Crypto Prices Ping Pong Post Powell

Ethereum’s ($ETH.X) Merge was, from a price action perspective, a nothing burger. Gas fees are still high, and scalability is still an issue. Shifting to Proof-of-Stake is a major, major deal – but not one that speculators were really excited about. 

Cardano’s ($ADA.X) Vasil update has the opposite situation. It’s absent the major hype that Ethereum’s Merge got, and the final results of Vasil have immediate benefits. So what are the changes with the Vasil hard fork?

We could talk about diffusion pipelining as a method of boosting Cardano’s scaling and speed by addressing idle time… it’s over my head. Let’s keep it simple.

The easiest summary is Vasil makes Cardano more efficient and developer friendly. If you want the nitty gritty on what Vasil unlocks with reference inputs, reference scripts, inline datums, datums and redeemers, and data serialization primitive – head on over to Input/Output Group’s truly nerdy boggling, confusing page. 

But overall  – the gist of the upgrade is Vasil makes the blockchain use less power, is faster, and is cheaper. 

Also, the Litepaper got to sit down with the CMO of IOG (Input Output Group, Cardano’s developers) – so look out for that interview in a future Litepaper!

Most people in the crypto space are familiar with Tether ($USDT.X), but USD Coin ($USD.X) has made some big moves – off and on exchanges, that is.

Earlier this month, Binance ($BNB.X) announced they would begin auto-converting USD Coin, Pax Dollar, and True USD by September 29. The reason for this conversion is to enhance liquidity and reduce the number of trading pairs. The new stablecoin from Binance will be BUSD. 

India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, WazirX, followed Binance’s lead and will begin delisting USDC and instead use the new Binance stablecoin. Conversions will be at a 1:1 ratio. 

While two major cryptocurrency exchanges have essentially removed UDSC, Robinhood ($HOOD) added it to their platform. Announced just yesterday, USDC is the first stablecoin listed on their platform. 

Also interesting to note: Since March 2021, Visa ($V) allows the use of USDC to settle transactions on its network.

No easy way to say it, but the crypto market is sitting on a very precarious level. The Total Market Cap’s weekly chart really shows how close the market is to another big drop. 

The Volume Point Of Control in the 2022 Volume Profile is $950 billion. The Total Market Cap is currently below that level, meaning it’s easier for price to move lower than higher. 

From an Ichimoku perspective, the Total Market Cap chart is in a clear bear market. Last week’s candlestick showed clear rejection against any move above the Tenkan-Sen (blue moving average). 

If you’re looking for any support on the weekly chart, it’s not there. The only hint that the market could give that any further downside pressure is likely to abate is a response to time cycles identified in previous Litepapers and a weekly close above the VPOC and Tenkan-Sen – at or above $1.03 trillion.