crypto bear market

Just 8% of Americans have a positive view of crypto: CNBC survey

CNBC’s All-America Economic Survey was conducted toward the end of November, just a few weeks after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

A new CNBC survey suggests that only 8% of Americans have a favorable view of cryptocurrency as of the end of November, down significantly from the 19% recorded in March.

CNBC’s All-America Economic Survey was conducted between Nov. 26 and Nov. 30. It, however, should be taken with a grain of salt as, despite its name, it had a relatively small sample size of 800 respondents across the U.S. in total, with a margin error of +/- 3.5%.

The survey was published on Dec. 7, and alongside the declining number of crypto-friendly respondents, CNBC highlighted that the number of haters (those with negative crypto views) has grown rapidly, increasing from 25% in March to 43% by November.

CNBC suggested the results indicate a “dramatic fall for an investment that was touted as its own asset class and had a celebrated coming-out party on the global stage with multiple Super Bowl ads and celebrity endorsements:”

“That popularity attracted many ordinary Americans to crypto and the survey shows 24% of the public invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency in the past, up from 16% in March.”

The survey also indicated that a fair amount of crypto investors are turning sour on the asset class,too, as 42% of such respondents indicated to have a “somewhat or very negative view” of crypto.

“According to the survey, 42% of crypto investors now have a somewhat or very negative view of the asset, in line with the 43% result for all adults in the survey. The main difference: 17% of crypto investors are ‘very negative’ compared with 47% for non-crypto investors,” CNBC notes.

While the survey did not postulate what caused the negative sentiment between March and November, recent events in the crypto industry are likely to have played a part.

In May, Do Kwon’s brainchild U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) imploded, wiping $44 billion out of the market. In July, crypto lender Celsius — among a handful of others — went bankrupt and locked up an inordinate amount of customer funds.

November saw the biggest shock this year, with FTX, the third-largest crypto exchange, by trading volumes filing for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, wiping billions out of the market again and locking up customer funds.

Speaking at the CNBC Financial Advisor Summit this week, Brian Brook, the CEO of crypto exchange Bitfury emphasized that crypto is “90% retail market, which means the sentiment of mom-and-pop investors really matters:”

“And so when you read FTX stories on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, literally every day for the last 30 days…what it does is for relative new entrants, they get scared.”

“And so as a result, liquidity is thinner than it would have been and people’s willingness to invest is lower,” he added. 

Related: Vitalik Buterin on the crypto blues: Focus on the tech, not the price

That being said, it’s not all doom and gloom, at least when it comes to institutional investors.

According to a Coinbase-sponsored survey released on Nov. 22 and conducted between Sep. 21 and Oct. 27, it had found that 62% of institutional investors invested in crypto had increased their allocations over the past 12 months.

This week, Crypto exchange Bitstamp also claimed that institutional registrations within its digital asset trading platform were up 57% in November, despite FTX dominating the headlines all month.

Sharp Bitcoin price move expected as volatility hangs at record lows and sellers are ‘exhausted’

Bitcoin price has been range-bound for 126 days, but analysts say an explosive move is imminent.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) lack of volatility has been the dominant discussion point among traders for the past two weeks and the current sideways trading within the $18,000 to $25,000 range has been in effect for 126 days. A majority of traders agree that a significant price move is imminent, but exactly what are they basing this thesis on? 

Let’s take a look at three data points that predict a spike in Bitcoin volatility.

Muted volatility and seller exhaustion

According to Glassnode research, the “Bitcoin market is primed for volatility,” with on- and off-chain data flashing multiple signals. The researchers note that on-week realized volatility has fallen to 28%, a level that is typically followed by a sharp price move.

Bitcoin 1-week realized volatility. Source: glassnode

Exploration of Bitcoin’s aSOPR, a metric that “measures an average realized profit/loss multiple for spent coins on any given day,” shows:

“A large divergence is currently forming between price action, and the aSOPR metric. As prices trade sideways or decline, the magnitude of losses that being locked in are diminishing, indicating an exhaustion of sellers within the current price range.”

Bitcoin adjusted SOPR. Source: Glassnode

In addition to the divergence between the price and the adjusted SOPR, short-term Bitcoin holders are approaching their breakeven level as the short-term holder SOPR approaches 1.0.

This is significant because a reading of 1.0 during a bear market has historically functioned as a level of resistance and there is a tendency for traders to exit their positions near breakeven.

If the aSPOR were to crest above 1.0 and turn the level to support, it could be an early sign of a fledgling trend change within the market.

Bitcoin short term holder SOPR. Source: Glassnode

Trading indicators are also at pivot points

Multiple technical analysis indicators are also flashing a signal that a strong directional move is in the cards, a point noted by independent market analyst Big Smokey.

According to the analyst:

Crypto research firm Delphi Digital recently issued a similar perspective, citing “compression” within the Guppy Multiple Moving Average as a sign of “shorter-term momentum and the potential for a rally as this cohort attempts to flip the longer-term moving averages.”

On Oct. 10, Delphi Digital researchers referenced the Bollinger Band Width Percentile (BBWP) metric and suggested the possibility of “a big move brewing for BTC.” The researchers explained that “Historically, BBWP readings above 90 or below 5 have marked major swing points.”

BTC price and Bollinger Band Width Percentile. Source: Delphi Digital

Related: Bitcoin mirrors 2020 pre-breakout, but analysts at odds whether this time is different

The state of Bitcoin derivatives

Crypto derivatives markets are also flashing multiple signals. Bitcoin futures open interest has reached an all-time high of 633,000 contracts, while trading volumes have plummeted to a multi-year low of $24 billion daily. Glassnode notes that these levels were “last seen in December 2020, before the bull cycle had broken through the 2017 cycle $20K ATH.”

Bitcoin futures open interest. Source: glassnode

As one would expect during a bear cycle, liquidity, or the amount of money flowing in and out of the market, has declined, reinforcing the reason for believing that an eventual spike in volatility could result in a sharp price move.

While derivatives metrics like futures open interest, long liquidations and coin-margined futures open interest are breaking multi-year records, it’s important to note that neither provides absolute certainty on market directionality. It’s difficult to determine whether a majority of market participants are positioned long or short and most analysts will suggest that the surge in open interest is reflective of hedging strategies that are in play.

One thing that is certain is that on-chain data, derivatives data and basic technical analysis indicators all point toward an impending explosive move in Bitcoin price.

Bitcoin’s current prolonged period of low volatility is somewhat unusual, but reviewing the data presented by Glassnode and Delphi Digital could provide valuable insight into what to expect when certain on-chain metrics hit specific thresholds and this should give investors some ideas on how to position.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

State Street: Institutional investors undeterred by crypto winter

A State Street exec says there is an institutional “belief that the asset class is here to stay” and to expect further product launches from traditional finance firms moving forward.

Institutional investors are unfazed by the current crypto winter and have maintained their interest in blockchain and digital assets, according to megabank State Street.

Speaking with Australian news outlet Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) on Sunday, Irfan Ahmad, the Asia Pacific digital lead for the bank’s crypto unit State Street Digital, emphasized that despite extreme volatility through June and July, the firm’s institutional clients have continued to make moves in the sector:

“During the course of the June, July period where things were really hotting up in terms of activity, we saw institutional clients not necessarily double down, but they weren’t really deterred from placing strategic bets on the asset class itself.”

Three crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from Cosmos Asset Management and 21Shares launched on the Cboe Australia exchange in May, while asset manager Monochrome has recently received approval to launch the country’s first Australian financial services licensed spot crypto ETF in August. 

State Street is the fund administrator for the Cosmos Purpose Bitcoin Access ETF in particular. Ahmad told the SMH that more crypto product launches are coming to Australia in the “very near future” but did not outline any specific names.

“Certainly, our clients, they’ve been speaking to us more pragmatically about how they might be able to launch products, or what our capabilities may be in the future to help them support the launch of those products,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and Australian banking giants such as ANZ and NAB have been primarily focused on stablecoins and traditional asset tokenization rather than crypto investments specifically.

The Commonwealth bank had a short-lived crypto trading service play that was indefinitely halted in May due to regulatory uncertainty.

Overseas, big-name American institutions such as BlackRock have been making serious crypto plays of late. Last month, the $10 trillion asset manager partnered with Coinbase to provide institutional clients direct exposure to crypto and launched a private spot Bitcoin (BTC) trust.

Global investment bank Citigroup in August also hired two key execs, Ryan Rugg and David Cunningham, as part of the firm’s Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) unit, which oversees its institutional crypto offerings.

Related: Australian Treasury consults public on Bitcoin foreign currency tax exclusion

Rugg signed on to be the global head of digital assets for TTS, while Cunningham was onboarded as the director and strategic partner development for digital assets at the firm.

More recently, on Sept. 7, Swiss digital asset banking platform SEBA Bank launched an institutional Ether (ETH) staking service to meet the growing demand for the yield-bearing asset ahead of the Merge.

German crypto bank Nuri with 500K users files for insolvency

Nuri stated that it has been facing a “lasting strain” on its business liquidity in 2022 due to “significant macroeconomic headwinds and the cooling down of public and private capital markets.”

Nuri, a German startup crypto bank with 500,000 customers, filed for insolvency on Tuesday, citing major crypto sell-offs, insolvency of Celsius and other crypto funds earlier this year as a reason for the move. 

The crypto bank said the move will “ensure the safest path forward” for all its customers but also stressed that the insolvency will not affect its services, customer funds, investments or the ability for customers to withdraw their assets from the platform. 

Some customers have reported difficulties withdrawing their assets through Nuri’s mobile app; however, Nuri on Twitter said this has been the result of high traffic and usage and again stressed that “funds are safe.”

Notably, the firm itself doesn’t actually handle customers’ fiat and crypto funds due to a partnership with Solarisbank AG. According to the Solaris Group website, Nuri partnered with the bank and its crypto subsidiary Solaris Digital Assets to outsource banking and crypto custody licensing.

This enabled Nuri to scale its operations and services by utilizing Solaris’ banking and crypto asset infrastructure/licensing. With Solaris not facing any liquidity issues, Nuri is essentially able to carry on its services while the company undergoes restructuring, unlike other firms that have run into the same issues:

“Let us reiterate the most important information for you: All funds in your Nuri accounts are safe due to our partnership with Solarisbank AG. The temporary insolvency proceedings do not affect your deposits, cryptocurrency funds and Nuri Pot investments which have been done with us.”

“You have guaranteed access and will be able to deposit and withdraw all funds freely at any time. For the time being, nothing will change and Nuri’s app, product, and services will continue to run,” Nuri added.

Nuri stated that it has been facing a “lasting strain” on its business liquidity in 2022 due to “significant macroeconomic headwinds and the cooling down of public and private capital markets” such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Additionally, various negative developments in the crypto markets earlier this year, including major cryptocurrency sell-offs, the implosion of the Luna/Terra protocol, the insolvency of Celsius and other major Crypto funds have led to a crypto bear market,” Nuri wrote.

Related: Crypto lending platform Hodlnaut suspends services due to liquidity crisis

Berlin-based Nuri, formerly named Bitwala, was founded in 2015 and offers crypto savings accounts, portfolio investment baskets dubbed Nuri Pots and crypto trading services on which it charges 1% trading fees.

“We are confident that the temporary insolvency proceedings offer the best basis for developing a viable long-term restructuring concept in the company’s current situation,” it added. 

Nuri joins a host of crypto firms that have run into liquidity issues during the bear market of 2022, with the most notable names being Voyager Digital, Celsius and Three Arrows Capital.

Crypto bear market will provide ‘excellent’ M&A opportunities: White Rock CEO

“The sector has been here before and well capitalized and efficient miners will do just fine,” said White Rock CEO Andy Long.

White Rock Management CEO Andy Long believes bear markets “present excellent opportunities” for expansion via mergers and acquisitions in the crypto mining sector.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, the crypto mining company CEO noted that companies who have managed their balance sheets effectively are in “great shape” during this bear market, and will continue to do well even if there’s more volatility to come.

“The bear market has presented challenges for the miners who leveraged up at the top of the market, however, the sector has been here before, and well capitalized and efficient miners will do just fine,” he said.

Long suggested that the current bear trend will provide key merger and acquisition opportunities for such companies, as they will have proven to investors that they can survive extreme market conditions:

“Bear markets actually present excellent opportunities, so we expect to see M&A and consolidation activity in the mining sector involving both public and private players — to realize economies of scale and combine complementary operations.”

“We’ll also see network growth picking up again, not to the level forecasted at the end of the year, but we’ll likely be at least 20% higher by year-end,” he added.

Long also noted that the Texas mining sector has done well despite the ongoing heatwave, pointing out the sector’s effective coordination with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to overcome energy supply issues over the past couple of months:

“There’s a ton of activity in Texas and the mining sector is in great shape. Grid-connected miners are working with ERCOT to provide demand response during challenging weather, and we see continued growth ahead across the state.”

White Rock is a crypto mining firm based out of Switzerland that claims to have around 24 MegaWatts worth of plant capacity installed.

In June, it announced plans to expand its operations to the United States, starting with Texas. As part of the move, White Rock partnered with Natural Gas Onsite Neutralization (NGON) to operate out of its facility which utilizes “environmentally responsible” methods to mine Bitcoin (BTC).

Heat waves

As previously reported on July 11, mining firms such as Riot Blockchain and Core Scientific powered down parts of their Texas mining operations in June to reduce stress on the energy grid following temperatures rising well over 100 degrees.

Both were proactive in easing the pressure on Texas’ energy supply, but another contributing factor was that energy prices had soared amid the heat wave.

Related: Will the Bitcoin mining industry collapse? Analysts explain why crisis is really opportunity

As a result of the move, the firms suffered reduced mining productivity. However, with the price of BTC gaining 14.7% over the past month and temperatures looking set to drop slightly to around the 90-degree Farhenheit mark, there is a feeling that miners will be switching their machines back on as the BTC mining profitability will be too good to ignore.

“The Bitcoin price increase has led to increased profitability for miners and some miners who were pushed offline in June and July have likely plugged in their machines again,” noted Jaran Mellerud, a crypto-mining analyst at a research firm Arcane Crypto, in an interview with Bloomberg on Friday.

The price of Bitcoin is sitting at $23,088 at the time of writing. 

Bloomberg analyst tips bullish BTC recovery in next six months

The price of BTC could be set for a bullish rebound this year, says Bloomberg’s senior commodity strategist Mike McGlon, as the market shows similar signs to the bottom of 2018.

Bloomberg’s senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone is tipping that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) will rebound in the second half (2H) of 2022.

Sharing his thoughts to his 48,100 Twitter followers on Wednesday, McGlone saw positive signs in the data Bloomberg’s Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI) and the 50-week and 100-week moving averages of BTC’s price. He suggested that the current indicators are showing similar signs to the bottom of the bear market in 2018, which preceded a strong rebound in the first half of 2019:

“With the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index nearing a similar drawdown as the 2018 bottom and Bitcoin’s discount to its 50- and 100-week moving averages similar to past foundations, risk vs. reward is tilting toward responsive investors in 2H.”

The BCGI is designed to measure the performance of the largest crypto assets to ascertain a general view of the market’s overall performance. Moving averages pinpoint the average price of an asset over a specific amount of time, such as 50 or 100 days.

Crypto winter in 2018 was a rough time for BTC, as the price plunged down from the $16,000 region in January to a market bottom of around $3,200 by mid-December, according to data from CoinGecko. Following the carnage, however, BTC went on to pump to around $13,000 by late June.

McGlone predicted in a follow-up post that BTC is either on track for “one of the greatest bull markets in history at a relatively discounted price to start 2H” or that data is showing that the crypto market is starting to fail and scare away investors.

“Our bias is [that] Bitcoin adoption is more likely to continue rising,” he said.

McGlone likened the washout in 1H to the “2000-02’s bursting Internet bubble,” which saw many firms tank but also paved the way for top companies like Amazon and eBay to grow.

Weighing over the analysis, however, is the fact the bearish conditions have been in large part in response to the United States Federal Reserve’s hawkish monetary policy and inflation reel-in attempts via a series of interest rate hikes.

In 2022, BTC and the overall crypto market have suffered from several macro factors such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, global regulation and unemployment rates. Meanwhile, crypto projects and companies imploding have turned sentiment even more bearish.

Related: Crypto owners banned from working on US Government crypto policies

On June 5, McGlone noted that if the stock market keeps dropping at a “similar velocity as in 1H,” the latest interest 75 basis point rate hike from the Fed in June could be the last one of the year as the government works to avoid a recession. Such an outcome could result in a bounce across asset classes as investors re-enter the market.


The bottom is in: CNBC’s Jim Cramer says crypto has “no real value”

Mad Money host Jim Cramer has changed his sentiment on crypto again, predicting the total market cap will tank below $1 trillion as “there’s no real value there.”

Given his track record, some in the crypto community believe the market bottom may now be in after CNBC host Jim Cramer said there was “no real value in crypto” and predicted the market would tumble further.

Cramer is known for giving his investment expertise as the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, but has developed a reputation in the crypto community for giving stock and crypto tips that generally end up being wide of the mark, or the complete opposite of his prediction.

His predictions, along with his on-again off-again love-hate relationship with crypto have become a popular meme among the community over the past few years.

Appearing on a segment of CNBC’s Squawk Box on July 5, Cramer was commenting on the bearish performance of various asset classes in 2022. He stated that the current sector he is currently “most interested in” is crypto as he slammed it as essentially being worthless while predicting more carnage ahead.

“Crypto really does seem to be imploding. Went from $3 trillion to $1 trillion. Why should it stop at $1 trillion? There’s no real value there.”

“How many companies can Sam Bankman-Fried save?” he added.

The comments are in stark contrast to just two months earlier when Cramer enthusiastically stated that he was a “believer” in Ethereum, and “you could easily get 35-40%” return on investment in the near future.

This prediction occurred when Ether (ETH) was priced at roughly $3,000, and the price has since dropped 62% since then.

During the segment, Cramer also went after NFTs, as he questioned the amount of money that is being thrown around on such an “awful” asset class:

“NFTs, I mean, you look at these companies that you’ve never heard of and they blew up over the weekend, and you say to yourself, holy cow, there’s $600 million just going down the drain. […] What an awful asset. NFTs sold to you. Made up.”

In response to Cramer’s tips, user accounts such as the “Inverse Cramer ETF” have sprouted up on Twitter which tracks “the stock recommendations of Jim Cramer so you can do the opposite.”

The profile has obtained 62,800 followers so far and has recently observed the stock prices of Ford and Nike dropping 25% and 7% apiece since Cramer recommended buying them.

Cramer first bought Bitcoin (BTC) back in December 2020. During the bear market in June last year, Cramer stated he sold all of his BTC saying the price is “not going up because of structural reasons.” Four months later the price of BTC surged to its ATH of roughly $69,000.

Related: Bitcoin price swings 7.5% during intraday trading as US recession concerns mount

Another notable tip occurred in August 2021, when Cramer suggested buying Coinbase stock COIN as it was “cheap” at roughly $248. At time of writing, COIN is priced at $55.41 according to Yahoo Finance.


The bottom is in: CNBC’s Jim Cramer says crypto has ‘no real value’

“Mad Money” host Jim Cramer has changed his sentiment on crypto again, predicting the total market cap will tank below $1 trillion, as “There’s no real value there.”

Some in the crypto community believe the market bottom may now be in after CNBC host Jim Cramer, given his track record, said there was “no real value in crypto” and predicted the market would tumble further.

Cramer is known for giving his investment expertise as the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” but has developed a reputation in the crypto community for giving stock and crypto tips that generally end up being widely off the mark or the complete opposite of his prediction.

His predictions, along with his on-again-off-again love-hate relationship with crypto, have become a popular meme among the community over the past few years.

Appearing on a segment of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday, Cramer commented on the bearish performance of various asset classes in 2022. He stated that the sector he is currently “most interested in” is crypto as he slammed it as essentially being worthless while predicting more carnage ahead:

“Crypto really does seem to be imploding. Went from $3 trillion to $1 trillion. Why should it stop at $1 trillion? There’s no real value there.”

“How many companies can Sam Bankman-Fried save?” he added.

The comments are in stark contrast to just two months earlier when Cramer enthusiastically stated that he was a “believer” in Ether (ETH) and that “You could easily get 35–40%” return on investment in the near future.

This prediction occurred when ETH was priced at roughly $3,000, and the price has since dropped 62% since then.

During the segment, Cramer also went after nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as he questioned the amount of money that is being thrown around on such an “awful” asset class:

“NFTs. I mean, you look at these companies that you’ve never heard of, and they blew up over the weekend. And you say to yourself, ‘Holy cow, there’s $600 million just going down the drain.’ […] What an awful asset. NFTs sold to you. Made up.”

In response to Cramer’s tips, Twitter accounts such as Inverse Cramer ETF, which tracks “the stock recommendations of Jim Cramer so you can do the opposite,” have sprouted up.

The profile has obtained 62,800 followers so far and recently observed the stock prices of Ford and Nike dropping 25% and 7% apiece, respectively, since Cramer recommended buying them.

Cramer first bought Bitcoin (BTC) back in December 2020. During the bear market in June 2021, Cramer stated he sold all of his BTC, saying the price was “not going up because of structural reasons.” Four months later, the price of BTC surged to its all-time high of roughly $69,000.

Related: Bitcoin price swings 7.5% during intraday trading as US recession concerns mount

Another notable tip occurred in August 2021 when Cramer suggested buying Coinbase stock, as it was “cheap” at roughly $248. At the time of writing, COIN is priced at $55.41, according to Yahoo Finance.


June gloom takes on a new meaning in another 2022 down month

The addresses mainly run by active human traders have notched more than 147,000 addresses for the first time since November.

The market cap of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped another 33% in June, which is now beginning to numb the Twitter community. On the upside, many crypto traders who wanted out did so fairly aggressively from March to May. But, the less optimistic news is that the stagnancy in address activity may need to change for prices to get a running start on recovery.

Unlike April and May, the altcoin pack didn’t struggle tremendously more than Bitcoin. BTC’s 33% drop was pretty middle of the road in terms of corrections. In a vacuum, crypto bulls would prefer seeing altcoins continuing to lag, pushing more traders back toward Bitcoin as a relative “safe haven.”

Nevertheless, June was a tale of two halves. June 1-15 saw a massive 25% further downswing for Bitcoin. Comparatively, June 16-30 was looking up until the very end of the month, which now exhibits an additional 8% slide.

The $20,000 price level has shown to be both psychological support and resistance area. Therefore, a drop below (which could very well occur by the time this article is published) may quickly change traders’ outlook. Panic selling and overly eager buying should occur as soon as the $19,500 to $19,900 range is hit.

Social dominance has returned to Bitcoin and away from altcoins

So far, 2022 has served as a reality check for altcoins whose market caps have ballooned to astronomic levels in the past two years. As mentioned, Bitcoin was nothing special compared to alts in June, but it has held up better than most projects and even a few stablecoins. As a result, the spotlight shines bright on Bitcoin, as evidenced by a healthy community focus.

This phenomenon was reflected in the whole last week of June. Bitcoin was mentioned on Santiment’s social platforms at its highest rate in about four months, while the discussion around other popular assets like Ether (ETH) and Cardano (ADA) continues to diminish.

Trading returns still point to a major undervaluation of Bitcoin and most altcoins

The average 30-day trading returns on the BTC network are still very negative. And, as long they are in the yellow-green or green territory in the below chart, there is less risk in entering a Bitcoin position (or adding on to) than historical results.

Price freefalls tend to reverse if they go into the extreme low (green) territory, and that would be the ideal setup to watch for on Sanbase.

The number of whale addresses is growing rapidly

Another positive note for patient crypto hodlers, regardless of the asset, is that more and more Bitcoin shark and whale addresses are returning to the network. The addresses, mainly run by active human traders, sized 10 to 10,000 BTC, have over 147,000 addresses for the first time since November. Meanwhile, the very top-tier addresses owned primarily by exchanges (10,000 or more) showed over 100 addresses for the first time since December 2020.

And, speaking of supply moving on and off-exchange addresses, the overall trend shows BTC continuing to move away from exchanges after a brief worrisome rise in May. Now, well below 10% of coins sitting on exchanges, there is far less selloff risk (based on historical trends). And, to add to this, the amount of Tether (USDT) moving to exchanges has skyrocketed, implying more buying power at these suppressed prices.

Ethereum seeing far more negativity than any other large-cap asset

Not to be ignored, Ethereum has had a well-documented 76% retracement since its all-time high in November. When looking at the ratio of positive vs. negative commentary being scraped by our social data algorithm, there appears to be a stunning dropoff in positive comments in early June. The 37% price drop between June 9 and 13 was the culprit and the last straw for many traders. As counterintuitive as it may seem, these “last straws” is what the community at Santiment expects to see for the market to stage a comeback.

Cardano is also seeing the equivalent of slowly rolling tumbleweeds around its network. The number of unique addresses interacting on the Cardano network is down to its lowest in about a year. The sentiment is gradually sinking for Cardano as well, which is likely due to a simple absence of discussion more than anything.

Traders heading into the second half with extreme skepticism

It is hard for the trading community to find any excitement in the abysmal price performances that continue to persist month after month in 2022. Yet, price surges happen when the mainstream casts the most doubts. Still, nothing is for certain in a sentiment-driven and often self-perpetuating sector like cryptocurrency. But, the more the crypto community is leaning bearish and proclaiming its crypto winter time, the higher the chance of a recovery underway.

Cointelegraph’s Market Insights Newsletter shares our knowledge on the fundamentals that move the digital asset market. This analysis was prepared by leading analytics provider Santiment, a market intelligence platform that provides on-chain, social media and development information on 2,000+ cryptocurrencies.

Santiment develops hundreds of tools, strategies and indicators to help users better understand cryptocurrency market behavior and identify data-driven investment opportunities.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the post are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product.

Bear market will last until crypto apps are actually useful: Mark Cuban

The billionaire investor said a bigger focus on applications and utility outside of finance would bring more back to the crypto space and possibly reverse the declining market.

Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur known for his role as one of the main investors on the reality television show Shark Tank, said the crypto bear market won’t be over until there’s a better focus on applications with utility.

He also doesn’t think the market has hit “cheap” prices yet.

Cuban has stated in the past around 80% of his non-Shark Tank portfolio was in crypto. Appearing on a June 23 episode of the Bankless Podcast, he was asked how long he believes the current crypto bear market will last:

“It lasts until there’s a catalyst and that catalyst is going to be an application, or we get so low people go ‘fuck it I’ll buy some.’”

He believes a better focus on applications with utility will pull crypto from its slump and with so many apps focused on financial technology or collectibles, the launch of a business focused application would be one of such events that could spark a reversal for markets.

Using the example of a “decentralized version of Quickbooks,” a small business accounting management software, Cuban predicted a rush of users if something like that launched.

Despite analysts predicting that Bitcoin (BTC) as well as many other cryptocurrencies have hit a price bottom, Cuban says “it’s not cheap yet” when analyzing the high market capitalization of some projects:

“You look at the market caps, and you see it’s a billion dollar plus market cap or $6 billion or $8 billion or $40 billion you don’t look at that and go ‘that’s cheap.’ If you remember back to DeFi Summer, these things were selling for less than a penny and their market caps were in the hundreds of millions.”

He adds even with lower market cap cryptos “there’s no utility,” and gives an example of the decentralized exchange (DEX) SushiSwap (SUSHI) token as a “relatively cheap” buy with its $215 million market cap, but added:

“You get paid it if you’re a liquidity provider, but then who’s going to buy it from you? What’s the reason to buy it from you?”

Cuban believes mergers between different protocols and blockchains will eventually see the crypto industry consolidate, as “that’s what happens in every industry.”

“I’d rather get with somebody who says ‘let’s do a roll-up,’” with Cuban saying that he’d support a merge of various blockchains, close others and then move applications and communities over to just one and offer a token exchange or bridge from the closing blockchains to port users over:

“Now all of a sudden your user base is 10x, you still have a problem of better applications, you still have to have some reason people want to use that blockchain but at least you may be able to have a better community to come up with ideas because otherwise you’re gone.”

With the crypto space having various sub sectors such as layer 1s, layer 2s, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, Cuban was asked which he was most optimistic on.

Related: Mark Cuban says crypto crash highlights Warren Buffett’s wisdom

Cuban said he was particularly interested in carbon offset DeFi tokens, which he burns to offset his own personal carbon footprint. He added that while not everyone cares about offsetting their carbon emissions, it was the “easiest way” in comparison to buying carbon offsets from a broker, which he claims is “a pain in the ass.”

Ultimately though, Cuban said “all of them have potential, that’s why they got all this money, all of them have a reason why they think they’re better and will succeed.”