Monat: Februar 2023

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BTC/USD price forecast following the Fed’s decision

  • Bitcoin moves in a tight correlation with the US dollar
  • Investors are unsure what to make of the Fed’s decision
  • Technical analysis favors a stronger dollar

The Federal Reserve of the United States (Fed) has raised the funds rate once more this week – this time, by 25bp. The decision triggered a selloff in the US dollar, which lost ground against its peer fiat currencies.

Also, it lost ground against Bitcoin as well.

The reason for the greenback’s weakness was the message that disinflation in the United States had already begun. As such, the fight against rising inflation appears to be over, and so the Fed approaches the terminal rate for this tightening cycle.

But the dollar’s weakness proved to be shortlived.

The next day following the Fed’s decision, the dollar strengthened. Nothing changed from the Fed’s point of view, but investors suddenly decided it was time to buy the dollar.

So they did, and now the dollar is in a range ahead of the jobs report in the United States.

Bitcoin dropped against the dollar, too, after trading above $24k for a brief period. At the current levels, it sits dangerously at the lower edge of a reversal pattern.

BTCUSD chart by TradingView

Rising wedge and bearish RSI divergence call for caution

Bitcoin’s price action diverged from the RSI even before the Fed’s decision. A bearish divergence forms when the oscillator, in this case the RSI, fails to make new higher highs. Yet, at the same time, the price action, or the market, does form them.

This way, the two diverge, and the oscillator shows signs of weakness in the market.

Besides the bearish divergence with the RSI, BTC/USD is in a rising wedge formation. This is a reversal pattern, but traders must be patient before shorting the market.

The idea is to wait until and if the market breaks below the pivotal area marked in blue on the chart above. Such a move implies that the reversal pattern ended and a new market move has already started.

The post BTC/USD price forecast following the Fed’s decision appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Crypto Gaming Arcade, Metacade, Has Potential to 10X in 2023! Here’s What You Need to Know

Investors searching for potential gains in 2023 have been wowed by the news that Metacade’s initial presale stages have sold out within a matter of weeks as bullish investors poured more than $4.9m of funding into the fledgling crypto gaming platform.

With MCADE’s presale continuing to attract massive interest in subsequent presale rounds, some experts are predicting that early investors could enjoy 10X gains in 2023.

Metacade could be the buy of the year

Forward-thinking investors and crypto gaming enthusiasts have been effusive in their early backing of Metacade during the presale, supporting the platform’s aim of delivering the most comprehensive range of online arcade games in the metaverse.

The momentum behind the presale has picked up pace in stage 3, which indicates that the value of Metacade’s utility token and native currency coin is set to surge in the short term, with potentially enormous long-term gains to be realized in the coming years. 

Beginning at $0.008 per token in the beta phase, MCADE’s value is set to rise to $0.02 by the end of the ninth and final presale stage. Expectations are that the price could leap in value once MCADE becomes available to the public.

Bullish investors have been seduced by Metacade’s vast long-term potential, set out in their comprehensive and ambitious white paper. This, combined with the wider projected explosion in the GameFi sector over the next five years and plans to place themselves at the center of crypto gaming for years to come, means MCADE has the potential to achieve 10X gains this year.

How high could MCADE reach in 2023?

The value of the MCADE is set to rise throughout the duration of the presale, culminating in a value of $0.02 per token as it prepares for its IDO. The coin will then be launched on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) when buyers globally will likely scramble to get their hands on MCADE.

Early investors are expected to maintain their HODLing, awaiting a huge jump in MCADE’s value. With a limited fixed supply of 2 billion tokens, demand for MCADE is expected to surge enormously on centralized and decentralized exchanges, which could lead to an increase in price as MCADE establishes itself as a solid crypto-gaming token.

The utility built into the MCADE token makes it an even more attractive prospect for investors to get their hands on. Expectations are that the value can deliver 10X gains with a rise in value to between $0.10 and $0.20 – a realistic prospect for 2023.

Is cryptocurrency a good long-term investment?

Between 2016 and 2021, global crypto holders increased by almost 60 times in five years. Although market conditions turned decidedly frosty in 2022, driven by the collapse of some big names in crypto markets, such as FTX, and global economic conditions, the number of investors and platforms continues to grow.

In addition, the crypto-gaming market is projected to grow approximately 70% year-on-year to become a $63 billion industry by 2027. Metacade is superbly placed to take advantage of this growth with its unrivaled range of online arcade games.

The crypto world is fast-paced, with an ever-increasing number of user cases, so predicting the future is hard. However, with countries like El Salvador beginning to adopt crypto as a genuine means of international payment, the signs for crypto markets are incredibly positive.

What is Metacade?

Metacade is building a brand-new platform hosting the most extensive range of online arcade games in the metaverse, becoming the first project of its kind to launch in the crypto-gaming world. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Metacade will host a wide variety of play-to-earn (P2E) titles allowing gaming enthusiasts to come together with like-minded individuals, build a community and earn crypto rewards as they play.

A community-driven project, Metacade offers gamers and users a range of different earning mechanisms outside the P2E capability, with members rewarded for social interactions with the platform and, shortly, being able to apply for paid roles, including game testers, on Metacade and in the wider Web3 industry.

Metacade: Driving GameFi development

Metacade aims to go well beyond the traditional sphere of P2E crypto gaming platforms by delivering innovation in the wider GameFi industry through its ground-breaking Metagrants scheme. Developers can submit applications for funding to support the creation of new exclusive titles. These submissions are pooled and presented to MCADE token holders who vote for their favorites.

By handing control of the games that go into development to the community, Metacade allows the GameFi industry to benefit by having games that players want on their platform while providing much-needed development experience to the most talented game developers to employ the newest and best Web3 techniques in their work, keeping Metacade ahead of its competition.

Metacade: The best crypto gaming coin with 10X gains in 2023

The MCADE presale presents investors with a unique opportunity to purchase tokens in one of the most exciting crypto-gaming projects in the metaverse. The current price of $0.013 in stage 3 of the presale looks undervalued, even in today’s bear market conditions.

Experts expect Metacade’s presale to fully sell out quickly at every stage, making MCADE the must-buy token before the price increases. With 10X gains looking possible in 2023, it’s a good time for investors to pick up the MCADE token. 

You can participate in the MCADE presale here.

The post Crypto Gaming Arcade, Metacade, Has Potential to 10X in 2023! Here’s What You Need to Know appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Indonesia to unveil national crypto exchange by June

  • The crypto landscape in Indonesia could see a national crypto exchange before the end of June this year.
  • Indonesia initially planned to launch the crypto bourse before the end of 2022.
  • The government says the cryptocurrency exchange will include five active and licensed platforms.

Indonesia is set to roll out its national crypto exchange in the next few months, the country’s Trade Ministry has said. 

As previously reported by CoinJournal, the country indicated it would be launching the exchange this year. The latest crypto news on the subject as highlited by a local news outlet, is that the Indonesian government is looking to have the crypto bourse ready by June 2023. 

Currently, crypto assets trading in Indonesia falls under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency.

Indonesia’s growing crypto landscape

The new timeline comes after new developments (authorities suspended the licensing of new exchanges) and other official delays forced the relevant government bodies working on the project to push the launch from the originally envisaged rollout of December 2022. 

But December also saw lawmakers in the House of Representatives pass the Financial Sector Development and Reinforcement Bill.

The bill, referred to as the omnibus law, is now Indonesia’s primary legal reference for the broader financial services industry. Among the areas covered in the new law is the regulatory oversight of crypto exchanges. 

At the moment, a review of digital asset exchanges earmarked to join the national crypto exchange is ongoing. Per the latest report on the matter, the government has identified five active, registered exchanges from a list of 25 for the role.

Commenting on the upcoming bourse, Indonesia’s Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan said there’s need for everything to be done to ensure all is set before launch. According to him, rushing the project could end up with a scenario where the public who are still learning about crypto trading get harmed by the very project designed to protect them.

Indonesia is one of the countries with the fastest growing crypto communities. As recent research by CoinJournal showed, the country ranks among the top by percentage of population owning cryptocurrencies.

The post Indonesia to unveil national crypto exchange by June appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Ethereum Deep Dive: Health check ahead of Shanghai upgrade in next month


Key Takeaways

  • Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade is slated for March, when all staked ETH will be released and become eligible to be sold
  • 16.1 million ETH is currently staked, equating to $26 billion, 14% of the entire supply
  • Capital has fled the Ethereum ecosystem over the last year, as higher interest rates from the Fed offer investors an alternate source of yield, while DeFi rates have collapsed
  • Total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum is down over 75% from its peak

Ethereum has a big event looming on the horizon. 

The much-awaited Shanghai upgrade is slated for March. This is a pivotal date because, after a long wait for investors, the ETH locked up in the ETH 2.0 staking contract will finally be released. 

And, there’s a lot of it. 16.4 million ETH, to be precise, which is equivalent to 15% of the entire supply. This locked ETH is worth close to $26 billion at time of writing. 

Ethereum volume and TVL is down

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that the last year in crypto has been, well, decidedly unfun. Volumes, interest and prices have cratered in the space, as a dire macro environment coupled with several crypto scandals have torpedoed the market. 

For Ethereum, when looking at transaction volume, the numbers have actually held up a little better than perhaps one could have expected, however still don’t make overly pretty reading. 

From a peak of 1.5 million transactions per day, the number has certainly come down, but is still lingering around the million mark, and up substantially from pre-COVID. Notably, several of Ethereum’s rivals have fallen significantly more, with its market share consequently growing; it may be a bigger piece of the pie, but the pie is significantly smaller. 

Capital has fled the Ethereum ecosystem

TVL is perhaps a better indicator. The metric sums up the capital flight from the space well, with Ethereum down to $28 billion, a 74% fall from its peak of $109 billion in November 2021. 

 

I included the ETH price on the above chart to demonstrate how correlated with the price this is. That makes intuitive sense, obviously, and ETH’s price has collapsed in live with the TVL. 

But when denominating the above chart in ETH rather than USD, it still shows a fall-off. 

This is indicative of a decline in the crypto space in general, but also the very real threat to DeFi that is rising interest rates in the economy. 

The Federal Reserve has engaged in an extremely aggressive hiking cycle, as it moves to aggressively rein in inflation. Not only has this nuked the price of risk assets, but it has offered a competitive source of yield for investors, who previously were forced to move out on the risk curve, many of whom looked towards sky-high DeFi rates. 

Not only has the Fed rate jumped from near zero up towards 4.5%, but DeFi yields have collapsed in the opposite direction, driven down towards 1%/2% from the dizzying levels seen during the pandemic, many of which were in the teens. This has caused extra capital to flee Ethereum.  

 

Eyes now turn to Shanghai upgrade

All eyes now will turn to the Shanghai upgrade, the next major date for Etheruem, following the Merge event which went live in September and converted the network to Proof-of-Stake, from its prior Proof-of-Work consensus. 

While liquid staking options have allowed many investors to trade ETH regardless, the release of so much ETH is nonetheless a big deal. I’ll follow up with another piece on what this could mean for the price of ETH, but regarding the fundamentals and continued development of the network, it is certainly a step in the right direction. 

The Merge dragged on but came and went smoothly in September. The Shanghai upgrade is the next stage of that. 

Crypto has been hurt immensely in the last year, and Ethereum has felt the brunt of that. Freefalling volumes, capital and prices are indicative of that. And while macro continues to drive the bus for crypto, that will (hopefully) turn around eventually. Then – and only then –  these things will help set Ethereum up to resume its growth. But it’s a long road back. 

The post Ethereum Deep Dive: Health check ahead of Shanghai upgrade in next month appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Optimism price: OP surges 30% to hit new all-time high

  • OP has rallied over 30% in the past 24 hours, reaching a new all-time high of $2.97 on Coinbase
  • Optimism is outperforming major coins even as cryptocurrencies rally on Thursday.
  • Gains for Optimism comes amid buying pressure after news of an upgrade proposal planned for activation on 15 March.

Optimism is rallying again as excitement around the Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution increased following a major news announcement.

As shown on the 4-hour chart below, OP reached a new all-time high of $2.97 on Coinbase. As of 11:20 am ET on 2 February, the platform’s native token OP was trading at $2.91, still up by more than 32% in the past 24 hours.

Chart showing Optimism price rally to new all-time high on Coinbase. Source: TradingView.According to data from CoinGecko, the OP token price is up 205% in the past 30 days, outshing major coins. About 75% of the gains have come in the past two weeks as platform’s market capitalization steadily rose to currently stand around $625 million.

Why OP token price is surging

Optimism’s gains in the past few hours have come as buying pressure ramped up ahead of what promises to be groundbreaking network upgrade.

On Wednesday, the Optimism Foundation released a proposal seeking to deploy an upgrade to the protocol’s mainnet. According to the proposal, the upgrade targets improving network performance via the Optimism Collective: Bedrock.

It is the first major upgrade to the Optimism protocol and brings a rollups architecture to the protocol, with  transaction batching one of the main features highlighting the huge impact the upgrade could have for the blockchain’s performance.

“This upgrade offers a new level of modularity, simplicity, and Ethereum equivalence for Layer 2 solutions, providing unprecedented performance and functionality,” the Optimism Foundation wrote.

Improvements set to be added via the Bedrock release include reduced transaction fees, high throughput and improved sync speeds.

According to the team, the upgrade will not impact most users as the Optimism mainnet is “already EVM-equivalent.” However, some users including those running full and archive nodes have to take action in preparation for the upgrade.

The Bedrock proposal is expected to go through a two-week voting period, with deployment to the mainnet scheduled for 15 March if it passes.

The post Optimism price: OP surges 30% to hit new all-time high appeared first on CoinJournal.