Open interest in BTC futures close to record high in November 2021

Open Interest (Open Interest) futures trading on bitcoin (BTC) exceeded $21 billion. And is approaching the record of $24 billion, recorded in mid-November 2021. And when bitcoin cost $65 thousand, writes CoinDesk with reference to data from the analytical service Coinglass.

In traditional trading under the open interest (Open Interest) is understood as the total number of purchase orders. Which are available at the time of market opening. In futures and options trading, Open Interest is the total number of contracts outstanding at a given point in time. This includes futures contracts that have not yet been exercised, have not yet expired, or have not been settled by delivery of the underlying assets.

Open interest serves as a metric for assessing the level of involvement of market participants in a particular futures contract. An active growth in open interest combined with an increase in the price of the asset may indicate an active upward movement.

The rise in interest in futures has coincided with the BTC price rising more than 25% over the past three weeks. And driven mainly by large-scale investments in spot bitcoin ETFs in the US.

The overall credit load in the market remains low. And that reduces the risk of price collapse and high volatility due to forced closure of long or short positions due to lack of collateral. According to CryptoQuant, bitcoin’s leverage ratio recently increased slightly from 0.18 to 0.20, but is still far from last year’s levels.

Our experts note that  Open interest in bitcoin-denominated futures currently stands at 430,500 bitcoins. And that is well below the October 2022 peak of 660,000 bitcoins, according to CoinGlass data.

Bitcoin and Ethereum showed growth for the first time after a sharp drop in late January

The bitcoin (BTC) exchange rate rose by 4% on February 8. And rising at the moment to $44,733 in a pair to the Tether USD (USDT) stablecoin on the Binance exchange. Our experts note that BTC last traded above $44,000 on January 24.

The second largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) also updated its two-week high at $2.44 thousand, adding more than 3% to its price over the day. The current year’s high for Ethereum was reached on January 12 at $2719 amid investors’ expectations of U.S. regulators’ approval of spot ETFs for Ethereum. And applications for which were submitted by BlackRock, Grayscale and Fidelity Investments.

Now the jump in the price of ETH also came amid the filing of an updated joint ETF application from 21 Shares and Ark Invest, managed by Katie Wood. The document, in particular, updated data on the redemption mechanism for units of the future ETF. And information about the possibility of placing the fund’s coins in staking in external services.

The latter fact caused a sharp growth of tokens of staking services. Thus, the rate of LDO token from the largest staking service Lido jumped by 7% at the moment. And when news of Ark Invest’s updated bid hit the terminals. LDO is among the top 40 largest crypto assets by capitalization with a market cap of over $2.5 billion. According to the official website, Lido hosts $23 billion worth of ETH coins at the current exchange rate.

Other coins from the top 10 by capitalization also rose in price over the past 24 hours. The Solana (SOL) token rose more than 6% over the day, while BNB from Binance, Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Ripple’s XRP rose in price by 3 to 9%.

Our experts analyzed the market situation and told how it may change this week for Bitcoin and the market as a whole

During the period from January 22 to January 28, the Bitcoin price showed high volatility. During the week, Bitcoin traded in a wide range from $38,555 to $42,246.

On Monday, January 22, the price fell below the $40k mark, reaching $39,480. The drop was caused by the active outflow of funds from Grayscale’s bitcoin-ETF amid the endorsement of competing products.

On Tuesday, January 23, the Bitcoin price fell to a low of $38,555. And that led to a wave of liquidations in the futures market. The outflow from Grayscale continued to exert pressure.

On January 24 and 25, quotations consolidated in the range of $39,484 – $40,555 with multidirectional dynamics. High volatility remained on the market. Market participants were waiting for some new portion of positive news.

On Friday, January 26, at the end of the day, the BTC/USD pair rose by 4.66% to $41,823. Buyers managed to stop the collapse of the crypto market. After a 13-day drop of 21% from the January 11 high of $48,969, the price recovered 9.57% to $42,246. They have reversed the drop for January 22, and this is a positive for the whole market.

Reasons for the fall in the price of  Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s downward correction has been largely attributed to redemptions in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). Before GBTC was converted into an ETF on January 11. And it was one of the few ways for U.S. investors to access BTC without owning the underlying cryptocurrency. After the long-awaited approval on Jan. 10, investors took the opportunity to sell their GBTC units, locking in profits on their trades. This meant an exit from the cryptocurrency market, hence the downward pressure on the bitcoin price. Outflows from the fund totaled nearly $4 billion.

The price bounced off the $38,555 support. The recovery accelerated after JPMorgan said that the peak of GBTC sales is mostly over. The upward correction intensified from the European session with the decline in the dollar index. The outflow of funds from the Grayscale trust slowed down, which led to an easing of pressure on the cryptocurrency.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF iShares (IBIT) has had a significant impact on the cryptocurrency investment industry. In just 10 days after the fund’s launch, the company has accumulated $1,982,095,794 or 49952.32570 BTC (from a report from BlackRock’s website) in assets under management (AUM) after the fund’s launch and market cap. The amount indicates a lot of interest among investors. At the current exchange rate, it is already over $2 billion.

When the price correction will end

Cautious investors have now taken a wait-and-see attitude. As this is only the first upward wave after the market collapse. Then sellers will check buyers once again. And how ready they are to defend the $38,555 level and raise the rate to $69k for Bitcoin by the halving, which will take place around April 20.

BitRiver predicts that the decline phase will end on February 10. Then we can test the level of $50 thousand. In order to support the bullish trend from the low of $24,901 from September 11, 2023. The higher the buyers drive the price, the less likely it is to update the $38,555 support.

There is great news for buyers now – a pin–bar is forming on the weekly chart – a green body with a long lower shadow. Our experts remind that the fall from $48,969 started with such an inverted candle. And this is a bid for growth up to $45 thousand.

Important events of this week

The economic calendar is quite full of important data. January 30 will see the release of Eurozone GDP data for the fourth quarter. January 31 will see the release of China’s manufacturing PMI for January. And oil inventory reports from the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting and J. Powell’s press conference. On February 1, the States will publish the index of business activity in the manufacturing sector. And on February 2 – a report on the employment market (unemployment, new jobs, average hourly earnings). And also the consumer sentiment index from the University of Michigan for January.

As for the Federal Reserve’s next moves, CME Group’s FedWatch tool predicts a rate hike at next Wednesday’s (Jan. 31) Fed meeting with a 96.7% probability. Votes in March are split, but the probability of a cut in May is estimated at around 87%.

Our experts analyzed the market situation and told us how it may change this week and what will be the price of Bitcoin

In the past week, Bitcoin’s dynamics were determined primarily by the external background – the U.S. dollar, stock indicators and decisions of crypto market regulators.

After a sharp drop on January 12, Bitcoin price consolidated in the range of $41,500 – $43,500 for five days. On January 16, a local maximum was reached at $43,578. However, the excitement around the launch of the bitcoin-ETF in the US did not lead to sustained growth.

The pressure remained amid the strengthening of the dollar. And the negative dynamics of stock indices and continued outflows from the Grayscale fund. From January 11-17 alone, $1.624 billion was withdrawn from Grayscale.

On January 18, the SEC postponed its decision on Ethereum-ETF launch applications until March 5. This disappointed investors and triggered a resumption of the downgrade. On the day, BTC dropped to $40,630, and at the end of the day, it lost 3.4%, dropping to $41,327.

On Friday, January 18, the BTC/USD pair closed with growth. The price rose by 0.80%, to $41,659. At the beginning of the U.S. session, the bitcoin exchange rate was declining to $40,280. Sellers tried to pass the support of $40,500, but failed. Buyers were supported by two factors: the decline in the dollar index and the growth of stock indices. By the close of the day, the price went into the plus side. At the same time, all 11 bitcoin-ETFs showed growth of about 2%.

Despite Friday’s decline, the US Dollar Index (DXY) ended the week in the plus on the back of rising US bond yields. And lower probability of rate cuts in March and May. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, the probability of interest rate cuts in March and May is 46% and 51%, respectively, compared to 76.9% and 17% as of Jan. 12.

Bitcoin price

Bitcoin is at $40,600+ at the time of writing this review. Our experts note that the price may trade above the key support of $40,500 until February 6. The downward movement from $48,969 to $40,280 has a three-wave formation. This means that the price may return to the level of $44,300 by January 23. A return to it would not be a signal to buy bitcoin. The probability of the price dropping to $38,500 by February 10 is more than 75%.

Buyers needed to go above $50k before January 8. Now it is necessary to form a bridgehead for a new rally before the halving in April. Trading volumes on spot bitcoin-ETFs are not bad. But the outflows from the Grayscale fund are very large, which makes many investors nervous.

If the trading range of $40,000 – $44,500 with an upward bias is maintained until February 10. Then the probability of a drop to $38,500 will be greatly reduced. According to BitRiver’s forecasts, buyers need to pass the $44,500 level. In order to level out the “bearish” sentiment. We follow the news on ETFs, the dynamics of the dollar index and the S&P 500.

Among the key events in the week that may affect the dynamics of the dollar and cryptocurrencies: the publication of data on U.S. GDP (January 25) and U.S. inflation (January 26). Bitcoin belongs to the class of risky assets, so it is sensitive to the value of DXY.

Our experts tell you what you need to know about the Celestia modular blockchain and what’s driving demand for its native token

The price of the native blockchain token Celestia (TIA) reached an all-time high of $20 on January 15. In less than three months of its existence, the token has increased in price almost tenfold. And the demand for it continues to be supported by the excitement around new projects in the network ecosystem.

Celestia Labs, the company behind the development of the Celestia blockchain network, raised $55 million in October 2022, led by venture capital firms Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain Capital. Following this investment round, Celestia’s project achieved “unicorn” status with a $1 billion valuation.

The venture capital arm of the Coinbase exchange also participated in its funding. And the cryptocurrency arm of major market maker Jump Trading, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital and a number of other venture capitalists and business angels. Prior to that, Celestia developers raised $1.5 million in a seed round in 2021. And in October 2023, the OKX crypto exchange announced its investment in this project.

Modular blockchain

Celestia Labs has been led by Mustafa Al-Bassam. As a 2019 PhD student in Computer Science at University College London, he published a paper titled “LazyLedger”. And in which he presented a radical rethinking of the principles of blockchain. He described the possibility of separating the various functions of a distributed ledger. And in particular, how users request data, into separate “application layers”. A key benefit of this approach would be to minimize the total amount of resources required to run the underlying blockchain.

Al-Bassam is co-authoring three research papers with Ethereum ecosystem co-founder Vitalik Buterin. In one of his 2022 talks, Buterin presented Celestia as a solution for scaling so-called rollups. These rollups leverage such “second-level” solutions in various forms. Such as Optimism or Arbitrum, and with their help users can make much cheaper and faster transactions than in Ethereum at the base level.

Celestia’s primary use case is expected to be offloading the Ethereum blockchain from having to process the massive amount of data being produced by the rapidly growing ecosystem of rollup-based networks. Celestia’s solutions further improve the efficiency of the Ethereum core network. while taking over data storage and streamlining transactions. And then further transferring that data to other blockchains to complete transactions.

Technically, the Celestia blockchain is used exclusively for these needs. It does not perform smart contracts or computations, unlike other blockchain networks. Instead, the Celestia model outsources these functions to rollups or other blockchains. And this is a key component of its flexible, modular design. That said, developers building applications on the Celestia network can combine different elements of its infrastructure while keeping them compatible.

Token launch

To use Celestia for data processing, rollup developers conduct a separate type of transaction on the network. And for which they pay a commission in native tokens – TIA. In September 2023, Celestia developers announced the launch of the token and its distribution as an airdrop to early users of the network. And who showed activity and participated in its testing in the early stages.

During the distribution of 60 million tokens TIA distributed to the wallets of 191 thousand qualified participants of the airdrop. And that amounted to about 6% of their total supply of 1 billion units. More than half of the existing tokens are distributed to early investors and developers. And another 140 million TIAs are allocated to fund future project initiatives. A significant portion of these tokens remain locked: early investors will receive tokens in several stages between October 2024 and October 2025, while developers will receive tokens until October 2026.

The token was listed by Binance, OKX, Bybit, KuCoin and other major crypto exchanges on its launch day on November 1, 2023. According to the results of the first day of trading, the price of TIA was fixed at $2.44 with a capitalization of about $344 million.

Less than three months later, in January 2024, the rate of TIA increased almost 10 times. On January 15, the token reached $20, and the size of its capitalization soared to 3 billion, which put TIA in the top 30 largest existing crypto-assets.

Why TIA token rose in price

Airdrop as a tool for attracting users has not only benefited Celestia itself. Developers of several projects that use its blockchain. They also announced the distribution of their own tokens to those who help Celestia to maintain its work, acting as a so-called transaction validator. And with this they provoked even more demand for the TIA token.

The TIA token allows application developers to use Celestia’s blockchain without having to deploy their own validator network. Thus, those who act as validators by hosting their own tokens in staking. now play an important role in the ecosystem: they ensure that not only Celestia itself works correctly. But also those networks that rely on it for data availability.

Demand for the TIA token, as well as its price, began to skyrocket after two projects announced at the very beginning of 2024. They announced that they would airdrop their own tokens to all those who hold TIA in staking. The first of which was Saga. And its developers announced the distribution of SAGA tokens among 27 thousand participants in the list of those who until December 1, 2023 held in staking from 23 TIA tokens.

The Dymension project team soon announced plans to distribute 20 million DYM tokens to everyone who held at least 1 TIA in staking. The tokens themselves haven’t launched yet. But qualified participants of the distribution are already putting them up for pre-sale on OTC services, where the price of a DYM token reaches almost $5.

Against this background, more and more market participants started buying and placing TIA tokens in staking. And expecting new giveaways from other projects.

Airdrops proved to be an effective marketing tactic for new crypto projects. Projects like Berachain, Monad or Manta, which also rely on the Celestia infrastructure, are expected to launch in 2024. And our experts note that everyone also expects them to distribute tokens.

The U.S. SEC has issued a favorable ruling on the launch of Bitcoin ETF from BlackRock and other companies. These exchange-traded funds are expected to open access to cryptocurrency to a wide range of investors and attract new capital

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved the launch of 11 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) investing directly in Bitcoin. And will open up access to the largest cryptocurrency in the traditional US financial market and beyond.

The SEC has authorized funds from all applicant companies, including BlacrRock and Fidelity Investments. And to begin trading shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NASDAQ and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) starting Jan. 11.

Why a spot bitcoin ETF is important

Various exchange traded funds (ETFs). And including gold, have trillions of dollars in assets under management. In the cryptocurrency community, it is widely believed that even a small percentage of this capital can potentially impact the global crypto market. After the approval of spot Bitcoin ETF, the demand for cryptocurrency should increase: buying shares of the funds implies the delivery of bitcoin as an underlying asset, that is, its direct purchase in the market, affecting the rate.

The decision came a day after SEC  X account (formerly Twitter) posted a false message that the agency had approved the ETF. Minutes after the publication appeared, the regulator said the account had been hacked. This led to sharp fluctuations in the bitcoin exchange rate. Which reacted with sharp jumps to each of the statements.

Regulator has been withholding approval to launch ETFs for more than a decade

Our experts note that back in 2013, twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, now owners of the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, decided to create the first such fund. In June 2023, the world’s largest management company BlackRock applied for registration of a bitcoin-ETF.

The ruling in favor of bitcoin funds came after Grayscale Investments scored a key victory over the SEC in court. A federal appeals court overturned the SEC’s denial of Grayscale’s application to convert its existing bitcoin trust into a full-fledged ETF. The court called the denial “arbitrary and capricious” because SEC officials were unable to make a compelling argument for banning spot funds. Back in 2021, the SEC approved several ETFs. Which allow investors to speculate on bitcoin futures. But the shares of such ETFs have no direct impact on the bitcoin market.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler emphasized this in a public statement. According to him, it was the Grayscale case that was the tipping point for the regulator to change its rhetoric. Nevertheless, the agency still “does not endorse or support bitcoin itself.” Investors, it said, should be wary of the “numerous risks associated with bitcoin and products whose value is tied to the cryptocurrency.”

Our experts talked about the sources of new capital in the cryptocurrency market. And the trends shaping the demand for cryptocurrency

The interest of users in the cryptocurrency market and the demand for cryptoassets are driven by both global expected events and new trends. Our experts told us what exactly could trigger capital inflows into bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in 2024.

Halving and new highs

In 2024, one of the most anticipated events for the crypto industry will take place – bitcoin halving. This term refers to the halving of payments to miners – members of the cryptocommunity who mine cryptocurrency.

Halving is a planned halving of the number of newly issued bitcoins that are created and distributed to miners who perform verification and validation of transactions on the network. The procedure is embedded in bitcoin’s program code to ensure that the total number of coins in the network never exceeds 21 million units.

Bitcoin halving occurs about once every four years. The event reduces the inflow of coins to the market by half. But the demand for them at the same time remains unchanged. As a result, there is a shortage of bitcoins, which pushes the cryptocurrency’s rate up. Statistics show that bitcoin updates the absolute maximum value about a year and a half after halving. That is, theoretically, the new peak of the rate will be reached in 2025.

But there are speculations according to which the maximum, contrary to history, can also be registered in 2024. The reason is the likely launch of spot bitcoin-ETFs in the US. The battle of market participants for the approval of the instrument has been going on since 2013. With its appearance, institutional investors’ money may flow into the crypto industry.

New capital sources

The year 2024 has several prerequisites to become favorable for the cryptocurrency market. First, investors are full of positive expectations due to hopes of approval of a bitcoin-ETF by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Market participants expect the emergence of a bitcoin-linked exchange traded fund. And that will push asset managers from the world of traditional finance to embrace cryptocurrencies as another tool to diversify portfolios. This will encourage capital to flow into the cryptocurrency market.

Secondly, we can expect to see continued growth in interest in Ordinals, which are now available not only on the bitcoin network. But also in other blockchains. This gaining popularity, which was born in the bitcoin blockchain, is now spreading to other networks as well.

The interest in the new standard also facilitates the flow of capital into the crypto market and contributes to its growth. Above all, the positive impact stimulates interest in bitcoin. And whose blockchain has become the progenitor of the “ordinals”.

The year 2024 could also be a watershed year for the NFT market as a whole. And which has long been dominated by networks such as Ethereum or Solana. In November 2023, the volume of NFT trades in the bitcoin network exceeded that of Ethereum. And this was made possible by the emergence of Ordinals. This will probably be one of the major trends for the NFT market in 2024 – the flow of capital and users to the bitcoin network.

The third trend in 2024 will be the boom of ecosystems and so-called Layer 2 applications. These are focused on infrastructure creation and development of blockchain tokenomics. It is worth paying attention to the DePIN concept. The emergence of new concepts and applications like these. It could help stimulate adoption and demand for cryptocurrency by a wide range of users.

In another recalculation, the bitcoin difficulty index rose nearly 7%, setting a new all-time high at 72.01 T.

Bitcoin mining difficulty hit an all-time record this past weekend. The figure rose 6.98% to 72.01 T, according to BTC.com. The previous high was recorded on November 26, 2023, when the difficulty reached 67.96 T.

The complexity of mining determines the amount of computing power required to find a new block in the bitcoin blockchain. How many times, on average, miners must calculate the value of a hash function to find a cryptocurrency block. With the current increase, the target difficulty value is set at 72.01 T (1 T = 1 trillion).

The average bitcoin hashrate (the total processing power of the hardware mining the cryptocurrency) at the current difficulty is expected to be 515.36 EH/s, which is also the maximum value. The previous maximum average hashrate was recorded at 486.35 EH/s on Nov. 26.

The first cryptocurrency’s mining difficulty is forecast to increase by another 1.6% to 73.16T on January 5.

The complexity of mining is increasing amid the rise in the price of bitcoin. The BTC exchange rate as of December 26 is hovering around $42.1k+, according to CoinMarketCap. Over the past month, the asset has risen in price by 14.5% and updated the highs since April 2022.

Our experts note that in mid-October, bitcoin began to grow rapidly amid news about the possible approval of a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) for bitcoin by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In less than a month, the BTC exchange rate has grown by almost $10 thousand.

At the moment, several large investment companies are waiting for approval of their own ETFs on bitcoin by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The launch of such ETFs is considered in the crypto community as a catalyst for a new bull cycle in the market.

The BlackRock proposal now includes a mechanism for redeeming units for fiat money. This is a redemption model that the SEC considers safer for investors compared to redemption in BTC

BlackRock has updated its application for a spot bitcoin-ETF to increase the chances of its approval by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The management company’s proposal now calls for a fiat money redemption mechanism for the fund’s units. This is the model favored by the U.S. regulator.

The world’s largest asset management company has become the latest of several firms. Which updated statements amid rumors that the SEC may approve a number of bitcoin-ETF applications as early as January. ARK Investments also previously made similar changes to its application for the ARK 21SHARES Bitcoin ETF.

BlackRock applied to launch the iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund in June this year. And at the same time offering a redemption model in kind (in bitcoins). However, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, analyzed the proposal. And raised concerns about investor safety and market manipulation.

ETFs typically have one of two types of redemption and issuance mechanisms: in-kind or cash. In-kind redemption structure. And which many companies believe is more attractive to investors, allows companies to redeem units for bitcoins. The SEC considers it safer and more affordable to redeem for fiat money.

In this case, if an investor wants to redeem the fund’s units, BlackRock would have to withdraw the bitcoins from the vault. And sell them and pay the investor the required amount in fiat money.

“The trust issues and redeems blocks of 40,000 units on an ongoing basis. These transactions will be done in exchange for cash. Subject to regulatory approval, these transactions will also be able to be conducted in exchange for bitcoins,” BlackRock said in its new filing.

The company also provided a ticker symbol for the fund to be created in the documents. The spot bitcoin-ETF is expected to trade on NASDAQ under the name IBIT.

Valkyrie, Fidelity Investments, ARK Investments, Grayscale, WisdomTree and Invesco are also awaiting approval from the SEC.

Bitcoin-ETF issuers have already advanced to key details in their negotiations with the SEC. Our experts note that the deadline for the regulator to decide whether to approve, reject or postpone a decision on bitcoin-ETF applications is set for mid-January.

Our weekly feature on Bitcoin. Our experts analyzed the market situation and told how it may change this week

The week that ended on December 10 was a good week for bitcoin. And for investors who prefer long positions, it was extremely favorable. At the beginning of the week bitcoin crossed the $40 thousand mark and, apparently, managed to accumulate strength and consolidate above this level. By the weekend bitcoin came close to the next psychological boundary of $45 thousand, but the growth rate slowed down. Bitcoin will have to force this mark during the week of December 11-17. According to many prerequisites, the first cryptocurrency will manage to do it and get a foothold above $45 thousand.

The main factors in the growth of the crypto market remain expectations that the SEC will soon approve the launch of bitcoin-ETF. And flows of institutional capital will flow into cryptocurrency.

The state of the U.S. economy also gives a strong impetus to the crypto market. Namely, the expectation of a slowdown in inflation in the United States and the beginning of the period of reduction of the key rate by the Federal Reserve Service (FRS). At first glance, the positive dynamics in the Fed’s fight against inflation entails risks of recession in the U.S. economy. A recession along with inflation above the 2% target threatens investors with asset depreciation. This encourages them to hedge risks and move some capital into protective assets. For example, gold, which has shown growth in recent weeks. Or cryptocurrencies, which, although highly volatile, can give a high ROI (return on investment).

Main events of this week

This week, the main attention of cryptocurrency market participants, as well as the stock market, will be focused on the key events of the U.S. economy.

On December 12, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics will release data on inflation in November 2023. The US CPI is expected to rise slightly from October’s level. But the Core CPI (Core CPI), which reveals the trend of hidden inflation. On the contrary, it will slow down year-on-year. The PPI and retail sales data will also be important for the market.

But the main event of the week will undoubtedly be the two-day meeting of the US Federal Reserve on December 12-13 on the key rate. And the following press conference of the Fed’s head Jerome Powell. Market participants do not expect the key rate to change. But high hopes are pinned on Powell’s speech: they are waiting for him to signal the US Fed’s readiness to start reducing the key rate in 2024. And that should stimulate economic growth and investors’ interest in risky assets, which include cryptocurrencies.

The crypto market may be feverish

In the first half of the week, we can expect high bitcoin volatility on the back of the Fed meeting and the publication of inflation data. The crypto market can be feverish – from sharp rises on expectations of the Fed’s decision to a sudden correction right after Powell’s speech. Support levels for bitcoin will be $41-42 thousand, and resistance – $48 thousand.

By the end of the week bitcoin will show how strong the bulls are in the crypto market. And whether they will be able to gather their strength to confidently consolidate above $45 thousand. Given that the deadline for the publication of the SEC decision on applications for the launch of bitcoin – ETF is in early January 2024. It can be expected that in the next month, the upward trend in the cryptocurrency market will continue. Our experts note that while crypto market participants have not received a final answer to the ETF question, they will continue to hope for a quick launch of the exchange traded fund. And their hopes will serve as a basis for the growth of bitcoin price.