– According to analysts, with the current bitcoin price ranging from $58,000 to $61,000, many publicly traded mining companies are in a difficult financial position. This is due to both the increase in mining difficulty and the decrease in revenues following the halving. The miners faced another blow on the last day of July. It is worth recalling that the mining difficulty is adjusted every two weeks depending on the total power of the mining installations involved. The adjustment is necessary to maintain the block mining speed at one block every 10 minutes. On 31 July, the difficulty surged by 10.5%, the largest increase since October 2022.

As a result, according to Ki Young Ju, CEO of the analytical firm CryptoQuant, the average cost of mining one coin is currently around $43,000. Of course, this figure is lower than the current BTC price; however, it does not account for loan repayments taken earlier to build data centres and purchase equipment, as well as various overhead and administrative costs.

Experts from TheMinerMag, based on financial reports for the second quarter, calculated the full cost of the coins mined in July for leading mining companies. It turns out that companies like Marathon Digital and Riot are operating at a loss. However, they continue to accumulate reserves of digital gold, counting on its future growth. It is worth noting that Core Scientific followed the same path until 2022, but the subsequent bear phase led to its bankruptcy (though it was officially termed "business reorganisation").

– The mining company Marathon Digital announced that it would label all of its blocks mined in the USA with the mark "Made in the USA." According to some experts, this is a "nod" to Donald Trump, who stated during his election campaign that all remaining bitcoins should be mined in the United States. Marathon CEO Fred Thiel emphasised that his company is the only major miner capable of implementing this initiative, as it has its own MARA Pool and can guarantee that all blocks mined within it are indeed "Made in the USA."

As of today, Marathon is the world's largest mining company with a market capitalisation of $4.44 billion. Its shares, traded under the ticker MARA on Nasdaq, have fallen by 43.3% since the beginning of the year. The company explained that the results were impacted by equipment failures, power transmission issues, an increase in network hashrate, and the April halving. Currently, Marathon's bitcoin reserves exceed 20,000 BTC (approximately $1.2 billion). Recently, the company announced the issuance of bonds worth $250 million, maturing in 2031. The proceeds from their sale will be used to purchase new bitcoins, indicating confidence in the continued growth of the leading cryptocurrency's price.

– MicroStrategy has announced a potential injection of up to $2 billion into its already enormous bitcoin portfolio. According to the financial report for the second quarter, the company acquired 12,222 BTC for $805.2 million, bringing the total number of bitcoins to 226,500 (currently worth over $13 billion). The crypto market eagerly anticipates this move, as such large inflows could lead to a potential rise in BTC's price.

Over the past four years, MicroStrategy has invested approximately $8.4 billion in bitcoin, generating more than $5 billion in profit. As a result, the company's shares have risen by 995% since 2020. Interestingly, Arkham even created a dedicated portal to track MicroStrategy's steps in purchasing the leading cryptocurrency.

– According to CoinShares, Ethereum outpaced bitcoin from 5 to 9 August in terms of investment in cryptocurrency funds by nearly 12 times. Capital inflows into ETH-based derivatives reached over $155 million, with the majority ($105 million) coming from nine recently launched US spot ETH-ETFs. Financial instruments based on BTC saw their market capitalisation increase by only $13 million. Multi-cryptocurrency funds received investments totalling $18.3 million.

CoinShares notes that over the past month, capital outflows from BTC-based funds totalled $366 million. Half of these funds may have been the source of the inflow into ETH derivatives.

– El Salvador has finally secured investments for the construction of Bitcoin City. Most of the funding will be provided by the Turkish holding company Yilport. The initial agreement was reached after the country's president, Nayib Bukele, visited Turkey two years ago.

The Bitcoin City project was first introduced in November 2021 as a "tax-free city" that would be funded by mining powered by local volcanoes. The "city of the future" aims to attract digital nomads and crypto companies. According to the authorities, this project will create thousands of new jobs and "attract even more investments into basic digital infrastructure."

– According to IntoTheBlock, the recent drop in Ethereum's price has reduced the number of holders of this altcoin with unrealised profits to 66%. At the beginning of August, that figure was 75%. As a result, 9% of coin owners suffered losses or broke even due to the dump. Meanwhile, the number of BTC holders who remain profitable stands at 81%. Analysts believe this indicates that the leading altcoin is undervalued relative to the leading cryptocurrency. As a result, it could quickly regain lost ground. This is confirmed by the emerging flow of investments from spot BTC-ETFs to ETH-ETFs.

– Digital asset management company VanEck has released a new forecast for bitcoin. It outlines three possible BTC price levels depending on the development of the market and the adoption of bitcoin as a reserve asset globally. According to the base scenario, by 2050, the flagship cryptocurrency could reach $3 million per coin. In the bear scenario, the minimum price of BTC would be $130,314. If the VanEck bull scenario comes true, one bitcoin could be worth $52.4 million in 26 years.

– The GameFi sector, or cryptocurrency gaming, is showing strong growth, with this sector attracting $1.1 billion in investments in the first half of 2024 alone. Crypto exchange and Web3 company Bitget recently published a report based on a survey of players of tap-based games operating on the "play-to-earn" principle within the Telegram messenger. Approximately 86% of respondents play the mega-popular Hamster Kombat. Following it are Tapswap and Blum, with 79% and 78% of users playing them, respectively. Yescoin and Catizen are also among the top five most popular games. According to Telegram founder Pavel Durov, the number of Hamster Kombat clicker players reached 239 million people within three months, with 4-5 million users joining the game every day.

– According to Santiment experts, a renewed hype in the market could push bitcoin back to the $70,000 range, reaching a new all-time high of $75,000 in the short term.

– CryptoQuant takes a different view. They believe that although bitcoin has managed to break through an important resistance level in the current bull cycle, the asset shows no signs of recovery in the short term. The high volatility of cryptocurrencies, the decline in the shares of leading AI-related technology companies such as Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft, combined with growing geopolitical tensions, are forcing investors to seek safer investments such as physical gold. On Wednesday, 13 August, its price reached another all-time high of $2,477, and according to some experts, this precious metal has a good chance of reaching $3,000 by the end of the year.

– According to the analyst known as TheMoonCarl, bitcoin is aiming to rise and consolidate above the $60,000 level. TheMoonCarl believes that a confident break of this key resistance could lead to $125,000. This forecast is based on the formation of a "cup with handle" pattern.

The cup part represents a period of consolidation and recovery, where the coin's price gradually formed a rounded bottom or solid support level. After the cup, the handle forms a brief period of consolidation or a minor correction, which bitcoin appears to be experiencing now. TheMoonCarl cited BTC's price movement since 2021 as an example. He also noted that if bitcoin successfully breaks out of this handle formation and then reaches $70,000, the next target could be $125,000. This figure is obtained by adding the height of the cup to the breakout point.

– Another analyst, TheScalpingPro, believes that despite recent volatility, bitcoin is capable of a bullish rally in the long term. In his opinion, the leading cryptocurrency is forming a classic parabolic curve often associated with strong upward momentum. The curve suggests that BTC could experience rapid growth with a potential target around $180,000. After reaching it, a sharp correction could be expected.

– The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed its decision on the launch of a bitcoin-ethereum ETF. This product from Hashdex, which takes into account the market value changes of the two flagship assets, could have been the first universal ETF on the US market. However, SEC experts considered the launch of the BTC-ETH-ETF premature and requiring further study.

Earlier, Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, stated that an exchange-traded fund tied to the Solana cryptocurrency could soon be offered to investors.

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