On October 25, the Bitcoin price showed a slight bearish correction after getting rejected at the $19,700 resistance mark. In contrast, Ethereum is consolidating in a narrow trading range of $1,335 to $1,360.
Major cryptocurrencies were trading sideways, maintaining narrow trading ranges, with a global crypto market cap of $931 billion and a trading volume of $513 billion. Let’s take a look at the top winners and losers so far today.
Top Altcoin Gainers and Losers
The top performers in the Asian session were Klaytn (KLAY), Axie Infinity (AXS), and Toncoin (TON). Klaytn (KLAY) is up more than 11% to $0.20, while AXS is up nearly 6% to $9.20. At the same time, TON has surged more than 5% to trade at $1.49 in the last 24 hours.
Top Altcoin Gainers and Losers – Source: Coin360
In the last 24 hours, the price of The Trust Wallet Token (TWT) has plunged more than 5% to $1.04. The price of Aave (AAVE) has dropped more than 4% to around $83.
Bitcoin vs. Stocks – Positive Correlation to Drive Uptrend in BTC
For the most part of this year, bitcoin has moved in lockstep with the stock market. However, risky asset prices have fallen since the Federal Reserve tightened monetary conditions as part of a strategy to combat skyrocketing inflation.
According to research released this week by cryptocurrency data provider Kaiko, Bitcoin’s 20-day realized volatility, a measure of daily price fluctuations, has fallen below the levels of both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 for the first time in two years.
Bitcoin has been less volatile than the Nasdaq for the first time since October 2020. Furthermore, the correlation between bitcoin and stocks has reached an all-time low. The strong correlation has recently weakened, and experts in digital assets are speculating that cryptocurrencies may be decoupling from stocks. Furthermore, due to decoupling, BTC did not rise as much as stocks did last week.
However, Bitcoin’s correlation with stocks is re-stabilizing, which may drive an uptrend in BTC if the stock market continues to rise. If there is a positive correlation between BTC and stocks, it is possible that it will rise again.
Fed Pivot May Continue to Be Dovish
During their November meeting, Federal Reserve officials will likely discuss whether and how to announce plans to approve a smaller interest rate increase in December. They will see another 75 basis point increase in interest rates.
The Wall Street Journal published an article by Nick Timiraos, CEO and founder of Reventure Consulting, on October 21. Timiraos is known on Wall Street as the Fed Whisperer, the reporter to whom the central bank turns when it needs to convey a message.
In his most recent writing, he predicts that the Fed will raise interest rates by three-quarters of a point following its November 2 meeting.
According to Timiraos, the Fed is divided, with some members concerned about further rate increases to combat inflation. Some policymakers also want to pause rate hikes in the first quarter of the following year to monitor the effects of their actions on the economy and reduce the risk of an unusually sudden downturn.
The Fed ignored this year’s rapid inflation for most of 2021 and the first few months of this year, but it has begun to make up for lost time since March. Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chairman, now appears to be able to ease off the gas pedal, if only slightly.
Bitcoin’s optimistic recovery demonstrates that the article benefits the markets and forces the safe-haven US dollar to surrender some of its intraday gains.
Bitcoin Price
Bitcoin is worth $19,339, with a 24-hour trading volume of $27 billion. In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin has been consolidating in a narrow range, with nearly 0% gains and losses. BTC’s live market is worth $370 billion, and CoinMarketCap presently ranks top.
On Tuesday, the BTC/USD broke the symmetrical triangle pattern at $19,250, and that level is now expected to act as major support. A bullish crossover above this level can drive an uptrend until the $19,650 level, and a bullish crossover above this level can lead BTC to $19,950.
Bitcoin Price Chart – Source: Tradingview
Bulls may dominate the market if the symmetrical triangle’s bullish breakout results in an uptrend continuation. The MACD and RSI are both in a buying zone, indicating a bullish trend.
Consider remaining bullish over the $19,200 support level today. On the downside, a break below $19,200 may allow for more selling until $18,950 or $18.650. Bitcoin may not surge 100% this month, but there’s huge upside potential following the symmetrical triangle’s breakout.
Ethereum Price
The current price of Ethereum is $1,344, with a $12 billion 24-hour trading volume. Ethereum is also tossing profits and losses, showing almost a 0% gain in the last 24 hours. CoinMarketCap, on the other hand, now ranks ETH second, with a live market cap of $164 billion.
On the technical front, the ETH/USD pair has broken above an ascending triangle pattern. Following its rejection at $1,365, Ethereum is once again in a downtrend and is likely to find immediate support near $1,340, the double-bottom area.
Near the psychological trading level of $1,300, the 50-day moving average is now likely to provide additional support.
Ethereum Price Chart – Source: Tradingview
On the upside, Ethereum’s major resistance levels remain at $1,360 and $1,384. At over $1,340 today, the bullish bias remains strong.
New Crypto Presales
Dash 2 Trade (D2T) is a cutting-edge cryptocurrency market research and analytics platform. It was created by Learn 2 Trade, the world’s largest cryptocurrency learning community with over 70,000 members.
Trading signals, on-chain analytics, exchange listing notifications, user trading competitions, and other features will be available to those who sign up for the platform.
Dash 2 Trade is currently holding a cryptocurrency presale where interested parties can buy D2T tokens for $0.0476 USDT. There are 35,000,000 tokens available in total.
D2T has already raised more than 2 million USDT, with 60 million D2T tokens remaining until the price reaches 1 D2T = 0.0513 USDT.
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.
