Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Bitcoin flows from spot exchanges to derivative exchanges suggest a potential short term bullish flip for BTC price, 
• However, BTC remains in bear market owing to flows to spot exchanges.
• CryptoQuant Senior Analyst Julio Moreno shared the outlook on Thursday.

Bitcoin remains in a bear market as price struggles to sustain an upward move since the breakdown to June lows. However, according to one on-chain metric, the flagship cryptocurrency’s price outlook for the short term suggests a bullish flip.

Nonetheless, the prevailing market sentiment might see a period of further accumulation.

BTC price outlook

The bullish perspective, shared by CryptoQuant senior analyst Julio Moreno via Twitter, is based on the inter-exchange flows of BTC. 

The analyst says this metric has previously been a market cycle indicator, with prices going up when flows from Coinbase to derivative platforms increase and vice versa.

“Bitcoin flows from Coinbase to derivative exchanges are increasing again,” he tweeted on Thursday. “These kind of flows are associated with the market cycle – increasing flows from Coinbase to derivative exchanges, bull market [and] decreasing flows, bear markets.”

#Bitcoin Flows from Coinbase to derivative exchanges increasing again.

These kind of flows are associated with the market cycle.

– Increasing flows from Coinbase to derivative exchanges, bull market.
– Decreasing flows, bear markets. pic.twitter.com/1Ws2R1Ty0J

— Julio Moreno (@jjcmoreno) August 25, 2022

So while flows into spot exchanges remain high to suggest bears are still in charge, increasing transfers to derivatives means the chances of a bullish flip over the next few weeks are growing.

Bitcoin flows- what happens?

Bitcoin flows to derivative platforms jump in a bull run, helped by a risk-on sentiment that sees traders leverage their BTC on long positions. Investors also tap into the exuberance to bet on altcoins, using their Bitcoin sent to derivative exchanges as collateral. 

The opposite occurs during bear markets, with jitters in a risk-off environment seeing flows to spot exchanges amid selling pressure.

The post Bitcoin metric suggests where BTC price could trade next appeared first on CoinJournal.

• The average NFT theft was valued at around $300,000.
• A record 4,600 NFTs stolen in July 2022.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) worth more than $100 million were stolen in the past year, London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said in a report published Wednesday.

According to the firm, the figures represent NFT thefts that were publicly reported between July 2021 and July 2022, suggesting it could be higher.

$300k per NFT scam

During this period, scammers netted an average of $300,000 per theft, with July 2022 seeing a record 4,600 NFTs stolen. This suggests that NFT scams continue to increase despite the impact of the crypto winter to the broader market.

Sanctioned Tornado Cash appears to have been use to process the NFT funds stolen from marketplaces, which Elliptic puts at around 52% of all transactions.

In the report, Elliptic also notes that NFT-based platforms have helped launder more than $8 million in illicit funds since 2017. According to the analytics firm, these amounts account for 0.02% of trading activity tracked to known sources.

NFT sales

The report covers that period of the previous bull market when surging crypto markets and the availability of easy money propelled the NFTs sector to new news. With only a few hundred million dollars’ worth of sales seen in 2020, last year’s rally – particularly between July and November – pushed sales volumes in the NFT market well over $40 billion for the year.

The outlook has been somewhat different in 2022, with the bear market contributing to a significant decline in sales. 

But even so, a recent report from blockchain analysis platform Chainalysis shows the number of NFT buyers as of Q2 this year was only bettered by those seen in Q3 2021 and Q1 2022.

The post NFTs worth $100 million lost to scams in past year: Elliptic appeared first on CoinJournal.

Holders of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from thirteen popular collections including Moonbirds, Bored Apes, and World of Women will be playable as avatars in The Sandbox’s Alpha Season 3 that launched today (Wednesday).

During a walkthrough of the platform, the co-founder and COO of The Sandbox Sébastien Borget explained:

“If you own those NFTs, those 2D images, you will be able to see them become a 3D character on the avatar creator and immediately interact with them.”

Boget went ahead to add:

“We are excited to develop new use cases for the owners of these collections, starting with digital identity and the ability to create the worlds for these NFTs to be played with and evolve.”

The Sandbox’s commitment to interoperability

The sandbox said that the decision to roll out this option was part of its commitment to interoperability. As a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, The Sandbox was a founding member of the Open Metaverse Alliance for Web3 (OMA3) DAO.

The first Alpha season, Season 1, was released in late 2021 while the second season, Season 2, was released in March 2022 and it has attracted 350,000 players.

In Alpha Season 3, The Sandbox will feature about 100 experiences in a period of ten weeks. This will include collaborations with popular brands like Ubisoft’s Rabbids, Snoop Dogg, Atari, and Care Bears. It will also feature user-generated content and twenty experiences on the Sandbox Game Maker Fund.

The post Moonbirds and Bored Apes to feature in The Sandbox’s Alpha Season 3 appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Bitcoin trades around $21,500, about 2.5% up in the past 24 hours.
• Staying below the realized price of $21,700 or if bulls fail to hold above in case of a breakout will result in further accumulation.
• BTC fell to lows of $20,700 after a swift rejection above $25,000 last week.

Bitcoin has moved above $21,500 on Tuesday, seeing some upside after hitting intraday lows of $20,700 on Monday. 

However, despite the uptick, the cryptocurrency remains vulnerable to a downside flip with BTC/USD currently snuggled below the Realized Price.

Glassnode alerts data showed more Bitcoin wallets were in profit is at new lows, owing to BTC price selling off this past few days.

📉 #Bitcoin $BTC Number of Addresses in Profit (7d MA) just reached a 1-month low of 24,957,895.655

View metric:https://t.co/qLnvDYVzPt pic.twitter.com/1jUHpvYZl0

— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) August 23, 2022

So while BTC price could scrap some upward moves and see a break above the $22k level and bring some relief likely to push prices even higher, buyers might struggle to push past key resistance in the $25k region.

Why Bitcoin might see further accumulation this week

According to on-chain data analysis platform Glassnode, BTC/USD is below the realized price after 23 consecutive days above it. The sell-off seen this past week underpins the weakness across the markets, with risk-on appetite also off in equities.

Also noticeable has been the lack of new money coming into the sector, with the recent upside not attracting a new wave of retail investors. These factors point to ranged movement for Bitcoin.

“The recent price uptrend also failed to attract a significant wave of new active users, which is particularly noticeable amongst retail investors and speculators. The monthly momentum of exchange flows is also not suggesting a new wave of investors entering the market, implying a relatively lackluster influx of capital,” the firm noted in its latest weekly update.

If price remains below the cost basis, Glassnode says we could see more accumulation.

“During the 2018-2019 bear market, prices fluctuated below the Realized Price for 140 days, making the prevailing bear market duration of 36 days relatively brief, and thus indicating more accumulation time may be required,” analysts at the firm wrote in the newsletter.

The post On-chain data suggests further accumulation for Bitcoin appeared first on CoinJournal.

NFTs borrowing and lending protocol Bend DAO is staring at a credit crisis after it was revealed on Monday that the protocol only had about 15 wrapped Ether (wETH) worth about $23,715 for paying back its lenders.  The protocol has so far lent out 15,000 ETH.

To avert the crisis, the project’s developers have proposed new emergency measures aimed at stabilizing Bend DAO’s ecosystem.

The proposed emergency measures 

To start with the development team suggested constraining the liquidation threshold for collateral at 70% of the loan value; cutting it down from 85%.

Secondly, the auction period for NFTs would be reduced from 48 hours to four hours and the requirement for the minimum bid price of NFTs to be pegged to 95% of the floor price on OpenSea would be scrapped.

Thirdly, interest rates on loans shall rest from the current 100% to 20%.

Lastly, the Bend DAO treasury shall be empowered to cover all the bad debts using revenue.

What led to the current Bend DAO situation?

Generally, the declining floor prices of NFTs in the market even among popular NFT collections is placing many NFTs in danger of being liquidated. The interest rates on “debt-secured” NFTs are skyrocketing and it has almost hit 100% making some users prefer letting go of their NFTs rather than paying back the debt and this is resulting in a lot of bad loans. Also, the NFT markets are not as liquid as coin markets meaning there may not be a single bid at the time of an NFT liquidation; something that further complicates the scenario.

The proposal by Bend DAO is currently being voted for by the community. The voting process is expected to last 24 hours although it has already passed the required 47 million veBend with 99.23% of voters in favour of the proposal.

The post NFT lending protocol Bend DAO proposes emergency actions to stabilize ecosystem appeared first on CoinJournal.