according to data from activeplayer.io.

Information from the data provider revealed that the average count of monthly players on the P2E platform has fallen from a peak of 2.70 million in February 2022 to less than 500,000 players in August 2023. On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, the monthly player count on Axie Infinity has declined by 19%. 

Source: activeplayer.io

Realistic or not, here’s AXS’ market cap in BTC’s terms

More than enough troubles for Axie 

The last 30 days have been marked by a general decline in user activity on Axie, additional data from DappRadar showed. Over the previous month, the number of unique active wallets (UAW) that interacted or performed a transaction with the protocol’s smart contracts totalled 74,000, logging a 16% decline.

As expected, the low user count on the game culminated in a drop in the number of transactions completed within the period under review. Over the same period, Axie Infinity saw a transaction count of 1 million. This represented an 11% decline on a month-over-month (MoM) basis.

Source: DappRadar

Furthermore, the steady drop in user activity and transactions on the protocol has caused Axie Infinity to see a fall in its revenue. Over the past 90 days, user fees and revenue have both declined by 53%, as per data from Token Terminal.

AXS resumes downtrend

During last week’s trading session, AXS registered a price uptick of 6%, according to CoinMarketCap. 

It saw a significant price hike on 14 September, when its price registered an intraday surge of 19%. The price rally coincided with a sudden hike in the count of unique active wallets on the platform on that day. Data from DappRadar revealed a 77% increment in the count of active wallets on Axie Infinity. 

In addition, there was a significant volume of short liquidations on that day, suggesting that a short squeeze event contributed to the price jump.

As market euphoria begins to wane, AXS has commenced its descent to the pre-14 September price level. At press time, the altcoin was exchanging hands at  $4.51. 

On the spot market, token distribution has outpaced accumulation. An assessment of the token’s Directional Movement Index (DMI) revealed that sellers had market control of the daily market. 

How much are 1, 10, or 100 AXS worth today?

The negative directional index (red) at 23.24 lay above the positive directional index (green), which was stationed at 21.66.

Finally, the token’s Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) trended south at press time and was spotted in the negative zone. This highlighted greater liquidity exiting AXS’s spot markets. This can result in a further decline in the token’s value if sentiment fails to improve. 

Source: AXS/USDT on TradingView

Posted: September 19, 2023

• RUNE’s price recorded a 23% uptick over the past week
• With bull exhaustion setting in, a price drawback might be imminent soon

RUNE, the native token of ThorChain, closed the last trading week as the second-best performing asset, with gains of over 20%, according to CoinMarketCap.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the Thorchain RUNE Profit Calculator

The price rally followed ThorChain’s integration with MetaMask, which would allow its users to conduct asset swaps in a self-custody environment.

Week ahead looks gloomy

RUNE outperformed the rest of the cryptocurrency market in August, rallying by 66% due to its low positive correlation with Bitcoin [BTC] and the series of protocol updates on the decentralized liquidity network.

With the token’s price at overbought levels at press time, the bulls might experience difficulty championing any further price rally. 

On the daily chart, the alt’s price traded above the upper band of its Bollinger Bands indicator. This indicator is used to identify overbought and oversold conditions in a market. When the price of an asset trades above the upper band, it is considered to be overbought. This suggests that the price has moved too far above its moving average and will likely experience a correction soon.

Likewise, the K line (blue) of the altcoin’s Stochastic RSI indicator was pegged at 80.07%, suggesting that RUNE was overbought. This indicator also measures overbought and oversold conditions in the market. 

A Stochastic RSI value above 80 typically suggests increased accumulation. It shows that an asset has been overbought and the price will experience a drawback. Especially as bull exhaustion is common at such levels. 

Moreover, profit-taking activity might have commenced among RUNE’s spot traders at these overbought highs. Although still positive, its Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) began its descent on 16 September and has since trended south. At press time, the indicator sat on its center line at 0.01 

The decline in RUNE’s CMF suggested a drop in liquidity provisioning among daily traders. This could be RUNE traders cashing in their gains following the prolonged period of a price rally. 

Source: RUNE/USDT on TradingView

Realistic or not, here’s Thorchain’s market cap in BTC’s terms

Short traders bear the brunt

Despite the surge in price in the last month, traders in RUNE’s Futures market have mostly opened short positions. In fact, data tracked by Coinglass showed that the token’s funding rates across crypto-exchanges have been primarily negative since 17 August.

Source: Coinglass

RUNE’s short traders were plunged into losses as its price trended in the opposite direction. In fact, short traders have suffered the most losses of all total liquidations recorded since mid-August. 

Source: Coinglass

Posted: September 18, 2023

• Traders in Bitcoin’s Futures market have doubts about any imminent price rally
• This has led them to reduce risk exposure by cutting leverage-based cash-margined BTC transactions 

As Bitcoin [BTC] traders become increasingly less confident in positive price action in the short term, the coin’s estimated leverage ratio for cash-margined BTC Futures continues to plummet. This, according to a new report by pseudonymous CryptoQuant analyst Phi Deltalytics. 

BTC’s estimated leverage ratio for cash-margined Futures tracks how much leverage is being used in the coin’s cash-settled Futures market. It is calculated by dividing the total dollar value of Open Interest in cash-margined BTC Futures contracts by the coin’s total market capitalization.

Is your portfolio green? Check the Bitcoin Profit Calculator

According to Phi, participants in BTC’s Futures market have grown increasingly wary of using leverage (borrowed money) to trade in the coin’s Futures markets. Especially as it continues to face significant resistance around the $30,000-price mark.

Source: CryptoQuant

At press time, the coin was trading at $26,669, according to data from CoinMarketCap. In fact, BTC has lingered within the narrow price range of $25,000 – $28,000 since April. 

A glimmer of hope?

While traders have reduced their leverage-based transactions in BTC’s cash-margined trades, the overall count of open positions in the coin’s Futures markets has climbed. 

BTC’s Open Interest started to rise again on 4 September, after it had dropped to a two-month low following the deleveraging event of 17 August. With a reading of $11.14 billion at press time, the coin’s Open Interest has since grown by 10%. This hinted at the re-entry of traders who had previously left the market due to the liquidity flush.

Source: Coinglass

When an asset’s Open Interest rallies in this manner, it indicates a hike in the total number of outstanding contracts or positions that have not yet been closed out by either a buyer or a seller. It often suggests increased trading activity and participation in the market with a hike in the number of new positions being created. 

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-2024

Also, despite the coin’s narrow price movements and recent headwinds, which caused the crypto to trade below $26,000, its funding rates across cryptocurrency exchanges have remained significantly positive. This, according to data from Coinglass.

Source: Coinglass

In fact, since the year began, the only period when traders have massively shorted BTC was on 18 August, after the capital flight that occurred the previous day. The coin’s funding rates fell to a year-to-date low of -0.017%. 

As the market gradually recovered, BTC’s funding rates became positive and has since remained so. This is a sign that traders have resumed placing bets in favor of a price rally.

Posted: September 18, 2023

• ETH’s taker buy-sell ratio has risen steadily since 10 September
• With strong resistance at $2000, ETH investments have continued to return very low profits

Ethereum’s [ETH] taker buy-sell ratio assessed on a 30-day simple moving average (SMA) has climbed to its highest level since 23 June. This, according to data from CryptoQuant.

Source: CryptoQuant

The taker buy-sell ratio is a metric that measures the ratio between the buy volume and sell volume in an asset’s Futures market. A value greater than 1 indicates more buy volume than sell volume, while a value less than 1 indicates more sell volume than buy volume.

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price Prediction 2023-24

A steady decline in this metric suggests that the Futures market for the asset concerned has become plagued by more sell orders than buy orders. 

Due to the significant resistance faced by ETH around the $2000-price level, its taker buy-sell ratio has trended south since 29 May. In fact, by 28 August, it had fallen to its lowest level this year.

Although still below 1, CryptoQuant analyst ‘Greatest_Trader’ has now claimed that the surge in ETH’s taker buy-sell ratio since 10 September represents a re-emergence of positive sentiment. This might help drive up the altcoin’s value. 

“This surge suggests a potential change in sentiment among market participants, indicating a shift towards a more bullish stance. Should this metric continue its upward trajectory and venture into positive territory, it could herald the onset of a new phase characterized by bullish price action. In such a scenario, Ethereum’s price might experience an upsurge, potentially targeting higher resistance levels.”

ETH promises little to no returns for now

While positive sentiments might be returning to ETH’s Futures market, the general market appears rife with bearish activity. This, as gleaned from the consistent decline in the daily count of profitable transactions involving the alt.

According to Santiment, the ratio of ETH’s daily on-chain transaction volume in profit to loss has fallen over the last month. With a figure of 0.85 at press time, it suggested that for every ETH transaction that resulted in a loss, only 0.85 returned profit. 

 Is your portfolio green? Check out the ETH Profit Calculator

Also, after peaking at 23% on 29 July, the coin’s Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) has dropped. This metric tracks when an asset becomes overvalued or undervalued in relation to its historical price movements and the price at which it was last moved. 

Finally, with a reading of 18% at press time, the count of ETH holders who would log profit on their investments if they sold the coins has plummeted since the end of July. 

Source: Santiment

Posted: September 14, 2023

• At its press time price, BTC was “stuck” between short-term and longer-term realized prices.
• For market sentiment to improve, its price had to rally above the short-term realized price.

The sentiment around Bitcoin [BTC] is likely to improve once its price surpasses the realized price of short-term holders (LTHs), pseudonymous CryptoQuant analyst SignalQuant opined in a new report. 

Is your portfolio green? Check out the BTC Profit Calculator

BTC’s realized price refers to the average price at which all Bitcoins have been moved over their lifetime. When the realized price is above the market price, it means that market participants are in profit on average.

Conversely, coin holders are at a loss when the realized price is below the current price. 

For BTC short-term holders (STH), their realized price refers to the average price at which coins purchased in the last six months were acquired. For long-term holders (LTH), it is the average price at which all coins that have not been moved in the last six months were originally purchased.

Data retrieved from Glassnode showed that as of 12 September, BTC’s realized price for its short-term holders was $27,975.

According to SignalQuant, this price mark acted as a support level for the king coin in January before bearish sentiments overran the market, turning the same into resistance. 

Source: Glassnode

As for long-term holders, their realized price was $22,400. At its press time price of $25,956, BTC exchanged hands between the two realized prices.

According to SignalQuant:

“BTC’s price needs to stay above LTH realized price and then break back above STH realized price for the “short- and long-term investor sentiment” to really recover.”

This would signal to investors that the bear market is over and that the BTC price will likely continue to rise.

Network activity continues to climb

Although BTC’s price continues to face resistance at $26,000, new demand grows unabated. On-chain assessment of the coin’s network activity revealed a 5% jump in the daily count of new addresses created to trade the leading coin in the last week.

In fact, on 9 September, 717,331 new addresses were added to the coin’s network, its highest daily count in the past five years. Moreover, data from IntoTheBlock also showed an 11% rally in daily active addresses within the same period. 

Source: IntoTheBlock

Is your portfolio green? Check out the BTC Profit Calculator

There has been a notable surge in the count of shark and whale BTC transactions completed daily. According to IntoTheBlock, BTC transactions worth between $10,000 and $100,000 have increased by 8% in the last 30 days.

Whale transactions worth between $100,000 and $1 million have also increased by 6% in the same period.

Source: IntoTheBlock

Posted: September 14, 2023

• Development activity on Chainlink has grown since its CCIP mainnet launch.
• Key momentum indicators on the daily chart hinted at a good period to accumulate LINK.

Development activity on leading oracle network Chainlink [LINK] has rallied since the early access mainnet launch of its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) on 17 July, data from Santiment showed. 

Read Chainlink’s [LINK] Price Prediction 2023-24

According to the CCIP documentation, the product was introduced to address the connectivity challenge between blockchain networks. The web3 ecosystem “has become multi-chain, with the rise of layer-1 blockchains and layer-2 scaling solutions”.

However, these networks operate in isolation and face limitations in communicating with traditional systems and other blockchains. Chainlink CCIP was designed to bridge this gap and facilitate asset transfers and information exchange between multiple blockchains.

Santiment’s development activity metric tracks the activity on a project’s public GitHub repositories. This metric is a good indicator of a project’s commitment to development and its likelihood of being an exit scam.

At 403 at press time, Chainlink’s development activity has grown by 53% since 19 July. 

Source: Santiment

The code commits level on Chainlink – which measures the number of code changes made to the core codebase – has grown by over 50% in the last week, according to data from Token Terminal. 

 A buy signal?

As of this writing, LINK traded at $5.97. The token’s price has declined steadily since 8 September. However, as the price trended downward, readings from the alt’s key momentum indicators observed on a daily chart suggested an inflow of liquidity into the spot market.

For example, LINK’s Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) remained positioned above the zero line despite the price fall in the last week. At press time, the indicator returned a positive 0.13, suggesting that although LINK’s value has dawdled in the last few days, the market has continued to see capital inflow. 

A CMF buy signal presents itself when an asset’s price embarks on a downtrend while its CMF diverges with a higher low and climbs. 

Realistic or not, here’s LINK’s market cap in BTC terms

Further, LINK’s Money Flow Index (MFI) has also seen an uptick during the same period. This indicator measures the amount of money flowing into and out of an asset. At 63.07 and positioned upward at press time, LINK’s spot markets remained service with liquidity.

Moreover, LINK’s Moving Average Convergence/Divergence indicator (MACD) signaled that a new bullish cycle was underway and has been since 3 September. The MACD line remained positioned above the trend line at press time, and the indicator was marked by just green histogram bars. 

Source: LINK/USDT on Trading View

Posted: September 13, 2023

• CRV’s daily trading volume fell by 98% since July’s reentrancy hack.
• Liquidity on the protocol’s stETH-ETH pool has experienced a decline as well.

The trading volume of Curve Finance [CRV] across centralized and decentralized exchanges (DEXes) has fallen to a new low, crypto research firm Kaiko noted in a new post on X (formerly Twitter).

Data tracked by the on-chain data provider revealed that CRV’s trading volume began to plummet following the protocol’s reentrancy hack on 30 July.

CRV’s trading volume rallied to a daily high of $300 million on that day due to increased token sell-offs, as many feared a severe decline in the alt’s value. 

Is your portfolio green? Check out the CRV Profit Calculator

By 7 September, the asset’s daily trading volume was less than $10 million, having declined by 98%. The steady fall in trading volume has resulted in a significant drop in CRV’s value since the beginning of August.

Exchanging hands at $0.39 at press time, its price has decreased by 45% since the exploit.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Demand for CRV has cratered

An on-chain assessment of the daily demand for CRV since the hack revealed that the count of new addresses created to trade the alt daily has fallen to its lowest in three months. As of 12 September, only 27 new CRV addresses were created.

Moreover, the number of active addresses involved in CRV trades daily since the exploit has also plummeted. According to data from Santiment, there was a 72% drop.

Source: Santiment

Curve’s problems go beyond just its native token

Apart from the steady decline in the token’s curve, increased liquidity exit from Curve Finance has led to a fall in the DEX’s total value locked (TVL).

Previously ranked as the third-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol in terms of TVL, the exploit has pushed Curve Finance to the sixth position, data from DefiLlama showed.

Its TVL was $2.46 billion at press time, registering a 35% drop since 30 July. In the last month, this has decreased by 12%.

Further, one of Curve’s largest liquidity pools, stETH-ETH, experienced a reduction in daily trading volume and TVL over the past few weeks. Dune Analytics further indicated that between 30 July and 31 August, trading volume on the pool fell by 94%.

Read Curve’s [CRV] Price Prediction 2023-24

For context, on the day of the hack, the trading volume on Curve’s stETH-ETH liquidity pool totaled $81 million. On 31 August, this was less than $10 million. 

As liquidity providers scampered to remove funds from the pool after the exploit, its TVL dwindled. By 31 August, it had fallen by 20%. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Posted: September 13, 2023

• Lido’s TVL has fallen steadily in the last month.
• This has been primarily due to the decline in the prices of ETH, MATIC, and SOL.

The total value locked (TVL) in Lido [LDO], a liquid staking protocol for Ethereum [ETH], has seen a gradual decline in recent weeks amid a persistent drop in the prices of ETH, Polygon [MATIC], and Solana [SOL]. 

According to data from CoinMarketCap, ETH lost 14% of its value in the last month while MATIC fell by 25%, and SOL suffered a 28% price drop.

How much are 1,10,100 LDOs worth today?

As of 13 September, Lido’s TVL stood at around $13.84 billion, down from a peak of over $14 billion in mid-July. Due to the fall in the values of these key crypto assets, Lido’s TVL has fallen by 8% in the last month, data from DefiLlama showed. 

Ups and downs of the last week

While Lido’s TVL saw a minor 0.38% fall last week, it led as the protocol with the highest net new deposits on Ethereum during that period. According to data from Dune Analytics, ETH deposits on Lido totaled 56,512 over the last seven days.

Source: Dune Analytics

Over the last week, the protocol’s staked Ether [stETH] Annual Percentage Rate (APR) assessed on a seven-day moving average remained stable at 3.73%. This has trended downward since May, data from Dune Analytics showed. On 12 May, Lido’s stETH APR peaked at 7.17% and has since fallen by 48%.

Source: Dune Analytics

Further, within the period under review, the amount of wrapped staked Ether [wstETH] deposited for trades across decentralized finance (DeFi) pools fell by 5.72%. Notably, approximately 80% of this decrease came from stETH being withdrawn from the Lybra Finance pool.

Regarding Layer 2 (L2) platforms, data from Dune Analytics showed a 0.18% increase in the amount of stETH bridged to Arbitrum [ARB]. On the other hand, Optimism [OP] and Polygon saw respective declines of 1.42% and 1.20% in the amount of bridged stETH over the past week. 

Spot traders do not want to hold LDO

LDO traded at $1.46 at press time, logging a 6.36% price decline in the last week. An assessment of price movements on a D1 chart revealed a fall in LDO accumulation since 8 May.

The altcoin’s key momentum indicators were spotted below their center lines, signalling that spot traders have increasingly sold the token. For example, the K line (blue) of the altcoin’s Stochastic RSI indicator was below 20% at 8.43%. The Stochastic RSI indicator measures momentum and identifies overbought and oversold conditions in the market. 

A Stochastic RSI value below 20 typically suggests increased distribution. It shows that an asset has been oversold, and the price will continue to fall until sentiment improves.

Realistic or not, here’s LDO’s market cap in BTC terms

Likewise, LDO’s Aroon Up Line (orange) was at 7.14 at press time. The AROON indicator is used to identify trend strength and potential trend reversal points in a crypto asset’s price movement. When the Aroon Up line is close to zero, the uptrend is weak, and the most recent high was reached a long time ago.

As of this writing, the Aroon Down Line (blue) at 85.71 suggested that the current market downtrend was strong. 

Source: LDO/USDT on Trading View

Posted: September 13, 2023

• The current cycle has experienced a significant decline in volatility and trading volume.
• Despite this, long-term holders of Bitcoin continued to increase their accumulation.

With the current market cycle marked by compressed volatility and low trading volume, the total value of on-chain and off-chain transactions in the digital asset market has fallen to its lowest level since 2020, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode found in a new report. 

The on-chain data provider assessed the performance of leading stablecoins, Bitcoin [BTC], and Ethereum [ETH], since the beginning of the year. It noted that after a period of significant net inflow of capital when the year started, the past few months have “seen a return to neutral or negative inflows, suggesting a degree of stagnation and uncertainty has taken over.”

According to Glassnode:

“All in all, it can be argued that extreme apathy and boredom best describe the prevailing sentiment.”

Through it all, USDT remains king

The supply of stablecoins has steadily declined since April 2022.  The fears of a contagion effect following the unexpected collapse of LUNA-UST in May of the same year led many stablecoin holders to redeem their assets. 

This increased coin redemption has resulted in a 26% decline in aggregate stablecoin supply, Glassnode found. Since April 2022, this has fallen from $163 billion to $120 billion, with a $43 billion flush-out recorded. 

Source: Glassnode

However, the three leading stablecoins Tether [USDT], USD Coin [USDC], and Binance USD [BUSD], have been impacted differently. 

Since the current cycle lows set in November 2022 when cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapse began, USDT’s supply has increased by an additional $13.3 billion. USDC, on the other hand, has suffered a supply decline of $16.7 billion. 

USDC briefly lost its dollar peg in March 2023 after Circle, the company that issues it, revealed that it could not withdraw $3.3 billion of the $40 billion USDC reserves that were held at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). This caused panic selling, and the stablecoin briefly traded as low as 96 cents.

Regarding BUSD, it has seen an 89% decline in supply since November 2022. According to Glassnode, this has been “largely due to issuer Paxos moving into a redemption-only mode following SEC enforcement.”

Source: Glassnode

Volatility remains low in the BTC market

Following periods of slight volatility uptick after the deleveraging event of 17 August and Grayscale’s victory in the courts over the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BTC’s Realized Volatility has plummeted.

Glassnode found,

“The market is still in a historically low volatility environment, which is usually a precursor to heightened volatility down the road.” 

The decline in the amount of total USD volume of coins changing hands on the Bitcoin network accurately reflects the low liquidity and volatility in the market. According to Glassnode, this is “languishing around cycle lows of $2.44B/day and has returned to October 2020 levels.”

Interestingly, long-term holders remain resilient despite the on and off-chain liquidity drought. 

“The supply held by the Long-Term Holder cohort has reached a new ATH of 14.74M BTC. Conversely, the supply held within the Short-Term cohort, representing the more active portion of the market, has fallen to the lowest supply held since 2011.”

Posted: September 12, 2023

• Last week’s outflows from digital asset investment products were $59 million.
• For the first time in 19 weeks, short-Bitcoin products recorded inflows. 

Digital asset investment products recorded outflows totaling $59 million last week, marking the fourth consecutive week of outflows. This brought total outflows in the last month to $294 million, digital asset investment firm CoinShares found in a new report.

Last week’s $59 million capital flush from crypto funds represented 0.9% of total assets under management (AuM). According to the report, this was $31.72 million within the period under review.

Further, last week was marked by a significant decline in trading volume. CoinShares found that it plummeted by almost 75%, with total trades completed being just $754 million. 

BTC’s troubles are not over

Bitcoin [BTC] investment products saw the removal of $69 million last week, after it recorded a minor $4 million in inflows. Last week’s liquidity exit brought the coin’s month-to-date outflows to $72.4 million.

Interestingly, despite BTC’s narrow price movements in the past several months and the poor sentiment that has ravaged the market, the year-to-date (YTD) flows into BTC investment products remained at a net positive of $200 million, CoinShares found. 

Bringing an end to its 19th consecutive week of consecutive outflows, short-Bitcoin products saw inflows for the first time in four months. As contained in the report, this asset category registered inflows of $15.2 million,

“Its largest single week of inflows since March 2023.”

CoinShares further added:

“Inflows were also seen in short investment products, suggesting sentiment remains poor for the asset class. We believe continued worries over regulation of the asset class and recent dollar strength are the most likely reasons for this.”

Despite the significant capital exit suffered by short-Bitcoin products in the last few months, its YTD flows also remained at a net positive of $50 million, ranking as the second-highest after BTC.

Funds exit Ethereum unabated

Last week, leading altcoin Ethereum [ETH], witnessed withdrawals amounting to $4.8 million. This brought its YTD outflows to $108 million. 

The funds removed represented 1.6% of the coin’s AuM, making it the,

“Least-loved digital asset among exchange-traded product (ETP) investors this year.”

Solana [SOL] saw outflows of $1.1 million for the first time in nine weeks. Per its previous report, CoinShares had found that SOL’s nine-week inflows made the altcoin,

“The most loved altcoin amongst investors at present.”

• Transaction fees on Ethereum have dropped to levels not seen since November last year.
• The decline in on-chain activity has caused Ethereum to become inflationary.

Average fees paid to process transactions on leading Layer 1 (1) network Ethereum [ETH] have plummeted to their lowest levels since 2022 due to a steady decline in on-chain activity in the past few months. 

Source: IntoTheBlock

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price Prediction 2023-24

Taking a look back

In the year’s first half, data tracked by Token Terminal revealed that Ethereum led as the blockchain network with the highest count of fee-paying users. The cumulative transaction fees paid to use the blockchain network during that period totaled $1.3 billion.

As user activity intensified on the blockchain, the median transaction fee on the network rose to its year-to-date highest level by 5 May. According to data from Dune Analytics, on that day, the median transaction fee paid to complete transactions on Ethereum was 142 GWEI, representing the highest level in the previous twelve months. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Reason behind the surge

The surge in user activity could be primarily attributed to the memecoin frenzy that had the entire crypto ecosystem in a chokehold between April and early June. This was driven mainly by the launch of the meme token Pepe [PEPE] on the Ethereum network on 15 April.

Shortly after the meme coin’s launch, it saw a significant uptick in trading volume, which pushed its value to astronomical highs. Data tracked by CoinMarketCap revealed that within a few weeks of trading, PEPE’s price climbed by over 6500%. 

Many “aped in” on the meme coin, pushing the number of token holders to over 50,000 in just 14 days of existence. Fueled by its addition to Binance’s Innovation Zone on 5 May, the market capitalization of the meme coin briefly crossed the $1 billion mark.

Apart from the “degen” activity around PEPE, increased non-fungible tokens (NFTs) trading also contributed to the growth in on-chain activity on Ethereum. According to CryptoSlam, Ethereum recorded a cumulative $1.7 billion in NFT sales volume in the first two months of the year, logging a month-on-month growth of 39% jump between January and February. 

Further, trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEXes) housed within Ethereum rallied significantly between January and March, according to data from Artemis. Between 1 January and 10 March, the total volume of transactions completed through Ethereum-based on-chain DEXes increased by more than 3000%

Then the fall came…

After its brief stint at the “top,” PEPE’s trading volume waned steadily. As fewer investors transacted the altcoin, user activity on Ethereum trended downward. This resulted in a decline in gas fees on the network. This stood at 11.1 GWEI at press time, falling by 92% from the 5 May peak.

Regarding NFT activity on the blockchain, this was beaten down by the general decline in market interest in the asset category. Since February, the sales volume of Ethereum-minted NFTs has dropped by 77%. For context, in February, sales volume totaled $969 million. By the end of August, this was less than $250 million. 

Source: CryptoSlam

As for the chain’s DEX trading volume, it has trended downward since the 10 March peak. Data from Artemis showed that at 1.32 billion as of 11 September, it has fallen by 94% in just six months.

Source: Artemis

ETH supply climbs once again

As a result of the dwindling on-chain activity and declining gas fees, Ethereum has entered an inflationary period. This means that new Ether tokens are being created and added to the circulating supply.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the ETH Profit Calculator

According to data from Ultrasound.money, ETH’s supply has risen by 3500 ETH coins in the last week, with an approximate value of $5.52 million. At press time, the leading altcoin’s circulating supply was 120.21 million ETH. 

Source: Ultrasound.money

The issuance of new tokens and the resulting increase in supply could have a negative impact on ETH’s price. This is because scarcity is known to be a major driver of its price appreciation.

Posted: September 12, 2023

• Worldcoin’s price has traded in a narrow range since the beginning of the month.
• Accumulation has, however, climbed as new demand flocks in.

The price of Worldcoin [WLD] has been trading sideways since the beginning of September, but accumulation among daily traders has climbed, an assessment of the alt’s price movement on a daily chart showed.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Is your portfolio green? Check the WLD Profit Calculator

At press time, WLD traded at $1.09. With a 63% decline in the alt’s value since launch in July, recent accumulation activity becomes noteworthy. 

The steady decline in value has been due to the regulatory concerns that have plagued the project since it was launched. 

With mounting regulatory scrutiny, the social activity around the WLD token has dwindled, suggesting that interest in it has dropped significantly. 

What has happened in the last week?

On 7 September, WLD reached its highest level in two weeks and exchanged hands at $1.37. On-chain data showed that the day was marked by an uptick in the number of daily active addresses that traded the altcoin and new demand for it.

According to Santiment, the count of unique wallet addresses that completed WLD transactions on 7 September totaled 246, growing by 15% from the previous day’s 213 addresses. This represented the token’s highest daily active address count since 16 August.

The token also saw an uptick in new demand on that day. About 86 new WLD addresses were created, and this demand contributed to the price growth recorded.

Source: Santiment

Whales took advantage of the intraday price rally to execute large trades. Data from Santiment revealed a significant spike in the number of WLD transactions worth over $100,000 and $1 million completed on 7 September. 

On that day, 27 WLD transactions worth above $100,000 were executed. This represented a 1250% increase from 2 completed a day prior. Also, 9 whale transactions over $1 million were completed on the same day. Whereas on 6 September, only one was recorded. 

Source: Santiment

Due to the jump in the network activity, the K line (blue) of the altcoin’s Stochastic RSI indicator had crossed the 80 line by 8 September, suggesting that WLD was briefly oversold.

The Stochastic RSI indicator measures momentum and identifies overbought and oversold conditions in the market. With distribution outpaced by accumulation at press time, the K line of the indicator was spotted at 61.74%.

Source: WLD/USDT on TradingView

How much are 1, 10, or 100 WLD worth today?

Will it be worth it?

A look at how profitable WLD investments have been since the project launched revealed that 94.02% of all addresses holding the token do so below their cost basis. According to data from IntoTheBlock, 5,900 addresses holding the asset are at a loss. 

Conversely, only 64 addresses were deemed to be “in the money,” data from IntoTheBlock showed. 

Source: IntoTheBlock

Posted: September 11, 2023

• A record number of 717,331 new addresses were created on the Bitcoin network on 9 September.
• This suggested a renewed interest in the leading crypto asset.

A record number of new Bitcoin [BTC] addresses were created on 9 September, with 717,331 addresses being added to the coin’s network. This is the highest number of new addresses created in the past five years, crypto analyst Ali_Charts noted in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter). The previous record was set on 14 December, 2017 when 800,180 new addresses were created.

Read Bitcoin’s Price Prediction 2023-2024

A surge in new demand for an asset is often a precursor to a price rally, suggesting renewed interest in that asset. However, with BTC’s price facing significant resistance at $26,000 and weighted sentiment now stationed in the negative territory, the possibility of a price uptick in the meantime remains minimal. 

Buyers and sellers await first mover

At press time, the leading coin exchanged hands at $25,862. With price consolidating in a tight range in the past few weeks, readings from BTC’s Bollinger Bands (BB) indicator observed on a daily chart revealed that volatility in price has reduced. 

August was predominantly marked with price swings, primarily due to the deleveraging event of 17 August. As the market moves on from the aftermath of the liquidity flush and spot traders stay their hands from executing major trades, the gap between the upper and lower bands of BTC’s BB has narrowed. The narrowing of the BB bands suggests that the volatility of BTC has decreased.

Further, the position of BTC’s key momentum indicators showed that while accumulation dawdled, there have not been any significant sell-offs from spot traders. Although daily distribution has outpaced accumulation, the volumes have not been high enough to initiate a downward price swing. 

The coin’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Money Flow Index (MFI) have flattened for most of the month. At press time, the RSI was 46.76, while the MFI was 39.61.

Despite this, BTC’s Directional Movement Index (DMI) showed that sellers controlled market activity amongst daily traders. This indicator measures the strength and direction of a price movement.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the Bitcoin Profit Calculator

At press time, the Positive Directional Indicator (green) at 17.97 was positioned below the Negative Directional Indicator (red). This showed that BTC sellers’ strength outweighed its buyers.

However, the Average Directional Index (ADX) position offered some respite. At 21.98 as of this writing, the downtrend was weak. And a change in market sentiment could put the bulls back in control. 

Source: BTC/USDT on TradingView

Posted: September 11, 2023

• Since its mainnet launch in March, NFT sales volume on zkSync has exceeded Optimism and Arbitrum.
• zkSync has seen significant traction in network activity since May.

With the growing demand for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Layer 2 (L2) solutions, zkSync has surpassed all other L2s in NFT volume since their respective mainnet launches, data from NFTScan showed. 

zkSync implemented its mainnet launch on 24 March as a scaling solution for Ethereum [ETH] that utilizes the zero-knowledge rollup (ZK-rollup) technology. ZK-rollups are a type of L2 scaling solution that uses cryptographic proofs to verify transactions off-chain, allowing them to achieve much higher throughput and lower gas fees than the Ethereum mainnet.

Despite launching on the mainnet two years after Optimism [OP] and Arbitrum [ARB], zkSync has processed over 160,000 ETH in NFT transactions in under 12 months, data from NFTScan showed. 

Arbitrum and Optimism have processed NFT sales totaling 32,611 ETH and 8,126 ETH since their mainnet launches in 2021.

Despite having the lowest transaction volume among all three L2 platforms, Optimism is the leader in terms of NFT transaction count and wallet addresses. Since OP Mainnnet’s launch on 16 December 2021, the cumulative count of daily NFT transactions completed on the network has totaled 56.153 million. 

Also, its active wallet count at press time was 4.62 million, putting it ahead of zkSync’s 2.11 million and Arbitrum’s 3.08 million. 

Source: NFTScan

All hail zkSync

Regarding user activity, zkSync has seen significant traction on a year-to-date. Data tracked by Artemis revealed that network activity has climbed steadily following the slight slump in the daily count of unique wallet addresses experienced in May.

Since 6 May, the daily count of active addresses sending on-chain transactions on zkSync has rallied by almost 10%. According to the latest data on Artemis, the number of active addresses on the L2 on 9 September totaled 280,000.

As users flocked to the network, daily transactions also increased. Since the May decline, the total number of transactions registered on-chain daily has risen significantly by over 1000%.

Source: Artemis

As for the volume of transactions processed by decentralized exchanges (DEX) housed within the network, there has been a 1600% jump since May. For context, on 11 May, the total DEX volume on zkSync was 6.6 million. As of 10 September, this touched 105 million.

Despite the recent surge in network activity, the total value locked (TVL) in zkSync’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem has declined. At $125 million at press time, zkSync’s TVL has dropped by 35% since 25 July, data from DefiLlama revealed. 

Source: DefiLlama

Posted: September 11, 2023

• Daily trading volume on Friend.tech climbed to its highest level since 21 August.
• The surge in activity was attributable to new demand for the platform.

Decentralized social network Friend.tech has seen a resurgence in activity after a brief decline, data from Dune Analytics showed.

According to the data provider, the daily trading volume on the platform closed 9 September at a high of $12.31 million, its highest since 21 August. On that day, buying activity exceeded selling activity, with users purchasing more keys than they sold.

Source: Dune Analytics

The surge in activity was due to an influx of new users to Friend.tech. Data tracked by Dune Analytics revealed a 104% uptick in the number of new users that completed at least one trade on the social network on 9 September. This brought the cumulative count of users on Friend.tech to 136,474.

As users flocked to the platform, transactions count jumped as well. All transactions executed on 9 September totaled 23,004, representing a 31% increase from the 17,506 transactions registered on 8 September.

Due to the spike in user activity, Friend.tech’s fees and revenue climbed to their highest level since 21 August. The total fees paid to process key trades on the social network amounted to $1.23 million. Protocol revenue from the same totaled $615,857.

At press time, the total fees paid to use the platform was $11.58 million. In less than a month of operation, data from Dune Analytics showed that cumulative revenue exceeded $5 million. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Base saw growth, but not a lot

Due to the increased activity on Friend.tech, Base, the Layer 2 (L2) network within which it is housed, also saw a jump in its total value locked, albeit minor. As of 9 September, Base’s TVL was $389.97 million, jumping by 1% from the $385 million recorded the day before.

The minor jump in asset value on that day was due to the first major outage suffered by the L2 since its public launch on 9 August. 

Base developers identified a stall in block production on the Base chain at 9:36 pm UTC on September 5. This led to no new blocks being produced on the chain for approximately 45 minutes.

However, in spite of this, Base’s TVL has grown significantly since the month began. At $389 million at press time, it has risen by 48% since 31 August. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Posted: September 10, 2023

• Daily user count on Near Protocol recently climbed to its highest since the year began.
• The last week has seen increased demand for the network’s native token NEAR.

Near Protocol’s [NEAR] daily active user count recently reached a year-to-date (YTD) high, according to data from Token Terminal. 

The on-chain data provider said the daily count of users on the Layer 1 (L1) blockchain network rallied to a high of 926,943 on 5 September. This represented a 2500% increase from the 36,211-user count recorded on 1 January.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the NEAR Profit Calculator

Due to increased network activity in the past few days, Near has also seen an uptick in transaction fees and protocol revenue. Data from Token Terminal revealed that in the last week, network fees and revenue on the blockchain has increased by almost 100%.

The number of daily transactions on the network surged to its highest level since the beginning of the year as users flocked to the platform. On 5 September, 3.17 million transactions were completed on Near, a 92% jump from the daily transactions count logged on the first day of the year.

However, with the last few days marked by a decline in active wallets, daily transactions count also began its descent. Data from Artemis showed a 46% decrease in the number of transactions executed daily since 5 September. 

Source: Artemis

There are other concerns…

At press time, the total value of assets locked (TVL) on Near was $34.88 million. Data from DefiLlama showed that the L1’s TVL embarked on a downtrend on 2 June 2022 and has since continued to drop. The protocol’s TVL has declined by 51% on a YTD basis. 

Source: DefiLlama

The value of the protocol’s native coin NEAR, has also been beaten down for most of the year. Exchanging hands at $1.14, the altcoin has seen a 76% drop in price within the last 12 months. 

Interestingly, while its price has lingered in a tight range in the last week, NEAR accumulation has grown amongst daily traders in the coin’s spot markets.

Key momentum indicators observed on a daily chart showed that NEAR purchases have climbed steadily since 6 September. At press time, the alt’s Money Flow Index (MFI) rested above the center line at 55 and trended upward.

How many are 1,10,100 NEARs worth today

Likewise, the %K line (blue) of the altcoin’s Stochastic RSI indicator trended upward at 62.75, suggesting that the volume of NEAR accumulation exceeded distribution. The Stochastic RSI indicator measures momentum and identifies overbought and oversold conditions in the market. 

Lastly, its Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) returned a positive value of 0.18 at press time. Generally, a CMF value above the zero-line signals strength in the market.

Source: NEAR/USDT on Trading View

Posted: September 10, 2023

• Bitcoin Fund Holdings have dropped to their lowest in over two years.
• The coin’s liquid supply has also declined as short-traders exit the spot market. 

The number of Bitcoins [BTC] held in BTC Fund Holdings has fallen to its lowest level in thirty months, pseudonymous CryptoQuant analyst Onchained noted in a new report. 

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] price prediction 2023-24

BTC Fund Holdings metric tracks the total amount of the leading coins held in the form of investment vehicles such as trusts, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and funds. The cumulative quantity of coins held in these holdings may grow alongside rising interest in indirect investment.

According to data tracked by CryptoQuant, as of 8 September, this metric was 684,435 BTC. On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, the metric has seen a 1% decline in value. 

Source: CryptoQuant

While noting that the extended decline in fund holdings could be due to a number of reasons, Onchained added that it “may signify a more profound change in investor sentiment or strategy.”

The analyst added that the steep decline in fund holdings in the last year generally reflects cautious sentiment among investors and institutions, possibly due to regulations and market volatility concerns. 

Also, it may result from profit-taking or portfolio adjustments, highlighting the dynamic nature of the cryptocurrency market. 

A change in the investment behavior of this group of investors can have a major impact on BTC’s price because they control a large portion of the coin’s supply.

“This development highlights the pivotal role of institutional investors, trusts, ETFs, and funds in influencing Bitcoin’s market dynamics. Their actions can have a considerable impact on Bitcoin’s price and market stability, reinforcing the earlier understanding of their significance,” the analyst opined.

Short-term holders run for their lives as liquid supply plummets

As BTC continues to face strong resistance at the $26,000 price mark, the coin’s liquid supply has dropped to a low of 4,120,775 BTCs, Onchained found further.

How much are 1,10,100 BTCs worth today

 According to the CryptoQuant analyst, this metric tracks the portion of BTC’s circulating supply that is readily available to be traded on the market. It is mostly held by short-term investors who are willing to sell their coins quickly if the price goes down.

When the liquid supply of BTC reduces in this manner, price volatility often ensues. This is because fewer sellers are available to sell their coins if the price rallies and fewer buyers are available to ape in should the price fall. This can lead to sharp price movements, both up and down.

Posted: September 10, 2023

• XLM’s value rallied by 15% in the last week.
• Short traders, however, were eyeing a price decline. 

With a 15% hike in its value, Stellar [XLM] has closed the week as the cryptocurrency asset with the most gains in the last seven days, data from CoinMarketCap showed. At press time, the altcoin exchanged hands at $0.13.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Read Stellar’s [XLM] Price Prediction 2023-2024

The price jump has occurred despite sharing a statistically significant positive correlation with leading coin Bitcoin [BTC], whose value grew by a mere 0.30% within the same period. 

The spot market excels

The price uptick in the last week has been driven primarily by a renewed interest in XLM, leading to a surge in new demand. Amongst traders in the token’s spot market, the bulls regained control on 4 September and immediately initiated an 8% intraday price jump on that day’s trading session.

As of this writing, the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) indicator confirmed the bulls to remain in control, with the MACD indicator positioned above the trend line. Since 4 September, the indicator has only posted green histogram bars.

Further, key momentum indicators signaled increased XLM accumulation amongst daily traders. For example, the token’s Money Flow Index (MFI) was positioned in an uptrend at 64.24, signaling that XLM accumulation outpaced sell-offs.

Likewise, the %K line (blue) of the altcoin’s Stochastic RSI indicator was pegged at 100%, suggesting that the volume of XLM accumulation exceeded distribution. The Stochastic RSI indicator measures momentum and identifies overbought and oversold conditions in the market.

At 100%, XLM was overbought at press time. 

It is key to note that buyers often find it tasking to support further price rallies at this overbought level. Thus, a retraction might be imminent. 

The slight retraction in XLM’s Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) also lent some credence to the above position. While still above its center line and positive at press time, the token’s CMF has trended downward since 6 September.

Is your portfolio green? Check out the XLM Profit Calculator

This signaled a drop in capital inflow into XLM spot markets and hinted at the commencement of profit-taking activity. 

Source: XLM/USD, TradingView

Interestingly, futures markets have increasingly placed bets against XLM’s price. Data from Coinglass showed that funding rates across cryptocurrency exchanges have been increasingly negative since 17 August. 

Source: Coinglass

Posted: September 10, 2023

• Four proposals are up for votes on Apecoin’s governance forum, with one of them seeing major resistance.
• With a decline in demand for APE, its price has dropped by almost 30% in the last month. 

The ApeCoin [APE] governance forum is considering a number of new proposals, including a proposal to establish a framework for creating Delegate Communities within the ApeCoin ecosystem, a proposal seeking support from the ApeCoin DAO for the production and post-production of a feature-length documentary called “BORED AS F*CK,” and a plan to develop a Discord bot to track APE’s price in real-time.

Realistic or not, here’s APE’s market cap in BTC terms

The proposed Delegate Communities would function as sub-DAOs, receiving voting rights delegated by the members of the ApeCoin DAO. 

Through the “BORED AS F*CK” documentary, Apecoin hopes to,

 “Onboard artists, musicians, and animators from the ApeCoin community onto the project and pay them in APE tokens, thus expanding the ecosystem.”

Although the proposal has received a go-ahead from many of its community members, many of them have voted against it, mostly due to the project’s cost implications. 

According to Snapshot, 53.43% of ApeCoin community members voted in favor of the proposal, while 46% voted against it. The voting is scheduled to close on 14 September.

Source: Snapshot

The APEs are out of money

Down 64% on a year-to-date and 99% from its all-time high, on-chain data revealed that most APE investors hold the metaverse-based token below their cost basis.

According to data from IntoTheBlock, 99.95% of wallet addresses containing APE were “out of the money” at press time. This meant that these addresses held the token at a loss. 

Source: IntoTheBlock

Only 71 addresses were deemed to be “in the money,” according to data tracked by IntoTheBlock. This accounted for less than 1% of all token holders.

APE’s Market Value to Realized Value ratio confirmed the extent of losses incurred by token holders. Deeply undervalued at -71.24% at press time, any holder who sold at the asset’s current price would realize a loss on their investment. 

On a daily basis, the number of transactions that returned losses outpaced those that came back profitable. 

According to Santiment, APE’s ratio of daily on-chain transaction volume in profit to loss, observed on a 30-day moving average, showed that for every transaction that brought losses, only 0.73 returned profit.

Source: Santiment

How much are 1,10,100 APEs worth today?

New demand for the altcoin was almost non-existent at press time, data from Santiment showed. Since 17 August, the daily count of new addresses created to trade APE has plummeted by 98%.

As prices dwindled, daily active addresses also declined. As of 8 September, there were only 1504 addresses that traded APE daily, a decline of 98% from the 17,000 addresses that traded the alt on 17 August.

Source: Santiment

Posted: September 9, 2023

• The price of Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) saw an uptick following recent ETF filings made by Ark Invest and 21Shares.
• This has been driven by the hopes of a potential conversion of the ETHE into an ETF.

The value of Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) has approached its year-to-date high of $12.06 following the recent ETF filings made by Ark Invest and 21Shares, data from IntoTheBlock showed.

Source: IntoTheBlock

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price Prediction 2023-24

Grayscale’s ETHE product is a trust that holds the leading altcoin Ethereum [ETH]. Investors can buy shares of ETHE, gaining exposure to the coin’s price movements without necessarily holding the asset.

However, ETHE is not an ETF because it is not traded on an exchange, making it a closed-end fund.

The recent ETF filings have sparked renewed interest in ETHE, as investors see them as a potential way to gain exposure to Ethereum without buying and storing the underlying cryptocurrency.

Since Ark Invest and 21Shares submitted their applications, the price per Grayscale ETHE has climbed by 8%. According to data from IntoTheBlock, at press time, this exchanged hands for $11.85.

Why the rally?

While ETH’s price trended downward, IntoTheBlock noted in a tweet on X (formerly Twitter), 

“Grayscale will be able to convert its ETHE product into an ETF following the push from traditional finance giants into the space.”

According to the on-chain data provider, the possibility of this happening remains high due to ETHE’s optimal performance since Ark Invest and 21Shares made their ETF filings.

IntoTheBlock further noted,

“Following Ark’s spot Ether ETF filing this week, the (discount) gap has narrowed to -26%, its lowest discount since October 2022 per Ycharts.” 

Further, Grayscale’s recent victory over the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] might be another incentive to do this. 

In a recent ruling delivered on 29 August, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Grayscale in an action filed against the SEC. Moreover, it ordered the regulator to review its initial denial of the digital currency asset manager’s Bitcoin spot ETF application. 

Is your portfolio green? Check out the ETH Profit Calculator

Spot traders do not see any reason to trade

At press time, ETH exchanged hands at $1,632, according to CoinMarketCap. With prices trending in a tight range in the past few weeks, key momentum indicators observed on a daily chart remained flat, suggesting that spot traders have mostly stayed their hands from executing ETH trades.

Lying below their respective center lines, ETH’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Money Flow Index (MFI) were 38.15 and 49.21 at the time of writing. 

Source: ETH/USD, TradingView

• The transaction fees paid to use the Bitcoin network increased by double digits.
• This has been due to a spike in daily inscriptions on the network.

Bitcoin’s [BTC] network fees climbed by 38% in the last week, reaching an average of $0.000086 per transaction, data tracked by IntoThe Block revealed. 

How much are 1,10,100 BTCs worth today?

The jump in network fees has been attributed to a resurgence in the activity of Ordinals Inscriptions. Data from Dune Analytics revealed that the month so far has been marked by an uptick in inscriptions on the Bitcoin network.

On 3 September, these inscriptions recorded their second-highest daily amount of 418,000. 

Source: Dune Analytics

While text inscriptions tapered around 150,000 as of 8 September, daily inscriptions count was still pegged at highs last observed in August. 

Bitcoin miners reacted briefly

As network fees rallied due to a surge in network activity on 3 September, miners increasingly let go of some of their BTC holdings between 4 and 5 September. 

An assessment of BTC’s Miner to Exchange Flow revealed a 364% uptick in this metric between when daily inscriptions climbed to their second-highest amount and the two days that followed. 

The Miner to Exchange Flow metric measures the amount of BTC that is flowing from miners to exchanges. When this metric rallies, miners sell more BTC than they are mining. 

For context, as of 3 September, BTC’s Miner to Exchange Flow was 81.57 coins. By 5 September, this had jumped to 376.78 BTC, according to data from CryptoQuant.

Source: CryptoQuant

Further, BTC’s Miner Reserve – which measures the amount of coins held in affiliated miners’ wallets, confirmed coin exits from miners’ wallets within the period under review.

Between 3 and 5 September, this metric trended downward, suggesting miners rallied to book profits when network fees spiked. 

Source: CryptoQuant

At press time, BTC’s Miner Reserve held 1.84 million BTC, data from CryptoQuant showed. 

Daily demand is up, but price continues to say no 

While BTC’s price lingers in a tight price range, new demand for the leading coin appears to have returned. 

Assessed on a seven-day moving average, data from Glassnode revealed that the daily count of new addresses created to trade BTC has oscillated between 450,000 and 530,000. As of 8 September, BTC saw a total of 527,908 new addresses that completed transactions involving the king coin. 

Source: Glassnode

A surge in new demand for an asset suggests renewed interest in the asset and is often a precursor to a price jump. While BTC continued to face the $26,000 price mark at press time, its Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) embarked on an uptrend, as it was positioned above the center line.

Source: BTC/USD, TradingView

An asset’s CMF measures the flow of money into and out of that asset. When this indicator rises, it suggests that money is flowing into the asset. Conversely, a falling CMF indicates that money is flowing out of the asset.

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24

When CMF spikes while the price oscillates in a narrow range, it suggests that although increased liquidity flows into an asset, the market sentiment is not positive enough to drive up the asset’s value.

It remains key to note that a spiking CMF in a narrow price range is a sign that there is a lot of volatility in the market, and it can be a good time to trade. 

Posted: September 7, 2023

• Solana has seen a significant decline in network activity since January.
• Despite this, it recorded a surge in DeFi TVL.

On a seven-day moving average, the daily count of active addresses on Layer-1 (L1) network Solana [SOL] closed August at 204,000, the lowest level since the beginning of the year, The Block’s Data Dashboard revealed. 

Realistic or not, here’s SOL’s market cap in BTC’s terms

On a year-to-date (YTD), Solana has recorded a 44% drop in its number of daily active addresses. As of 4 September, the network saw 207,820 active addresses. 

Source: The Block

The fall in activity on Solana last year was due to the several outages it experienced. The network suffered 11 major and three minor outages in 2022, each of which caused a significant number of users to leave the project.

With only one outage suffered this year, the decline in user count can be attributed to two main factors: the unexpected collapse of FTX in November 2022 and the recent designation of Solana’s native SOL token as a security by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Solana in the last month

With a 16% decline in daily user activity recorded in the last month, daily transaction count on Solana also suffered a slight decline. According to data from Artemis, it fell to as low as 13.69 million on 26 August before seeing a correction.

On 5 September, the chain recorded a total transaction count of 16.3 million.

Source: Artemis

Due to low user activity on the chain, network fees and revenue obtained from the same also plummeted. In the last month, total transaction fees and revenue made by Solana both dropped by 4%, data from Token Terminal revealed.

Source: Token Terminal

Regarding the L1’s decentralized vertical (DeFi), its total value locked (TVL) has risen significantly since the year began. At $625.95 million at press time, Solana’s TVL has increased by over 150% since January. 

Considered on a YTD basis, Solana has seen laudable TVL growth since the beginning of the year. Although, in the last month, this has dipped by 2%, according to data from DefiLlama.

How much are 1,10,100 SOLs worth today?

During that period, three out of the four largest protocols on Solana in terms of asset value have all seen their TVL decline by double digits.

SOL has not been spared

The network’s native token SOL has also seen a considerable value decline in the past 30 days. Exchanging hands at $19.81 at press time, the coin’s price has dropped by 15% in the last month, data from CoinMarketCap showed. 

Source: CoinMarketCap

Posted: September 7, 2023

• There has been a notable surge in ETH accumulation amongst a cohort of whale investors.
• While the coin has seen increased demand in the last week, poor sentiments continue to beat down its price.

Ethereum [ETH] accumulation amongst whales that hold between 10,000 and 100,000 coins rallied to a weekly high on 4 September, data from Santiment revealed. 

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price Prediction 2023-24

According to the on-chain data provider, the cumulative count of this whale investors cohort climbed from 1075 to 1088 between 3 and 4 September, as they collectively purchased around 260,000 ETH worth nearly $425 million during that period.

However, the count of much bigger ETH whales has since declined. Data from Santiment revealed a 2% drop in the count of ETH whales that hold between 100,000 to 1,000,000 coins in the past three days.

Source: Santiment

Much ado about nothing?

While a cohort of ETH whales has intensified accumulation in the past few days, the coin’s whale transaction volume has generally declined in the last month. Data from IntoTheBlock revealed a 27% decline in ETH whale transactions worth between $1 million and $10 million.

For transactions above $10 million, trade volume has plummeted by 11% in the last 30 days.  

Source: IntoTheBlock

The decline in whale transaction volume can be attributed to ETH’s narrow price movements. The price per ETH has been range-bound since July and has not yet broken out of the $1,600-$1,800 range.

At press time, the leading altcoin exchanged hands at $1,628, per CoinMarketCap. This has caused whales to be hesitant to make large transactions. 

While the coin has seen increased demand in the last seven days, its price has failed to move accordingly. As per IntoTheBlock, the count of new addresses created to trade ETH daily has risen by 30% in the last week. Likewise, the daily active address count has increased by 10% during the same period.

Source: IntoTheBlock

 Is your portfolio green? Check out the ETH Profit Calculator

A jump in an asset’s network activity is typically a precursor to a price rally. However, with prominent bearish sentiment across the general market, ETH’s price remains in consolidation.

Depicting the state of uncertainty in the ETH spot market, on a daily chart, key momentum indicators Relative Strength Index (RSI), and the Money Flow Index (MFI) have been flat since the month began. This often suggests a lack of investor interest, uncertainty about the market’s future direction, or a period of consolidation.

Source: ETH/USDT on Trading View

Posted: September 6, 2023

• With tokens worth $54.41 million, in ten days, Apecoin will host the largest unlock of September.
• APE’s value declined steadily, with only 0.05% of all token holders in profit at press time.

Apecoin’s [APE] price has been falling in the lead-up to a major token unlock event scheduled to take place on 17 September. 

Realistic or not, here’s APE’s market cap in BTC terms

According to Token Unlock, the event will see 40.60 million APE tokens, worth an estimated $54.41 million, released to the ecosystem. However, there were concerns that this influx could flood the market and further drive down the metaverse token’s value. 

Information from the data provider showed that the unlock distribution would include the release of 2.2 million APE to Yuga Labs founders, 277,000 APE to charity, 7.34 million APE to the project’s treasury, 4.17 million to Yuga Labs, and a cumulative 23 million APE to all launch contributors. 

APE has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with 368.59 million circulating at press time. This represented 37% of the token’s total supply. 

The APEs do not feel very good

The price per APE was pegged at $1.33 as of this writing, having recorded a 31% value decline in the last month, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Due to the significant positive correlation shared with leading coin Bitcoin [BTC], APE’s daily market has been overrun by bears since the BTC futures markets’ deleveraging event of 17 August.

According to readings observed from the token’s Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) indicator, the MACD line crossed below the trend line on the day of the liquidity flush and has remained so positioned.

A downward intersection of the MACD with the trend line is often interpreted as a bearish signal, as it signifies the commencement of a new bear cycle. 

Further, the token’s Stochastic RSI (StochRSI) has trended downward since 17 August. The Stochastic RSI indicator measures momentum and identifies overbought and oversold conditions in the market. With the %K line reading below 20 at press time, APE was oversold amongst daily traders. 

Likewise, the token’s Money Flow Index (MFI) trended downward. This indicated that APE sell-offs outpaced accumulation ahead of the token unlock event. 

Source: APE/USDT on Trading View

Participants in the token’s futures markets have adopted an even more bearish approach. According to Coinglass, APE’s funding rates across cryptocurrency exchanges have been predominantly negative since 25 July. 

Source: Coinglass

How much are 1,10,100 APEs worth today?

Due to the bearish sentiment that has plagued the general market in the past few months, more traders are betting on APE’s price to go down. 

Moreover, 99% of all APE holders were deemed to be “out of money” (in loss) at press time. Thus, new holders did not seem to have an incentive to hold on to the tokens released via the unlock event, thus creating the possibility of a further decline in value. 

Source: IntoTheBlock