Sentiment in the cryptocurrency market is on the upswing after small gains from Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins hint that the market could be in the process of a bullish breakout.
A handful of altcoins are also finding momentum and a round of fresh partnership announcements appear to back the 40% gains seen in select assets on April 21.
Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Steem (STEEM), TrustSwap (SWAP) and 0x (ZRX).
Binance lists STEEM
The community-focused blockchain network Steem is the underling chain for the social media platform Steemit, which allows users to earn rewards for their posts and interactions within the community.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows the price of STEEM hit a low of $0.344 on April 20 and then proceeded to surge 77.16% to hit a daily high at $0.61 on April 21 as its 24-hour trading volume exploded.
STEEM/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
The sudden burst in momentum and trading volume for STEEM follows an announcement from Binance exchange that it was adding support for the STEEM/USDT trading pair.
TrustSwap trades at Bithumb
TrustSwap is a decentralized finance protocol that specializes in the creation of multi-chain token swaps and offers a host of other features including staking, the ability to mint new tokens and an in-house launchpad.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for SWAP on April 16, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. SWAP price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for SWAP spiked into the green zone and hit a high of 75 on April 16, around 65 hours before the price surged 120.96% higher over the next three days.
The rally in SWAP price follows a new listing on the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb and an increased effort to market the protocol’s minting module, which allows users to easily create a cryptocurrency and launch it on the BNB Smart Chain as well as the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains.
Related: Coinbase is planning to purchase crypto exchange BtcTurk in $3.2B deal: Report
0x partners with Coinbase
ZRX is a decentralized exchange infrastructure protocol that specializes in facilitating the trading of assets on the Ethereum blockchain without needing to rely on centralized intermediaries.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for ZRX on April 19, prior to the recent price rise.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. ZRX price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As shown above, the VORTECS™ Score for ZRX peaked at a high of 75 on April 19, just one hour before its price began to rally 71.56% higher over the next two days.
The rapid spike in ZRX price came on the heels of an announcement that Coinbase had partnered with 0x to power their new social marketplace for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.94 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 41.3%.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Ethereum remained well bid above the $2,950 support against the US Dollar. ETH price started a fresh increase and it could even surpass the $3,300 resistance.
Ethereum started a fresh increase above the $3,120 and $3,200 resistance levels.
The price is now trading above $3,150 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.
There was a break above a crucial bearish trend line with resistance near $3,150 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).
The pair could accelerate higher if there is a clear break above $3,260.
Ethereum Price Turns Green
Ethereum remained well bid above the $2,950 support zone, similar to bitcoin near $44,000. ETH price formed a base above $2,950 and it started a fresh increase.
There was a clear break above the $3,000 and $3,050 resistance levels. The price rallied above the 50% Fib retracement level of the main decline from the $3,335 swing high to $2,950 low. Ether even settled above the $3,150 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average.
Besides, there was a break above a crucial bearish trend line with resistance near $3,150 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. The pair is now trading above the $3,200 resistance.
Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
On the upside, an initial resistance is near the $3,245 level. It is near the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the main decline from the $3,335 swing high to $2,950 low. The first key resistance is now forming near the $3,260 level. A break above the $3,260 zone could lift the price towards the $3,330 resistance. Any more gains may possibly call for a move towards the $3,500 level.
Dips Limited in ETH?
If ethereum fails to continue higher above the $3,245 and $3,260 resistance levels, it could start a fresh downside correction. An immediate support on the downside is near the $3,165 level.
The key support is now forming near the $3,150 zone and the 100 hourly simple moving average. A downside break below the $3,150 support zone could initiate a larger decline. The next major support could be $3,120, below which the bears might aim a retest of $3,000 in the near term.
Technical Indicators
Hourly MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is now gaining pace in the bullish zone.
Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETH/USD is now well above the 60 level.
Often a figure of ridicule within the crypto community thanks to his outlandish predictions as well as being a larger-than-life personality, John McAfee has ceased to be in the spotlight of the crypto community. However, following his alleged “suicide” that occurred in a Spanish prison cell on June 23, tributes have been flowing en masse for the tech savant, who was also an early proponent of digital currencies — especially Bitcoin (BTC) and later Monero (XMR).
McAfee had been in exile for the last few years of his life. In this regard, it has been widely reported that the creator of McAfee Antivirus had been on the run from the United States authorities for evading his tax liabilities, which were touted to be worth over $4 million. In all, he had been named in a total of 10 federal indictments and was ordered to be extradited to the U.S. mere hours before the news of his suicide surfaced.
After being apprehended by local authorities at Barcelona airport last year, McAfee seemed to have acclimatized quite well to his prison surroundings. “I have friends. The food is good. All is well” he tweeted in October 2020. This, in the eyes of former National Security Agency operative and whistleblower Edward Snowden, seemed to suggest that the U.S. legal system was so fractured that even native-born defendants “would rather die in a prison cell abroad” than become subject to such an unfair system.
Did McAfee predict his untimely demise?
One of the strangest aspects of this entire development is that over the course of the last few years, McAfee repeatedly emphasized the fact that American officials had been sending him subtle yet fairly explicit messages suggesting that his time here was nearly done and that he was going to be “suicided” soon.
On the subject, one of his tweets alarmingly read: “U.S. officials saying, in effect: ‘We’re coming for you, McAfee! We’re going to kill yourself.’ I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn’t. I was whackd. Check my right arm.”
Not only that, in one of his statements, he made it clear that in case he was ever found hanging in his cell, it would be through no fault of his own but rather an attempt “a la Epstein” to silence him. McAfee claimed that he had a lot of inside dirt on many of the world’s elites, government organizations, etc., even going as far as saying that he was going to start “naming names” — including a top-ranked Central Intelligence Agency employee who had directly been involved in a lot of sketchy business.
Furthermore, in an interview given by McAfee’s widow, Janice, on June 25, she claimed that the British-American tycoon was not even the least bit “suicidal” when she last spoke to him, which was apparently just a few hours before his body was discovered in his cell.
And while authorities claim that there is nothing suspicious about the tech titan’s death, following the aforementioned revelations, people all over social media have been saying that there might have been “foul play” involved.
Lastly, just a day before his untimely death, Spain’s National Court announced that it had come to an agreement with U.S. authorities regarding McAfee’s extradition — with the final decision still pending and subject to additional judicial inquiry. In fact, McAfee and his legal counsel had already devised a plan of action to appeal the decision, further suggesting that the pressure of the extradition alone may have not caused McAfee to resort to suicide.
McAfee’s mysterious final post on Instagram
Shortly after news of his demise started doing rounds online, calls for McAfee’s death being planned started to gain a lot of traction. Firstly, the flames were ignited when McAfee’s official Instagram account shared an image of the letter “Q,” supposedly shortly after his death.
The “Q” in question here is in direct reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory that suggests that a group of elite pedophiles run a global child sex trafficking ring and have a direct say in how the American administration runs. What’s more, the theory also suggests that this cabal of high-ranked elites can manipulate the global economy thanks to their control of the fractional banking system.
As expected, as a result of the post, a large number of QAnon influencers on Telegram started sharing images claiming that McAfee was just another sacrificial pawn — much like Jeffery Epstein — and had to be “suicided” due to the secrets he possessed regarding those in power across the globe.
Killswitch engaged, but where is all the information?
In a tweet from late 2019, McAfee noted in no uncertain terms that if he were to ever “disappear” mysteriously, he would release some 31-plus terabytes of incriminating data (related to various government officials as well as those in positions of power) to the media. However, even as people all over the world continue to wait quite eagerly for this information, no such data seems to have been made available so far.
In fact, he even allegedly wrote in a message that he has a stash of sensitive data that is backed up in a number of hard drives and has been stored in his condo near 88th Street, north of Miami Beach. That said, a quick look at McAfee’s feed shows no such post, suggesting that the message may have been tweeted and later deleted or could have been a total figment of imagination, to begin with.
Over the last couple of years, McAfee had continued to associate himself with many conspiracies, as is made evident by the fact that in one of his posts, he depicted himself standing in front of Jeffrey Epstein, the multi-millionaire and convicted sex offender, who was also the victim of an alleged “forced suicide.”
As part of the photo’s caption in his “Q” Instagram post, he added: “I never said Jeffrey Epstein was murdered. I said he didn’t commit suicide. Not the same. Could be alive. Could have never existed. Maybe murdered. I dunno. I only know he didn’t commit suicide.”
Lastly, the tech entrepreneur had recently even launched a cryptocurrency called Pizza that advertised itself with an image of Hillary Clinton eating pizza. The asset seemed to be a direct reference to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which garnered a lot of traction a couple of years ago after the former Secretary of State’s emails were leaked online through Wikileaks.
Will the story of John McAfee live on?
Born in 1945 to an American father who was serving in the army and stationed in the United Kingdom at the time, McAfee received his Ph.D. in mathematics before making his way to Silicon Valley in the late-1970s. Within a decade and a half, he was not only working for Lockheed but also spending a substantial portion of his personal time looking at software solutions that could help combat the growing problem of computer viruses.
In the early 90s, John established McAfee Associates from the comfort of his home and started devising novel solutions to help combat various digital threats that were prevalent at the time. As a result, before the dawn of the new millennium, the company was already raking in close to $5 million a year.
Following his passing, the tributes have been flowing in from all sides. For example, Bitcoin influencer and podcaster Anthony Pompliano shared a post remembering McAfee as a “kind, funny, and incredibly intelligent,” individual. Similarly, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, too, spoke highly of McAfee’s contributions to the domain of computer sciences, calling the man “one of the most enigmatic and interesting people in the cryptocurrency space and the history of computing.”
While there will always be people who either believe or disbelieve the narrative that the U.S. government had a role to play in McAfee’s death, the fact of the matter is that he did claim that he had a lot of dirt on the global elites. Now, whether or not any of this so-called classified information makes its way to the internet remains to be seen.
That, however, does not take away from the fact that McAfee was not only a true pioneer in the field of digital security but also a visionary who could foresee the rise of cryptocurrencies even when the space was in its infancy.
Conspiracies aside, the tech pioneer will be sorely missed by many.
