Tag: Point

  • Time To Be Fearful? Bitcoin Index Reaches Greediest Point Since Peak

    Time To Be Fearful? Bitcoin Index Reaches Greediest Point Since Peak

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    Data shows the Bitcoin fear and greed index has now reached the highest level since the peak in November as the price of the crypto rallies up.

    Bitcoin Fear And Greed Index Now Points At “Greed”

    As per the latest weekly report from Arcane Research, the BTC fear and greed index has surged to values of greed sentiment this week.

    The “fear and greed index” is an indicator that tells us about the current general market sentiment among Bitcoin investors.

    The metric uses a numeric scale that travels from one to hundred for representing this sentiment. All values above fifty signify that investors are greedy at the moment. While those below the cutoff suggest a fearful market.

    Values above 75 and below 25, that is, the values toward the ends of the range, represent extreme greed and extreme fear, respectively.

    Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin fear and greed index over the past year:

    Bitcoin Fear And Greed Index

    Looks like the value of the indicator has surged up recently | Source: Arcane Research's The Weekly Update - Week 12, 2022

    As you can see in the above graph, the Bitcoin fear and greed index has sharply risen over the past week. The indicator now has a value of 56, which shows the market is getting greedy.

    This value of the metric is now more than in any other period in the year 2022 so far, and is the highest since the peak in early November of last year.

    Related Reading | Glassnode’s RHODL Ratio May Suggest Bitcoin Market Is Near Capitulation

    Historically, Bitcoin peaks have tended to happen while the sentiment is that of extreme greed, and bottoms have formed during periods of extreme fear.

    There is a popular trading technique called “contrarian investing” that makes use of this fact. Traders following this methodology think that the best time to buy is during extreme fear, while extreme greed is when one should sell.

    Related Reading | Bitcoin Weekly Momentum Flips Bullish For First Time In 2022: What Data Says

    This famous quote by Warren Buffet sums up this philosophy: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

    So, following the line of thinking of contrarian investors, the current market sentiment turning greedy may be a sign that you should now start getting fearful instead.

    BTC Price

    At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price floats around $47.3k, up 12% in the last seven days. Over the past month, the crypto has gained 26% in value.

    The below chart shows the trend in the price of the coin over the last five days.

    Bitcoin Price Chart

    The price of Bitcoin seems to have surged up over the past few days | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
    Featured image from Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, Arcane Research

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  • Solana Tanks Lower, Have We Reached the Turning Point?

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    Solana (SOL), also known as the ‘Ethereum Killer’ suffered from heavy losses since November 2021. At its peak Solana was trading at $260 (approx.) and is currently orbiting around $94. We will discuss whether SOL has the potential to break higher with its projects and tokens.

    Why Investors Are Selling Solana?

    Before attempting to assess whether Solana can indeed rebound from its current levels, it is important to understand what leads to the strong selling in the cryptocurrency. While some analysts are pointing to the recent OpenSea phishing attack as the cause, Solana has suffered from more severe issues.

    Congestion in the network weighed on the cryptocurrency last month. The recent wormhole bridge hack only fueled the selling.

    eth wormhole bridge hack

    source: ethexplorer

    Over $320 million was stolen via the wormhole bridge that allowed investors to ETH from the Ethereum blockchain to Solana. The ETH is converted to Wormhole ETH or wETH for short, which is pegged to the value Ethereum in the ETH blockchain.

    A vulnerability in the bridge’s function (validator action approval or VAA for short) enabled the hacker to mint 120,000 wETH, which was valued at a notch over $322 million. The hacker transferred 93,750 wETH back to ETH, the remaining 26,250 wETH was swapped for 432,662 SOL (approx.).

    solana weth hack

    source: wETH minting hack recorded at solana explorer

    As 120,000 wETH went missing (from the mint) it was required for the sum to be replaced. Initially, there was great uncertainty as to who would provide the missing cryptocurrencies.

    Jump Crypto Replaced 120,000 wETH

    A message was sent to the attacker via Notifi, an Ethereum messaging service. The hacker was offered a bounty of $10 million for the exploit details and the return of the minted wETH,

    “We noticed you were able to exploit the Solana VAA verification and mint tokens. We’d like to offer you a whitehat agreement, and present you a bug bounty of $10 million for exploit details, and returning the wETH you’ve minted.”

    (View the full message on Notifi)

    The hacker ignored the message and kept the 93,750 ETH in his account.

    Jump Crypto shortly announced on Twitter that it has replaced the missing 120,000 wETH in order to sustain the network. Without the cryptocurrencies, there would have been serious repercussions. The vulnerability in the wormhole bridge was patched.

    jump crypto

    source: twitter

    The bridge hack is what took SOL below $100 in the market. Investors would like to see some reassurance that security is a top priority. Solana is trading in tandem with leading
     
     cryptocurrencies 
    such as ETH and Bitcoin.

    Solana OpenSea Integration?

    The hacker house events are a great idea. Core Solana Labs engineers participate in offline events, providing educational programming on DeFi, NFTs and how to start working with Solana. If the events would have been announced following the bridge exploitations and not in January, perhaps it would have had some impact on SOL.

    We explored the play to earn games that are based on Solana’s blockchain. According to playtoearn.net which is listing the top 50 games per
     
     blockchain 
    , only 3 games that are based on Solana are actually live. Most of the games are in development or in beta and alpha.

    Age of Sam, a popular NFT Solana based project may be insufficient to lift the cryptocurrency higher.

    At the end of January speculations on the Solana OpenSea integration surfaced. A well-known Hong Kong hacker by the name of Jane Manchun Wong is notorious for unearthing app features before they are publicly announced.

    Jane has already revealed features on Instagram, Spotify and Facebook before they were announced to the public. According to a tweet on 25 January 2022, OpenSea is developing an integration with Phantom wallet.

    Phantom wallet is used for buying and selling crypto and NFTs on the Solana blockchain.

    solana phantom wallet opensea

    source: twitter

    Jane claims she used reverse engineering to unmask OpenSea’s intentions to integrate Solana into the NFT marketplace. OpenSea declined to confirm it has such plans.

    Adding SOL to OpenSea, which is currently the biggest NFT marketplace platform, may contribute to SOL recovery from the bridge hack. Because of the recent phishing attack OpenSea experienced, the chance that such plans having ever existed may now be delayed.

    OpenSea is currently busy dealing with the phishing attack. If there were integrations plans they may be delayed.

    Is It a Good Time to Buy Solana?

    From the technical end, Solana may struggle to trade back above $130. The next support based on the monthly chart is around $52. To invalidate the downtrend in the monthly chart, SOL may require to trade back above $160.

    Based on the daily chart, some support is offered at the $84 mark. If Solana succeeds in breaking above $121, it may extend its gains towards $140.

    Portals announced last week they have raised $5 million to build a metaverse platform based on the Solana blockchain. Foundation Capital and Alameda Research participated in the funding round.

    Adam Gomez, the Co-Founder of Portals, said, “We are building an entirely new Times Square in the metaverse.” Building the platform may take time and had no impact on cryptocurrency.

    President Biden is expected to issue the executive order on cryptocurrencies this week. The executive order will instruct governing bodies to begin the coordination of crypto regulations. It is unclear at the time of writing the impact the order will have as it is widely anticipated.

    One event that has triggered a reaction in the crypto markets is the Fed monetary policy. A rate hike is expected in March 2022 with possible insights into the pace of future rate hikes. It is still early to predict how will the Fed impact SOL as it greatly depends on the monetary policy.

    The daily support at $84 appears to be the only lifeboat for SOL at the time of writing.

    Solana (SOL), also known as the ‘Ethereum Killer’ suffered from heavy losses since November 2021. At its peak Solana was trading at $260 (approx.) and is currently orbiting around $94. We will discuss whether SOL has the potential to break higher with its projects and tokens.

    Why Investors Are Selling Solana?

    Before attempting to assess whether Solana can indeed rebound from its current levels, it is important to understand what leads to the strong selling in the cryptocurrency. While some analysts are pointing to the recent OpenSea phishing attack as the cause, Solana has suffered from more severe issues.

    Congestion in the network weighed on the cryptocurrency last month. The recent wormhole bridge hack only fueled the selling.

    eth wormhole bridge hack

    source: ethexplorer

    Over $320 million was stolen via the wormhole bridge that allowed investors to ETH from the Ethereum blockchain to Solana. The ETH is converted to Wormhole ETH or wETH for short, which is pegged to the value Ethereum in the ETH blockchain.

    A vulnerability in the bridge’s function (validator action approval or VAA for short) enabled the hacker to mint 120,000 wETH, which was valued at a notch over $322 million. The hacker transferred 93,750 wETH back to ETH, the remaining 26,250 wETH was swapped for 432,662 SOL (approx.).

    solana weth hack

    source: wETH minting hack recorded at solana explorer

    As 120,000 wETH went missing (from the mint) it was required for the sum to be replaced. Initially, there was great uncertainty as to who would provide the missing cryptocurrencies.

    Jump Crypto Replaced 120,000 wETH

    A message was sent to the attacker via Notifi, an Ethereum messaging service. The hacker was offered a bounty of $10 million for the exploit details and the return of the minted wETH,

    “We noticed you were able to exploit the Solana VAA verification and mint tokens. We’d like to offer you a whitehat agreement, and present you a bug bounty of $10 million for exploit details, and returning the wETH you’ve minted.”

    (View the full message on Notifi)

    The hacker ignored the message and kept the 93,750 ETH in his account.

    Jump Crypto shortly announced on Twitter that it has replaced the missing 120,000 wETH in order to sustain the network. Without the cryptocurrencies, there would have been serious repercussions. The vulnerability in the wormhole bridge was patched.

    jump crypto

    source: twitter

    The bridge hack is what took SOL below $100 in the market. Investors would like to see some reassurance that security is a top priority. Solana is trading in tandem with leading
     
     cryptocurrencies 
    such as ETH and Bitcoin.

    Solana OpenSea Integration?

    The hacker house events are a great idea. Core Solana Labs engineers participate in offline events, providing educational programming on DeFi, NFTs and how to start working with Solana. If the events would have been announced following the bridge exploitations and not in January, perhaps it would have had some impact on SOL.

    We explored the play to earn games that are based on Solana’s blockchain. According to playtoearn.net which is listing the top 50 games per
     
     blockchain 
    , only 3 games that are based on Solana are actually live. Most of the games are in development or in beta and alpha.

    Age of Sam, a popular NFT Solana based project may be insufficient to lift the cryptocurrency higher.

    At the end of January speculations on the Solana OpenSea integration surfaced. A well-known Hong Kong hacker by the name of Jane Manchun Wong is notorious for unearthing app features before they are publicly announced.

    Jane has already revealed features on Instagram, Spotify and Facebook before they were announced to the public. According to a tweet on 25 January 2022, OpenSea is developing an integration with Phantom wallet.

    Phantom wallet is used for buying and selling crypto and NFTs on the Solana blockchain.

    solana phantom wallet opensea

    source: twitter

    Jane claims she used reverse engineering to unmask OpenSea’s intentions to integrate Solana into the NFT marketplace. OpenSea declined to confirm it has such plans.

    Adding SOL to OpenSea, which is currently the biggest NFT marketplace platform, may contribute to SOL recovery from the bridge hack. Because of the recent phishing attack OpenSea experienced, the chance that such plans having ever existed may now be delayed.

    OpenSea is currently busy dealing with the phishing attack. If there were integrations plans they may be delayed.

    Is It a Good Time to Buy Solana?

    From the technical end, Solana may struggle to trade back above $130. The next support based on the monthly chart is around $52. To invalidate the downtrend in the monthly chart, SOL may require to trade back above $160.

    Based on the daily chart, some support is offered at the $84 mark. If Solana succeeds in breaking above $121, it may extend its gains towards $140.

    Portals announced last week they have raised $5 million to build a metaverse platform based on the Solana blockchain. Foundation Capital and Alameda Research participated in the funding round.

    Adam Gomez, the Co-Founder of Portals, said, “We are building an entirely new Times Square in the metaverse.” Building the platform may take time and had no impact on cryptocurrency.

    President Biden is expected to issue the executive order on cryptocurrencies this week. The executive order will instruct governing bodies to begin the coordination of crypto regulations. It is unclear at the time of writing the impact the order will have as it is widely anticipated.

    One event that has triggered a reaction in the crypto markets is the Fed monetary policy. A rate hike is expected in March 2022 with possible insights into the pace of future rate hikes. It is still early to predict how will the Fed impact SOL as it greatly depends on the monetary policy.

    The daily support at $84 appears to be the only lifeboat for SOL at the time of writing.



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  • Bitcoin Slows Plunge Below $40K, What’s the Best Point for a Pullback?

    Bitcoin Slows Plunge Below $40K, What’s the Best Point for a Pullback?

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    Bitcoin continues to trend lower over the weekend and seems at risk of re-testing previous lows. The first crypto by market cap was rejected at mid-area north of $40,000 and was unable to muster the momentum to hold those levels.

    Related Reading | Did Top Three Bitcoin Addresses Just Call Another Local Bottom?

    As of press time, Bitcoin trades at $39,921 with a 1.2% and 5.2% loss in the last day and 7 days, respectively.

    Bitcoin BTC BTCUSD
    BTC trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSD Tradingview

    Yuya Hasegawa, analyst for Bitbank, attributes BTC’s price recent price action to the Russia-Ukraine situation. In that sense, the analyst expects potential relief as the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov scheduled a phone call for next week.

    This could tone down the tensions around the situation at the border. On top of that, the analyst claims Bitcoin is sitting at “ample technical support” which could protect its price from further downside.

    However, is a long weekend in the U.S. which usually leads to potential periods of high volatility driven by low trading volumes across the crypto market. Hasegawa said talking about BTC’s price immediate and medium-term potential headwinds:

    We still have the January U.S. PCE, February jobs report, and CPI until the March FOMC meeting, so it is safe to say that, depending especially on these inflation data, the worst may be still ahead of us, and even if the price rebounds from the current level in the short term, upside is likely quite limited unless the Russian military shows some signs of retreating.

    The macro-situation seems to occupy everyone’s attention. A separate analyst from Material Indicators (MI) claims the Russia-Ukraine situation could see an outcome after the Winter Olympics in Beijing. These events have been linked to similar crises in the past, such as the invasion of Crimea which took place in 2014 during the Olympics hosted by Russia.

    Bitcoin To See Short Squeeze Over Long Weekend?

    Further data provided by Material Indicators claims BTC could have entered a distribution phase. Recommending traders to “avoid knife catching”, especially during periods of low volume, MI presented their Trend Precognition indicator which flashed a bearish arrow on the daily chart as BTC’s price trend below $40,000.

    Bitcoin BTC BTCUSD
    Material Indicator’s Trend Precognition Indicator flashed a bearish signal on the daily chart. Source: Material Indicators via Twitter

    This could suggest the benchmark crypto might re-test its lows which could find good support, as MI claimed, “in areas of prior consolidation”. The levels between $35,000 to $38,000 were relevant during BTC’s price previous sell-off and could operate as support.

    However, MI noted that there are “Liquidity gaps”, levels on the order book with low bids or asks orders, on both sides of the BTC/USDT trading pair. Thus, Bitcoin could see a short squeeze to the upside or downside.

    Related Reading | Comparing Apple’s Growth With Bitcoin, Why This Expert Sets $700K As Long-Term Goal

    Currently, there are around $10 million in bid order around $39,500. Therefore, there seems to be strong support for BTC at that level which could favor the bulls, at least in the short term.

    Bitcoin BTC BTCUSD
    BTC’s price (blue line on the chart) with potential support on $39,500 due to concentration of bid orders (levels below the price). Source Material Indicators



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