New Delhi: Crypto markets were under pressure on Friday, tracking the action in the equity markets after the Federal Reserve’s hawkish commentary.

Fed’s action brought a reality check for the riskier assets, including cryptos, which wiped out the buoyancy seen in digital tokens boosted by in-line inflation numbers earlier this week.

Bitcoin was holding above $17,500 levels after a long consolidation, whereas Ethereum remained below the $1,300 mark.

Barring Shiba Inu all other top crypto tokens were trading in the red. Litecoin, Bitcoin and Ethereum dropped 2% each, followed by BNB, Dogecoin and Cardano.

The global cryptocurrency market cap was trading lower around $850 billion, slipping more than a per cent in the last 24 hours. The total trading volume dropped about 27% to $33.8 billion.

What’s cooking in India

CoinSwitch, the India-based crypto investing app, has revealed an all-new brand identity, which includes a new logo, colors, font, and mobile app.

The company is on its way to becoming the first Indian crypto company to diversify into other asset classes as part of its mission to make money equal for all.

Expert take

“The prices of most cryptocurrencies fell as the market continued to react to the recent interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve,” said Edul Patel, CEO and Co-Founder of Mudrex.

“This may have been caused by traders taking profits after three days of gains. Bitcoin’s support is currently at $17,100, and its resistance is at $17,550,” he added.

Chaturvedi, Crypto Ecosystem Lead, CoinSwitch said that the FTX Fiasco continued to unfold during last week, which culminated in SBF’s arrest in the Bahamas, with both the SEC and the CFTC putting charges of fraud and misappropriation of funds.

“Though, no real clarity emerged on the contagion effects as Genesis’ financial state remained murky. Contrarily, crypto markets seemed to have found a footing and have settled higher at almost $900 billion market capitalisation,” Chaturvedi added.

Global updates

Archblock, a core developer of unsecured lending protocol TrueFi, is working with Adapt3r, a subsidiary of alternative asset manager MJL Capital, to bring US-regulated community banks to decentralized finance.

Binance, the largest crypto exchange by volume traded, is not the next FTX, according to CryptoQuant. The Seoul-based analytics firm points to on-chain data to support claims made in a recent audit that Binance is overcollateralized.

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) members voted to elect stewards for three working groups for the forthcoming year.

Web3 domain provider Unstoppable Domains will integrate in early 2023 with Ethereum’s popular blockchain explorer, Etherscan, as well as Polygonscan, the company said.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

This week’s guest on the Cardano SPO Column is a stake pool operated by Ernie from the US who’s a member of the xSPO Alliance: Lone Star Staking Pool [LSSP].

Last week’s guest was a stake pool operated by two brothers from the US and also members of the xSPO Alliance.

This initiative is a point of reference for everything Cardano and every week or two we will invite a Stake Pool Operator (SPO) to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.

Considering that many of our readers are new to the crypto space, we will have a mix of simple and technical questions.

Cardano SPO Column, interview with Lone Star Staking Pool [LSSP]

Hi, glad to have you here. Tell us something about yourself, where are you based and what is your background? 

Hi! My name is Ernie and I’m with Lone Star Stake Pool, located in the Fort Worth, Texas area. Lone Star Stake Pool currently supports the Wounded Warrior Project by donating 25% of our fixed fee to that organization. 

As for myself, I have been in the aviation field for 40 years. I spent 5 years in the U.S. Navy working on P3 Orion aircraft. About 20 years ago, I discovered I had a knack for computers. I started building desktop computers for myself and my family. I have been able to see the growth of computers in aviation and in our everyday life.

What’s the path that led you to Cardano and to become a Stake Pool Operator (SPO)?

I started in crypto in 2021 when I was unable to find a GPU for my son’s computer. After doing some research I learned about Proof of Work (PoW) and GPU mining. After purchasing a number of GPUs and seeing the energy used for PoW, I heard about Proof of Stake and Cardano. I watched a few YouTube videos and it looked like something I could do. I rebuilt two of my computers as a block producer and one as a relay. After starting up the Stake Pool, I added to the pool and now have a bare metal server in London, England, and relay hybrid servers in Washington, D.C, Dallas, and Seattle.

I love taking the challenge and working through all kinds of situations! I came across the xSPO Alliance and joined that group. I also joined the FreeLoaderz group and started to use relays to relieve some of the congestion on the Cardano network. I became a member of the SPA-Single Pool Alliance, as well. I am amazed and thrilled with the knowledge and help available for people of all types! Cardano is a great open community where you can “raise your hand”, ask for help, and get answers.

You are a member of the xSPO Alliance. What is it and how does it help small stake pools? What is your plan to attract more delegators?

xSPO is an alliance of ExtraSmall Stake Pool Operators under a 1 million ADA delegation. The Founding members did a brilliant job keeping all members to Single Stake Pool Operators. The whole group does an outstanding job helping and working together.  It is an honor to be in the same group with these SPOs. They are very knowledgeable and give great guidance and advice on how to work through problems. Membership is from all over the world! Every Sunday there’s our Discord call with members only. On some occasions we have special guests come in and talk about upcoming projects and listen to fresh ideas.  

So far, we have been looking for projects that need SPOs of all different sizes-from low delegations to SPOs with large delegations. I think it is awesome to see a group of SPOs working together to get a project moving. Example of that would be the ZiberBugs.IO. I just happened to be on Reddit and reviewed a post from ZiberBugs CEO looking for SPOs. We had a few DMs and then I was able to get a few other SPOs from xSPO Alliance, ECP-(Rich), ENVY-(Sean), and PANL (Ryan). We were able to set up a call and threw around some ideas. In the end, the project included 63 SPOs and ZiberBugs received some great marketing for their Ziber token project. We will also see more promotions as we get closer to game launch. We also had a small group of xSPOs for with OurPrincessADA CNFT project.  This project is still growing as they get ready for sale. 

xSPO is a great resource for new projects to come to us for help or existing projects that may just need a group of SPOs to help get their project off paper and on the blockchain.  

The plan to attract more delegators is to keep working hard and come up with new ideas or to assist on projects within the xSPO’s or Freeloaderz group.  Our pool has minted blocks so we can show that we are fully functionable SPO.  

I feel all xSPOs and SPOs need to work together to keep Cardano decentralized.  

I feel this is a good time to be involved with Cardano. The amount of people working on projects, as well as the projects coming out, is amazing. We still have so many just waiting on the hard fork. As with any ecosystem, some projects will make it and some will fail. You may also see some projects merge with other projects. That happens in the business world everyday.

I would love to see IOG give SPA and xSPO “a seat at the table” so to speak. This would allow both groups to have direct communication and help out with any issues or problems that come up.

I happen to believe in the old saying, “if you build it, they will come”. As the successful dApps and projects succeed, more people will see how secure Cardano is, as well as how Cardano as a community can work together.

Thanks for your time. Any final thoughts? Where can people contact you?

I would like to get the word out to the Cardano Community that xSPO is available and can help in any way possible for any SPO needs or requirements.  

Anyone can contact me via email or through my Twitter.

Thank you for your time!

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the SPOs are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG.

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Bitcoin remains range-bound moving around $58,5000 and $60,500 as the general sentiment in the market flips bearish. The benchmark crypto trades at $60,327 with sideways movement in the daily chart.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Turns Red, Why Bears Aim A Retest of $55K

Only two weeks ago, Bitcoin was blasting through resistance levels in the high around its current levels briefly topping at $69,200. This led to an increase in over-leveraged positions and an increase in funding rates across the BTC derivatives sector that left the market vulnerable to a liquidation cascade.

This event led to this week’s crash and seemed to be mainly driven by two crypto exchanges platforms. BitFinex, popularly known as a place where BTC whale conducts their operations, and Binance apparently processed a lot of selling orders.

Thus, pushing the price of Bitcoin below $60,000 and into the lows of its range. Binance’s selling pressure might have already cool-off, but a single BitFinex operator persists in their relentless pursuit of further downside price action.

Pseudonym analyst 52kskew reviewed this exchange’s trading orders and concluded the following:

Bitfinex trying to drag down price again, actor on multiple books. Caution liquidity getting thin, yet no breakdown yet.

In that sense, pseudonym traders LilMoonLambo replied that the Bitcoin Bitfinex whale dumping “is giving off serious 2014 BearWhale vibes”.

The lone Bitfinex whale dumping $BTC is giving off serious 2014 BearWhale vibespic.twitter.com/yRlx1RqmB7 https://t.co/ILeDN2vJtA

— LilMoonLambo (@LilMoonLambo) November 17, 2021

Bitcoin The Epicenter Of A Bear v. Bull Battle

While it’s true that traders and operators could be giving BitFinex too much credit for Bitcoin’s current price action, some indicators have begun to turn pessimists, but still far from “full bear market” mode.

According to Jarvis Labs, BTC’s 30-day Return indicator has dropped below 0%. As seen below, whenever this metric enters the green zone (below 0%) it’s usually an indication of future appreciation. In that sense, Jarvis Labs said:

Time to pay attention if you are a bull and have been looking to buy at cheaper prices. The best times to accumulate in the past year have been when this metric was in the green zone.

Some short-term holders have been shaken out and are selling at a loss, according to Bitcoin’s Wealth Multiplier. Similarly, to the 30D Return, this metric hints at a good place for BTC long-term holders to start accumulating.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Funding Rates Fall Below Zero In Market Sentiment Reset

Jarvis Labs marks $53,000 as the one level that must hold to continue the bull market. In addition, they want to see negative funding rates across top exchanges before starting a fresh leg up into uncharted territory. The firm said:

Market needed a healthy reset and it has been ongoing this week. Needs a bit more time to cement the bottom and start a massive leg up. Give it some time and be prepared to use the green button.

There is still hope for the bulls as Bitcoin has managed to stay above its critical support with quick buying pressure reacting to fresh decreases. In addition, 52kskew added the following on the alleged influence from Bitfinex whales on Bitcoin:

(…) forces takers hand on perp (perpetual futures contracts) premiums while collecting funding sum. Ends very soon in my opinion.