Kategorie: Crypto Analysis

Litecoin price was in a tight range on Thursday as investors started to reposition their assets for September. The LTC coin rose slightly to a high of $55.80, which was slightly above this week’s low of $52.36. Its market cap stands at over $3.2 billion.

Hawkish Federal Reserve

Litecoin price has been under pressure as investors focus on the hawkish tone by the Federal Reserve. In a statement at the Jackson Hole Symposium at Wyoming, Jerome Powell insisted that the bank will continue hiking interest rates in the coming months.

His sentiment was shared by other Federal Reserve officials like Charles Evans and Neel Kashkari. In a statement on Wednesday this week, Cleveland Fed’s Loretta Mester said that the bank will continue hiking and also maintain high interest rates until inflation moves to 2%.

Historically, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and LTC tends to underperform in periods of a hawkish Federal Reserve. This also explains why cryptocurrencies and stocks have continued their bearish trend in the past few months. Indeed. American stocks have fallen in the past five straight days.

Litecoin price has also underperformed because of the sluggish demand for the coin. With cryptocurrencies down by more than 50% this year, many users of LTC have stayed away. This is evidenced by on-chain data that show weak demand in the ecosystem.

Meanwhile, the coin has lagged because of the significantly strong US dollar. The US dollar index has jumped to the highest level in over 20 years. Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies have an inverse correlation with the US dollar.

Litecoin price prediction

The daily chart shows that the LTC price has been under pressure in the past few months. It has fallen by 86% from the highest level in 2021. A closer look shows that the coin has formed a bearish flag pattern, which is usually a bearish sign. 

It has moved below the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has moved below the neutral point at 50. Therefore, there is a likelihood that the coin will have a bearish breakout in September. If this happens, the next key support level to watch will be at $40.

The post Litecoin price prediction: LTC could crash to $40 in September appeared first on CoinJournal.

Mirror Protocol price bounced back on Thursday as cryptocurrencies in the Terra ecosystem jumped. The MIR token rose to a high of $0.20, which was about 32% above the lowest level this year. Its market cap jumped to about $15 million, which is lower than the all-time high of over $700 million.

What is Mirror Protocol and why is it rising?

Mirror Protocol was once one of the leading platforms in the blockchain industry in the Terra ecosystem. It is a platform decentralized finance (DeFi) that allowed people to trade financial derivatives in all assets like currencies, stocks, and commodities.

Therefore, instead of using a regulated broker like Robinhood, users can easily buy these financial assets in Mirror Protocol. It used Band Protocol’s oracle system to provide these price feeds.

On August 15, Band Protocol announced that it will cease providing price feeds for Terra Protocol and its products like Mirror Protocol. It attributed this situation to the collapse of UST, the heart of the Terra Chain. 

In addition, Band Protocol noted that Mirror Protocol’s team had failed to respond to its queries about its future. The statement added that:

“Users’ safety is the top priority for Band as an infra developer and we cannot support protocols if we’re unsure. Community members are encouraged to contact the Mirror team directly for any enquiry.”

Therefore, without these price feeds, and without any communication from Mirror, it means that the project is no longer running. In the past, Mirror was actually accused of being a pyramid scheme.

MIR price is bouncing back as investors cheer the strong performance of both Terra Luna Classic and Terra Classic USD. LUNC has jumped by more than 80% in the past 24 hours while USTC has soared by 51% in the same period. Similarly, Anchor Protocol and LUNA prices have jumped by more than 25%. 

Is Mirror Protocol a good buy?

In my view, I believe that MIR is one of the worst cryptocurrencies to buy. For one, its ecosystem has almost died now that Band Protocol is no longer providing price feeds. In addition, it is tied to Terra Classic and USTC, coins that are no longer valuable. As you recall, Terra USD was the heart of Terra’s ecosystem because it was pegged at $1.

Therefore, the current Mirror Protocol price rally is likely because of a pump and dump that is common in the crypto market.

The post Mirror Protocol price is in a recovery mode. Is MIR a good buy? appeared first on CoinJournal.

Chiliz is one of the best-performing cryptos amongst the top 50 cryptocurrencies in the market today.

CHZ, the native token of the Chiliz network, is one of the top performers amongst the leading 50 cryptocurrencies by market cap. CHZ has added more than 3.5% to its value over the last 24 hours. 

The positive performance comes as the broader crypto market underperforms. The broader crypto market has lost more than 2% of its value over the past few hours. As a result, the total crypto market cap is now around $975 billion.

Bitcoin, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, is down by 1.7% so far today and risks dropping below the $20k psychological level if the trend continues. Ether is down by 3% and is currently trading at $1,551 per coin.

CHZ’s positive rally comes after the Chiliz exchange announced its support for the upcoming Ethereum Merge. 

The team said in the event of a new chain fork/token, they will evaluate whether to support the distribution and withdrawal of the forked tokens if they meet the exchange’s requirements. 

The Chiliz team will announce the timeline for such supported tokens if required in a separate announcement.

Key levels to watch

The CHZ/USD 4-hour chart remains bearish despite Chiliz performing positively over the last 24 hours. CHZ has been underperforming in recent days, but its technical chart is now improving.

The MACD line remains below the neutral zone, indicating that the bears are still in control. However, it could enter the positive region if the positive momentum is sustained. 

The 14-day RSI of 49 shows that CHZ is no longer in the oversold territory. At press time, CHZ is trading at $0.2092 per coin. If the rally continues, CHZ could surge past the first major resistance level at $0.2343 today.

However, it would need the support of the broader crypto market to surpass last week’s high of $0.2625.

The broader market remains bearish, and this could affect CHZ’s performance in the near term. CHZ could lose the $0.1954 support level before the end of the day if the bearish sentiment thickens in the broader crypto market. 

The post Chiliz is up by 3.5% on Thursday: Here is why appeared first on CoinJournal.

While on one level it feels silly to talk about cryptocurrencies in Russia when there is a literal war going on, this is a crypto site.

In that context, some very interesting developments have come out of Russia over the last day. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin declared cryptocurrencies could be a “safe alternative” for cross-border payments.

“We need to intensively develop innovative areas, including the adoption of digital assets. This is a safe alternative for all parties that can guarantee uninterrupted payment for the supply of goods from abroad and for export.”

It is also worth mentioning that this announcement comes on the back of Iran’s trade ministry approving crypto as a means of payments for imports. Iran has essentially been cut off from the global banking system as a result of its nuclear programme, which has led to countries placing sanctions on the nation.

Russia, of course, is no stranger to sanctions themselves. Following their invasion of Ukraine in February, the Western World pushed back by instilling a bevvy of economic sanctions, hoping to suffocate the Russian economy and tear the value of its ruble currency down.

This brought up what can at times be a polarising subject – the use of crypto as a potential medium to evade such sanctions. These comments by Mishustin referring to crypto as a “safe alternative” will do nothing to dampen that debate.

But it does demonstrate the power of crypto. I saw this first hand in my trip to El Salvador last month, where people spoke of the advantages Bitcoin offered regarding remittances. El Salvador is in the top 10 countries in the world for remittances as a portion of GDP, and the average fee on such remittances is a crazy 6.5%.

Cutting these fees out through using Bitcoin can be a huge plus to those receiving money from loved ones abroad. In Russia and Iran’s case, while remittances will be aided too, they are not as big a factor as they are for El Salvador. In their cases, the massive boon is the enhanced ability to evade sanctions.

So while this story shows some of the pluses of crypto, it also highlights the moral grey area.

The post Russia says crypto is “safe alternative” for cross border payments appeared first on CoinJournal.

Terra LUNA Classic price had a spectacular performance in August as speculation continued. The LUNC token jumped to a high of $0.00016, which was the highest point since June of this year. It has surged by over 240% from its lowest level this year, giving it a market cap of over $1 billion.

Why is LUNC rising?

Terra LUNA Classic is the remnant of the original LUNA that collapsed in May of this year. It is an autonomous cryptocurrency that was abandoned by the developers as they shifted to Terra 2.0. 

Terra LUNA classic and Terra Classic USD prices have performed well in the past few months as investors buy the dip. The theory is that the coins will ultimately rebound in the coming months. 

Analysts also believe that the rally is part of a short-squeeze as buyers attempt to squeeze short-sellers. Short squeezes have become popular in the market recently. For example, we saw shares of Revlon surge after the company announced that it was filing for bankruptcy. 

The same situation happened in 2020 when Hertz filed for bankruptcy. At the same time, the situation has happened regularly in the cryptocurrency industry following the collapse of Celsius and Voyager Digital. Therefore, while Terra Luna is a useless cryptocurrency, it is relatively risky for people to short it.

In the long term it is relatively difficult to make a case for both LUNA and LUNC. For one, in the past, the value of LUNA happened because of the strong market activity in its ecosystem which was also helped by Terra USD. 

Now, the ecosystem, which was made of platforms like Astroport and Anchor Protocol has disappeared. At the same time, Terra USD, which was supposed to be stable at $1 has dropped to $0.02. 

Terra LUNA Classic price prediction

The four-hour chart shows that the LUNC price has been in a strong bullish trend in the past few months. As a result, the coin has managed to move above the important resistance level at $0.0001150, which was the highest point on August 1. It has rallied above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) moved above the overbought level.

Therefore, Terra LUNA Classic price will likely continue rising as bulls target the next key resistance level at $0.00020.

The post Terra LUNA Classic price prediction for September 2022 appeared first on CoinJournal.