There is a significant flow of liquidity from wallets to exchanges, indicating that the ETH whales may have decided to shed their tokens. Meanwhile, BTC long-term holders are already hoarding as the bearish market ends, evident in the higher volume of transfers from exchanges.

Many believe the Ethereum network will be able to address speed and scalability issues after the Merge. Therefore, gas fees that had previously blown minds could have decent levels with the Bellatrix upgrade on September 6^th.

However, the whales express their disbelief at the upcoming event and a further rise in the value of Ether (ETH).

According to the on-chain analytics platform Santiment, there is a significant flow of liquidity from wallets to exchanges. Top non-exchange addresses are constantly liquidating their holdings, indicating that the whales may have decided to shed their tokens.

Santiment pointed out that wallets have dropped by almost 11% over the last few days. Likewise, addresses on the top 10 exchanges have seen a significant influx, increasing the trading volume by nearly 20%.

Although the whales seem unsure of the next ETH price rally, many expect the tokens dependent on the event to prosper. Lido DAO (LDO), an ETH 2.0 liquid staking protocol, and Optimism, an aggregator for the Ethereum network, are also ready for a significant recovery.

It is important to remember that Ethereum Classic (ETC) is having a bullish impact due to the exit of the Ethereum miner. As the Merge approaches, hazy clouds have surrounded the ETH price rally, suggesting that the event may not be bullish due to high gas fees.

The Bitcoin Whales Predict the End of the Bearish Market

The crypto market did not receive the decision of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to raise interest rates amid rising inflation well. However, the failure of Bitcoin (BTC) to exceed USD 25,000 has come as macroeconomic concerns continue.

After initially showing bullish indicators, Bitcoin is expressing negative sentiment, struggling to keep its value above USD 20,000.

The price of BTC has dropped by almost 68.9% from its all-time high of USD 69,044 in November 2021. The pioneering cryptocurrency should be between 75% and 82% below its previous high in a bearish market.

Bitcoin fell to an all-time low of around USD 3,800 in early 2020 following the 2017 bullish run. After that, it rose to its all-time high in November 2021.

According to Glassnode, the whales (high-volume investors) are already hoarding BTC as the bearish market ends. When Bitcoin registered its best performance of 2022 in July, the volume of transfers from exchanges reached 137,390.

The Whales Might Continue to Hoard Bitcoin

The recent market volatility has halted the buying spree of the Bitcoin whales, but they may continue hoarding until December. When investors believe the market will recover, they usually withdraw their assets from the stock market.

The accumulation of BTC by the whales might lead the price to gain momentum and exceed the USD 1,000 range channel before reaching USD 28,000.

After a drop, the number of addresses with 1,000 BTC or more also stabilized at 2,134. Support at USD 20,800 might serve as a springboard for a bullish breakout, causing the price of Bitcoin to rise.

By Alexander Salazar

While Asian regulators target the industry, India, Vietnam and Thailand have adopted crypto assets the most in the region. Cryptocurrency trading soared during the pandemic, as millions of people had to stay at home while receiving government aid.

According to a survey by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to increasing crypto asset adoption.

The capitalization of the overall crypto market grew 20 times to USD 3 trillion for one and a half years until December 2021. The IMF explains it dropped below USD 1 trillion in June 2022 due to higher interest rates, complicating access to cheap loans.

Asia had one of the highest levels of increase in the trading volume of cryptocurrencies and traditional stocks during the pandemic. Individual and institutional investors from India, Vietnam and Thailand are among the primary adopters, highlighting the relevance of cryptocurrencies on that continent.

That has affected the economy of various nations, which have not yet recovered their levels before the COVID-19 pandemic. That situation worsened with the Russia-Ukraine war, which seems far from over, making world recovery increasingly challenging.

The Interest in Crypto Assets Increases after the COVID-19 Pandemic

According to the IMF, cryptocurrencies seemed isolated from the financial system before the pandemic. At the time, Bitcoin and other crypto assets had little correlation with Asian stock markets.

However, cryptocurrency trading soared as millions of people had to stay home while receiving government aid. Meanwhile, low-interest rates and easy financing terms also rose, helping crypto asset adoption increase.

The IMF warns that investors may stir up hatred against cryptocurrencies after significant losses, causing further volatility in the stock market.

Asian investors hoarded cryptocurrencies, increasing the correlations between the return and volatility of stock markets and assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Although those connections were low before the COVID-19 pandemic, they have increased since 2020.

For example, the return correlations between BTC and the Indian stock market increased ten times, suggesting limited risk diversification benefits of cryptocurrencies. Volatility correlations grew three times, indicating potential repercussions from risk sentiment across crypto and equity markets.

The Growth of Exchanges Contributes to Cryptocurrency Adoption in Asia

The IMF reported that the growth of exchanges and trading platforms has contributed to crypto asset adoption by Asian institutional and retail investors. Many entities hold positions in the stock and cryptocurrency markets, which shows the increasing interconnection between the asset classes.

While India, Vietnam and Thailand have adopted cryptocurrencies the most, China, the second-largest economy, is not on the list. The latter banned the mining and trading of those decentralized assets, as the government could not control them. The Asian nation has a digital yuan (e-CNY), a CDBC the authorities can control 100%.

The boom of cryptocurrency adoption raises concern among Asian authorities, which focus on regulating those assets. India, Vietnam and Thailand have already advanced legalization and created regulatory mechanisms to protect the market.

By Alexander Salazar

Ethereum developers identified several bugs before the Ethereum Fusion. The Merger will ensure the change of Ethereum from a PoW consensus mechanism to PoS. The highly anticipated update in the crypto community is scheduled to take place between September 10 and 20.

Some Ethereum developers have been raising concerns about the network’s upcoming “Merge,” a transition from Proof-of-Work consensus to Proof-of-Stake.

Péter Szilágyi, a team lead on an open source platform, pointed out a bug in Geth 1.10.22, the latest Go Ethereum update, which can “cause test/status to break”:

“Aaand our latest release is borked. 😕 Geth 1.10.22 contains a regression that causes the trie/state to go bad. Most probably it’s one of the PRs we’ve merged towards the new storage model / online pruner. Trying to find and fix the issue.”

“A Phase of Strict Stabilization”

An Ethereum lead developer at Ethereum research and engineering company Nethermind, Daniel C, shared that his team had similar issues, and that is why they went into “a strict stabilization phase” before the Merge, which means “only master branch fixes are merged” at this time.

Szilágyi later confirmed that the Ethereum developers found the reason behind the bug, adding that the data loss only occurs when shutting down and providing the latest release, a “hotfix” for Geth 1.10.22 called Sentry Omega.

The Merge: One of the most anticipated events

The Go Ethereum open source project, run by Ethereum developers on GitHub, has been updating the community and communicating issues the network might be experiencing.

The Ethereum Merge is one of the most anticipated events in the cryptocurrency industry. It is an update that will change the Ethereum Blockchain from a PoW to PoS consensus mechanism. The change is expected to increase network efficiency in terms of speed and reduce power consumption by up to 99.5%.

The official release date of the Merge has finally been announced by the Ethereum Foundation: the upgrade will take place between September 10 and 20.

The Bellatrix update, which begins the final countdown, is expected to go live on September 6.

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has always advocated the Proof-of-Stake protocol. In his November 2020 blog post, he outlined the reasons why he thinks PoS is better than PoW, including security.

Even though the network may not be fully ready yet, with potential hiccups along the way, the community remains very optimistic about what one of the biggest events in the industry means, with the support of Reddit users, Mark Cuban, and cryptocurrency companies.

By Audy Castaneda

Excluding transfers between wallets by the same users, the value of Bitcoin transactions has rapidly grown over the last 13 years. Despite the bearish market, BTC has consistently exceeded its previous highs while the sector has kept growing and developing.

Although the second quarter of 2022 was the worst for Bitcoin (BTC), there is growing interest in it. According to David Puell, an analyst at ARK Invest, transactions in the pioneering cryptocurrency have reached more than USD 100 trillion.

According to Glassnode, the value of Bitcoin transactions has rapidly grown over the last 13 years. That data includes transfers between wallets by the same users, as shown in the chart shared by Puell.

Puell thinks that the USD 100 trillion level is an interesting statistic. Besides, he said that the accumulated activity of the network amounts to almost USD 7.3 trillion.

Bitcoin Still Needs to Reach Other Milestones

Since that metric resulted from excluding on-chain events not proving peer-to-peer transactions, it does not cover exchanges between wallets of the same user.

All indicators show that the popularity of Bitcoin has had steady and rapid growth. Leading financial institutions have also recognized crypto assets as a viable asset class. Banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have entered the market, including BTC in retirement plans.

Although the crypto market is undergoing a bearish trend, Bitcoin has consistently exceeded its previous highs. In addition, the sector has kept growing and developing despite the unfavorable situation this year.

Bitcoin is trading at around USD 21,415 and has accumulated a 1% loss over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 26.42 billion, its market capitalization is about 409.71 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The Price of BTC Might Drop below USD 20,000 Shortly

After a bullish divergence, Bitcoin broke above USD 21,700 and may have rejected the bearish impact. Although indicators are closer to a transition from bearish to bullish, no significant buying pressure is building.

The indecisive behavior of the value of BTC seems to create uncertainty in the crypto space. The price action does not confirm the claim despite bullish technical signals. Therefore, many believe any upward momentum will be temporary and may tend to drop soon.

The famous analyst Bluntz maps the lows that the BTC might reach before a significant rebound. He believes the price is rising, forming increasingly high highs and lows. However, the trend has remained diagonal for the past few days, indicating a new low on the horizon.

The lowest target for the cryptocurrency was previously at around USD 20,000, but the recent price cut lowered it to USD 17,000. Many assume that those lows occur if the company does not maintain its previous goal.

While the weekly RSI stands at 34, the price of Bitcoin is around USD 21,415. The 20, 50 and 200- MA is at USD 26,917, USD 39,532 and USD 23,111 respectively. Furthermore, the Bollinger Bands hold a parallel trend with a USD 40,084 resistance and a USD 13,751 support.

By Alexander Salazar

The weekly chart shows rounded bottom patterns, forming a U when the price declines and briefly remains stable before rising again. The TRX project is becoming increasingly robust, ranking first in terms of active addresses, even above BTC, ETH, and XRP.

The Tron (TRX) blockchain has grown significantly since its launch in January 2018. Its initial price was around USD 0.002 but reached its all-time high of USD 0.231673 in just a few days.

In 2021, the value of TRX dropped from USD 0.18 to USD 0.064 and bounced back to USD 0.1293. Its price behaves like a roller coaster since it fell back to USD 0.05101 in January 2022.

TRX is trading at around USD 0.065, below the 20, 50, and 100-day EMA, indicating inconsistent movements. The weekly chart also shows rounded bottom patterns, forming a U during price declines and short stability periods before a new rise.

It will be easy to know whether TRX is at a rounded bottom when it breaks through the 0.079 resistance. That level would be the neckline of the base and an excellent time to enter.

However, the price of TRX looks quite unstable and uncertain for the long term, causing longtermists to be neutral with it. That crypto asset needs to be more competitive regarding development for long-term investors to trust it.

TRX Might Outperform Ethereum and Cardano

Beyond the above technical analysis of TRX and its roller-coaster price action, that project is becoming increasingly robust.

According to a TronDao report, it has ranked first in active addresses, even above BTC, ETH, and XRP. The low price for transactions on the Tron network has benefited from the high fees of Ethereum and the security issues of Solana.

The growth of DeFi projects on Tron has contributed to a higher number of USDT transactions than Ethereum. However, the nature of that network makes it perfect for web 3.0 development, allowing the integration of distributed storage.

The TRX Project Must Face Several Challenges

It is important to remember that the TRX project has engaged in a series of controversies. For example, Vitalik Buterin, the CEO of Ethereum, has accused it of plagiarism for copying lines from its whitepaper entirely.

However, that controversy is not as bad as the public support of Ethereum PoW (ETHW) by Justin Son, the founder of Tron. His community disapproves of that, considering it detrimental to USDD, the Tron stablecoin. To make matters worse, Son has publicly defended Luna and Terra.

Tron must also face the challenge of overcoming the position that Filecoin and Syacoin have gained. Its BitTorrent network needs a more significant boost to make that possible.

TRX is trading at around USD 0.06573 and has accumulated a 4.1% loss over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 320.51 million, its market capitalization is about USD 6.04 billion, according to CoinGecko.

By Alexander Salazar