Ethereum price retreats as the put/call ratio edges upwards

  • Ethereum put and call ratio on Deribit has risen this week.

  • ETH bullish liquidations have also jumped in the past 2 days.

The spectacular crypto comeback has stalled following a series of weak corporate earnings from the United Stats. Ethereum pulled back to $1,500 on Thursday as data showed that the put/call ratio was heading higher. It has fallen by over 5.90% from the highest point this year.

Put and call ratio slips

The options market is an important one across all asset classes, including cryptocurrencies, stocks, and commodities. It involves placing put-and-call trades on an asset. A call gives the trader the right to buy an asset while a put gives them the right to sell.

The put to call ratio is an essential tool that traders and investors use to predict whether an asset will rise or not. That is why it is an important part of the fear and greed index. 

Data compiled by The Block shows that Ethereum’s put/call ratio has edged upward slightly in the past few days. It has risen from 0.24 on January 4 to a high of 0.3. Historically, a lower ratio is usually preferred since it means that there are more buyers in the options market. Still, it should be noted that The Block’s data comes only from Deribit and does not include other exchanges.

Meanwhile, another data by CoinGlass shows that the number of short liquidations in key exchanges rose to the highest point in months on January 15. Liquidations have continued but at a slower pace since then. However, at the same time, long liquidations have been rising. On Wednesday, they rose to the highest level since December 16 of last year.

The main reasons for these liquidations is the weak financial results by companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Some of these firms have warned about a recession and announced significant job cuts. Microsoft is laying off over 10,000 people. 

Ethereum price forecast

ETH/USD chart by TradingView

Ethereum has stumbled as put and call ratio and long liquidations rise. This stumbling happened as the coin reached a high of $1,612, the highest point since November. It has moved slightly below the descending trendline shown in purple. 

At the same time, it has struggled moving above the key point at $1,667, the highest point on November 4. Therefore, I still believe that the outlook for Ethereum is still bullish, with the next key point to watch being at $2,000 as I wrote in this article.

How to buy Ethereum

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Enjin Coin price pumps as ENJ short liqudations soars

  • Enjin Coin has made a strong comeback in 2023.

  • This rally happened as short liquidations jumped.

  • Metaverse tokens like Decentraland and Sandbox have also surged.

Enjin Coin (ENJ) has been in an unstoppable bull run in 2023. It has jumped in all but two days this year, making it one of the top-performing coins. According to CoinDesk, ENJ was trading at $0.47, which was the highest it has been since November 10 of this year. Here are several reasons why Enjin is soaring.

Short liquidations rise

The first main reason why Enjin is soaring is that short liquidations have jumped to the highest level in months. Data provided by CoinGlass shows that over $539k worth of short sales were liquidated on Thursday. This was an increase from the $257k short sales that were liquidated on Wednesday. 

As shown below, these liquidations have been moving in an upward trajectory starting from the first week of the year. This trend is mostly because of the ongoing macro issues as inflation started to drop. Data published in the past two weeks has shown that inflation remains under pressure. On Thursday, numbers revealed that the producer price index (PPI) dropped in December. 

Metaverse tokens soar

The other main reason why Enjin coin price has risen is simply because of the performance of NFT and metaverse tokens. As we wrote here, we have seen most well-known metaverse tokens like Decentraland’s MANA and Sandbox’s SAND rise to their highest levels in months. Historically, cryptocurrencies in similar industries tend to move in sync with each other.

Meanwhile, data compiled by CryptoSlam shows that the volume of NFT sales has started to creep back up in the past few weeks. This is notable since Enjin exists in the NFT industry. Its Efinity product makes it possible for people to mint and sell NFTs using Polkadot’s technology. 

What next for Enjin Coin

ENJ/USD chart by TradingView

Enjin Coin was one of the worst-performing crypto coins in 2022 as it transitioned into a fallen angel. It finally woke up in 2023, pushing it to the highest point since November. The coin has surged above all key resistance levels and moved above the 25-day moving average. Further, the closely-watched supertrend indicator is still bullish.

However, as shown in the chart above, some longs have started to liquidate their positions as well. This is a sign that the coin could start pulling back in the next few days. If this happens, the next point to focus on will be at $0.3822.

How to buy Enjin Coin

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Is it safe to buy ENJ coin after gaining 16% today?

Enjin was launched in 2009 in Singapore and quickly became the largest gaming community creation platform. Its popularity led to the birth of ENJ, a cryptocurrency and smart contract meant to create trust and security in the community with minimal transaction fees. 

Enjin lets users create NFTs without coding. Moreover, users can get paid when other users trade digital assets via the Enjin marketplace. 

ENJ has a market capitalization of over $450 million and a circulating supply of 1 billion. The start of 2023 saw the ENJ coin gaining close to 100% against the US dollar, with about 16% today only. 

So is it safe to buy ENJ here? 

ENJUSD chart by TradingView

Did the crypto winter end in 2022?

The cryptocurrency market suffered from a string of bad news in 2022. First, it was Bitcoin that led the way lower, as the leading cryptocurrency plunged from over $60k to below $20k. 

Bitcoin lovers have argued for quick cryptocurrency adoption by institutional investors for many years. Finally, the adoption came, but with it, Bitcoin became correlated with the regular markets. 

In other words, Bitcoin was hit hard in 2022 by a strong US dollar. Also, it mainly moved on fundamental news affecting the overall market, such as the US inflation or changes in the Federal Reserve policy. 

As such, speculators in the crypto industry quickly turned their attention to other coins. But Bitcoin’s importance does matter for the overall industry. 

Therefore, when Bitcoin jumped over $21k at the start of 2022, it triggered a similar move on most of the crypto market. 

ENJ is one that followed suit. It gained almost 100% in 2023 after forming a falling wedge pattern at the end of last year. 

So is it fair to assume that the crypto winter of 2022 is over? 

At this point, ENJ tests resistance at an area that provided support in the past. If Bitcoin’s rally is not over, then one should not be surprised to see ENJ pushing above resistance.  

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Coinbase terminates Japan operations, why is share price still up 50% in two weeks?

Key Takeaways

  • Coinbase is halting all operations in Japan, citing “market conditions”
  • Last week it cut 20% of its workforce, having already cut 18% last June
  • Stock price is up nearly 50% on the year amid crypto rally, but is still 85% off its peak
  • Problems are aplenty at the company, while CEO Armstrong sold 2% of his stake in October

 

Coinbase has been in a world of pain recently.

Just last week, the exchange announced it was laying off 20% of its workforce, having already cut 18% last June. I wrote a piece analysing what this meant for the company, which was trading at a market cap below $10 billion, 90% down from the price at which it went public in April 2021.

This came after CEO Brian Armstrong unloaded 2% of his stake in the company in October, after which I wrote a deep dive analysing what it all meant for a company that has been viewed as the torch-bearer to carry crypto into mainstream circles once and for all following its high-profile floating on the Nasdaq.

But today, more bad news came. The exchange announced it is halting all operations in Japan, citing “market conditions”.

Coinbase stock price on the up

Despite the onslaught of bad news, Coinbase’s share price has been a big winner in the early weeks of 2023, up 48% in just 18 days.

This comes amid the biggest crypto rally in 9 months, which has seen prices surge across the board. While the bounceback in Coinbase’s share price is great news for investors, it also ironically sums up exactly what the problem is – Coinbase’s correlation to the crypto market.

There are few things more volatile than crypto, so it is not good news to be tied at the hip to its price action. But Coinbase’s performance is dependent on the crypto market because as the price falls, transaction volumes and interest in the industry, and by extension Coinbase, plummets.

During the pandemic, this was a great thing. The money printer was on maximum power, interest rates were low and retail investors were all aboard the FOMO train, armed with a healthy curiosity about crypto and a fat stimulus cheque.

But with the changing macro environment, the crypto industry has freefallen from $3 trillion to $800 billion, before this recent surge popped it back above $1 trillion.

Why are Japanese operations ceasing?

Despite the pleasant pump this past few weeks, zooming out tells you that Coinbase has shed 85% of its value since going public, gone through two rounds of layoffs, seen its CEO sell 2% of his stock in October and now is ceasing operations in Japan.

All Japanese Coinbase customers will have until February 16th to withdraw their holdings from the platform. If they fail to do so, the remaining assets will be converted to Japanese yen. Coinbase had worked hard during the previous crypto winter to expand into the Japanese market, so the abrupt departure is a shame.

But Coinbase is not the only exchange to make this move, with rival Kraken also announcing it was ceasing Japanese operations last month. Also like Coinbase, Kraken had cut a large chunk of its workforce, laying off 30% of employees after the FTX collapse shook the market. The plight of Coinbase’s extreme correlation with the crypto market is once facing exchanges across the industry.

Coinbase Q3 results revealed that transaction volume fell 44% from Q2. The fall in volume and interest ultimately is what has caused the plummeting share price, layoffs, and now ceasing of Japanese operations, with a glance at Google Trends all you need to see the scale of the dropoff in the public’s attention to the exchange.

For $COIN investors, they will hope that the last few weeks of softer macro data and a crypto bounceback are an omen of things to come, otherwise this share price rally will be short-lived.

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Shiba Inu price prediction ahead of Shibarium launch

  • Shiba Inu price went parabolic on Wednesday as it reached a high of November.

  • The developers wrote about the upcoming Shibarium launch.

Shiba Inu (SHIB/USD) price went parabolic as investors reacted to the latest developments on Shibarium launch. The SHIB token jumped by more than 20% in the past 24 hours. It has soared by over 57% from the lowest level in December 2022. Other top-performing cryptocurrencies are STEEM, LOKA, and HIVE. 

Shibarium launch ahead

Shiba Inu is a leading cryptocurrency that was started as a joke in 2021 during the crypto mania. It was created to be a better alternative to Dogecoin, which was having its best time as its price surged. But the two are different. Dogecoin is a coin that is similar to Bitcoin while Shiba Inu is an Ethereum token.

Shiba Inu price has done well in the past few days as investors wait for the upcoming Shibarium launch. Shibarum is a layer-2 network that will solve some of the existing challenges in the network. Some of these challenges are on speed, scalability, and costs.

Shibarium will join other popular layer-2 networks like Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism. After launch, it means that other developers will be able to build applications on top of it. In a statement, the developers said that Shibarium will mostly focus on gaming, the metaverse, and non-fungible tokens (NFT). Analysts believe that the Shibarium launch will be one of the biggest crypto news of the year.

In addition to Shiba Inu, other Shiba Inu tokens will also benefit. They include leash (LEASH) and bone (BONE). According to CoinMarketCap, the two have a combined market cap of more than $5 billion. Shibarium validators will need to lock up bone to run the Heimdall validator software.

The developers also noted that Shibarium will lead to more SHIB being burned since each transaction will lead to several tokens being burned. They added that:

“The development team is currently evaluating potential gas fee rates for the blockchain network. The network’s gas fees are expected to be lower than the current fees on the Ethereum mainnet.”

Shiba Inu price prediction

SHIB/USD chart by TradingView

The daily chart shows that the SHIB price has been in a strong bullish trend in the past few days. It moved above the important resistance level at $0.000010, the highest point on December 6. The token has surged above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) moved to the overbought level. Therefore, the SHIB crypto price will likely retreat slightly and then resume the bullish trend. If this happens, it will likely retest the key support level at $0.000010.

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OKX is a top cryptocurrency exchange which offers over 140 cryptocurrencies to invest in. OKX takes customer security very seriously, they store almost all of their clients‘ funds in cold storage, and the exchange is yet to be hacked. On top of this, the exchange offers very low fees and customers can even use their crypto as collateral for loans on the platform.

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