Bitcoin price is slowly moving lower below the $19,200 support against the US Dollar. BTC could slide further if there is further escalation in Russia-Ukraine war situation.

• Bitcoin is slowly moving lower below the $19,200 and $19,000 levels.
• The price is trading below above $19,500 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.
• There is a connecting bearish trend line forming with resistance near $19,260 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
• The pair could continue to move down if there is a clear move below the $18,920 support.

Bitcoin Price Slides

Bitcoin price remained in a bearish zone below the $20,000 support zone. BTC slowly moved and settled below the $19,500 support plus the 100 hourly simple moving average.

There was a clear move below the $19,200 support zone, increasing pressure on the bulls. Finally, the price moved below the $19,000 level and traded as low as $18,970. The price is now consolidating losses near the $19,000 pivot level.

Bitcoin price is trading below above $19,500 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There is also a connecting bearish trend line forming with resistance near $19,260 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair.

On the upside, an immediate resistance is near the $19,110 level. It is near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $19,559 swing high to $18,970 low. The next major resistance sits near the $19,260 zone and the trend line.

The trend line is close to the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent decline from the $19,559 swing high to $18,970 low. A clear move above the trend line might send the price towards the $19,500 resistance or the 100 hourly simple moving average.

Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

Any more gains might send the price above the $19,600 resistance. In the stated case, the price could rise towards the $20,000 resistance level.

More Losses in BTC?

If bitcoin fails to rise above the $19,260 resistance zone, it could continue to move down. An immediate support on the downside is near the $19,000 zone.

The next major support is near the $18,920 zone. A downside break below the $18,920 support zone might call for more losses. In the stated case, there is a risk of a move towards the $18,500 support zone.

Technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD is now gaining pace in the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is now below the 50 level.

Major Support Levels – $19,000, followed by $18,500.

Major Resistance Levels – $19,260, $19,500 and $20,000.

Major cryptocurrencies tumbled on Monday amid Fed interest rate tightening even as the Russia-Ukraine war continued to rage. The US Federal Reserve had raised interest rate by 0.25 percent in its monetary policy decisions last week.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, after opening higher, was trading 2.6 percent lower at $40,841 at 9:30 am, according to CoinDesk. The bitcoin market cap has gained 6.75 percent to $776 in the past 24 hours. However, the cryptocurrency has lost more than 11 percent since the beginning of the year.

Ethereum, the second-largest virtual currency, also shed 2.86 percent to trade at $2,847. The cryptocurrency, which is linked to ethereum blockchain, has appreciated nearly 11 percent in the past seven days, but lost more than 22 percent year-to-date.

Meme crypto Dogecoin fell 2.32 percent at $0.119, while Shiba Inu lost 4.66 percent to trade at $0.000023. Solana, which witnessed substantial interest from the crypto traders last year, also shed 3.35 percent to trade at $87.73.

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Meanwhile, the government is working on the classification of cryptocurrency as goods or services under the GST law so that tax can be levied on the entire value of transactions. Currently, 18 percent GST is levied only on services provided by the crypto exchanges and is categorised as financial services.

According to a PTI report, GST officers were of the view that cryptos, by nature, are similar to lottery, casinos, betting, gambling, horse racing, which have 28 percent of GST on the entire value. Besides, GST is levied at 3 percent on the entire transaction value in case of gold.

Last week, US lawmakers had introduced a bill that would enable the president to sanction foreign cryptocurrency firms doing business with sanctioned Russian entities and prevent them from transacting with U.S. customers. While the bill is unlikely to become law anytime soon, it could ramp up pressure on cryptocurrency exchanges.

In the eastern Europe, war continued to rage after Ukraine didn’t accept the Russian proposal of surrendering the city of Mariupol on Sunday.

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published: Mar 21, 2022, 10:15 AMIST

For the first time since July 2021, Bitcoin mining difficulty has dropped significantly. Interestingly, the drop has happened not once but twice within the space of this month alone. Meanwhile, Pantera CEO believes that Bitcoin price could reach $400k by 2025.

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty down

According to data from Glassnode, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty dropped by 0.35% on March 17. This followed the first drop of 1.5% the flagship digital asset had seen earlier this month.

Bitcoin mining difficulty is an automatic adjustment proportional to the network’s computing power, otherwise termed hash rate. 

Notably, the Bitcoin mining hash rate had reached an ATH of 248 EH/s in February, leading to declarations that the asset has fully recovered from the China ban on mining activities within its jurisdiction last year.

Judging by the current happenings around the world, the drop is not entirely surprising considering the fact that Russia is one of the few countries that crypto miners had migrated to from China. Russia has been facing economic sanctions from the rest of the world due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Aside from that, the war in Ukraine has also led to a surge in the price of electricity across the world as Russia is one world’s largest exporters of gas and fossil fuel. These conditions, put together, would most likely have led to some miners unplugging their mining machines, thereby reducing the difficulty level.

Pantera Capital CEO: Expect Bitcoin at $400k by 2025

Pantera Capital’s CEO, Dan Morehead, in a recent interview with Bloomberg, has revealed that the price of Bitcoin is going to rise exponentially within the next decade.

According to Morehead, almost everyone with a smartphone would have access to crypto within the next 5-10 years. He posits that this global adoption would help push the price of the coin to the range of $400,000 by 2025, especially as more institutional investors get into the space.

Speaking on other digital assets, the founder expounded that other crypto-assets like Solana, Ethereum, and others have the potential to grow by 100 times their current value.

About Author

The Russian-Ukraine war has sent jitters across the equity and the crypto market bringing back strong volatility in play. Furthermore, the sanctions have also exposed that how any country can be at the receiving end of the economic warfare driven by traditional financial systems.

The latest report from Fundstrat shows that global investors have been building up stakes in crypto funds and companies. As per the report, Venture Capital buyers have invested north of USD 4 billion during the last three weeks of February 2022. Besides, VCs poured an additional $400 million into crypto startups last week.

Paul Hsu is the founder and CEO of Decasonic, a $50-million hybrid fund that invests in both crypto and venture capital. He said that there was an open demand for investing up to $200 million in his funds. Hsu added:

“The conflict in Ukraine has weaponized our financial and digital economy and really accelerated blockchain adoption. We are seeing a re-allocation to crypto and blockchain away from real estate and bond funds, for instance, because of higher interest rates. I’ve seen this with my funds but unfortunately, because I’m closed-end, I cannot admit more funds nor investors”.

Money Outflows from Bonds and Real Estate

Another data shows that there have been major outflows from bonds and real estate. Data from Refinitiv Lipper shows that the U.S. investors pulled $7.8 billion out of bonds in the week ending March 9. The outflows from real estate funds during this period stood at $700 million. George Melka, chief executive officer at crypto broker SFOX said:

“Crypto native companies are still raising at very high valuations and many funding rounds are still oversubscribed. In fact, crypto startup valuations are probably the highest I’ve seen.”

Even traditional financial market players are joining the crypto bandwagon. Last week itself, Bain Capital Ventures announced that it will set up a $560 million fund exclusively focused on crypto investments. Bitcoin and other crypto are up 10% after bottoming out on February 24, despite volatility.

Joe DiPasquale, chief executive officer at BitBull Capital, which manages a crypto fund of funds and two hedge funds said:

“There’s really no panic even with the Ukraine conflict. People are starting funds, encouraged by the appreciation in prices over the last couple of years”.

About Author

Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.

Major coins traded in the red on Monday evening as the global cryptocurrency market cap fell 3.7% to $1.7 trillion at press time, with the risk appetite getting whacked by limited advancement in talks between Russia and Ukraine.

See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

Why It Matters: The third round of Russia-Ukraine talks held in Belarus saw little progress on the issue of evacuating civilians. A fourth meeting between the two countries will take place very soon, according to Russia’s negotiator Leonid Slutsky, reported Reuters. 

The second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by spot volumes, Coinbase, said Monday it had blocked 25,000 addresses related to Russian individuals or entities believed to be “engaging in illicit activity.”

“Once we identified these addresses, we shared them with the government to further support sanctions enforcement,” said Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase in a blog post. 

Bitcoin has gone back to behaving like a risky asset. It remains vulnerable to selling pressures if equities can’t stay above the lows made at the end of February, according to Edward Moya, a senior analyst at OANDA.

“Bitcoin seems poised to have persistent volatility going forward and it will struggle to break out of its recent $37,000 to $45,000 trading range until risk appetite can look beyond the Russia-Ukraine crisis,” wrote Moya, in a note seen by Benzinga.

On-chain analysis firm Glassnode’s co-founders Jan & Yann tweeted that as Bitcoin moves towards its support between the $34,000 and $36,000 level more of it is being purchased with the “sideline stablecoin supply.”

This, according to it, has served as a “strong bottom indicator” in the past. 

As #BTC edges towards its support at 34-36k, more is being bought with the sideline stablecoin supply. This has served as a strong bottom indicator in the past.

Capital is flowing into #Bitcoin . Read more herehttps://t.co/6eOWyypDgk https://t.co/YKg3uuPBS2 pic.twitter.com/zcbwoU1gCI

— (@Negentropic_) March 7, 2022

Meanwhile, on the Ethereum front, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is “still making lower highs, but also a higher low,” according to Michaël van de Poppe, an Amsterdam-based cryptocurrency trader.

Van de Poppe tweeted that the question remains if Ethereum “sweeps the lows for liquidity” before it reverses or whether it takes out the highs and continues to rise. He said he’s betting on the former.

#Ethereum is still making lower highs, but also a higher low.

Question will be coming period whether we sweep the lows for liquidity (blue box) before we reverse or whether we are going to take out the highs and continue bull.

I’d think the first one. pic.twitter.com/VL7F1yPf9W

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) March 7, 2022

Read Next: Why Scaramucci Sees Bitcoin Touching $500,000 In The Long Run — Despite Missing The Mark In 2021

Waves (WAVES), the coin of a project that allows users to launch their own tokens, soared 28% higher at $24.08 at press time over 24 hours. The ascent of Waves took place even as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) remained depressed.

See Also: How To Buy (WAVES) Waves?

Why Is It Moving? The global cryptocurrency market cap inched up 0.4% to $1.7 trillion at press time, but that did not deter the rise in WAVE prices.

Major coins remained traded lower after Russia-Ukraine talks made little progress on Monday. Edward Moya, a senior analyst with OANDA, said that the apex coin “remains vulnerable to selling pressures if equities can’t stay above the lows made at the end of February.”

Waves was the top gainer among cryptocurrencies last week as it rose nearly 57%. The Sasha Ivanov-founded project’s coin is also the best year-to-date gainer among the crypto pack. It has risen nearly 60% in the period.

On Monday, Ivanov tweeted that the total value locked on Vires.finance — a WAVES-based decentralized non-custodial liquidity protocol — touched $1 billion again. 

$1 bln TVL on https://t.co/qvDu9FIqtu AGAIN

— Sasha Ivanov  (1 ➝ 2) (@sasha35625) March 7, 2022

Waves has been rising lately on the back of a blockchain-agnostic Metaverse, the establishment of a new partnership with token bridge Allbridge and the project’s migration to Ver 2.0. 

Read Next: As If ‘Kimchi Premium’ Wasn’t Enough, Russia’s SWIFT Cancellation Leads To Eye-Popping ‘Vodka Premium’ For Bitcoin

Bitcoin traded in the negative territory through the weekend. At press time, on Sunday evening, the global cryptocurrency market cap decreased 4% to $1.8 trillion.

See Also: How To Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

Why It Matters: Major coins remained depressed as signs of descalation of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine ebbed on Friday. 

Over the weekend, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan that the end to Moscow’s operations in Ukraine “is only possible if Kyiv stops military operations and carries out well-known Russian demands,” according to a Reuters report. 

The general staff of Ukraine’s army said on Sunday that Russians were gathering resources for storming of Kyiv, the capital of the country, according to Reuters. 

Cryptocurrencies traded lower with other risk assets while commodities like oil and gold surged at press time. 

S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were down 1.5% and 1.9% at 4,263.75 and 13,578.25 respectively at press time.

April 22 Gold COMEX futures traded 1.4% higher at $1,994.60. Oil shot up significantly — April 22 WTI Crude futures rose 7.6% to $124.43, while ICE Brent Crude May 22 futures spiked 8.5% to $128.11.

Cryptocurrency trader Michaël van de Poppe warned of the coming volatility and urged his followers to “stay calm.”

“This week is going to be volatile,” he said. “Stay calm. The best option in these markets.”

Cofounders of on-chain analysis firm Glassnode, Jan&Yann, tweeted that Bitcoin is at a critical level and if its price fails to break above $40,000, it could hit support levels at $34,000 to $36,000 range.

Meanwhile, a poll carried out by financial market data and content platform Santiment saw just 33.6% of 1,958 respondents vote in favor of buying the dip in cryptocurrencies. 

The ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine may just be bringing out the best in Bitcoin. According to Bloomber strategist Mike McGlone, the conflict may mark another step in Bitcoin’s journey to becoming the primary digital store of value globally.

Bitcoin is benefiting from a spike in the price of crude

Bloomberg’s chief commodity strategist, Mike McGlone, has long maintained that Bitcoin is on its way to becoming the “global digital collateral.” In a tweet today, he noted that surging oil prices caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict is likely to speed up the process.

This is because rising energy prices are a strong reminder of the need for embracing technology. He supports the argument with a chart that shows that amidst the surge in the price of crude oil, Bitcoin and bonds have been rising as well.

The #RussiaUkraine conflict may mark another step in #Bitcoin‘s maturation toward becoming the global digital collateral. Spiking energy prices are a reminder of the benefits of embracing technology, and North America achieving the status of net fossil-fuel exporter. pic.twitter.com/UWA2BnMgmw

— Mike McGlone (@mikemcglone11) March 3, 2022

The price of crude has continued to surge since the conflict broke out as markets have feared supply shortages of Russian crude oil. The global benchmark, Brent Crude, has reached a high of $117.3 per barrel, up 4.32% on the day.

McGlone has previously noted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine may have marked “the inflection point in bitcoin’s transition toward global digital collateral in a world going that way.” While risk assets are subject to the contraction of the US stock market, Bitcoin was showing “divergent strength,” he said at the time.

The market strategist is also very bullish for Bitcoin, predicting that the market-leading crypto is set to reach a price of $100,000 as its next significant level.

Bitcoin adoption increasing globally

As McGlone expects, mainstream acceptance of Bitcoin has been rising in recent times. Both Russia and Ukraine have shown a marked increase in Bitcoin transactions as citizens look to get their money out of traditional financial mediums.

More regulators across the world, including several states in the US, as well as countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Tonga are also looking to recognize Bitcoin legally or even make it legal tender this year. Regardless, the price of Bitcoin has continued to show volatility in the short term. Bitcoin is currently trading at around $43,300, down -3.53% in the last 24 hours.

About Author

Olivia’s interests spans across the Cryptocurrency and NFT and DeFi industry. She remains as fascinated by cryptocurrencies today, as she was back in 2017, when she first started reading up about them. She’s actively on the lookout for the latest Crypto related stories. When she’s not writing, she’s catering to her pet chihuahua, or curating vegan recipes. Reach me at [email protected]

Major cryptocurrencies fell on Thursday after a gain in the previous day’s session as global stock markets rebound after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he supported a more modest interest rate rise this month than some investors had been fearing.

World’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin was trading 1.24 percent lower at 43,735.99 at 8:45 am, according to CoinDesk data. The cryptocurrency has surged ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bitcoin trading denominated in the Russian rouble went into overdrive when the invasion began last week, with daily volumes rising 259 percent from a day earlier to 1.3 billion rouble ($13.1 million), according to CryptoCompare data.

The cryptocurrency initially fell to nearly $34,000 following Russia’s advance into Ukraine last week. However, it surged nearly 25 percent in the past week as Russians and Ukrainians were holding assets in cryptos. Prior to the Russian invasion, bitcoin had been trading in a way similar to other riskier assets such as technology stocks. Bitcoin has witnessed very high volatility this year – the cryptocurrency had hit a low of $32,950.72 on January 24.

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Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency which is linked to ethereum blockchain, also lost 0.86 percent to $2922.

Meme crypto Dogecoin was trading 1.46 percent lower at $0.132, while Shiba Inu lost 2.87 percent to trade at $0.000026. Solana, which witnessed substantial interest from the crypto traders last year, lost 3.74 percent to trade at $98.53.

Other cryptocurrencies such as Litcoin, XRP, Chainlink, Cardano, Polygon, Stellar, Internet Computer, and Avalanche were also trading in the negative territory.

Wall Street indices closed higher on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he supported a more modest interest rate rise this month than some investors had been fearing.

Meanwhile, the United States and European Union were trying to make sure that Russia cannot use cryptocurrency to avoid sanctions. US Senator Elizabeth Warren and three other Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Treasury Department to ensure the cryptocurrency industry is complying with sanctions imposed on Russia.

French Finance Minister Bruno le Maire on Wednesday said the EU was seeking to make sure that cryptocurrencies were not used to circumvent sanctions imposed by the bloc against Russia.

The 27-nation bloc imposed sanctions on Moscow over its aggression on Ukraine, including freezing Russian central bank assets and disconnecting seven Russian banks from the SWIFT financial-messaging system.