- Expectations of a key rate hike by the US Federal Reserve and geopolitical tensions are fueling the pessimism of bitcoin investors and increasing the likelihood of selling unprofitable coins. This is the conclusion reached by Glassnode analysts. The bearish trend is confirmed by on-chain indicators: the number of active bitcoin addresses has dropped to the lower boundary of the corridor. This indicates a decrease in demand for the asset. The percentage of profitable bitcoin investors ranges between 65.8% and 76.7%.
Short-term speculators (coin holding period less than 155 days) have purchased 2.56 million BTC. The average acquisition cost is $47,200. Their unrealized loss is about 20%, with the price around $38.000. They are currently a source of sales pressure in the absence of an equivalent increase in demand. Glassnode believes that if the price rises, the pressure of sellers may increase, who will try to leave the market without losses or with a minimum profit.

- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that the new “crypto winter” can help the industry become stronger. However, he is not yet sure that this period has really come, Bloomberg writes.
Buterin emphasized in an interview with the agency that in fact, people “deeply immersed in the cryptocurrency industry” welcome periods of the bear market. This allows you to get rid of weak projects, and also reduces the level of "hype". It is in the “winter” that many weak and harmful projects disappear, and only reliable, important projects remain, with well-thought-out business models and a close-knit team, the developer believes.

- The law legalizing and accepting bitcoin as a means of payment came into force in El Salvador on September 7, 2021. According to the Minister of Tourism Morena Valdes, the tourist flow to the country increased by 30% after that. She said that the recovery in the segment has exceeded expectations, as the country received 1.4 million visitors in November-December, against the forecast of 1.1 million. She also drew attention to the growth in tourism revenues: "We planned $0.8 billion in foreign currencies but received $1.4 billion."
The introduction of cryptocurrency had an impact on the structure of the tourist flow as well. If the bulk of tourists had before been from neighboring Central American countries, up to 60% currently come from the United States, the minister said.

- Indian police have detained suspects in a Rs 400 million (about $5.34 million) cryptocurrency scam, according to the Times of India. Authorities arrested four people in the city of Lanowala during the raid, and seven more in Nagpur a day later.
According to police, the attackers urged potential investors to buy ethereum on the ZebPay platform and then send the cryptocurrency to their Ether Trade Asia platform. Manipulating the data, they demonstrated to investors the imaginary profitability of the project and spent the raised funds on themselves.
Participants in the scheme are also suspected of killing one of the accomplices for refusing to disclose "passwords for important transactions."

- Past price cycles indicate that a new bull market for bitcoin may not occur until late 2024 or early 2025. Du Jun, CEO of Huobi crypto exchange, expressed this opinion in an interview with CNBC. According to him, bitcoin's price cycles are closely related to halvings: periodic block reward halvings embedded in the algorithm, which occur approximately every four years.
The last halving took place in May 2020, and the quotes of the first cryptocurrency reached an all-time high above $68,000 a year later. A similar price movement was observed after the 2016 halving: bitcoin reached record levels in December 2017.
Then deep drops in the price of digital gold followed in both cases, Du Jun recalled.
Based on the trend, Huobi CEO believes that “we are now in the early stages of a bear market” and expects a bullish trend for bitcoin to come only after the next halving in 2024. However, he added that “it is difficult to predict accurately in reality, since there are many other factors that can affect the market, such as geopolitical issues, including war, or the recent COVID.”

- Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of the richest Mexicans, has spoken out in favor of the oldest crypto asset not for the first time. This time, the billionaire recommended strongly to continue buying BTC while the price is low enough, and to hold this asset without even thinking about a possible sale. He is convinced that those who listen to his advice will thank him later.
The first cryptocurrency is separated from its November high by about 45% now, and a number of investors and large companies have taken advantage of the fall to replenish their BTC reserves. For example, this is the step taken by Microstrategy software developer, US Senator Ted Cruz, and El Salvador that made a splash last year.

- David Schwartz, Ripple's CTO and one of the creators of XRP Ledger, continues to be one of the most mysterious characters in the cryptosphere. So much so that many people suspect that he may be the creator of bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, or at least be associated with the Satoshi group.
Although Schwartz has repeatedly denied this, he has admitted to "having optimized" the bitcoin code and working on it very early on, back in 2011. Here is what he had to say about it: “I have almost the entire skill set needed to be Satoshi. It is likely that I was part of a group. But, nevertheless, this is not true. I didn't know about bitcoin until 2011." And to the question: "If you really were Satoshi, would you tell us?", Schwartz replied: "Honestly, I would not speak."
Schwartz's speech at the recent presentation of the XRP Ledger Foundation gave another reason for speculation. Attentive listeners noticed that he spoke about “When I Found Bitcoin…” at the beginning of his speech. The fact is that if the word “Found” had the ending -ed at the end, then it would already sound like “founded” or “created”.

- The Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange will pay a premium of $250,000 to a Twitter user nicknamed Tree of Alpha, who discovered a “market nuclear bomb”. Tree of Alpha found a bug in the Coinbase trading platform, with which he managed to deceive the system and sell ethereum under the guise of bitcoins. He transferred 0.0243 ETH from his account, which he sold as 0.0243 BTC, and earned about $1000 instead of $70.
After that, the trader contacted Coinbase management, reporting the vulnerability of the platform. The exchange staff, having checked for the error, eliminated it promptly, and the honest trader who prevented the "bomb explosion" was promised a reward of $250,000.

- While the US federal authorities are thinking about how to conduct financial policy in relation to cryptocurrencies, local authorities are already trying to get ahead of them. It is possible that the state of California will recognize BTC as legal tender, following El Salvador. An expert group is working on the relevant bill at the moment. We should expect an influx of not only new investments in the state economy after its adoption, but also an increase in the number of companies and digital nomads working with cryptocurrencies.
If California recognizes bitcoin, it is likely that other states will begin to consider similar initiatives, which can seriously improve the position of the cryptocurrency.

- The aggravation of geopolitical tensions has led to an increase in the correlation between the first cryptocurrency and the US stock index S&P 500. This is stated in the analytical report of Arcane Research. According to the researchers, the 90-day correlation between BTC and the “barometer of the American economy” reached the highest level since October 2020. On the contrary, the statistical relationship between bitcoin and gold has become negative, as gold acts as a low-risk asset. Arcane Research has also noted that bitcoin spot trading volume on centralized exchanges has fallen to early December 2020 levels.
Analysts are confident that the strongest support range is $28,000-$30,000, as it represents the “bottom of the bear market in the summer of 2021.” They have named $40,000 as an important resistance level.

- Shark Tank business reality show star Kevin O'Leary has recently made his bitcoin prediction. He notes that many institutional investors cannot yet invest in the leading cryptocurrency, as this issue has not yet been resolved at the level of regulators.
O'Leary has noted that anyone who wants to speculate about the cost of BTC at $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 should understand that all this will become possible when institutionalists finally have the opportunity to purchase a crypto asset in accordance with regulatory standards. He notes that he can say this with confidence, as he works with "sovereign wealth funds and pension plans." And although there is a lot of buzz around BTC right now, none of them have a single token. Moreover, they do not even plan investments in this asset yet.
According to O'Leary, it is much better to think of BTC not as a coin, but as software. He has noted that the above institutions have shares in Microsoft and Google, so it will be easier for them to understand if they regard cryptocurrencies as software. At a time when the crypto sector begins to meet all the requirements, these financial institutions will be able to invest 1% to 3% of their capital in bitcoin, and this can happen within the next 2-3 years.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

#eurusd #gbpusd #usdjpy #btcusd #ethusd #ltcusd #xrpusd #forex #forex_example #signals #forex #cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #stock_market

https://nordfx.com/