SOL, the cryptocurrency that powers Solana’s higher performance smart-contract enabled blockchain, has stabilized in the $13.50 area on Thursday after falling back from the mid-$14.00s on Wednesday. Versus its earlier weekly highs in the $14.40 area, SOL is currently down about 5.5% and some traders are asking whether it is time to buy the dip once again.
SOL dips. Source: TradingView
Price Prediction – Where Next For SOL?
While SOL is for now finding support at its 21-Day Moving Average, which currently resides close to $13.50, betting in favor of the cryptocurrency in the context of the current markets remains risky. SOL still trades about 65% lower versus its pre-FTX/Alameda collapse highs in the $38 area, with traders concerned about the future of the blockchain project owing to its close ties to the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange and its sister hedge fund.
SOL down around 65% versus pre-FTX collapse highs. Source: TradingView
Until uncertainty about the Solana Foundation’s future (i.e. funding) becomes clearer, SOL sentiment may struggle to see a lasting lift. A break back below the 21DMA could herald a move back lower toward the November lows under $11.
SOL bears eye a retest of recent sub-$11 lows. Source: TradingView
But if risk appetite returns to cryptocurrency markets in the coming weeks, perhaps triggered by further downside US inflation surprises, or perhaps a not-as-hawkish-as-feared December Fed meeting, or by a “Santa rally”, and SOL can muster a sustained push above its 21DMA, it will face tough resistance in the $19 area. This is a key long-term resistance-turned-support area dating back to the first half of 2021. The next key area of resistance would then be the pre-FTX collapse 2022 lows in the $26.50 area.
Some key areas of long-term SOL resistance. Source: TradingView
Solana DeFi Rebuilding Following Collapse of FTX’s Serum DEX
Prior to FTX’s untimely demise in early November, Serum, a DEX created back in 2020 by a consortium including FTX and Alameda, had functioned as a central source of liquidity for the Solana Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Serum’s private keys were housed in FTX. After FTX suffered its post-implosion hack (from which it lost $100s of millions), Solana’s DeFi ecosystem rushed to cut ties with Serum, and Solana’s DeFi total value locked (TVL) experienced a huge capital flight.
But developers are rebuilding. Ecosystem stakeholders have pushed ahead with a fork of Serum free from FTX or Sam Bankman-Fried ties called OpenBook. “The community’s evolution of Serum to OpenBook has been great to watch,” Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko told the crypto press recently. “The community mobilized quickly and in the open to redeploy Serum so it continues on a new, secure path, with decisions made by and for the community members,” he stated, adding that “OpenBook is a great demonstration of decentralization in action.”
According to DeFi Llama, OpenBook has already accumulated some $2.7 million in TVL. That’s a far cry from Serum’s pre-FTX collapse TVL of above 100 million, but is a solid start.
Solana Was Outperforming Ethereum On Some Metrics Prior to FTX Collapse
According to data compiled by crypto analytics firm Nansen, Solana was performing well in Q3 2022, despite the crypto bear market. “Overall daily transactions on Solana had stayed above 200m transactions throughout Q3 2022,” the company proclaimed in a tweet.
Solana “hosts one of the most diverse ecosystems of dApps despite being a non-EVM blockchain, thanks to its fast finality and low fees”, Nansen stated. If the Solana ecosystem can soldier on and keep building despite the current tough market conditions, and thus maintain its status as one of the strongest blockchains in the space, SOL has every chance of making a serious comeback sometime in the coming years.
Altcoins Offering Quicker Returns
Cryptocurrencies have been trading sideways for a few weeks now, leading some traders to start looking at alternatives with more potential in the short term. Listed below are some of the leading presales in the market, allowing investors to get in on the ground floor.
Dash 2 Trade (D2T)
Those interested in investing in a promising crypto trading platform start-up should look no further than Dash 2 Trade. The up-and-coming analytics and social trading platform hopes to take the crypto trading space by storm with its host of unique features.
These include trading signals, social sentiment and on-chain indicators, a pre-sale token scoring system, a token listing alert system and a strategy back-testing tool. Dash 2 Trade’s ecosystem will be powered by the D2T token, which users will need to buy and hold in order to access the platform’s features.
Dash 2 Trade is currently conducting a token pre-sale at highly discounted rates. D2T token sales recently surpassed $9.055 million. The sale has now entered its fourth and final phase and sales are still going strong, with $400K coming in in the last 24 hours. The pre-sale dashboard is going to be released soon, with the development team currently running ahead of schedule. Token are currently selling for $0.0533 each, which observers are calling highly discounted.
Dash 2 Trade was recently listed as the third-best presale token of 2022 by CoinCodex.
Amid the growth in popularity in recent years of environmentally and socially friendly investments, investors looking for a green cryptocurrency should consider the IMPT token. IMPT.io has partnered with thousands of the world’s largest retailers to help offset their carbon footprints and allows users to trade carbon credits on the blockchain.
IMPT tokens are currently in their second stage of the presale with IMPT having raised over $15.6 million. That amounts to $1 million in token sales in just the last 24 hours. Investors only have another three days to purchase tokens at the current discounted price of $0.023. IMPT token exchange listings begin in a few days.
IMPT was recently listed as the best presale token of 2022 by CoinCodex.
Major blockchain-based games like Axie Infinity lost significant traction in 2022. As a result, many investors interested in the crypto gaming space are looking for alternative avenues. Calvaria, an up-and-coming play-to-earn battle card crypto game, could be a good alternative. Calvaria seeks to boost crypto adoption by creating a bridge between the real world and crypto, a fun and accessible crypto game.
Investors should consider Calvaria’s RIA token pre-sale. Calvaria has now raised $2.36 million, with a crypto whale scooping up $97.5K in one purchase on Thursday. The presale is in the final stage, with only 24% of tokens left.
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.
