SBF runs the gauntlet, NFT sales pick up, and Coinbase drops BCH and XRP

As we dig deep into this bear market, crypto adoption continues to sprout from Brazil legalizing crypto payments to Fidelity launching retail crypto trading. A milestone was made for the Bitcoin layer-2 Lightning Network and NFTs enjoyed a solid rise in sales.

Top Market Trends

• Brazil gives crypto the OK as lawmakers approved a bill to regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for use as payments (but not as legal tender).
• Aave temporarily froze lending markets for 17 cryptocurrencies on Ethereum in reaction to a $1.6 million short position exploit on its CRV market.
• Fidelity’s $4.5 trillion investment firm officially launched its retail crypto trading accounts, starting with Bitcoin and Etheruem with other coins to be evaluated.
• Long-term Bitcoin-only cold wallet Casa announced it was adding Ethereum due to user demand.
• Crypto Twitter collectively criticized mainstream media (NYT) as they hosted a public live interview of SBF. Later on multiple Twitter spaces, crypto-natives shot rapid-fire questions to the former FTX Founder.

I watched that SBF @andrewrsorkin interview, and I have to say that I still can't believe what I just witnessed. I'm actually speechless at the level of reality distortion field at play here. Also... audience applauding at the end? WTF!

— David Marcus ⚡ (@davidmarcus) November 30, 2022

Movers and Shakers

Top 7-day Gainers:

1. FTM +33.4%
2. HT +21.2%
3. DOGE +20.1%
4. APE +18.8%
5. GMX +16.8%

Top 7-day Losers:

1. BNX -24.8%
2. LEO -10.4%
3. CHZ -8.4%
4. CRV -8.2%
5. NEXO -8.2%

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Technical Summary

Bitcoin Pulse
Bitcoin (BTC) price topped $17,000 (a long-term resistance level) for the first time since the FTX fallout period began. A Bitcoin ETF may be coming into fruition sooner than later with favorable upcoming regulatory guidelines.

• Crypto Garage announced they had successfully opened and closed a Lightning Network channel with an embedded DLC channel, enabling a certain type of Bitcoin transaction that executes a smart contract via an oracle’s data feed.
• Sam Bankman-Fried publicly stated in a Twitter Space that FTX users who bought and held Bitcoin on the exchange were actually holding paper bitcoin IOUs backed by FTT tokens.

Ya, his answer to this last question about “synthetic or fake” tokens confirms it as well. They had more tokens in the system than they actually had balances. So, they weren’t capped by lending from client balances. They were literally just printing new coins like a central bank.

— Jesse Powell (@jespow) December 1, 2022

you can't replace someone's liquid funds with an illiquid token unbeknownst to them and then later call it a liquidity crisis when they want their initial deposit back

— juthica (@juthica) December 1, 2022

BTC - Low Timeframe

As forecasted in our previous market breakdown we saw continued bullish momentum clearing out the engineered equal high liquidity at $17,000 and mitigated the bearish order-block in discount.

At this point, given that we have:

1. Reached premium prices
2. Mitigated a bearish order block in premium
3. Closed the 1H fair-value gap

The probability of a retracement to the equilibrium of the bullish move since the 21st is probable.

This would look like this

1. Retracement to a bullish order block in discount
2. Closing of the 1H fair-value gap
3. Running of 1H sell-side liquidity (complete)

Alternatively if the bulls are still in strong control we could see another test deeper into the 1H bearish order block before this retracement takes hold.

Finally, if the bullish sentiment is going to continue strong we could see a move all the way to the $18,000 level where price would be mitigating the extreme bearish order-block.

BTC - Macro View

BTC/USD continued to find support at the monthly support levels previously highlighted; we now wait to see if continued bullish momentum develops or if the bulls are now exhausted.

Now that price has reached an area of LTF value, we could see short term HTF retracement into LTF support to fuel a move to target 1H buy side liquidity.

If this scenario were to take hold, our target points would be at minimum equilibrium of the wider 1M/1W current range from $15,500-$25,200. This would further align with the closing of the 1D fair-value gap and a bearish order block in discount.

Alternatively, if the bulls are now exhausted we look to target the $15,500 lows before any retracement is likely to be on the cards.

Altcoins on the Move
A huge week for altcoins with the delisting of multiple, former top-20 coins from Coinbase. Major announcements for project updates boosted Fantom, Huobi, and The Open Network. Ethereum jumped on a prediction by Cardano Founder, Charles Hoskinson, who said that Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover would result in 200 million new crypto users.

• Coinbase announced it would stop supporting BCH, ETC, XLM and XRP citing low usage. All 4 coins suffered a steep drop when the news dropped.
• Fantom (FTM) was a top gainer this week as DeFi OG Andre Cronje announced Fantom was “Cash Flow Positive” with $10 million in annual revenue.
• Huobi (HT) announced its strategic partnership with Poloniex as the two exchanges will begin cooperation on multiple fronts.
• The Open Network (TON) jumped 8% on the news that Telegram is building a cryptocurrency exchange and non-custodial wallets.

Ethereum Macro

ETH/USD this week continued its overall bullish momentum signaling we could be finding longer term support at our daily bullish order-blocks.

We would be looking for price to make its way up to the $1500 level before a deeper retrace takes hold if the bulls are in control.

Alternatively, we could see a rejection of the daily 50EMA, leading to a retrace down into the $1100 level where price could find support for the continued bullish move up into the $1500 price level.

Finally, if the bulls are exhausted we would see a run of the $1000 engineered equal lows liquidity before expecting any retracement

Newsworthy:

• The team at ANKR Protocol confirmed an exploit on BNB, with a hacker minting 10T aBNBc tokens from liquidity pools (worth ~$5M) via a governance key compromise.
• FTX subsidiary LedgerX is set to make $175 million in regulatory funds available for use in FTX bankruptcy proceedings to go toward repaying creditors. Meanwhile, BlockFi filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, revealing $265M in cash and up to $10 billion in liabilities.
• Binance is set to re-enter the Japanese market after acquiring a 100% stake in Sakura Exchange BitCoin (SEBC), a Japanese exchange regulated by Japan’s FSA. Binance was shut down in 2018 in Japan due to a lack of license to operate.
• A big week for NFTs as sales jumped 22% across 20 blockchains, a revered pseudonymous NFT collector Gmoney revealed his identity, and NFT images of China’s anti-lockdown protests began popping up on OpenSea.

Tweet of the Week!

School kids in Brazil using #Bitcoin to buy fruit 🇧🇷

The future is bright 🙌pic.twitter.com/wruOzPRFRx

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 1, 2022

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Disclaimer: The content of this article is for general market education and commentary and is not intended to serve as financial, investment, or any other type of advice.