Shibarium Transactions Spike 267% in Days, SHIB Price Reacts

Bitcoin's price has risen by more than 6% since the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a 50 basis-point cut to its Federal Funds rate earlier this week — reaching a high of $63,800 in early Friday trading. The rally comes after the price of bitcoin briefly hit a local bottom of around $57,500 at the beginning of the week.

In addition to the Fed's policy changes, bitcoin has found support from a weaker Japanese yen, according to derivatives trader Gordon Grant. The U.S. dollar has been strengthening against the yen since Monday, providing further upside for bitcoin, which can benefit from this specific currency dynamic. A stronger dollar relative to the yen has historically been supportive of higher-risk assets, as the yen is often used as a funding currency for "risk-on" trades, where investors seek higher returns by borrowing in low-interest currencies like the yen, Grant told The Block.

According to Grant, the yen’s current weakness versus the dollar is playing a crucial role in the market. "The plus 1% strengthening of the dollar uniquely against the yen has accommodated an appreciation in assets like gold, silver and also bitcoin," Grant noted. He added that while bitcoin can act as a "short dollar proxy" — gaining value when the dollar weakens — it also behaves like a high-beta asset, meaning it tends to rise when broader market risk sentiment improves.

The macroeconomic environment of a strengthening dollar and weakening yen was further reinforced on Friday when the Bank of Japan appeared hesitant in its commitment to raise interest rates, opting to keep its policy rate unchanged at 0.25%. In July, the BoJ had indicated that it would continue raising rates if inflation followed its projected path. However, despite expectations of rising Consumer Price Index inflation in 2025 — driven by the "dissipating" impact of government measures aimed at suppressing CPI inflation — the central bank decided to hold rates steady.

The dollar has increased 0.74% to 143.65 yen, close to an overnight high of 143.95.

Mixed views on bitcoin's trajectory following Fed rate cut

Following the Federal Reserve’s recent 50 basis-point rate cut, analysts have divergent opinions on bitcoin’s near- and long-term price prospects. The rate cut, which signals a potential easing of economic conditions, could impact bitcoin significantly in coming weeks and months, but interpretations of its effects vary.

21Shares Crypto Research Strategist Matt Mena stated in an email to The Block that the rate cut could lead to near-term market volatility. "In the short term, the 50 basis-point rate cut could signal to the market that the economy is slowing, hinting at underlying issues that may not yet be apparent. This could unsettle both traditional and digital investors, potentially triggering initial volatility. However, over the long term, bitcoin and other digital assets have historically thrived in low-interest-rate environments," Mena said.

Meanwhile, BRN analyst Valentin Fournier provided a more cautious longer-term outlook. "Technical indicators suggest that bitcoin's upward momentum may be nearing its peak. The price is approaching the upper Bollinger Bands, and the Stochastic RSI is signaling a potential trend reversal. For now, we recommend maintaining low exposure, with reinvestment only considered around $56,000 and lower," Fournier said in an email sent to The Block.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Earlier today, prominent blockchain tracker Whale Alert spread the word about several Satoshi-era Bitcoin wallets awakening after staying for more than 15 years in hibernation.

Five dormant 2009 Bitcoin miners suddenly re-emerge

However, analytics account @lookonchain has published a post, revealing that within a single hour there were five dormant Bitcoin wallets that have awakened, each containing 50 BTC – the equivalent of $3.18 million. By November 2012, when the halving took place, the Bitcoin network had reached 210,000 blocks.

All of them are miners who earned their 50 BTC for generating a Bitcoin block in 2009 – the year when the world’s pioneer cryptocurrency was launched by the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto. Back then, a block reward constituted 50 BTC until the first BTC halving in 2012, when it was slashed to 25 BTC.

Please note that many miner wallets dormant for more than 15.5 years are transferring $BTC!

5 miner wallets have transferred 250 $BTC($15.9M) in the past hour.

These wallets received 50 $BTC($3.18M) as mining rewards per block back in 2009.

Address:… pic.twitter.com/HktJivt7Qy— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 20, 2024

All these five wallets transferred 250 BTC in total – an amount of Bitcoins valued at almost $16 million overall.

Bitcoin price regains $63,000

This week, the world’s flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has experienced large momentum, gaining more than 11% in total as it rose from $57,600 to the $64,000 level.

The price surge in the past 24 hours has been 3.36%. However, it was followed by a marginal drop and at the time of this writing, BTC is changing hands at $63,545. This impressive growth was triggered by the decision of the Fed Reserve to slash the annual interest rate by 50 basis points.

This comes as the first interest rate cut initiated by the world’s most important central bank in the past four years as it has pivoted to a dovish stance.

Telegram tap-to-earn game Catizen’s token has gone live for trading with 150 million tokens, or 15% of the total 1 billion supply, airdropped to users as part of its Season 1 distribution, following a two-month delay to its initially planned launch.

Trading began for the TON blockchain-based CATI tokens at 6 a.m. ET on Friday morning. They are listed on several centralized exchanges, including Binance, Bybit and Bitget. Deposit registrations for CATI to non-custodial wallets opened on Thursday, and the tokens were also distributed to eligible participants at 6 a.m. ET today based on their game activity, the team said.

This is part of a larger allocation of 340 million CATI tokens dedicated to airdrops, with the remaining 190 million used for quarterly airdrop campaigns, according to the team.

Pluto Studio, the developer of Catizen, began the airdrop process on Sept. 14, revealing token allocations to players. Users could claim and stake CATI tokens on selected centralized exchanges ahead of Friday’s token generation event.

Some Catizen players were upset about their token allocations during the airdrop process, as the team had initially allocated a larger percentage of the supply. However, shortly before the airdrop, the allocation was reduced, with 9% of the token supply diverted to the Binance Launchpool instead. They also criticized the eligibility weighting for some players.

Of the other 57% of the total CATI supply, 5% is reserved for liquidity purposes. 15% is allocated to the treasury, 20% to the team, 10% to investors and 7% to advisors, each with a 12-month cliff and 48-month linear release schedule.

Citizen claims to have more than 39 million total users and 18 million monthly users. It surpassed $16 million in revenue from in-app purchases in July, according to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.

Telegram clicker game craze fuels TON blockchain growth

Telegram mini apps are lightweight, web-based applications that can be embedded and accessed directly within the popular messaging platform.

Telegram has expanded its crypto footprint in recent months, with millions of gamers using the messaging app to play tap-to-earn games like Catizen, as well as Hamster Kombat, Notcoin and Yescoin in the hope of earning corresponding tokens on TON blockchain.

Notcoin’s token NOT went live on the TON blockchain in May, peaking at a market cap of around $1.5 billion before dropping back to $816 million, according to The Block’s Notcoin Price Page. Hamster Kombat’s token is scheduled to launch on Sept. 26.

Capitalizing on the games' explosive growth, Telegram also introduced a mini-app store and an in-app browser with support for Web3 pages in July.

According to a recent report from Bitget, TON blockchain now has a 900 million active user base and hosts more than 1,159 crypto projects.

The TON ecosystem's daily transaction volume has grown twelvefold from 100,000 to 1.2 million over the past year. Bitget said its TVL currently stands at $350 million, up 1,800% in less than six months, driven by DEX trading volume growth.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Bitcoin is currently exhibiting bullish price action that has sparked optimism among crypto investors. The cryptocurrency recently broke above the psychological $60,000 price barrier after three weeks of acting as a dreaded resistance level. Since breaking past $60,000, Bitcoin has continued the run-up and has increased by 9.8% in the past seven days. Interestingly, the crypto is up by 20% from its lowest point of $52,827 this month.

This price increase comes at a critical point for Bitcoin, as September has always been a make-or-break month for Bitcoin’s price performance in the fourth quarter of the year. According to price data from Coinglass, a green close in September has been a precursor to strong performance in October, November, and December.

Historical Trends And The Importance Of A Green September

A ‘green’ September refers to Bitcoin closing the month in profit or with an overall price increase from its opening on the first day of the month. Over the span of Bitcoin’s 12-year history, the cryptocurrency has seen eight ‘red’ Septembers, where prices closed lower than they started the month. In contrast, only three Septembers have ended in green. However, these rare instances of a green close have consistently led to strong rallies in the subsequent months of October, November, and December.

The first instance of a green September came in 2015 when Bitcoin managed to close with a modest 2.35% gain. This seemingly small victory set the stage for gains in the months that followed, with Bitcoin surging 33.49% in October, 19.27% in November, and 13.83% in December. The latest green September occurred not too long ago in 2023. This led to a significant bull run and green monthly candles for the subsequent six months, culminating in Bitcoin reaching a new all-time high in March 2024.

What To Expect From The Bitcoin Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $63,640. Bitcoin has witnessed an influx of investments in the past few days, which in turn has flowed into other cryptocurrencies. The entire crypto market cap now stands at $2.21 billion, which is an 8.33% increase in seven days.

Notably, the increase in cryptocurrency prices is mostly due to the United States Federal Reserve’s decision to cut its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points. The move, which was the first rate cut in over a year, is deemed to be more favorable for risky assets like Bitcoin.

Looking ahead, further rate cuts are expected in the coming months. According to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, investors are currently on a 100% possibility of another rate cut in the next Fed meeting held on November 7. This outlook bodes well for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, as continued rate cuts could lead to sustained upward price momentum. Crypto investors can look forward to months of positive price action for Bitcoin, with the next targets being breakouts above $65,000, $67,000, and $70,000.

Decentralized exchange PancakeSwap has reported $836 billion in cumulative trading volume and a total value locked (TVL) of about $1.72 billion in four years of operation.

PancakeSwap held about $1.72 billion in total value locked as of Sept. 20, which has decreased over the years, from an all-time high of $7.16 billion on May 4, 2021, according to DefiLlama. On March 30, PancakeSwap’s TVL was about $2.42 billion and has been dropping since.