This Week in Crypto: FTX Settlement Deal, TOTALCAP Up, F&G Volatile

  Key Takeaways

• FTX creditors will be offered a $16.3 million reimbursement deal as Kamala Harris decides her crypto policies.
• TOTALCAP is up 25% since Aug. 5.
• DYDX and AAVE announced updates.
• The Fear & Greed Index has been volatile.

It’s been another interesting week in crypto. FTX creditors look likely to get their money back, while WazirX cancelled a swathe of orders.

Let’s take a look at some of the news from the last week and see what coins and tokens are performing notably.

This Week’s Crypto News: FTX Reimbursement, Wazir X, and American Politics

Creditors of the bankrupt FTX exchange are set to be offered a deal worth as much as $16.3 billion after the business approved a reimbursement plan. 

The scheme will see creditors offered up to 9% interest, with details to be finalized on Oct. 7, when the creditors’ voting results will be announced. 

FTX CEO John J Ray III said: “We are grateful for the collaboration with our stakeholders and creditors to date, and we will continue to work constructively with our creditors and the Court over the coming weeks leading up to the confirmation hearing. We are pleased to be moving closer to distributing cash to customers and completing the Chapter 11 process.”

In other exchange-related news, WazirX, which suffered a hack last month, cancelled all its existing orders on August 21. 

The Indian exchange, which lost around $230 billion following the July 18 attack, said any blocked assets would be returned to wallets. 

It is not yet clear whether this decision has anything to do with last month’s hack.

In the United States, independent presidential candidate and crypto enthusiast Robert F Kennedy Jr appears likely to call a halt to his White House run.

Reports suggest that he will, instead, offer his support to Republican candidate Donald Trump. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s Democrat opponent, Kamala Harris, is exploring potential crypto policies. 

The current Vice-President’s senior policy advisor, Brian Nelson, said: “She’s going to support policies that ensure that emerging technologies and that sort of industry can continue to grow.”

However, neither Harris nor her team have said what those policies might actually be. 

Crypto Market Technical Analysis

The Crypto Market Capitalization  (TOTALCAP) has recovered by 25% since its Aug. 5 lows. 

The bounce created a very long lower wick in the three-day time frame, signifying that bulls have taken over and pushed the price up.

More importantly, the bounce caused a reclaim of a Fibonacci and horizontal support level at $1.85 trillion. 

Also, it saved a breakdown from a descending parallel channel existing since the yearly high. 

As of the time of writing (Aug. 23 2024), TOTALCAP is reclaiming the channel’s midline. If successful, it will make a breakout from the channel more likely. 

If a breakout happens, it would confirm that the fifth and final wave of the upward movement (white) has started. 

A potential target for this increase will be $3.34 trillion, created by the 1.61 external Fibonacci retracement level of wave four (black).

As for the Bitcoin Dominance Rate (BTCD), it moved above the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement resistance level last week, reaching a high of 57.71%. 

However, it has fallen since, and risks declining below the level if the rate of decrease persists.

Indicator readings and the price action both align with a possible drop. 

The MACD and RSI have both generated bearish divergences (green) while the price trades in a descending wedge pattern.

So, BTCD may break down from the wedge and fall toward the closest support at 50%.

Crypto On-chain Analysis This Week

On-chain readings for Bitcoin suggest the ongoing cycle has another upward movement left before it is over.

Firstly, the block subsidy model shows that Bitcoin trades above the 16x Thermocap line (yellow)

In most previous cycles it has moved to the 64x Thermocap line (red), and it has always moved at least above the 32x line (purple).

The indicator measures the price relative to its cost of production and suggests that in the current market cycle, its valuation is not nearly as overbought as in the previous ones.

However, it does not say anything about whether the bottom is reached since BTC fell below the 16x line several times in the previous cycles.

The Mayer Multiple model can help determine bottoms, and currently shows nearly oversold conditions at a reading of 1.05.

Historically, values below 0.8 have coincided with bottoms. 

Similarly to the Block Subsidy model, the price has moved above 2.4 in each previous cycle and has only topped at 1.77 in the current one.

As a result, both indicators suggest the top has not been reached yet and the Mayer Multiple one implies a bottom is in place.

Crypto Drivers This Week

This week has been intense for the cryptocurrency market, with notable developments and price movements. Despite the broader market sentiment, DYDX emerged as the biggest gainer, climbing 13% since Friday, Aug. 16, and continuing its recovery from the recent downturn that ended on Aug. 5.

DYDX Announces Update

On Aug. 13, dYdX announced a major autumn update featuring the MegaVault and permissionless market listings. The MegaVault, a master liquidity pool, allows USDC depositors to earn passive income while ensuring instant liquidity.

Permissionless market listings will let users create and list markets without needing governance approval.

DYDX reached its yearly high of $4.50 on March 9 before falling to $0.84 on Aug. 5, an 82% drop. However, recent developments suggest a market rebound as the price approached a critical point on Aug. 19.

Cardano Fights to Stay in Top 10

Meanwhile, Cardano (ADA) has been fighting to maintain its spot in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. After Tron (TRX) briefly surpassed it, ADA regained its position with an 8% rise, driven by anticipation of the upcoming Chang hard fork. This upgrade, aimed at improving scalability, governance, and overall performance, is scheduled for Aug. 27, with a potential delay to Sept. 3. The hard fork will implement Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP) 1694, giving ADA holders more influence over the network’s future. While it has met node readiness, exchange liquidity is still below the required 80%, currently at 34.8%.

AAVE launches Era Mainnet Version Three

Aave also stood out in August, gaining over 30% this month. The token rebounded from its low on Aug. 5, reaching a high of $144, close to its yearly peak of $153. Aave’s recent launch of version three on the Era Mainnet, powered by ZKsync’s Zero-Knowledge (ZK) roll-up technology, has been a key factor in this performance.

The combination of ZK-proofs with Aave’s ecosystem should enhance scalability, privacy, and security in DeFi. Additionally, the partnership with Chainlink aims to ensure reliable market data and increase institutional use cases for DeFi. Meanwhile, users should benefit from ZKsync airdrops and liquidity mining incentives. The question remains whether Aave can break through its resistance level and reach new heights or if the rally will lose momentum.

New Cryptos This Week

• CoreConnect (CORE): CoreConnect  is a privacy-focused token that aims to “deliver advanced digital services for users who prioritize anonymity and high performance.” Its Telegram bot allows users to rent VPS, RDP, and GPUs, join cryptographic GPU pools, and access SSH servers. With a self-reported market cap of $7.9 million, CORE has a circulating supply of 100 million, reflecting its entire issuance.
• Konet (KONET): Konet  aims to provide a secure and efficient platform for various applications. It is built on the Ethereum blockchain and utilizes the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Konet (KONET) has a self-reported market cap of $51.1 million, with a circulating and total supply of 200.1 million KONET tokens.
• Binancedog (BINANCEDOG): Binancedog  is a community-driven project that aims to create a decentralized ecosystem for dog-themed NFTs and other digital assets. Binancedog provides a platform for creating, buying, and selling dog-themed NFTs. Binancedog has a self-reported market cap of $5.8.4 million, with a circulating supply of one billion tokens.
• Anzen Finance (USDZ): Anzen  is a decentralized platform offering access to USDz, a stablecoin backed by a diversified portfolio of private credit assets. These are chosen in partnership with qualified, KYC-compliant investors through a stringent underwriting process. USDz is fully composable, allowing holders to enjoy the stability of real-world assets (RWA) with significantly less volatility than speculative tokens. It has a self-reported market cap of $1.24 million, with a circulating supply of 1.25 million tokens.
• Neuro BNB (NEBNB): Neuro BNB  is a decentralized platform focusing on the secure and transparent development, deployment, and management of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and data. Built on the BNB Chain, Neuro BNB addresses centralization, data privacy, and equitable access to advanced AI tools. The project decentralizes the control and ownership of AI models and data. By doing so, it gets rid of single points of failure and mitigating the risks associated with centralized data management. NEBNB has a self-reported market cap of $5.26 billion, with a circulating supply of 350 million tokens.

Crypto to Look Out for This Week

Token Unlocks

Credit: TokenUnlocks 

Upcoming Events

Dogs (DOGS)

Exchange Listings – August 26, 2024, 12:00 PM UTC

The Dogs (DOGS) token will be listed on three major exchanges—Gate.io , Binance , and MEXC .

Dash (DASH)

Evolution Chain Activation – August 28, 2024 

Dash (DASH) prepares for the Evolution chain activation on August 28, 2024, after successfully mining the first Enhanced Hard Fork (EHF) transaction. With 85% of Masternodes upgraded, the hard fork activation process is underway, set to finalize on August 28. The Evolution platform will launch DashPay and DPNS, allowing users to register simple usernames for transactions.

Starknet (STRK)

Block Packing Launch on Mainnet – August 28, 2024 

Starknet will introduce Block Packing on Mainnet on August 28, 2024, with version v0.13.2. update, combined with Parallel Execution, reduces operational costs and speeds up finality by increasing block frequency and optimizing gas usage. Currently, Starknet’s costs on Ethereum are around 215K gas per block. However, with Block Packing using SNAR trees, costs will drop to 74K gas per blob with six blobs per tree.

eckoDAO (KDX)

Closure and Transition Update – August 30, 2024 

eckoDAO plans to close or transfer operations by August 30, 2024, confirming that all user funds remain secure. A new community-built, decentralized, zero-fee DEX will take over from EckoDex, with ongoing efforts to secure licensing and liquidity from Ecko. For EckoWallet, users should switch to alternatives like Koala, Linx, Chainweaver, and Zelcore or consider forking EckoWallet, as it operates as an open-source product. Ecko expects to provide further updates before the closure.

Crypto Sentiment This Week

This week, the crypto market has experienced a notable shift in sentiment, as reflected by the Fear & Greed Index. Starting the week in the “Fear” zone, the index fluctuated between 27 and 39, indicating ongoing uncertainty among investors. Despite some mid-week recovery, the overall sentiment remains cautious.

On social media, discussions have been dominated by the potential impact of US Federal Reserve decisions, particularly the anticipated interest rate cuts in September. This speculation has fueled debates on whether the market will see a resurgence or if the prolonged bear market will continue. Conversations also centered around Bitcoin’s price stability, which has hovered between $58,000 and $62,000, leading to mixed sentiment regarding its near-term potential.

In altcoins, Ethereum’s upcoming network upgrades have kept it in the spotlight, with a slightly more optimistic sentiment compared to Bitcoin. Meanwhile, Solana and Avalanche saw neutral to positive sentiment due to their expanding ecosystems, although investors remain cautiously optimistic, awaiting more tangible results.

Overall, the sentiment this week has leaned towards “Fear” with some pockets of optimism, especially around developments in altcoins and the potential regulatory changes in the US. The Fear & Greed Index, currently edging towards “Neutral,” suggests that while fear is still prevalent, there is a growing anticipation of a possible market turnaround.

Additional Reporting by Valdrin Tahiri, Giuseppe Ciccomascolo, Toghrul Aliyev and Nikola Lazic.

About the Author

Peter Henn

Peter Henn has been a journalist since 2005. In that time, he has written for a variety of publishers including the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Express. He has previously covered the world of cryptocurrency for Currency.com and Capital.com, and has also written for ECigIntelligence.com and CBD-Intel.com. A graduate of the University of Liverpool, he is based in the United Kingdom. His hobbies include music, horse racing and performance art.

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