ETH traders feel the heat

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Ethereum traders under pressure after latest bout of liquidations

Key points:

  • Ethereum’s trend reversal was bad news for long traders.

  • ETH’s value has dropped by almost 2% over the past week.

News - After a series of uptrends that saw ETH climb up the price charts to close in on its ATH, a trend reversal has pulled the world’s largest altcoin back.

In fact, such was the scale of its previous uptrend that the altcoin was valued at close to $3,900, before dropping again.

Despite ETH’s bearish price action, however, the altcoin’s technical indicators all flashed bullish signs at press time.

Misery for long traders - Some positive signs notwithstanding, the last few days haven’t been good for long traders in Ethereum’s market. In fact, according to Coinglass, long liquidation volumes amounted to $31.6 million on 28 May.

Similarly, figures for the same were $17.5 million on 29 May, with more long liquidations seen on 30 May too. Simply put, volumes for the same dwarfed the figures seen for short liquidation volumes.

Here, it’s worth pointing out that the aforementioned liquidations corresponded with a hike in ETH Open Interest. It hiked to $17 billion on 28 May - Its highest level in over a year.

Conclusion - On other fronts too, it wasn’t all good news for Ethereum’s market. For example, the number of daily active addresses fell significantly over the last few weeks.

Similarly, gas usage declined too - A product of the waning interest in NFTs on Ethereum’s network.

Mt. Gox’s BTC transfers may have had NO effect on Bitcoin’s market

Key points:

  • Tokyo-based crypto exchange once handled over 70% of all Bitcoin transactions in the world.

  • Mt. Gox’s latest fund movements part of its plan to repay creditors.

News - Despite speculations to the contrary, it would seem that the latest BTC transfers out of the defunct Mt. Gox have had little to no effect on Bitcoin’s market. The transfers were worth 140,000 BTC or $9.4 billion.

According to Cryptoquant’s Netflows data, 27 May saw negative flows of over $12 million. On the contrary, 28 May saw positive flows of over $248 million.

Danger averted? Despite the scale of the aforementioned transfers, Santiment revealed that there were no significant changes on the Bitcoin supply on exchanges front. Simply put, while the last three days saw a hike in this metric, the same wasn’t enough to influence Bitcoin’s price in any major way.

Bitcoin’s Futures Open Interest climbed over the last few days too, with the same posting figures of $516K BTC on 29 May. The last time these figures were this high was back in January 2023 - 16 months ago.

This is a sign that more market participants are opening new positions.

Additionally, its funding rate revealed that despite BTC’s indifferent price action of late, buyers remain the dominant party in the cryptocurrency’s market.

Bitcoin vs Silver - To its credit, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is now close behind Silver on the market capitalization charts. At the time of writing, while BTC’s market cap was as high as $1.3 trillion, Silver’s was $1.8 trillion.

If BTC does rally past its ATH and onto $100K as many expect it will in 2024, the cryptocurrency could soon overtake Silver on the charts.

PayPal finally launches its PYUSD stablecoin on Solana

Key points:

  • PYUSD first made its debut on the Ethereum network less than a year ago.

  • Integration made possible owing to collaborations with Crypto.com, Phantom, and Paxos.

News - Almost a year after it first landed on Ethereum, PayPal is in the news today after it launched its stablecoin PYUSD on Solana too. As expected, this integration was welcomed by many, with most expecting this update to reinvigorate interest in the network.

According to PayPal’s Jose Fernandez da Ponte,

“Making PYUSD available on the Solana blockchain furthers our goal of enabling a digital currency with a stable value designed for commerce and payments.”

Another win for Solana - PayPal choosing Solana’s blockchain isn’t surprising in the least. Especially since Solana prides itself on its ability to provide speed and scalability in an accessible and cost-effective manner.

In fact, these characteristics have made the network popular among many over the past few months. Not only among those actively participating in the memecoin sector, but celebrities like Iggy Azalea and Caitlyn Jenner too.

For its part, PYUSD intends to streamline virtual payments by allowing for fast value transfers, remittances, and international transactions.

Reactions - Back when the stablecoin was first launched on Ethereum, it was welcomed by many, including Tether’s Paolo Ardoino. Not everyone was happy though, with the United States’ SEC issuing PayPal a subpoena soon after.

Worth noting, however, that while PYUSD has a market cap of $400 million right now, USDT and USDC’s figures are as high as $112 billion and $32 billion, respectively.

TRUMP token falls by 15% after former U.S President’s guilty verdict

Key points:

  • Former U.S President Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.

  • Election-themed memecoins reacted violently to the verdict.

News - Former U.S President Donald Trump is in the news today after he was found guilty by a New York jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump is now the first current or former U.S President to have been convicted of a felony.

To nobody’s surprise, Trump did not welcome the verdict. The former President claimed that the trial was a “disgrace,” one orchestrated by a “corrupt judge” and the Biden administration.

Meme’s the word - As expected, the guilty verdict had a corresponding impact on the fortunes of TRUMP token, with the altcoin falling by over 15% in a matter of hours.

Other Trump-themed memecoins like MAGA VP depreciated by 16% on the price charts too.

It must be noted, however, that at the time of writing, most of these memecoins had recovered much of their losses.

Funnily enough, while the aforementioned memecoins fell after the verdict came in, the likes of FreeTrump hiked by over 330% on the charts.

What’s Biden up to? On the opposite end of the spectrum, the memecoin linked to current President Joe Biden - BODEN - appreciated by almost 10% too, before dropping again.

Needless to say, the memecoin battle between Biden and Trump is as heated as the ongoing election cycle. In fact, according to PolyMarket, Trump is widely expected to beat the incumbent President in November.

Crypto scams uncovered

  • Turkish crypto exchange Thodex shut down for an “emergency 6-hour maintenance period” back in April 2021. While the shutdown eventually lasted for over 5 days, the exchange’s founder Faruk Fatih Özer escaped to Albania after defrauding 10K customers of over $2 billion. He was later arrested and sentenced to 11,196 years in prison.

  • On 17 May, U.S authorities arrested and charged two Chinese nationals owing to a $73 million pig butchering scam involving cryptos. If convicted, the defendants face up to 20 years in prison for each charge of international money laundering leveled against them. 

  • Back in 2021, the BBC almost aired a 30-minute documentary about Birmingham-based crypto investor Hanad Hassan. Its programme on Hassan’s newfound wealth and his efforts to help his community was canceled after it was revealed that Hassan had been accused of defrauding several investors through charity tokens like Orfano.

Top 3 coins of the day

JasmyCoin (JASMY)

Key points:

  • JASMY’s value climbed by over 50% in the last 7 days.

  • Indicators suggested altcoin is likely to sustain its latest uptrend.

What you should know - At press time, JASMY was trading at $0.031, up by over 25% in the last 24 hours. In many ways, the altcoin was the biggest anomaly in the market, with the rest of the market’s cryptos not surging as well as JASMY. In fact, JASMY was the market’s biggest gainer over the last 24 hours. The scale of its latest uptick was evidenced by its technical indicators as the Parabolic SAR’s dotted markers were placed well under the price candles, Similarly, the MACD line was well above the Signal line, with a bearish crossover unlikely anytime soon - A sign that this uptrend might hold steady.

dogwifhat (WIF)

Key points:

  • Bad few days for WIF saw the memecoin lose over 15% of its value in just over 36 hours.

  • WIF’s latest correction subverted expectations.

What you should know - The Solana-based memecoin was performing well on the charts before its latest bout of correction. In fact, less than 48 hours ago, the altcoin was valued at $3.97 on the charts, with traders expecting it to soon climb past $5. However, that didn’t happen, despite WIF’s positive weighted sentiment and social volumes across the market. At the time of writing, WIF was down to $3.38, with the indicators underlining how its fortunes changed so rapidly. While the Moving Average positioned itself above the price candles in a show of bearishness, the RSI fell after entering the overbought zone on the charts.

Bonk (BONK)

Key points:

  • Like WIF, BONK’s correction on the charts was significant too.

  • Compared to WIF, however, BONK’s indicators weren’t flashing all red just yet.

What you should know - Like most memecoins in the market, including the likes of SHIB and DOGE, BONK corrected over the last 24 hours, with the memecoin losing over 18% of its value. Even so, at the time of writing, the altcoin was still trading at price levels it last saw back in March 2024. While its correction was significant, it wasn’t significant enough to upend its near-term trajectory. This was highlighted by the findings of its technical indicators. The Chaikin Money Flow, for instance, was just under zero after capital outflows briefly exceeded capital inflows. Similarly, the Bollinger Bands suggested there’s still more room for volatility in the market.

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