Bitcoin (BTC) Extends Period of Uncertainty
Bitcoin (BTC) failed to hold above $30,000 for a more significant time span. The leading coin once again retreated closer to $29,000, potentially continuing the trend of minor fluctuations. BTC has gone through stagnant periods before, with almost no significant change for months. BTC still managed to return briefly to $30,087.15, trading in a relatively small range.
For now, the predominant opinion is that BTC is bracing for a prolonged period of uncertainty, possibly prolonging the bear market. In the short term, the futures market with more cautious leverage will continue to drive short-term price movements.
At the same time, long-term holders still own their coins, increasing the holdings older than five years. For most at that time period, the wallets are in the money.
BTC added significant retail interest in 2021, after twice trading above $64,000 and making a peak above $69,000. After that, BTC failed to rally to $100,000 as predicted, returning to a lower range with the potential for accumulation.
Does BTC Expect More Significant Downside
Buyers still may be waiting in the sidelines to grab any dips for BTC. There are expectations BTC may revisit levels of $20,000 or lower, with absolutely extreme predictions at around $10,000.
The BTC bear market in 2022 started after a death cross of moving averages in February. Historically, BTC may continue to drop from that level, though predicting the exact low of this crypto market cycle may be impossible.
With the opportunity for prices under $20,000, there may be more aggressive trades. Whales may be trying deliberately to liquidate margin call prices and potentially cause increased volatility.
Currently, BTC is below the buying zone of Tesla, Inc. at least based on public disclosures. MicroStrategy started accumulating at a lower price, but traders may be placing long bets at the lower price range. Attacking those positions may trigger another capitulation event.
Derivative price battles may go against any fundamental factors considered bullish for BTC. Trading volumes remain predictable at around $30-$33B in 24 hours, potentially allowing a predictable trading attack.
With 73.2B USDT tokens still active on the market, there is enough liquidity to sway the unregulated markets. Even with fearful trading patterns, leveraged positions can still be attacked and liquidated. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index also remains on the low side, at 12 points or extreme fear. This may mean liquidations are lower, but still significant. Any accumulation of long or short positions is potentially attackable.
For now, BTC shows some resistance at the $29,000 level, and traders may be extra cautious in opening new short or long positions. BTC is yet to break its streak of weekly losses, as it heads for the last week of May.
Futures expiration may add to the volatility and reveal some of the positions taken. The longer the losing streak, the more expectations of reversing the trend.
Despite the move of BTC between $30,000 and $29,000, liquidations in the past 24 hours reached just 12.66M on the BTC markets. On Binance, only around 58% of liquidations were for short positions, signaling still cautious positions. BTC funding rates based on Coinglass data remain neutral to cautiously bullish.
TRON Stands Out as Gainer
TRON (TRX) was the only gainer, clearly supported by its drive to become an even more powerful DeFi hub. The TRON network already carries a significant amount of Tether (USDT) tokens for trading purposes.
But TRON was also a late arrival to the DeFi space, waiting out until most projects had already made their claim. Now, TRON is quickly expanding its own stablecoin and spreading it across various crypto ecosystems. USDD added another 40M in a day, for a total supply of 544M tokens.
The stablecoin’s supply is still just a tenth of what USDC brings to the market. But the asset’s influence is expected to grow. To be more successful, USDD could benefit from a bull market and growing TRX prices.
The TRX token broke above $0.08, adding about 5% on the day. TRX had been forgotten until recently, so the decision to adopt the stablecoin model just as Terra crashed came as a surprise. So far, Terra has not signaled any readiness to relaunch its blockchain and renew the trading of LUNA.
TRX is now among the top 10 tokens supporting significant value locked, taking up a niche vacated by Terra. While other protocols like Solana and Avalanche still lag with a lower market price, TRON is making its moves.
Stablecoins remain one of the most liquid assets and a key to decentralized finance, potentially continuing to work even in a bear market. Stablecoins are key to forming liquidity pairs, though for now USDT, DAI, BUSD and USDC remain the most reliable assets.
Uphold makes buying crypto with popular currencies like USD, EUR and GBP very simple with its convenient options to swap between crypto, fiat, equities, and precious metals.
With over 50 coins and an obsession with security, Kraken is one of the safest places to buy and trade crypto.
Kraken has a good reputation for security and protection of your funds and operates across the USA (except NY), Canada, the EU and Japan
Based in Charleston, South Carolina. Serves over 184 countries and has done over $4 billion in transactions. Offers convenient options to swap between crypto, fiat, equities, and precious metals.
How do cryptocurrencies stack up against popular stocks and shares?
From Airdrop to Wallet we look at all the crypto jargon and what it really means
The leader in programmable money, smart contracts and decentralised applications. There have been many copycats but none have the community and level of adoption.
This is a specific digital coin running on a series of servers. XRP promises utility in handling cross-border transactions to compete with the SWIFT interbank payment system. Being controlled by banks, many question if it is a true cryptocurrency.