Cryptocurrencies have retained their nature of powerful volatility since yesterday's Jerome Powell conference. After the Federal Reserve chief's hawkish comments, Bitcoin settled in the vicinity of $18,300, and for a while investors paid just over $1,200 for Ethereum. Today, however, we see that sentiment in the digital asset market has improved, and the further fate of the bull market will likely depend on the sector's reaction in the coming days:
- Bitcoin although it approached the June lows, a deeper decline has halted strong demand which in principle is a positive sign if the price manages to regain the psychological level of $20,000;
- Jaimie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan spoke unflatteringly of most cryptocurrency projects, describing them as 'decentralized Ponzi schemes'. At the same time, he expressed approval of tokens that have utility, process smart contracts, NFT technology. In the past, he has spoken negatively about Bitcoin, among other things, calling it a scam, but over time he has softened the narrative. JP Morgan has created its own cryptocurrency, JPM Coin, which is used to settle institutional transactions on the blockchain;
- At the same time, JP Morgan analysts described the Metaverse market as a '$1 trillion opportunity' and indicated that cryptocurrencies could act as money in the virtual worlds economy. The bank was also the first financial institution to open its virtual 'Onyx' branch in the Metaverse blockchain Decentraland;
- Cardano's 'Input Output' development team confirmed the cryptocurrency's readiness for today's Vasil Hard Fork update, which will improve scalability, smart contract processing and network throughput. Previously, the hard fork was halted at the last minute by the identification of a problem with one of the nodes. Developers consider the update more important than last year's Alonzo hard fork, before which Cardano's price soared by more than 300%. The cryptocurrency is among the top three most popular cryptocurrencies according to Santiment data, and the topic of the cryptocurrency on social media has risen nearly 36% over the past seven days;
- The FTX exchange is looking to expand its influence during the downturn and is in talks with investors for an additional $1 billion in funding. In January of this year, the exchange raised $400 million, which it was spending on investments during the bull market. The head of the exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, believes that investments in the blockchain sector during a downturn are generally more profitable thanks to lower sentiment and little competition. The token owned by the exchange is a cryptocurrency called FTX;
- In conjunction with Alameda Research, FTX in July made a proposal to acquire bankrupt cryptocurrency fund Voyager Digital. Ultimately, however, the takeover did not happen, and only FTX and the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, remained among those interested in the acquisition, offering $50 million to acquire Voyager, according to the Wall Street Journal. According to unofficial information circulating, FTX's offer is lower, the result of the acquisition will be known on September 29;
- In June of this year, FTX entered into an agreement authorizing the exchange to purchase the crypto platform, Bitvo as part of the company's expansion into the Canadian market. In May. A month earlier, FTX US also signed a deal with troubled lending company BlockFi to provide it with a $400-million revolving credit facility and an option to buy the company for about $240 million.
Fear and greed index still shows 'Extreme Fear' levels. Source: alternative.me
Cardano chart, H4 interval. The price of the cryptocurrency has been moving in a sideways trend for several months, in a range between $0.40 and $0.60. Yesterday's declines were once again halted by bulls near $0.43, which has statistically proven to be a buying opportunity over the past few months. RSI slightly above 50 points still looks stable and does not confirm the exhaustion of bullish potential. The nearest resistance is the 200-session average below which Cardano dived again in mid-September. Overcoming the average may herald a longer rebound, while a rebound from it may prove to herald the breakout of new minima. The SMA 200 runs in the vicinity of $46.5. Source: xStation5
FTX chart, D1 interval. The token of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX was unable to sustain gains near $30 and settled near June lows, despite active measures by the exchange. Cryptocurrency companies are not favored by risk aversion and a decline in investment volume indirectly linked to eroded confidence in decentralized finance. Source: xStation5
