BTC, ETH, & XRP Whales React

Hi Rebels,

In the aftermath of a FUD-filled weekend and a Fed inspired selloff, whales (& the rest of the market) have reacted!

Here’s how 🔻

MARKET’S RESPONSE

The U.S. central bank’s monetary tightening campaign remains top of mind, as we enter a new trading week. Last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and top officials signalled that the stiff pressure might remain well into 2023 - the market didn’t react too well to that!

Today, however, the global crypto market cap is up by about 0.60% at $812.94 billion in the last 24 hours. The entire market’s volume in the last 24 hours stands at $21.44 billion, a decline of 23.51 percent.

At the time of writing, the overall volume in DeFi was $1.17 billion, accounting for 5.46% of the total 24-hour volume in the crypto market. Unsurprisingly, the overall volume of all stablecoins was $19.30 billion, accounting for 90.04% of the market’s volume within the same time period.

What you should know

Alternative.Me’s “Crypto Fear & Greed Index” indicated investor sentiment was unchanged from “Fear” compared with the last week’s reading. This was expected, given that investors were preoccupied by the Binance FUD, Fed’s Hawkishness, and the trial of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

On-chain analysis firm Glassnode stated that Binance had seen $3.2 billion in combined stablecoin outflows last week, as a result of the FUD. Binance accounted for 66% of all stablecoin outflows that were tracked, which is in line with market share.

Binance also stated that auditing firm Mazars had suspended working with cryptocurrency companies including itself. This announcement led to a drop in the valuations of major coins, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Despite all the gloom and doom, analysts at Santiment have identified periods like this as a bottom signal, based on historical precedent. Investors would be glad if that proves to be true!

BITCOIN

Bitcoin whales have been selling more Bitcoin than ever in a single 30-day period. According to on-chain statistics gathered by Glassnode, these whales have dumped a total of 280,000 BTC during the past 30 days. At present, whales are thought to control roughly 9 million BTC, which is a sizable proportion of the entire BTC supply.

Fresh off the dumps, Bitcoin's price stands at $16,727, with a 24-hour trading volume of $12 billion. BTC has gained about 0.20% in the last 24 hours, with a live market cap of $321 billion.

What you should know

Today, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty target is expected to increase by 3%, according to estimates. BTC’s current mining difficulty is at 34244331613176.18, and the estimated 3% increase would take the mining difficulty to between 35421102548895 and 35421764497396.

This could be a sign that there will be less Bitcoin in circulation, and a short term price boost to reflect the reduced supply - provided demand remains stable.

Read more on Ethereum and Altcoins here!