Two Southern California men, Gabriel Hay and Gavin Mayo, face charges for allegedly defrauding investors of over $22 million in cryptocurrency through fraudulent NFT and digital asset schemes. The indictment reveals they conducted a series of “rugpulls,” soliciting funds for NFT projects that were abandoned after collecting investments. The alleged scams involved projects like Vault […]
Amid a wider readjusting of market expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve (Fed) for 2025, investors withdrew a record $680 million from Bitcoin ETFs on Thursday, the highest outflow in a single day since January’s approval of these investment funds. Grayscale And Bitwise Bitcoin ETFs Experience 8% Decline As Bitcoin ETFs faced this outflow, the price declined, dropping another 5% to trade around $97,400 to close the week. The sell-off aligns with a general downturn in risk assets, triggered by the Fed’s updated economic projections released earlier this week. The US central bank now anticipates only two quarter-point rate cuts in the coming year, a significant reduction from the four cuts previously expected at its September meeting. Related Reading: How Low Can Dogecoin Go Before It Rebounds? Expert Forecasts Notable Bitcoin ETFs, including Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust and Bitwise’s Bitcoin ETF, have experienced declines of approximately 8% since the Fed’s new guidance, while Bitcoin itself has lost about 9% in the same timeframe. Notably, Thursday’s outflows broke a streak of 15 consecutive days of inflows for the twelve US Bitcoin ETFs, for a net inflow of approximately $5.3 billion during this period. After hitting a record high of just over $108,000 earlier in this week, the market’s top cryptocurrency dropped below the $100,000 level on Thursday. Prior to the recent recovery, which is just around $100,000, it fell all the way to $92,000. While the bearish sentiment in the markets can be attributed to the Fed’s cautious stance, it is also likely influenced by seasonal profit-taking among institutional investors of the Bitcoin ETFs. Analysts Warn Of Continued Crypto Sell-Off The recent selling pressure could further strain market sentiment, as noted by Joseph Dahrieh, managing principal at Tickmill. “This decline could weigh strongly on the cryptocurrency and broader market sentiment, particularly as Bitcoin fell below the USD 100,000 mark, indicating potential short-term volatility and downside risks,” he remarked. The volatility has been exacerbated by massive liquidations in both long and short positions, totaling over $240 million within a 24-hour period. Antonio Di Giacomo, a senior market analyst at XS.com, commented, “The Federal Reserve’s cautious stance in signaling fewer cuts for 2025 created an atmosphere of doubt and speculation.” Related Reading: Ethereum Investment: Trump Crypto Project Grabs 722 ETH At $2.5 Million Looking ahead, the sell-off in the cryptocurrency market may persist in the near term. Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, speculated that the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies could drop below $3 trillion, down from a peak of $3.7 trillion earlier this month. He cautioned that “a failure below $94,500 would signal a break of the uptrend of the last six weeks, while a fall below $92,000 would bring the price under the 50-day moving average. In this case, time is playing on the side of the bears.” As of this writing, Bitcoin has managed to stabilize above $97,400 as the week draws to a close, despite registering 4% losses over the previous 24 hours. Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
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The 2024 Chainalysis crypto crime report showed that North Korean hackers were responsible for over 60% of stolen crypto. Hackers Made Away With $2.2 Billion in 2024 Crypto hacking remains a serious concern for the crypto ecosystem with a report by Chainalysis showing that $2.2 billion was lost to hackers in 2024 via 303 hacking […]
Due to yesterday’s crypto market rout, Ethereum (ETH) has now faced rejection at the key $4,000 resistance level for three times since March 2024. The second-largest cryptocurrency by reported market cap is now trading at the $3,400 level, down 6.7% in the past 24 hours. What’s Behind Ethereum’s Underwhelming Price Performance? While ETH has posted a respectable 47% year-to-date (YTD) gain, it has been outpaced by other major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), and XRP, which have recorded significantly higher returns in the same period. Several factors appear to be holding back Ethereum’s price momentum. Related Reading: Ethereum Risk-Reward Ratio Is Now Attractive, Brokerage Firm Explains One contributing factor is Ethereum’s comparatively weaker brand recognition versus Bitcoin. This was highlighted by the lackluster response to the launch of spot ETH exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in August. The introduction of these ETFs failed to generate any meaningful price movement for ETH. Data further reveals a significant disparity in investor interest between the two assets. The total net assets held in U.S. spot ETH ETFs currently amount to $11.98 billion. In contrast, spot BTC ETFs hold $109.66 billion – nearly ten times as much. Additionally, yesterday saw over $60 million in outflows from spot ETH ETFs, marking the largest single-day outflow since November 19. Crypto analyst Ali Martinez pointed out that social sentiment around ETH has reached its lowest point in a year. However, based on historical trends, this could paradoxically signal a bullish opportunity for Ethereum. Futures traders have also turned bearish on ETH, as the aggregated premium for futures positions flipped negative for the first time since November 6. The market downturn triggered Ethereum’s largest liquidation event since December 9, with $299 million liquidated in a single day. Such large-scale liquidations often lead to cascading sell-offs and heightened price volatility. Another recurring concern stems from the Ethereum Foundation’s tendency to sell ETH near local price peaks. In a recent X post, Lookonchain noted that the Ethereum Foundation sold 100 ETH on December 17. Following this sale, ETH’s price has dropped approximately 17%. Further skepticism surrounds Ethereum’s supply issuance. A recent Binance Research report highlighted that ETH’s relatively high issuance rate raises questions about its “ultrasound money” narrative, which suggests Ethereum is a deflationary asset. Is Ethereum Set For A Bounce? Seasoned crypto analyst @Trader_XO stated that they bought spot ETH at the $3,200 price level yesterday. The analyst added that they expect “a good few weeks” of price consolidation before ETH’s next leg up. Related Reading: 7.8M Ethereum Leaves Binance In Two Months—What Does This Mean for ETH? Meanwhile, crypto trader @CryptoShadowOff identified a potential ascending triangle formation on ETH’s monthly chart. According to their analysis, ETH could drop further to the $2,800 range before targeting a new all-time high (ATH). Market analyst @CryptoBullet1 emphasized that on the 4-hour chart, ETH has not been this oversold since August 5, indicating a bounce may be on the horizon. At press time, ETH trades at $3,400, down 6% in the past 24 hours. Featured image from Unsplash, charts from Coinglass, X, and Tradingview.com
Bitcoin buying led by Coinbase launches BTC price action back toward the six-figure mark.
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Pudgy Penguins, LilPudgys, Azuki and Doodles topped last week’s charts as the best-performing collections.
Discover the risks of fake crypto liquidity pools, common scam tactics and practical strategies to identify and steer clear of fraudulent projects.
XRP has crashed alongside the rest of the cryptocurrency market, but this analyst thinks the asset could be the one to find a quick recovery. XRP Has Been The Top Traded Altcoin On Binance This Month In a new CryptoQuant Quicktake post, community analyst Maartunn has talked about how the altcoins currently compare against each other based on their monthly Binance futures trading volumes. The “trading volume” here refers to an indicator that keeps track of the total amount of a given asset that’s becoming involved in trading on a centralized exchange. In the context of the current topic, the platform is Binance. Below is the chart shared by the analyst that shows the trend in the monthly value of this metric for various top altcoins in the sector. From the graph, it’s apparent that during most months of this year, Solana (SOL) dominated the trading volume on the exchange. A shift has occurred in the market during the past couple of months, however, as SOL has lost its number one spot. Last month, it was Dogecoin (DOGE) that managed to surpass the asset to become the number one altcoin in this metric, while this month, XRP has overtaken both of them. So far, XRP has seen trading volume amounting to $116.6 billion on the exchange. This value is also certain to go even higher, as this month of December still has one-third of the way to go. While Binance doesn’t make up for the entire sector, the exchange is still the largest in terms of volume, so the trend on there can be representative of the wider market. “It’s important to track the top-traded coins on Binance, as they should be your main focus when trading altcoins,” notes Maartunn. During the last couple of days, the entire cryptocurrency sector has witnessed a crash. Based on the monthly Binance volume, though, the analyst says, “XRP seems to be one that could recover quickly.” In some other news, the market plummet in the last 24 hours has meant that the derivatives side of the cryptocurrency sector has registered a massive amount of liquidations, according to data from CoinGlass. Out of the $1.40 billion liquidations that have occurred inside this window, XRP-related contracts seem to have contributed for around $42 million, as the below heatmap shows. Interestingly, Dogecoin and Solana appear to have seen a larger flush than XRP. This may be down to the fact that both of these assets have also witnessed a deeper price drawdown. XRP Price During the latest crash, XRP briefly slipped under the $2.0 level, but it seems the coin has managed to recover back above the mark for now as its price is trading around $2.1. Featured image from Dall-E, CoinGlass.com, CryptoQuant.com, chart from TradingView.com
