Gm,
It is the two year anniversary since the BTC crash to $3,600 - today it is trading over ten times higher.
BTC begins a new week struggling to hang onto key support levels amid incoming macro changes that will likely reshape its horizon.
On March 16th, the Fed will decide whether or not to proceed with interest rate hikes which have been expected since early last year. Inflation is running rampant, but the Fed is stuck between a rock and a hard place as they are eager to reduce its record balance sheet from two years given all the excessive covid support. BTC has been tightly linked to any movements in US equities and any sudden decisions from the Fed will likely be replicated in BTC price movements.
European policymakers are also set to vote on crypto legislation this week with some tipped to suggest a ban on proof-of-work protocols citing environmental concerns. This is unlikely to happen however the effect it will have on market sentiment is big.
The short term timeline for bitcoin traders looks precarious as the aforementioned marco factors could cause a significant dip in price. $40,000 refuses to hold for a hot minute while last week we saw a weekly close to $37,000. At the time of writing, BTC is trading around $38,600.
Popular crypto twitter account, Plan B, suggests that the macro price bottom could due in the coming month through analysis done via the confluence floor model. I personally do not think we see $27,000 in the short term but if precedence is anything to go by, we could see something along those lines.
The overall crypto market sentiment looks poor this week. Over the past 8 weeks we have seen many fakeouts which is causing frustration among bulls, added to this, the possibility of a macro induced capitulation certainly will add salt to the wounds if it comes to fruition.
Have your band aids at the ready…
Markets
As of 14th March 2022
(source: coinmarketcap)
Headline roundup
Stripe launches payment services for crypto businesses (LI)
FTX picks Stripe to build payments and risk mitigation feature (CD)
Paypal backed Paxos approved for blockchain payments in Singapore (LI)
EBay teases ‘Digital Wallet’ in investor presentation as crypto rumours swirl (CD)
USDF stablecoin consortium expands to eight banks (LI)
Elrond network acquires payments firm Twispay, wins e-money license (CD)
State Street Digital partners with Copper for digital asset custody tech (LI)
Ukraine has received close to $100m in crypto donations (CD)
President Biden to sign digital assets executive order (LI)
FTX launches new unit focused on institutional investors (CD)
Santander provides crypto loans against Agrotoken tokenised commodities (LI)
Blockdaemon acquires crypto on-ramp company Gem (CD)
Bank of Israel explores impact of digital shekel on banking system (LI)
Goldman Sachs offering ETH fund to clients through Galaxy Digital (CD)
CBDC
Jamaica promotes CBDC take up with $16 giveaway per person (LI)
VC
Hedera’s HBAR foundation unveils $100m fund to use DLT for sustainability (LI)
Temasek leads funding for immutable blockchain scaling solution at $2.5bn valuation (LI)
Bessemer commits $250m to Web3 (CD)
Okcoin, stacks launch $165m pledge to support bitcoin-related projects (CD)
Nordic fintech Lunar raises $77m, builds crypto trading platform (CD)
DAO creation platform upstream raises $12.5m and launches publicly (CD)
Pantera leads $4m seed round for streamlined cross-chain bridge (CD)
Fintech platform cake DeFi creates $100m venture capital arm (CD)
Meme of the week
About me
My name is Michael Burke, and I started working in the blockchain space 5 years ago, firstly with Deloitte, now with R3, where I help our customers build enterprise solutions utilising the Corda platform. My interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency stems from the sheer potential of the technology to completely transform industries and value chains for the better.