Category Archives: News

According to on-chain data, current Bitcoin SOPR trend suggests the market may be nowhere near the price bottom.

Bitcoin SOPR Still Some Distance Above The “One” Level

As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant post, the BTC SOPR hints there may be some ways to go still before a bottom forms.

The “spent output profit ratio” (or SOPR in brief) is an indicator that tells us whether investors are selling at a profit or a loss right now.

The metric works by evaluating the history of each coin on the chain to see which price it was last moved at. If this price was less than the current price (that is, the selling price), then the coin sold at a profit.

On the other hand, the last price being more than the current one would imply the investor realized a loss on this coin.

Related Reading | On-Chain Data: Bitcoin Whales Buy The Dip As BTC Drops To $39k

When SOPR has a value more than one, it means the overall market is making a profit at the moment. While ratio values below the threshold imply a realization of losses.

Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin SOPR over the past few years:

Looks like the indicator's value is above 1 right now | Source: CryptoQuant

In the above graph, the quant has marked the important points of trend. It seems like bottoms have historically formed whenever the Bitcoin SOPR has dipped below the value = 1 mark.

The significance of this “one” level is that investors are just breaking even at this point. The value drops any further and they are selling at a loss.

Relate Reading | TA: Bitcoin Recovers Losses But Here’s Why $41.5K Could Prevent Gains

After capitulation, there aren’t many sellers left in the market normally, hence why a bottom forms during such periods.

Now, looking at the current trend, it seems like the value of the Bitcoin SOPR is around 1.31 right now. This is still a bit above the 1 level, which could suggest there may be more downside in the store for the crypto before a new bottom formation takes place.

However, it’s also possible the price may see a temporary rebound here, as it already did once earlier in the year around a similar SOPR value.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price floats around $40.7k, up 1% in the last seven days. Over the past month, the crypto has lost 3% in value.

The below chart shows the trend in the price of the coin over the last five days.

BTC's price looks to have surged up over the past twenty-four hours | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com

Robinhood, a major cryptocurrency-friendly stock trading app, is pushing global expansion by acquiring the United Kingdom-based crypto asset firm Ziglu.

Robinhood officially announced Tuesday that it had signed a deal to acquire Ziglu, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. The firm declined to disclose the size of the deal to Cointelegraph.

“Subject to regulatory approval, in the near term, nothing will change for current Ziglu customers. Longer-term, we’ll integrate Ziglu more fully into Robinhood, bring the Robinhood brand overseas and work to expand operations beyond the U.K. into Europe,” the spokesperson for Robinhood said.

The acquisition aims to help Robinhood accelerate its international expansion and finally enter markets both in the United Kingdom and across Europe. The move comes in line with Robinhood’s renewed expansion efforts this year after the platform previously aborted its ambitious expansion plans in countries like the United Kingdom back in 2020.

This aged well… https://t.co/YgjYSHVGru

— Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) April 19, 2022

As Cointelegraph reported, Ziglu was founded by former Barclays technology head and Starling bank co-founder Mark Hipperson in 2020. The firm provides a digital platform that enables customers to buy and sell eleven cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and others. The Ziglu platform also allows users to yield rewards and pay for services using a debit card.

Robinhood is a major online brokerage known for offering a commission-free investing and trading platform in the United States. Robinhood became widely known in the crypto community after the company rolled out trading of major cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH in 2018.

Related: FTX expands to Europe with CySEC approval

Despite some controversy around its trading policies and the increased attention from U.S regulators last year, Robinhood has been pushing development recently. The company rolled out its digital wallet feature for 2 million additional users in early April 2022, announcing plans to integrate the Lightning Network.

The Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, reported that many countries, including those with virtual asset service providers (VASPs), are not in compliance with its standards on Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML).

In a report released Tuesday on the “State of Effectiveness and Compliance with the FATF Standards,” the organization said 52% of the assessed jurisdictions in 120 countries had “adequate laws and regulatory structures in place” to assess risks and verify beneficial owners of companies. In addition, the FATF reported that only 9% of countries were “substantially effective” in this area.

“Countries need to prioritize their efforts and demonstrate improvements in recording, reporting and verifying information regarding legal persons and arrangements,” said the FATF report. “In order to mitigate high-risk activities such as bearer shares and nominee relationships, competent authorities should be able to quickly access accurate and up-to-date information.”

Are countries successfully tackling money laundering & terrorist financing? A new FATF report gives a comprehensive overview of global efforts to tackle these issues. The report outlines what is going well and where countries need to improve.
See more ➡️ pic.twitter.com/qTPCHpa3r9

— FATF (@FATFNews) April 19, 2022

According to the report, the FATF aimed to build “an effective supervisory and enforcement system comprising a wide range of supervisory measures” to ensure VASPs were in compliance with AML and CFT guidelines. The organization said its supervision of such firms was intended to assess risks and mitigate threats in response to dealing with potentially illicit transactions.

Related: FATF includes DeFi in guidance for crypto service providers

Under FATF guidelines, VASPs operating within certain jurisdictions need to be licensed or registered. Of the 120 monitored countries, the organization identified several in March with “strategic deficiencies” in regards to AML and CFT, including the United Arab Emirates, Malta, Cayman Islands and the Philippines. Many countries are implementing FATF standards in compliance with the organization’s Travel Rule, which is becoming a necessity for many crypto and blockchain firms.

Bitcoin bounced back from the high area of around $30,000, and trends to the upside of its current range. The first crypto by market cap managed to trace back its weekend losses and returned to the $40,000 area.

Related Reading | TA: Bitcoin Recovers Losses But Here’s Why $41.5K Could Prevent Gains

At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades at $41,600 with a 6% and 5% profit in the last 24-hours and 7-day, respectively.

The general sentiment in the market seems optimistic as BTC’s price was able to push back the bears’ fresh assault and prevent further losses. The $38,000 to $39,000 area was full of bid orders, as NewsBTC reported yesterday, which proved a critical zone for the rebound.

The current price action seems to be trending upwards in volatility after a long period of stagnation for BTC’s price. As seen below, data from Arcane Research indicates that low volatility levels could be brewing Bitcoin for a fresh rally or a reclaim of its previous highs.

The research firm noted that Bitcoin’s 30-day volatility reached a multi-year low. The last time this metric stood at its current levels was in November 2020.

At that time, Bitcoin broke out of its bear market price action from the $3,000 to $16,000 range and into uncharted territory. The decrease in volatility seems to have hinted at this price movement and could potentially be indicative of BTC’s future performance as it rebounds back to $40,000.

Arcane Research noted the following on BTC’s volatility and why it is signaling more market activity:

Bitcoin’s dull price action over the recent month led bitcoin’s 30-day volatility to reach its lowest levels since November 5^th, 2020, on Saturday, April 16^th. The low volatility regime back in the fall of 2020 held for nearly three months from late September until early November, but such prolonged low volatility period is unusual.

Bitcoin Whales Push Price From The Bottom Of Its Range

Separate data from Material Indicators (MI) indicates an increase in short-term activity from large Bitcoin investors. As seen below, investors with bid orders of around $100,000 (in purple), $10,000 (in red), and $1,000 (in green) are buying into BTC’s current price action.

Retail investors and “Mega” BTC whales remain dormant. In total, other investors classes have been buying as much as $60 million in BTC over the past day.

$39,000 and $38,000 continue to display important support for BTC’s price in case of potential downside. To the upside, $45,000 and $48,000 are BTC’s most important resistance levels with over $10 million in asks orders on these two levels alone.

Related Reading | Now Or Never: Bitcoin Builds Base At Decade-Long Parabolic Curve

Could the BTC whales push the cryptocurrency to the high $60,000 and into uncharted territory as it did in November 2020? Time will tell. The macro conditions seem to be unfavorable for a fresh rally.

#FireCharts 2.0 (beta) shows #Bitcoin liquidity is on the move. There is currently ~$25M in Ask liquidity between here and the next technical resistance level is the 50 Day MA.
Note: MegaWhales have yet to buy. #Crypto
More from Material Indicators… pic.twitter.com/qRagkZTBlg

— Material Indicators (@MI_Algos) April 19, 2022

On this week’s show, Cointelegraph’s resident experts reveal exactly what percentages of their portfolios are allocated to what coins and why.

But first, market expert Marcel Pechman carefully examines the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) markets. Are the current market conditions bullish or bearish? What is the outlook for the next few months? Pechman is here to break it down.

Next up: the main event. Join Cointelegraph analysts Benton Yaun, Jordan Finneseth and Sam Bourgi as they reveal their crypto portfolios. We kick things off with Bourgi, whose top holdings are BTC with 67%, ETH with 20%. No surprise there but what about the rest? It’s an interesting mix, to say the least so make sure you stick around to find out. Next, we have Yuan, whose top three holdings are 35% BTC, 28% Terra (LUNA) and 15% ETH. If you’ve been a regular viewer of the show, then you might be able to guess what the rest of his portfolio looks like since he’s always talking about certain coins in particular. Lastly, we have Finneseth, whose portfolio is so diverse and extensive that we would have to write a whole new article dedicated to just that. So, If you want to know what’s in the portfolio of one of our most experienced and well-versed experts, make sure you’re tuning in because this one is going to be interesting. 

After the showdown, we’ve got insights from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, a platform for crypto traders who want to stay one step ahead of the market. The analysts use Cointelegraph Markets Pro to identify two altcoins that stood out this week: Near Protocol (NEAR) and Ren (REN)

Do you have a question about a coin or topic not covered here? Don’t worry. Join the YouTube chat room, and write your questions there. The person with the most interesting comment or question will be given a free month of Cointelegraph Markets Pro, worth $100.

The Market Report streams live every Tuesday at 12:00 pm ET (4:00 pm UTC), so be sure to head on over to Cointelegraph’s YouTube page and smash those like and subscribe buttons for all our future videos and updates.

Australia is set to get its first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) after a report suggested the country’s clearinghouse, ASX Clear, confirmed that four market participants agreed to meet its stringent margin requirements.

ASX Clear’s Margin Requirements

An Australian clearinghouse controlling access to the country’s equity capital markets, ASX Clear, is expected to approve a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), a report has said. The thumbs up to what is said to be Australia’s first bitcoin ETF became possible after three institutional participants and one retail participant reportedly agreed to the clearinghouse margin requirements.

According to an AFR report, the four participants agreed to provide ASX Clear’s required margin of 42% before it allowed trading in the ETF. The report said this requirement was needed in order to cover the settlement risks that are associated with bitcoin.

“We are now at our minimum number of clearing participants and that means we are good to go,” Hamish Treleaven, the CEO of ASX Clear is quoted explaining.

The CEO added that the clearinghouse will consequently issue a notice that gives market participants seven days’ notice of ASX Clear’s regulatory approval. The notice, according to the report, is intended to give brokers, clearers, investors and market makers time to prepare for the ETF.

The Cosmos Asset Management bitcoin ETF will be the only bitcoin ETF product available when trading commences on the Cboe trading venue on April 27, the report said. There are expectations that $1 billion will roll into the bitcoin ETF once it is listed.

The Regulator’s About-Face

Meanwhile, the report noted that the approval of the bitcoin ETF had come some two years after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) ruled out listing a crypto ETF in the country. However, the regulator would later shift its position after it was pressured by the country’s politicians, the report said.

As noted in the report, the approval of Cosmos Asset Management bitcoin ETF likely means other trading venues such as NSX might also list a bitcoin ETF.

What are your thoughts on this story? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Terence Zimwara

Terence Zimwara is a Zimbabwe award-winning journalist, author and writer. He has written extensively about the economic troubles of some African countries as well as how digital currencies can provide Africans with an escape route.