2022 has been a rocky year for the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin’s value has decreased more than 74% since its peak in November 2021, and most other cryptocurrencies have lost even more value during that time.
However, this isn’t the first instance where cryptos have taken such a severe hit. In fact, this is Bitcoin’s fourth crash by at least 70% during its nearly 14-year history. After each of these prior crashes, both Bitcoin and the wider crypto market rebounded and grew much larger than they were before the market plummeted.
In other words, even though most people buy crypto when prices are high and sell when they’re low, bear markets are actually the best time for investors to start taking positions, ideally through dollar cost averaging or presale buys.
Below are a few of the best cryptos to buy today, December 8, including some that are in presale:
IMPT.io (IMPT)
IMPT.io, a carbon offsetting and climate change initiative, is nearing the completion of its token presale after raising over $16.1 million in two months. The presale looks like it will raise considerably more before finishing on Dec. 11 with over $1 million raised in the last 24 hours alone.
The project connects users to hundreds of environmental projects globally, working with thousands of well-known retail brands that donate a designated portion of each sale on the platform towards the projects.
The IMPT token will be listed on exchanges at $0.0253, which is 10% higher than the final presale price. Exchanges LBank and Changelly have already confirmed listings, with seven more exchange listings currently underway.
IMPT.io allows users to be rewarded with NFT-based carbon credits for shopping from affiliate brands, which they can then sell or use to retire/burn for unique rewards.
Not only do shoppers receive IMPT tokens when they make a purchase, but a portion of their spend will also be donated to an eco-friendly project working to fight climate change. Credits not retired can also be exchanged on the IMPT marketplace.
IMPT’s cutting-edge platform has already partnered with major brands including Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, Macy’s and Dominos.
TWT is currently up by nearly 8% today, trading at $2.62 per coin as of writing. Last week’s gains of 21.88%, from $1.99 to $2.429 set TWT up for continued growth this week.
Trust Wallet, a wallet app that enables users to own their digital assets, saw its native token, TWT, skyrocket after CZ, the CEO of Binance, reminded the cryptocurrency community in a tweet that self-custody is vital after the FTX downfall.
As TWT continues to make its move, support is established at the current range low of $1.84 to $1.93, and traders are advised to adjust their strategies to implement trailing stops in the event that the price moves further up.
Dash 2 Trade (D2T)
Crypto traders and investors are excited for the upcoming launch of Dash 2 Trade, a new trading and analytics platform that is expected to launch soon.
Due to the recent FTX scandal, Dash 2 Trade has seen a surge of interest in its tools that help detect crypto scams. As a result, the team has announced that their platform will be launching sooner than originally planned and that the token presale will be cut short. Originally, 665 million D2T tokens were going to be sold over 9 stages of the presale, but this has been reduced to only 4 stages with 262.5 million tokens being made available.
The platform, launching soon, will include the following features:
Buy/sell trading signals
Social sentiment analysis
On-chain analysis for identifying trending coins
Social trading tools that make it easy to try new strategies.
Presale crypto scores to assess crypto presales
Most of Dash 2 Trade’s functions will require the use of D2T tokens, which is anticipated to result in a high demand for the token. So far, the D2T token presale has raised $9.1 million and 68% of tokens have been sold.
The beta Dash 2 Trade presale dashboard will be coming out shortly. To prepare for its release, the site was recently updated with new visuals, including pictures of the dashboard and a side-by-side comparison matrix showing Dash 2 Trade’s features compared to its competitors. You can also learn about the team behind the project on the website now.
As people turn their attention to other decentralized exchanges in the market, GMX, the native token of the GMX DEX, is another coin that has benefited massively from the FTX fiasco. GMX had a great week last week, opening at $43.12 and closing at $59.12, for a total gain of 23.54%. GMX is currently sitting at $53.57, down by 1.42% for the day so far.
As the cryptocurrency slows its potential move to the upside, the price has observed a retracement to the fib 0.236 level and the support area of $50 this week. The current resistance is at $60 with the next possible target set at the extended Fibonacci level of $66 for a potential 13% upside swing.
Calvaria (RIA)
Calvaria: Duels of Eternity is an NFT battle card game that allows players to earn rewards by playing. The game is becoming popular with crypto investors who see huge potential in its unique game mechanics and potentially addictive gameplay.
In Calvaria, players use cards representing different characters within an after-life-themed realm made up of three factions. Each character has unique abilities and a 3D character model that takes the battlefield when the card is played.
The game will have both a free-to-play version and a play-to-earn version, with a focus on onboarding players from the free version into the paid version by showing them the potential of gaining rewards and getting involved in the trading community.
NFTs can be bought and traded using RIA tokens in the game’s internal marketplace. Those who hold the digital asset have governance power over the game’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Furthermore, the token can be staked by those interested in generating extra income passively.
An experienced team of developers is currently working on the game, using the Polygon Network to create an immersive play-to-earn and NFT trading experience. The game has already garnered support from a growing community of investors, raising $2.4 million in its presale with only 23% of tokens left out of the $3 million goal. Developers are ending the presale earlier than originally planned, with only 150 million tokens available instead of 300 million.
The market is currently in a news-driven environment where the prices of cryptocurrencies have been determined by news agenda rather than fundamentals.
Bitfinex analysts have warned crypto investors to be cautious as bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery over the weekend is not a sign that its correction is over; the asset could witness more bloodshed in the near term.
In the latest Bitfinex Alpha report, experts deemed the market’s reaction this week critical, especially as supply alleviated over the weekend could return when traditional markets open.
“No Man’s Land”
Since Saturday, bitcoin has risen almost 10% from $57,600 to $63,000, closing last week in the green. The asset has surged above the 125-day range low of $60,200, which it broke through earlier this month after news of the German government’s massive BTC selling hit the market.
Market sentiment began to improve after reports that wallets linked to the German government were almost empty. However, the positive sentiment may not be sustained for long as the BTC the German authorities moved to trading desks and exchanges are yet to be sold.
While the supply from Germany appears to have been factored into bitcoin’s market price, Bitfinex analysts believe the end of selling pressure depends on how the involved trading desks execute their trades in the coming days.
Although the shift in sentiment underscores the market’s capacity to integrate new information and adjust expectations quickly, analysts think the market’s reaction over the first two trading days of the week cannot be overlooked for two reasons.
First, the low support level in the $60,200 range has now become a potential resistance line. Second, trading patterns over the past three months suggest that weekends are usually favorable for markets, especially on Saturdays when supply pressure seems to subside.
“We are now in no man’s land until we get clear resolution above or below this level,” the analysts said.
A News-Driven Environment
Besides the potential resistance level and three-month weekend trading pattern, the market is currently in a news-driven environment, where the prices of cryptocurrencies have been determined by news agendas rather than fundamentals.
Since selling pressure concerns are not yet completely obsolete due to upcoming Mt Gox creditor distributions, Bitfinex analysts expect such headlines to continue to have some impact on price movements. As such, the analysts urged investors to exercise caution in their trading strategies.
BlackRock’s IBIT led with $117.25 million in inflows on July 15, also being the most traded Bitcoin ETF.
The US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a daily net inflow of $301 million on July 15th. This extended their winning streak to seven consecutive days amidst a broader market recovery.
None of the ETFs recorded outflows for the day.
Bitcoin ETFs Rake in $16.11B in Net Inflows Since Jan
According to the data compiled by SoSoValue, BlackRock’s IBIT, the top spot Bitcoin ETF by net asset value, recorded the largest net inflows of the day at $117.25 million. IBIT was also the most actively traded Bitcoin ETF on Monday, with a volume of $1.24 billion. Ark Invest and 21Shares’ ARKB came in close behind with net inflows of $117.19 million.
Fidelity’s FBTC experienced net inflows of $36.15 million on Monday, while Bitwise’s BITB saw $15.24 million in inflows. VanEck’s HODL, Invesco and Galaxy Digital’s BTCO, and Franklin Templeton’s EZBC funds also recorded net inflows. Meanwhile, Grayscale’s GBTC and other ETFs, such as Valkyrie’s BRRR, WisdomTree’s BTCW, and Hashdex’s DEFI, registered no flows for the day.
A total of $2.26 billion was traded on Monday. The trading volume for these ETFs was less than in March when it exceeded $8 billion on some days. Meanwhile, these funds have collectively attracted $16.11 billion in net inflow since their January launch.
What’s Next For Bitcoin?
Earlier this month, bitcoin’s price decline was mainly due to fears of massive selling pressure from Mt. Gox and the German government’s BTC sales.
But the assassination attempt on pro-crypto former US President and presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump at Saturday’s rally seemed to spark a recovery in the world’s largest digital asset, and experts are bullish on the asset’s price trajectory going forward. Bitcoin surged more than 9% over the past week and was currently trading slightly below $64,000.
Veteran trader Peter Brandt discussed bitcoin’s price outlook, suggesting a potential major rally. He referred to a pattern he terms “Hump->Slump->Bump->Dump->Pump” and highlighted that the July 5 double top attempt was a bear trap, confirmed by the July 13 close. He sees a likely continued upward trend but warned that a close below $56,000 would negate this bullish view.
“Bitcoin $BTC could be unfolding its often-repeated Hump…Slump…Bump…Dump…Pump chart construction. Jul 5 attempt at the double top was a bear trap, confirmed by Jul 13 close. Most likely scenario now is that bears are trapped. Close below $56k negates this interpretation”
PeckShield alert reveals LI.FI’s protocol vulnerability is similar to a March 2022 attack, with the same bug recurring.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) platform LI.FI protocol has suffered an exploit amounting to over $8 million.
Cyvers Alerts reported detecting suspicious transactions within the LI.FI cross-chain transaction aggregator.
LI.FI Issues Warning After $8 Million Exploit
LI.FI confirmed the breach in a statement on July 16 via X: “Please do not interact with any http://LI.FI powered applications for now! We’re investigating a potential exploit.” The team clarified that users who did not set infinite approval are not at risk, emphasizing that only those who manually set infinite approvals seem to be affected.
According to Cyvers Alerts, more than $8 million in user funds have been stolen, with the majority being stablecoins. According to on-chain data, the hacker’s wallet holds 1,715 Ether (ETH) valued at $5.8 million and USDC, USDT, and DAI stablecoins.
Cyvers Alerts advised users to revoke relevant authorizations immediately, noting that the attacker is actively converting USDC and USDT into ETH.
Crypto security firm Decurity provided insights into the exploit, stating that it involves the LI.FI bridge. “The root cause is a possibility of an arbitrary call with user-controlled data via depositToGasZipERC20() in GasZipFacet, which was deployed 5 days ago,” Decurity explained on X.
“In general, the risks behind routers, cross-chain swaps, etc. are about token approvals. Raw native assets like (unwrapped) ETH are safe from these kinds of hacks b/c they don’t have approvals as an option. Most users & wallets also no longer do “infinite approvals” which gives a smart contract total control on removing any amount of their tokens. It’s important to understand which tokens you’re approving to which contracts.
This dashboard looks for all transactions of a user that intersects Lifi. Not all of these transactions indicate risk- but you can see how, broadly, integrations & layers of tech (like how Metamask bridge uses Lifi on BSC) can complicate how users do or don’t put their assets at risk. Revoke Cash is the most well known approval manager app.
But it’s also good security practice to simply rotate your address. New addresses start with 0 approvals, so starting fresh by moving your tokens to a fresh address is another good security practice.” – commented Carlos Mercado, Data Scientist at Flipside Crypto.
Recent Exploit Mirrors March 2022 Attack
Further analysis by PeckShield alert revealed that the vulnerability is similar to a previous attack on LI.FI’s protocol that occurred on March 20, 2022. That incident saw a bad actor exploit LI.FI’s smart contract, specifically the swapping feature, before bridging.
The attacker manipulated the system to call token contracts directly within their contract’s context, making users who had given infinite approval vulnerable. This exploit resulted in the theft of approximately 205 ETH from 29 wallets, affecting tokens such as USDC, MATIC, RPL, GNO, USDT, MVI, AUDIO, AAVE, JRT, and DAI.
“The bug is basically the same. Are we learning anything from the past lesson(s)?” PeckShield Alert said in a July 16 X post.
Following the 2022 incident, LI.FI disabled all swap methods in its smart contract and worked on developing a fix to prevent future vulnerabilities. However, the recurrence of a similar exploit raises concerns about the platform’s security measures and whether adequate steps were taken to address the vulnerabilities identified in the previous breach.
LI.FI is a liquidity aggregation protocol that allows users to trade across various blockchains, venues, and bridges.
