After months of battered price action, Ripple (XRP) appears to be regaining momentum after a long period of consolidation. The possibility of a final verdict and closure of the SEC v Ripple case in the coming days was one reason for the sudden price increase.

Bullishness is aided by settlement rumors.

A motion to give deadlines to motions to seal requests that prevent evidence was granted amid rumors of a Ripple and SEC settlement. The final deadline for third-party motions to seal is December 9, and the deadline for opposing any motion is December 22.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently stated in an interview that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had "lost its way" and was a "cuckoo for cocoa puffs." Garlinghouse's remarks have paved the way for the market's increased expectations.

Aside from external news, which has a significant impact on investor sentiment, certain technicals and on-chain indicators painted a positive picture for XRP.

Any Anchor

The XRP whales are back in action.

At press time, the XRP price was hovering around $0.536, having gained 27.27% on the 24-hour chart and nearly 67% on the weekly price chart.

According to Santiment on-chain data, active shark and whale addresses holding 1 million to 10 million XRP have been accumulating since late 2020.

With active whales and sharks adding to their balances, the same depicts a positive long-term trend for XRP, which could give the price a boost.

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Having said that, the XRP/BTC price ratio has reached a one-year high of 0.000025 breaking the ratio's long-term downtrend.

Positive sentiment shifts

Technically, XRP recovered from the long-term descending trendline resistance as trading volumes and open interest on futures contracts increased significantly.

The daily RSI showed highly overbought values, indicating strong buying pressure in the market as bulls prevailed. Long-term signals appeared to turn bullish as well, with the weekly RSI breaking out of its own descending resistance line.

In just 24 hours, open interest in futures and perpetual markets increased by 65.43%. In contrast, $14.1 million in XRP shorts were liquidated following the bullish price action.

Given the saturated market, a short-term pullback could cause XRP to revisit the $0.39 support level.

Mati Greenspan, the founder of the fintech research firm Quantum Economics, stated that the rising hash rate marked a new all-time high for the leading cryptocurrency.

Huge spike in bitcoin's hashrate this weekend. New record high attained. pic.twitter.com/p7AQZBxNuO

— Mati Greenspan (@MatiGreenspan) September 4, 2022

Despite a decline in June due to the Terra implosion and related liquidity crisis, a year review of the hash rate revealed an upward pattern of higher highs, which was far from an anomaly.

Throughout this time period, Bitcoin's price has depreciated, lending support to the claim that hash rate and price are unrelated.

Price volatility persists.

After bottoming out at $17,600 on June 18, Bitcoin began a slow ascent that culminated on August 15 at $25,100.

Since then, macro events have taken hold as market participants exercise prudence in response to the impending danger of interest rate hikes.

BTC has been trending downwards since August 28 and is currently trapped in a tight trading range between $19,400 and $20,400.

Recent commentary by analyst MarcPMarkets indicates that the bearishness on the stock market and the rising dollar weigh heavily on Bitcoin. He said:

"...the bearish price action in the S&P and the Dollar's new highs continue to foster an atmosphere that supports LOWER prices over the next week or two."

Bitcoin miners under pressure

The strain on Bitcoin miners is increasing because to price volatility. Since the market's peak in November 2021, miner revenue per tera hash has continued to decline, as depicted in the graph below.

Recent events have caused a substantial decline in revenue per terra hash, despite the fact that a bottom was reached in late May, resulting in a gradual increase.

In tandem with the rising hash rate, the mining difficulty is also increasing. Between May 11 and May 24, mining difficulty reached an all-time high of 31.25 T, which was surpassed by 30.98 T on August 31.

For the time being, all attention is focused on the Bitcoin price, as more sell-offs will compel inefficient miners to cease operations.

The realized price is the average price of the Bitcoin supply as of the day each coin was last transacted on-chain. Realized price is an important metric because it represents the market's cost basis. The MVRV ratio is the ratio of Bitcoin's market capitalization to its realized value. The ratio is used to assess market profitability and is a reliable indicator of whether Bitcoin's current price is above or below "fair value."

When the spot price of Bitcoin falls below the realized price, the MVRV ratio falls below one. This indicates that investors are holding coins at a discount to their cost basis and are carrying an unrealized loss.

A consistent MVRV ratio indicates where support is forming and, when combined with additional analysis of the realized price, can indicate a market bottom.

Throughout Bitcoin's previous bear market cycles, prices have fallen below the 200-week moving average realized price. The average dip below the realized price has lasted 180 days since 2011, with the exception of March 2020, when the dip lasted only 7 days.

Bitcoin's price has remained below the MVRV ratio for 79 days as part of the ongoing bear market that began in May with Terra's collapse. While Bitcoin's price managed to break through the MVRV ratio in the final week of August, it's still too early to tell whether this marks the end of the bear market.

What it does indicate is the formation of strong resistance at the $20,000 levels. This resistance ultimately determines the market's strength and the potential low it could reach in a future bear cycle.

According to Glassnode data, Bitcoin's relative unrealized loss increased significantly in August, following a similarly sharp increase at the start of the summer. The relative unrealized loss shows how much value coins whose realization price was higher than the current price lost. A rising unrealized loss score indicates that addresses are keeping their coins despite their relative depreciation and not selling them at a loss.

Looking at historical data, Bitcoin posted a higher low every time the unrealized relative loss spiked. Bitcoin attempted to retest the high it reached before the bear market in each subsequent market cycle, but almost always failed to beat it. It took at least two years for Bitcoin's price to reach the previous market cycle's high.

According to the data, there is a good chance that a bottom is forming. While this suggests an upward price movement in the coming months, it could be another two years before the market fully recovers and enters a full-fledged bull run.

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Following the implementation of efforts to revitalize the ailing network, LUNA Classic (LUNC) is up 70% from its August 20 low.

The original Terra Luna token's purpose was to absorb price fluctuations in the UST stablecoin. However, after UST's depreciation in May, Terra Luna has lost more than 99.9% of its value.

After rebranding in an effort to separate itself from the past, and with the recent implementation of new staking and token-burning capabilities, it's evident devs are actively working to reclaim investors' trust.

LUNA Classic Evaluation

Following issues with the Terra chain, the community approved founder Do Kwon's suggestion to fork the chain and establish Terra LUNA. On May 28, the first LUNA genesis block was created.

Meanwhile, the existing Terra chain has been renamed as LUNA Classic (LUNC) and continues to run the Terra ecosystem's original code. More importantly, it was turned over to the community for growth and control.

Despite Do Kwon's apparent departure, LUNA Classic still bears the weight of what transpired in the past. And, whether or unjustly, it is linked to the past.

Recent price action, however, implies that investors are inclined to forgive and move on. LUNC has risen 54% in value over the last 30 days and is up 70% from its local low on August 19.

Although the current price is only a fraction of the all-time high, the recovery plan appears to be piqueing the attention of the investing community.

What strategies would LUNA Classic employ to attract additional investors?

Token staking became available as part of the LUNC v22 network update. According to the most recent report from @LuncStaking Bot, dated August 30, over 402 billion tokens have been staked, representing about 6% of the supply.

When staking initially became available on August 27, the first update from @LuncStaking Bot stated that 182 billion tokens, or 2.6% of supply, had been staked - implying token holders had raised their staking by 120% in three days.

Supply and staking of LUNC

Total: 6,904,261,205,445
Staked: 402,024,010,299
Staked/Total: 5.823 %

2022-08-30 12:20 UTC#LUNC #USTC #UST$LUNC $USTC $UST

— LUNC staking (@LuncStaking_Bot) August 30, 2022

The average yearly payment rate, according to Staking Rewards, is 37.8%, which is among the highest staking rewards accessible. Unsustainable yields, however, remain a source of concern, particularly during periods of restricted liquidity.

To boost scarcity, developers have also included token burning. According to the LUNC Burner website, nearly 3 billion LUNC tokens have been removed from circulation to far.

According to a report published by crypto-focused investment firm Electric Capital, at the end of last year, when bitcoin and a handful of other cryptocurrencies reached their peak values, approximately 18,500 developers were contributing to open-source Web3 projects each month.

That number is "at an all-time high and growing faster than ever," writes Electric Capital partner Maria Shen, with roughly 60% of Web3 developers entering the industry in 2021, but it is a speck in the global total of software engineers, which stood at 31.1 million in the first quarter of 2022, according to developer analytics company SlashData.

According to various estimates, Facebook, Amazon.com, and Google—the three largest companies on today's internet, dubbed Web2 by cryptophiles—each employ over 20,000 software developers. They are, however, outnumbered by employees at companies such as JPMorgan and Citigroup, both of which claim to employ over 30,000 on projects for their financial-services businesses.

Crypto insiders may shrug at this juxtaposition, replying "we are still early"—one of the industry's favorite refrains—but some see this chasm as a major impediment to Web3's fulfillment.

"With Citigroup reportedly employing 30,000 developers but only a few thousand active monthly blockchain developers, this developer gap feels insurmountable," says Jay McCarthy, cofounder and chief technology officer at blockchain development firm Reach.

"Blockchain has enormous potential," says Chris Swenor, CEO of Reach and McCarthy's cofounder.

They identified a high entry barrier as the primary cause of the shortage. Not only does blockchain development frequently necessitate knowledge of specialized programming languages such as Solidity or Rust, which are used to implement smart contracts on Ethereum and Solana, but "it's a brand new technology that requires behavioral change," according to Swenor.

For that reason, he and McCarthy founded Reach in 2019 from their homes in Boston. The company, which is backed by the creators of the Algorand blockchain, provides developers with a toolkit that allows them to save up to 85% of the costs and time spent on application development, including decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), two key building blocks for most Web3 visions. "We're trying to lower that barrier while simultaneously raising the ceiling of what's possible," McCarthy explains. "People are willing to have more ambition and try to take on more if they have the support."

At first glance, the demand for and supply of programmers required for an internet overhaul is obvious. It's difficult to think of a Web3 or blockchain company that isn't actively looking for developers. Indeed recently listed over 600 software engineer, software architect, full-stack, and back-end developer jobs with the words "cryptocurrency," "blockchain," "bitcoin," and "ethereum" in their descriptions. TrueUp, a tech job analytics platform, estimated 9,715 open crypto jobs at the start of summer, with a third of them for software engineers.

However, blockchain heavyweights claim they face a different set of challenges.

Protocol Labs, an open-source research and development lab known for decentralized data storage projects like InterPlanetary File System and Filecoin, is looking to hire about 50 software engineers but is not short on applicants, according to Dietrich Ayala, its ecosystem lead of browsers and platforms.

"I believe a better question would be, is there a shortage of developers, or is there a shortage of developers who can imagine what the next generation of the internet will look like?" And that's a more difficult task in terms of recruiting," says Ayala, who previously worked for web pioneer Mozilla for over a decade.

This mindset is especially important for companies working on Web3's core technology—blockchains, which power applications such as NFTs and decentralized marketplaces. "There's definitely a developer shortage in general," says John Wu, president of Ava Labs, the New York-based developer of the Avalanche blockchain, "but we have to consider quality." Things are changing and growing so quickly in the space. What developers are doing today may not be what we require of them in six months."

Competitors concur. "Throwing 100 engineers at a project instead of 10 does not mean that the project will grow 10 times faster," says Austin Federa, head of communications at Solana Labs, the company behind the Solana blockchain. "Some Web3 organizations have the financial resources to scale to a thousand people if they wanted to," he says. "However, we don't hire a ton of developers just because we can." "When there are new problems to solve in Web3, people hire more developers."

The 70-person company, backed by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, and algorithmic investor Jump Trading, lacks neither resources nor developer interest. This year, more than 11,000 people attended Solana's flagship Hacker Houses, which are six-day gatherings for developers working on blockchain-based applications. One of the goals of these events, according to Federa, is to help so-called Web2 developers who are interested in transitioning understand whether they are prepared for the challenge. "I believe that going into Web3 is seen as riskier by many developers." It's definitely a less glamorous job to have."

Declining cryptocurrency prices, multibillion-dollar bankruptcies of some of the industry's most trusted players—including Singapore-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and crypto brokerage Voyager Digital—as well as a wave of layoffs at established crypto firms, including exchanges Coinbase and Gemini—have only exacerbated the industry's woes.

In Ayala's experience interviewing candidates, the most common concern is industry risk: Will crypto succeed or fail as a whole? How bad has recent currency volatility been?

It is no secret that Web3 companies are willing to pay handsome rewards for taking risks. Crypto startups flush with cash from the latest bull market—a record $25 billion in venture capital funding in 2021, according to CB Insights—are paying junior Solidity developers an average annual salary of $150,000. The more experienced ones can earn $400,000 or more, according to CoinDesk, while the national average salary for software engineers is around $97,000, according to Glassdoor. "You will see salaries that, quite frankly, make Web2 salaries look low," Federa agrees.

According to a report by cryptocurrency tracking platform CoinMarketCap, more than 60% of those working in Web3 earn at least some of their income in cryptocurrencies. Those already substantial sums could quickly turn into fortunes with the next big price rally, but they could equally easily vanish in a market downturn.

The good news is that the industry has a history of retaining workers even during downturns. According to Electric Capital, the number of monthly active blockchain developers has remained stable at around 11,000 despite a drop in crypto prices of more than 80% from their peak in 2018-2019.

However, companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are increasingly competing for the same talent pool: According to Blockcdata, 81 of the top 100 public companies were using blockchain technology in the fall of 2021. Among the latest members of Forbes' Blockchain 50 list, which includes billion-dollar enterprises seriously implementing the technology, are Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the world's largest post-trade services organization, auction house Sotheby's, Boeing, and Walmart, to name a few.

"Not every Web2 company has figured out how Web3 can help them," says Wu of Ava Labs. "Recent news may have reduced the inflow of new Web3 developers slightly, but whoever has made the decision to come over, I don't see them going back."

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According to the data, the collection's 24-hour trading volume increased by over 400% to around $4 million. Aside from that, its market capitalization increased by 130% to $48 million.

Limit Break successfully raises $200 million.

Limit Break, a Web3 gaming startup specializing in massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, has raised $200 million in two rounds of funding.

The company announced this on August 29, revealing that the funding rounds were led by Josh Buckley, Paradigm, and Standard Crypto.

Coinbase, FTX, Anthos Capital, and Positive Sum are among the other round investors.

Gabe Lydon and Halbert Nakagawa, both of whom previously worked at Machine Zone, founded the gaming startup.

According to available information, the game will use a "free-to-own" model, with the NFTs being given away for free.

Limit Break would earn money from other gaming features as well as from its plan to sell some NFTs once its fans begin selling theirs on OpenSea.

According to Lyndon, the decision to make the game free to play is intended to eliminate scam-like activities such as companies pre-selling NFTs and then failing to deliver on the game.

While most crypto games generate revenue by selling NFTs and other game access first, Lyndon believes that giving the NFTs away for free will generate more interest and help the game build a strong community.

Free-to-play is already a popular model in the mainstream gaming industry, generating billions of dollars in annual revenue. However, it is a novel approach in the crypto space.

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Bitcoin was up 1.19% on the day, trading at $20,215, while Ethereum was trading at $1,544, reflecting an increase of over 4.54%.

Biggest Gainers (24h)

Fruits  +48.19%

Voyager Token  +28.05%

Synthetix  +12.62%

Biggest Losers (24h)

Netvrk  -5.47%

ABBC Coin  -4.26%

Energy Web Token  -3.99%

As BTC rises back above $20,000, $9 million worth of Bitcoin shorts were settled.

Powell's comments at Jackson Hole on August 26 caused the cryptocurrency market to bottom out at $19,500 on August 29. At 14:00 UTC, though, BTC had reached a high of $20,300.

Bitcoin bulls fought to reestablish psychological resistance near the $20,000 mark, causing the sharp increase. According to statistics from Coinglass, $9 million in Bitcoin shorts were liquidated as a result.

Singapore is considering tighter cryptocurrency rules to safeguard individual investors.

The managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Ravi Menon, stated that additional restrictions will be implemented to restrict the use of leverage and credit facilities by retail investors who are readily enticed by quick profits.

Due to the global nature of the cryptocurrency business, a complete restriction on its use in the region is improbable. Nonetheless, the MAS is presently working on ways to regulate stablecoins and will publish a detailed guidance in October.

The DigiDaigaku NFT collection of Limit Break increases by nearly 1000% when the company raises $200m.

Limit Break, a Web3 gaming business, said that its parent company has received $200 million to pioneer its "free-to-own" gaming model, in which the brand will give away its NFTs for free.

In response to the announcement, the price floor of DigiDaigaku's free mint NFT jumped to 15.67 ETH. According to nftgo data, the collection's 24-hour trading volume jumped by almost 400%, resulting in approximately $4 million in sales.

According to a research by Chainplay, 3 in 4 investors join crypto because to GameFi.

According to a research provided by Chainplay, three-quarters of GameFi investors are anticipating a speedy payoff. Only 18% of the 2,428 investors who participated in the study were interested in the game's gameplay.

The participants reported losing over fifty percent of their earnings in the previous six months while attempting to profit from the GameFi business. Their losses were primarily attributable to bad game economy design and worsening market conditions.

Research Emphasis

Daily Bitcoin exchange outflows exceed $1B, whilst Ethereum sees net inflows.

CoincryptoUS studied the Bitcoin and Ethereum trade flows to determine the assets' divergent behavior.

As daily outflows from exchanges reach $1 billion, investors have become increasingly optimistic about Bitcoin.

In contrast, Ethereum has witnessed little inflows as speculative investors keep their holdings on exchanges to facilitate a quicker sale following the Merge's conclusion.

According to data, Bitcoin whales are liquidating their holdings en masse.

According to Glassnode data collected by CryptoSlate, the Bitcoin accumulation trend score between April 2020 and August 2022 has neared zero, indicating that BTC whales are selling their holdings.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, shrimp's Bitcoin accumulation data indicates that despite the fact that small-sized BTC holders have lowered their purchasing rate, they continue to accumulate more than whales who have ceased accumulating altogether.

The latest news from the CryptoVerse.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is scheduled to debut its payment system in 2023.

The Wall Street Journal stated that FedNow, a payment system that the U.S. Federal Reserve has been developing for almost seven years, will launch in 2023.

The payment system will upgrade the Federal Reserve's outdated railways and offer near-instant global payments. It will also reduce expenses and increase the efficiency of the United States' financial system.

The CEO of Ava Labs views the CryptoLeaks article to be "conspiracy theory garbage"

Recent recordings produced by CryptoLeaks allege that Ava Labs had an agreement with the law firm Roche Freedom to get legal services in exchange for AVAX tokens and Ava Labs shares. The videos further claimed that the law firm and Ava Labs would use "litigation as a tactic" to disrupt competitors and mislead regulators.

The CEO of Ava Labs, Emin Gun Sirer, responded to the claims by tweeting that the report was "conspiracy theory trash." He asserted that AVA Labs would never engage in illegal or unethical conduct as depicted in the film.

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Bored Ape Yacht Club, which will be launched in April 2021, will have 10,000 distinct NFT digital collectable ape avatars. The initiative, like other NFTs, suffered in its first month, earning only $37,557 in revenue. There were 141 distinct purchasers and a total of 176 transactions. The average sale price was $213.39, which was significantly less than the cost of one ETH.

May 2021 was one of the finest months in Ether trading history, the innovative asset at the heart of the Ethereum ecosystem. The usage of ETH as the base currency for NFT transactions caused the coin to hit an all-time high of $4,362 during the month, according to CoinMarketCap statistics.

Bored Ape NFT sales benefited greatly from the tremendous liquidity poured into the market, and volume reached around $17 million, representing a 45,463.5% rise in 31 days. From April to May, the number of unique purchasers and total transactions increased by 2,417.73% and 5,158.52%, respectively.

BAYC sales hit a new high in August 2021, as the market recovered from a negative trend that began with the delisting of Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment mechanism for Tesla items and was followed by China's ongoing crackdown on the crypto finance industry in May.

BAYC generated around $299 million over the time. Despite the fact that there were 1,880 fewer unique purchasers and 3,506 total transactions, the average sale price increased to $85,288. The average sale price increased by 551% from $13,091 in July.

Other months that contributed significantly to BAYC's all-time sales included September and November of 2021.

In 2022, Bored Ape Yacht Club maintains acceptable monthly sales.

In 2022, Bored Apes was instrumental in the introduction of the project's native asset, APE, as well as the Otherside Metaverse.

Bears grabbed control of the market after Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and many cryptocurrencies achieved fresh all-time highs in November 2021.

As a result, worldwide NFT sales fell from $2.82 billion in November to $2.74 billion in December. This had a significant impact on BAYC, with sales falling to a two-month low by the end of 2021.

In January 2022, the whole NFT market achieved an annual high of $4.6 billion in sales, with over one million unique buyers and over 800,000 transactions.

Bored Ape NFTs contributed 7% ($346 million) of this total.

NFT sales have been declining since the end of January, and BAYC has not been immune.

Monthly sales have been consistently declining, resulting in volumes of less than $60 million in July. As of August 28, sales were about $52.7 million. With a significant drop in the number of unique purchasers and transactions, August sales are unlikely to exceed $60 million.

In terms of all-time NFT sales, CryptoPunks trails Bored Ape.

For a long time, CryptoPunks was second only to Axie Infinity in terms of sales. After reaching $2.4 billion in total purchases, Bored Ape Yacht Club has surpassed CryptoPunks' revenues of $2.36 billion to take second position.

CryptoPunks, created by Larva Labs and launched in June 2017, consists of a fixed set of 10,000 characters and is one of the space's oldest NFT collections.

As a pioneer NFT, CryptoPunks did not see a minimum of $1 million in monthly sales until September 2020, when revenues totaled $2.96 million.

With just 292 unique purchasers and 2,079 total transactions in the first 39 months of its existence, the digital collectibles initiative ultimately saw 292 unique buyers and 2,079 total transactions. In September 2020, the average sale price surpassed $1,000 for the first time, finally settling at $1,424.

CryptoPunks sales increased dramatically in 2021, with a low volume of $6 million and a maximum volume that reflects its all-time monthly high of around $679 million. From September 2020 to September 2021, there was a 316% increase in unique purchasers, a 21% increase in total transactions, and an 18,741% increase in average sale value.

Other months that contributed significantly to sales in 2021 were July, September, October, and December.

CryptoPunks reached an annual high of $124 million in January, following the increasing sales of NFTs.

Monthly sales have been below $100 million since January 2022. CryptoPunks has had less than $50 million in volume over the previous four months (May to August).

A large fall in the number of unique purchasers has resulted in a further decrease in total transactions and average sale value.

While the number of unique purchasers each month has stayed below 300, total sales have not topped 600 since December of 2021.

The project's purchase by Yuga Labs in March was anticipated to benefit the collection because "acquisition" is a main driver of sales. Unfortunately, it has done little to improve the NFT's prospects.

Aside from that, market saturation (an increase in the number of NFT initiatives in the sector) might explain the dramatic drop in CryptoPunks monthly revenue.

While Bored Ape NFTs have prospered this year because to their popularity and use by celebrities over CryptoPunks, their selling was boosted by BAYC being a primary eligibility criterion for the airdrops of ApeCoin as well as property deeds (Otherdeeds) from inventor Yuga Labs' Otherside Metaverse.

Overall, they contributed significantly to BAYC's above-average monthly sales during the May market meltdown, which intensified in June and persisted into July and August.

The number of tokens deposited or withdrawn into or out of an exchange wallet is referred to as exchange flows. Exchange Net Position Change is a prominent on-chain statistic for assessing this.

Exchange inflows are often regarded as negative since the major purpose for transferring tokens to an exchange is to sell the token. In contrast, exchange outflows are often regarded positive since tokens are typically withdrawn with the intention of retaining for the long term.

The movement of tokens into and out of exchanges may be used to identify whether investors are bearish or bullish.

Changes in the Bitcoin Exchange's Net Position

Following severe price losses caused by the Terra controversy and subsequent industry-wide de-leveraging, Bitcoin reached a low of $17,600 on June 18. The figure below depicts persistent exchange BTC outflows since the bottom, with daily outflows above $1 billion on average.

Despite Bitcoin falling to as low as $20,800 on August 19, the exchange outflow rate has grown dramatically in the recent week. This indicates that investors believe there is value in the present price range.

The FTX exchange accounted for more than half of all outflows in the previous week. This event has no evident basic causes. However, "leaked documents" revealed on August 20 that FTX increased its income by almost 1,000%, from $90 million in 2020 to $1 billion in 2021.

Further examination of FTX's BTC reserves reveals a considerable decrease in holdings. The business had around 120,000 BTC in March. However, this has now plummeted to just 13,000 tokens, with the period from June showing the steepest reduction, resulting to a gradual drop of BTC held.

Change in the Net Position of the Ethereum Exchange

In comparison, Ethereum's Net Position Change reveals that, despite large outflows beginning in mid-March, the quantity of tokens leaving exchanges has reverted to around zero.

This is a bad indication, especially when the Merge is approaching. It suggests that investors believe the switch to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) is a case of "buy the rumor, sell the news."

The divergence in activity between Bitcoin and Ethereum may imply that investors see BTC, rather than ETH, as the long-term hedge against macroeconomic risks such as inflation or escalation of geopolitical tensions.

Self-identity preservation, safe enjoyment, and sustainable prosperity are the three primary values of metaverse participants.

The MSIT established eight guiding principles for metaverse participation: authenticity, autonomy, reciprocity, respect for privacy, justice, data protection, inclusivity, and responsibility.

To guarantee that the principles can be applied to metaverse use cases, the MSIT wants to collect comments from relevant departments, experts, and industries by the end of 2022 in order to finish the document.

The MSIT also addressed rising issues surrounding how people engage online, such as copyright, protection of minors, and personal data.

The MSIT also seeks to establish regulations for data privacy, social and economic equality, identity management, and freedom of creative expression, as it deems these to be legitimate ethical issues in the metaverse.

New Deal Plus

The nation unveiled in July the Digital New Deal (New Deal 2.0) plan, under which it will invest 9 trillion won to promote a "world-class metaverse ecosystem."

The funds will be used to construct a Metaverse Academy to teach and equip developers and creators with technical and creative abilities, as well as Metaverse Labs to accelerate the development and commercialization of technologies relevant to the metaverse.

In addition, the government intends to utilize the funds to fund startups in an effort to raise the number of enterprises specializing in the metaverse from 21 in 2019 to 56 in 2022 and 150 in 2025 by supporting the development of fundamental technologies and content production.

It also intends to construct a "open Metaverse platform" driven by data and writing tools that would enable anybody to generate content and contribute.

South Korea and the virtual world

Creating a set of ethical rules for the metaverse is part of South Korea's continuous quest to become a leader in the crypto business. In January, the ministry launched a five-year strategy to make the metaverse industry the fifth largest in the world by 2026.

The ministry listed four primary metaverse strategies in this strategy. The first method entails developing metaverse platforms to permit virtual access to public services, while the second option entails cultivating experts in the metaverse.

The third and fourth tactics strive to promote businesses and establish metaverse ethical norms and rules, respectively.

According to court records, Celsius anticipates a negative net cash flow of $137.21 million for the three-month period ending in October.

Huge operating expenses, totaling $85.37 million for the period, are the primary cause of negative cash flow. The lender has allocated around $13.95 million of the $85.37 million to staff compensation through October. Additional $57.27 billion is allocated for mining-related hosting charges.

In addition, the data revealed that Celsius anticipates spending around $33.48 million on reorganization activities by the end of October.

According to the records, the lender's liquidity by the end of August is anticipated to be approximately $66.39 million due to the decreased cash flow. After falling to $11.05 million in September, the figure is projected to reach a minus $33.92 million by the end of October.

In addition to the budget projection, Celsius also submitted a coin report listing its crypto holdings and liabilities. According to the document, as of July 29, Celsius users have deposited 100,669 Bitcoin (BTC). At the end of July, the lender only owned 14,578 BTCs, which were worth approximately $348 million at current values.

The paper revealed that the lender's entire Bitcoin obligations amount to 104,962 Bitcoins, valued at almost $2.5 billion. Celsius also owns Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) worth $557 million as of July 29.

Similarly, Celsius' entire Ethereum (ETH) liabilities equal to 1,045,291 ETH, which at current rates is equivalent to around $1.78 billion. At the end of July, however, the corporation possessed less than half as many Ethereum, which, at current rates, was worth almost $713 million. According to the statement, Celsius changed 410,514 Ethereum tokens to Lido staked Ethereum (stETH); as of July 29, the value of its stETH holdings was approximately $683 million.

At the time of writing, both wBTC and stETH were trading at a little discount compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum, respectively.

Additionally, Celsius has a deficit in USD Coin (USDC) holdings. The document revealed that the lender owes $944.84 million worth of USDC tokens but only held $278.75 million worth of USDC on July 29.

However, the lender has a substantial surplus of CEL tokens, with only $323 million in liabilities and $761 million in assets.

At the end of July, the lender's total token liabilities were $6.67 billion while its digital assets were only $3.82 billion. This left Celsius with a total deficit of $2.84 billion.

The document known as a Pre-Registration Undertaking is recognized in all Canadian jurisdictions and demonstrates Crypto.com's compliance with legislation established by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) and the Quebec Financial Markets Authority (AMF).

On February 18, 2021, Crypto.com registered as a money services business with FINTRAC.

It recently teamed with the Canadian e-commerce firm Shopify to integrate Crypto.com Pay as a payment option for any of Shopify's one million merchants worldwide.

CEO affirms that Exchange is committed to compliance.

Crypto.com Compliance is a core of the organization, according to the CEO, and the North American market, particularly Canada, has considerable crypto development potential. He stated that the organization is dedicated to collaborating with the OSC and the Canadian Securities Administrators to deliver a secure and reliable platform. It is the only worldwide crypto corporation authorized to operate in all jurisdictions, including Quebec.

Following layoffs in early June, when the crypto bear market was in full stride, Crypto.com received preliminary authorisation from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to operate as a virtual asset service provider, despite the city-tightening state's regulations on retail trading. In March 2022, the exchange became a member of the Blockchain Association of Singapore.

In addition, registrations were obtained in the Cayman Islands, South Korea, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy.

Crypto.com is criticized for its dangerous advertising

Crypto.com has chosen the sports industry as its promotional platform. Recently, it recruited LeBron James for a Super Bowl advertisement. It became the title sponsor for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Matt Damon appeared in the infamous "Fortune Favors the Brave" advertising, which drew criticism during the recent cryptocurrency market decline. In September 2021, Paris Saint-Germain signed a multi-year sponsorship agreement with the exchange.

The January 2022 attack of Crypto.com resulted in the loss of 4,600 ETH and 444 BTC, which the hacker laundered using the recently sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash.

The graph above depicts the cumulative Bitcoin exchange balance, the Bitcoin price, and the exchange balances of both Binance and Coinbase.

Since February, the green line depicting the cumulative exchange balance has been on a severe downward trend. There were around 2,6 million Bitcoins on exchanges at the start of the year. This figure is currently less than 2,4 million, indicating a net outflow of 200,000 Bitcoins.

This suggests that the supply of Bitcoin has been withdrawn from exchanges, indicating a long-term positive holding tendency.

Coinbase

Coinbase's total balance has followed the similar pattern. The exchange had approximately 690,000 Bitcoins at the start of the year, but it had dropped below 560,000 in eight months.

The above graph depicts the movement of currencies on Coinbase. The red lines represent Bitcoins leaving the exchange, and the green lines represent entering balances. Since the beginning of the year, Coinbase has seen a significant quantity of Bitcoin removed. Furthermore, the sums taken out more than doubled twice between March and May, and again in July.

The fact that US institutions favor Coinbase may have influenced these transactions. In a down market, institutions are more likely to buy and keep, which may have prompted them to withdraw their Bitcoins from Coinbase.

Binance

Despite being trapped in the same downturn at the start of the year, Binance finished up with more Bitcoins than in January. The exchange began the year with 586,000 Bitcoins, dipped below 560,000 until May, and concluded the year with 623,000 Bitcoins.

The figure above depicts the decline in Bitcoin reserves between February and May, which subsequently reverses.

Binance and Coinbase are in a bear market.

According to recent headlines, Binance and Coinbase are treating the winter market differently. While Binance is unfazed by the severe winter circumstances and continues to prioritize its consumers, Coinbase is dealing with layoffs, litigation, and bankruptcy rumors.

Binance

Binance U.S. was valued at $4.5 billion in a seed investment round before the coldest winter in crypto history began, and the exchange made the first step toward growing in Abu Dhabi. Binance kept investing and hiring even after the winter arrived. Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, even stated that the firm is in a very affluent position and would begin purchasing other companies soon.

Coinbase

Coinbase, on the other hand, has been dealing with the bankruptcy language in its quarterly report since just before the winter season began. Soon after, Coinbase users reported that they had lost their Wormhole Lunas when attempting to transmit them to the exchange, which Coinbase declined to assist with at the time. The exchange was then sued by its customers as well as Craig Wright. In addition to dealing with them, the SEC has opened an inquiry into Coinbase's staking program.

Meanwhile, due to market conditions, the exchange unhired fresh candidates and lay off 1,100 staff following a petition against executives. Finally, according to Goldman Sachs, Coinbase's income might drop by 61% owing to the cold weather, and the firm may need to lay off additional employees to stay afloat.

However, this decision will have no effect on the Skynet platform, which will continue to operate, and on which all user files will stay.

"Skynet will have to continue without Skynet Labs and many of the incredible individuals who have dedicated their lives to creating a better future for users and user data."

Skynet is a decentralized app hosting and storage platform designed for the development of the decentralized internet.

In 2020, the business formerly known as Nebulous raised $3 million in a fundraising round. Other initiatives, like as Filecoin, Storj, and Arweave, have developed with more financial strength.

Skynet Labs will continue to function for 12 weeks after the announcement, during which time the firm will focus on providing a smooth transfer to the Skynet Community.

David Vorick, the business's chief executive officer, stated that the company has already laid off half of its employees and would lay off the remaining half within the next month.

However, it will ensure that all relevant tasks are completed prior to the company's closure. According to him, the objective is to "make the transition to an environment post-Skynet-Labs as seamless as feasible."

If everything went as planned, he continued, the company's customers would not notice the change.

Meanwhile, the CEO attributes the shutdown on the company's multitasking, which made it difficult to develop a single product thoroughly.

In addition, he stated that Skynet, although having a good technology, was never adopted by the crypto community in comparison to competitors such as Arweave (AR) and IPFS.

"We developed a platform with millions of monthly active users, but the majority of these people were not crypto enthusiasts and, as a result, did not readily contribute to a fundraising story."

In addition, he stated that the team expanded too rapidly based on the premise that the user base would generate more revenue.

Nonetheless, numerous Skynet Labs team members will continue to support and work on the project. The Sia Foundation and the Skynet ecosystem will continue to function normally.

In a statement issued on August 12, India's Enforcement Directorate (ED) announced that it is investigating Vauld (Flipvolt Technologies) and Yellow Tune Technologies for allegedly facilitating illicit payments via the cryptocurrency exchange.

According to the regulator, 23 ED-investigated organizations placed 3.70 billion rupees into Yellow Tune's cryptocurrency wallet, which was then transmitted to overseas wallet addresses without following proper procedures or filing suspicious transaction reports (STRs).

The assertion confirmed:

Yellow tune, with the aid of the Flipvolt Crypto-Exchange, which has very lax KYC norms, no EDD mechanism, no check on the source of funds of the depositor, no mechanism of raising STRs, etc., assisted the accused fintech companies in avoiding regular Banking channels, and took out all the fraud funds in the form of crypto assets with ease.

The Indian Authority accused the exchange of treating the situation with indifference. It failed to give the authorities with KYC credentials for the wallets and was unable to account for Yellow Tune's cryptocurrency transactions.

It has made no genuine attempts to track down these digital assets. By fostering anonymity and having inadequate AML regulations, it actively supported M/s Yellow Tune in laundering Rs 370 Crore worth of criminal profits via the cryptocurrency channel. 

Therefore, the Vauld-owned Indian exchange will forfeit the laundered funds unless it produces a full response against the accusations.

The Enforcement Directorate of India has spoken out against money laundering.

Earlier, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of India initiated an inquiry into the actions and compliance of non-banking financial firms (NBCFs) with Reserve Bank of India regulations.

The inquiry report revealed that several insolvent fintech firms laundered their earnings using cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency exchanges implicated in the investigation reportedly failed to do due diligence prior to assisting the companies in sending the monies to overseas wallets.

The Economic Times of India reports that the ED is investigating about ten cryptocurrency exchanges for aiding the laundering of more than 130 million dollars.

As a result, the ED raided Wazirx's region on August 5 to freeze around $8 million belonging to the exchange. WazirX is rumored to have assisted in the conversion of Indian rupees to cryptocurrency before sending the monies to overseas accounts via Binance.

SOPR and its significance in market analysis

The Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) is a useful statistic for gauging market mood. The measure, as the name implies, compares the value of outputs when they were spent to when they were generated. The measure displays the percentage of realized profit for all coins traded on-chain in a certain time window.

When SOPR surpasses one, the coins in question are profitable. When the ratio is less than one, the coins are losing money. A SOPR ratio of one is known as a SOPR reset, and it is frequently used to signify the beginning or conclusion of a mid-term cycle. The SOPR reset may also serve as support or resistance in bull markets.

While the measure is a simple and easy-to-understand signal, it may be further customized to provide a much more complicated market picture.

For example, aSOPR is used to filter transactions to exclude any "in-house" activity (e.g., transactions between addresses belonging to the same owner), which produces stronger market signals than raw-data SOPR. The SOPR and aSOPR metrics may be further classified as long-term and short-term holders.

SOPR for Bitcoin

Bitcoin's 7-day MA SOPR has been attempting to break above 1 for the first time since May. Bitcoin's SOPR reached one at the end of July and has been retesting it during the first week of August.

When Bitcoin reached a SOPR of one and failed to break resistance, its price rose briefly. Attempts to break through the SOPR resistance have almost invariably coincided with bear market rallies, often known as dead cat bounces.

And, while Bitcoin's failed attempts to break past the barrier may appear negative, the prognosis remains optimistic. Historically, SOPR has always required multiple efforts to break above 1. The harder it battled to break past the ratio of one, the more assistance it received later on.

SOPR on Ethereum

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum managed to breach the SOPR of 1 on the first try. As of August, Ethereum appears to have found support at 1, with Glassnode statistics indicating that it swiftly rebounded from its previous decline. The growing SOPR of Ethereum is a direct outcome of ETH's rising price, which has defied the overall market trend that has kept most currencies in the negative.

However, although Bitcoin has retested its resistance, Ethereum has retested its support, indicating that the two may be heading in separate directions. Historically, for the spent output profit ratio to operate as strong support, it required to pass through resistance numerous times.

As previously reported by CryptoSlate, Ethereum's market-beating rise is primarily due to anticipation about the forthcoming Merge. This is reflected in a large spike in futures trading, which increased Ethereum's open interest to $6.4 billion – $1.4 billion higher than Bitcoin's open interest. The surge in futures trading contrasts with the network's diminishing user activity, as seen by falling gas fees.

This level of speculation jeopardizes the stability of Ethereum's SOPR. Any decline in the price of Ethereum would undoubtedly damage the ratio, pushing it below 1. If it drops abruptly, Ethereum's SOPR may face stiff resistance if it tries to break above the level again.

The issue has been found and reverted. If you have approved any contracts on Curve in the past few hours, please revoke immediately. Please use https://t.co/6ZFhcToWoJ for now until the propagation for https://t.co/vOeMYOTq0l reverts to normal

— Curve Finance (@CurveFinance) August 9, 2022

Curve resolves the problem within hours.

Curve Finance declared a few hours ago that fixes had been deployed and that the site was now safe to use. The team quickly identified the problem and advised customers to use curve.exchange rather than curve.fi.

The researchers did not know how the exploit became available in the first place, and that it was most likely iwantmyname that was hacked in the first place.

An examination of the attack reveals that if a transaction was permitted to spend any asset, the money may be manually drained into a hostile externally owned account (EOA).

A total of $570,000 had been taken. Others have also responded promptly on the issue, limiting the harm to the first thefts. 112 ETH of the stolen cash were frozen by FixedFloat.

🚨 Looks like the https://t.co/2IX35AwXBI DNS has been hijacked. Don't make any new approvals or transactions there until official resolution from @CurveFinance proper

— foobar (@0xfoobar) August 9, 2022

This year has seen multiple attacks on the DeFi market, demonstrating that attackers would go to any length to hack the most popular platforms. Bridge assaults, in particular, have grown in popularity with attackers, with numerous occurring in 2022.

Over $620 million was taken in the Ronin Bridge hack earlier this year, and the service was only recently reactivated, forcing the Axie Infinity creator to repay victims. Recently, the Nomad Bridge was the target of an assault in which hackers stole approximately $200 million.

According to a Certik assessment, the majority of these assaults were caused by centralization difficulties. While hackers can have a significant influence on projects and their image, they are not always permanent failures. Following an attack or hack, several DeFi projects have successfully returned.

Related video

On August 10, security firm PeckShield announced that Blur Finance engineers had stolen over $600,000 from their Polygon and BNB Chain contracts.

#PeckShieldAlert #rugpull Seems Blur Finance $BLR rugged. $BLR has dropped -99%. https://t.co/phmi0OPIbphttps://t.co/qk5c0UF6fY
The social media channel deleted and ～$600k were taken on polygon and BNBChain.
Thanks @Adam0658 for the intel. pic.twitter.com/e1oHDKkDVa

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 10, 2022

As of press time, the BLR token was trading at $0.00064, down 99% from its 24-hour high of $0.06.

Blur Finance debuted on BNB Chain on July 7 and had 733 holders until the rug was pulled. All of its social media outlets have been deactivated for the time being.

The same concept was used for recent rug pulls.

PeckShield reported an alleged rug grab of over $1 million by Dragoma developers two days ago. The polygon deal apparently lost $420,000 USDT and 880,000 MATIC.

Similarly, Teddy Doge creators made $4.5 million in a soft rug pull on July 25. According to the report, 30 billion TEDDY tokens were exchanged for BNB and BUSD before being paid out via the Binance market.

The project creators would promote vigorously and give large return guarantees in each occurrence of the rug pull. Those that bite the bait are frequently faced with unanticipated losses.

Related video:

According to the article, the corporation will create a new position of executive chairman, which Michael Saylor will assume.

Meanwhile, Phong Le, the company's president and chief financial officer, will succeed Saylor as CEO, and Andrew Kang, the company's remaining president, will become the new CFO.

Bitcoin holdings at MicroStrategy

As of June 30, the business intelligence firm had 129,699 Bitcoins and was worth $1.988 billion.

According to the company, this represents a cumulative impairment loss of $1.989 billion since it began purchasing Bitcoin in 2020. The company indicated that their average cost per bitcoin is around $30,664.

Meanwhile, despite the losses, the corporation has stated that it would continue to hoard its Bitcoins.

Since adopting Bitcoin, MicroStrategy's stock has outpaced the Nasdaq, Gold, Silver, and even the stock performance of some of the largest technology firms, like Google, Meta, Netflix, Microsoft, and others.

Michael Saylor will be appointed as the next executive chairman.

During the results call, Michael Saylor announced his resignation as CEO of MicroStrategy.

Saylor said that in his new capacity, he will be able to focus on acquiring more cryptocurrencies for the organization. Saylor stated:

"As Executive Chairman, I will be able to devote more time to our bitcoin acquisition strategy and associated bitcoin advocacy projects, while Phong will be given the authority to handle broad business operations."

MicroStrategy shares are being shorted.

According to Bloomberg News, short holdings in Microstrategy shares have lately increased.

According to the research, 51% of MicroStrategy's available shares are sold short, valued at $1.4 billion.

According to the research, short positions increased by 680,000 shares in the past seven days and by 1.2 million shares in the last 30 days.

Today, August 3, there is some relief as buyers provide a 3% upward swing. BTC was trading around $23,300 as of press time, while the rest of the market was trading flat with a little positive tilt.

According to Bloomberg News, recent crypto price activity was influenced by rising tensions between the United States and China over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's travel to Taiwan.

The Chinese government had told Pelosi to abandon the trip weeks earlier. However, the House Speaker arrived in Taiwan on August 2, escalating geopolitical tensions.

Bitcoin falls short of the $25,000 mark.

Investors fled equities and US share futures as tensions between the two countries grew. Bitcoin also saw a modest sell-off, falling 3% on the day before finishing at $22,900.

BTC has been heading upwards since July 13, after hitting a local low of $18,900. This run crested just short of $25,000 over the weekend, as tensions between the United States and China rose in response to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. According to Bloomberg, this is Bitcoin's strongest run since October 2021.

As usual, technical experts are divided on what will happen next. BTC closed (marginally) above the 200-day moving average for the first time in five weeks, according to Michael van de Poppe. A long-term uptrend is defined as an asset trading above the 200-day moving average.

For the first time in 5 weeks, $BTC has managed to close above the 200MA again!

We discussed our opinion on the current situation in today's Trade Letter.

By signing up, you'll receive the next 3 Trade Letters for free! Subscribe at: https://t.co/QPrjTMZzNq#tradeletter pic.twitter.com/MIRSM74LhR

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) August 1, 2022

Whereas JoeChampion believes a head and shoulders pattern is forming, which will cause the price to fall more in the short term. He did, however, refrain from predicting a bottom.

US-China relations are rising.

Taiwan is regarded by the Chinese Communist Party as a breakaway country that will one day be reintegrated into the Chinese mainland.

According to ZeroHedge, a phone chat between President Xi and President Biden in the run-up to Pelosi's visit concluded with Xi implying penalties if Pelosi followed forward with her travel to Taiwan.

"Public opinion cannot be ignored." Those who dabble with fire will burn."

In a news conference after landing in Taiwan, House Speaker Paul Ryan claimed it was "unequivocally obvious" from the outset that the US would not "abandon" Taiwan.

"America made a vow 43 years ago to always stand with Taiwan... Today, our group arrived in Taiwan to make it quite clear that we would not forsake our commitment to Taiwan."

In reaction, China has sanctioned Taiwan, prohibiting the export of natural sand and some food goods such as fish and fruits. Natural sand is used in the production of semiconductors.

Military drills with live fire will begin on August 4 near the Taiwan Strait, with some exercises taking place fewer than ten miles from the Taiwanese coast.