The Crypto Pulse August 30th

Rollbit's weekly analysis and review of the news in Bitcoin, Ethereum and cryptocurrency markets.

News 📰

MicroStrategy Acquires 3,907 Additional Bitcoins

On August 24th, MicroStrategy acquired an additional 3,907 Bitcoins at an average price of $45,294, bringing the company's overall holdings to 108,992 BTC, which amounts to just over 0.50% of the cryptocurrency's total supply.

Substack Now Accepts Bitcoin Payments Over the Lightning Network

Substack, an online publishing platform with over 500,000 paying subscribers, has integrated OpenNode's API to offer Bitcoin payments both on-chain and via the layer 2 scaling solution the Lightning Network.

The collaboration is starting by making instant, low cost payments available to a select group of cryptocurrency-focused publications. Bitcoin can be used by the platform's users to pay for subscriptions to these select publications.

Substack product designer Nick Inzucchi said, "We're excited to be working with OpenNode to enable independent publishers on Substack to accept crypto payments. Having this option will give writers more flexibility and freedom, and we look forward to doing more in crypto to meet writers' needs."

Most Executives See Digital Assets as Strong Fiat Alternative in Next 5-10 Years: Deloitte

Of the 1,280 senior executives surveyed by consultancy firm Deloitte, 76% think that digital assets will be a "strong alternative to or replacement for" fiat in the next five to 10 years. In the next two years, 78% of the participants in Deloitte's 2021 Global Blockchain Survey said that cryptocurrencies will become more important in their industries.

According to the survey's results, the biggest barrier to the adoption of digital assets are cybersecurity, regulation and financial infrastructure. The full results of the survey can be found here.

Facebook Considering NFT Support in Novi Digital Wallet

David Marcus, Facebook's head of financial services, said on Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg that the social media giant is thinking about using its Novi digital wallet to support Non-Fungible Tokens.

"When you have a good crypto wallet like Novi will be, you also have to think about how to help consumers support NFTs," Marcus said, adding that Facebook "is definitely thinking about this."

Billionaire Bill Miller Takes Plunge into GBTC with 1.5 Million Shares

According to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Billionaire fund manager Bill Miller has taken a significant position in Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

The Miller Opportunity Trust owns 1.5 million shares of GBTC valued at $44.7 million, representing ~1.55% of the fund's net assets. Morgan Stanley also purchased $240 million of GBTC shares last week, making the investment bank the second largest holder of Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust after ARK Investment Management.

Bug Impacting Over 50% of Ethereum Clients Leads to Fork

A bug in older versions of the Ethereum network client Geth has caused nodes running those versions to split from the main network. The bug impacts older versions of Geth clients (v1.10.7 and earlier), affecting approximately 56% of Ethereum nodes.

Photo by Executium on Unsplash

The concern is that the bug could open up the possibility of 'double spending' attacks, where cryptocurrency is spent, but then the transaction is overwritten by the alternative chain. The bug was also exploited on other chains compatible with Ethereum's Virtual Machine, such as Binance Smart Chain.

Other News

• Osprey Funds looking to offer Solana Trust after SOL entered the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap and filed a document with the SEC on Tuesday,
• Fetch.ai launches NFT platform for AI-generated art,
• Budweiser purchased a Budweiser-branded rocketship NFT on August 24th for 8 ETH,
• Cuba Lays Groundwork to Legalize Cryptocurrency Transactions.

Market Analysis 📈📉

7-day Price Change

• BTC: -1.60%
• ETH: +2.20%
• BNB: +6.30%
• XRP: -6.80%
• DOGE: -11.20%
• SOL: +54.30%
• LTC: -6.30%
• LINK: -8.40%

Data as of August 30th, 19:30 UTC

Let's look at the Bitcoin chart.

Since closing above the middle Bollinger Band on July 23rd, the price of bitcoin has found support at the middle band several times over the past month or so and currently lies near $47,497. Support is also seen at $46,750, which is where the price bounced from on August 26th, and the at the lower band near $44,000 (shown by the daily chart below).

A daily close above the important psychological level at $50,000 is still elusive and we'd want to see BTC-USD take out this level for a bullish outlook. Looking at the 4-hour chart below, we see that the width of the Bollinger Bands is at the lowest level in over a month, suggesting a breakout will happen soon as volatility returns to the market.

Since the price has already tagged the lower Bollinger Band and given we have a couple of Doji candlestick patterns and a Hammer candlestick pattern, the mot likely direction seems to be to the upside. A 4-hour close above $49.275 would give us a Bollinger Squeeze and most likely see a rapid move to the upside.

Turning to Ethereum, the price volatility as measured by the width of the Bollinger Bands is at the lowest level since early November 2020, suggesting a large move is imminent. Ethereum has been trading between $3,300 and $3,000 over the past week or so and with volatility at 10-month lows, traders should anticipate a breakout. A breakout to the upside could see ETH-USD rise to $4,200 over the medium term, while a breakout to the downside would likely see a test of $2,900-$2,700 region.

A daily close above the upper Bollinger Band (currently just above $3,400) would give us a 'Bollinger Squeeze' and confirm a breakout to the upside. On the other hand, a daily close below the lower Bollinger Band (currently just above $3,000) would signal a move to the downside.

Solana continues to print fresh highs over the past week, reaching an all-time high of $116.84 on August 30th. If the price continues to hold above the Fibonacci extension level at $107.85 (shown on the chart below), then the next target to the upside is $152.01. If the price dives below $107.85, then SOL-USD should find support near the Fibonacci level at $80.55.

Have a great week!

-The Rollbit Team