Crypto News:
Funding
- • White House Releases Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto Assets Report: PoW Mining Could Help the US Reach their Target Emissions Goals - Whitehouse website
Industry News
- • The Fed, the Merge and $22K BTC — 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week - CoinTelegraph
- • Starbucks to Offer NFT-Based Loyalty Program Using Polygon's Blockchain Technology - CoinDesk
- • Ethereum’s Bellatrix Upgrade Is Live! - Blockworks
Funding News
- • VCs Funded $500M in Crypto Startups Last Week: More Than Half Went to Metaverse and Web3 Gaming - Blockworks
Market Updates:
- • The Algorand Foundation has revealed a $35 million USDC hole in its balance sheet as a result of exposure to embattled cryptocurrency lending firm, Hodlnaut.
- • The upcoming Office of Crypto Assets will review crypto filings, allowing DRP to refocus on filing review issues related to crypto assets.
- • Buying the dip is essential for MicroStrategy as the company’s reserve of nearly 129,699 BTC currently suffers an aggregated value loss of over $1 billion.
- • The FBI, along with two other federal agencies, CISA and MS-ISAC, asked U.S. citizens to report information that helps track the whereabouts of the hackers.
Key News:
- • The Merge is expected to take place on Thursday, September 15th at around 02:30 AM UTC.
- • Nearcon is taking place in Lisbon this week and has gotten fairly low attention due to the Merge, but announcements there will certainly impact markets.
- • Voting for a new Head Chef at Sushiswap will conclude today and seems poised to pass.
- • Volatility due to the upcoming hard fork is anticipated in markets this week, leading to lower realized volumes across platforms over the past few days.
Overview:
This promises to be an exciting week, with the Merge just around the corner. The market was a bit choppy through the weekend, with both BTC and ETH showing around 60% vol.
The late-week rally in equities was good for BTC, which saw a quick move from C$25,000 to C$28,500. Recently, BTC has been more correlated with equities than ETH has. As of now, the Merge is expected to take place on Thursday, September 15th at around 02:30 AM UTC; as time passes, that timing should become more certain. An open question remains, however: at what point will it be clear if the Merge is successful? The heuristic should be finality, which should occur after 2 epochs, around 13 minutes. We’re looking to see at least two-thirds of the validators come to a consensus on the POS chain, which should occur quickly based on testnet updates.
All eyes are on ETH this week, but we’re also watching NEAR. Nearcon is taking place in Lisbon this week and has gotten fairly low attention due to the Merge, but we should see some headlines.
On the DeFi governance front, voting for a new “Head Chef” at Sushiswap will conclude today and seems poised to pass. We’re also watching the debate on Maker forums about whether to keep funds in USDC, which has implications for DAI and centralized stablecoins, not to mention the potential impact it could have on ETH.
Weekly Snapshot:
BTC Technical Analysis:
BITCOIN was trading in a ‘Rising Channel Pattern’ and after facing stiff resistance at the upper trendline of the pattern it witnessed a sharp correction and broke the pattern on the downside reaching a low of C$24,511. Though BTC gave a breakout on the downside, it did not test the previous bottom of C$22,950 and reversed from C$24,511. The asset showed signs of recovery and rallied up to the C$29k mark. BTC is facing strong resistance around C$29,000 (Upsloping Trendline of the Rising Channel’.
KEY LEVELS:
Disclaimer: This content is not intended to provide investment, legal, accounting, tax or any other advice and should not be relied on in that or any other regard. The information contained herein is for information purposes only and is not to be construed as an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of cryptocurrencies or otherwise.