Roses are red and so are the crypto markets this Valentine’s Day morning, even if things aren’t as heartbreaking as they could be.
Bitcoin is hovering around $21,750 for the third day in a row as bulls continue to tease a breakout following an extended sideways trade.
BTC bulls have been anticipating a breakout ever since the February 6 golden cross, when the 50-day moving average shot above the 200-day moving average; unfortunately, a rally has yet to materialize.
The BTC/USDT pair shrugged off yesterday’s potentially disastrous news that Binance/Paxos’ BUSD stablecoin – the third largest of its kind – will have to stop minting US customers due to securities law violations.
At face value, it may seem irrelevant to the price of bitcoin, but as we all know, markets never react kindly to negative news, especially of the regulatory persuasion; just look at last Thursday’s 5% BTC/USDT drop on news of Kraken’s stake fine as a recent example.
Plus, stablecoins are something of a ramp, a gateway drug if you will, to the broader crypto markets, so their existential threat is not something to be taken lightly.
For better or for worse, the launch of Ordinals, i.e. NFTs on the bitcoin ledger for the first time in history, has been a boon for bitcoin usage.
Active bitcoin addresses just hit an all-time high of 44.06 million, and “the primary source of this activity is due to Ordinals,” blockchain analysts at Glassnode said.
When will bitcoin (BTC) rally? – Source: currency.com
Ethereum rebounded from Monday’s lows of $1,460 to return above $1,500 overnight.
The ETH/USDT order book on Binance shows strong support at this price point, while selling pressure should be expected at around $1,550.
BNB falls
Unsurprisingly, Binance’s BNB coin did not take kindly to the SEC suing its stablecoin issuer, sinking nearly 6% on the BNB/USDT pair yesterday.
Today has been a bit more forgiving for the pair, seemingly stabilizing somewhere between $290 and $300, although more short-term volatility should not come as a surprise.
BUSD’s market cap has already shrunk by around 2%, and will continue to decline now that the coin is deflationary.
Elsewhere in the altcoin space
The top 20 looks generally bearish today, with Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ripple (XRP), Polygon (MATIC) and Litecoin (LTC) all shedding low singles overnight.
Tron (TRX) is the one outlier. The blockchain launched in 2017 by Justin Sun added 2% overnight to bring its market cap above $6.06 billion.
New news from the Tron Foundation, including a US$100 million AI development fund and reduced trading fees on Binance, have supported TRX’s bullish performance.
Oasis Network (ROSE), Zilliqa (ZIL), Rocket pool (RPL) and Mina (MINA) were among the worst performers overnight.
The global cryptocurrency market capitalization is currently at $1tn, while the total value across all decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols is $46.9 billion.
