Crypto Market Rallies Heavily As Ethereum Merge Date Announced

US CPI figures released last week indicate that inflation is running extremely hot, however, both stocks and cryptos shrugged off the disappointing news with Ethereum up 30% week-on-week. 

Although an aggressive interest rate hike is now likely for July, Bitcoin continued to push higher and away from the bottom-calling Pi Cycle and 200-week moving average indicators.

Crypto markets may also have been driven higher by the news that the second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, could be upgrading to Proof-of-Stake as early as September. 

Elsewhere, Robert Kiyosaki urged all investors to get ready to deploy cash ahead of picking up assets at bargain prices, and the CeFi lending platform, Celsius, throws in the towel. 

• Ethereum’s Merge could be implemented in September
• Robert Kiyosaki backs cash position to take advantage of “greatest sale on earth”
• Are technical indicators calling for Bitcoin’s bottom?
• Crypto lender, Celsius, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• US inflation at 9.1% as Bank of America warns of recession

Ethereum’s Merge could be implemented in September

Although very much preliminary, Ethereum developers have released a tentative timeline for the implementation of The Merge; the moment that the Ethereum blockchain will transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

A “planning timeline” was posted to Twitter on Thursday by Ethereum Beacon Chain community director, Superphiz. Within the timeline, Superphiz states that the shift from PoW to PoS could happen on September 19 if all other testing goes to plan. In the accompanying text, the developer made it very clear that the suggested merge timeline “isn’t final.”

Although not final, the announcement of a potential date turned the heads of many within the cryptocurrency industry. Ethereum upgrades have not always occurred on time, but the mention of a date is an encouraging sign. 

Ethereum’s transition to Proof-of-Stake began on December 1, 2020, when the Beacon Chain was first launched. Since then, Ethereum developers have been implementing patches through a variety of different testnets to ensure everything works correctly. The Merge is now set to be tested on the Goerli network before finally making it to Ethereum’s mainnet. 

The new Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism is set to improve the environmental efficiency of the network by 99% and will also allow for sharding scaling solutions to be implemented. After sharding is implemented, Ethereum will be able to compete with higher throughput blockchains such as Cardano, Solana, and Avalanche.

Robert Kiyosaki backs cash position to take advantage of ‘greatest sale on earth’

The serial entrepreneur and Co-Author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, Robert Kiyosaki, took to Twitter during the week to warn his fans that the “greatest sale on earth” was coming. 

Kiyosaki has been advocating for a market crash for some time. In March 2022, he stated that there were bubbles in stocks, real estate, crypto, and commodities and that the result of this could be one of the biggest crashes of all time. 

In his latest tweet, Kiyosaki explained that the pin for the asset bubble had now been found and that asset prices are now in free fall.

The entrepreneur suggested that investors should have cash ready to snap up assets at lower prices.  In particular, the entrepreneur is looking to purchase real estate and Bitcoin at more favourable prices.

From all-time highs, the S&P 500 index is down approximately 20% and Bitcoin is down approximately 70%. 

Are technical indicators calling for Bitcoin’s bottom?

Bitcoin prices could be in for a turnaround according to a set of technical indicators that have called the end of bear markets in the past. 

One indicator calling for a bottom in Bitcoin’s prices is known as the “Pi Cycle” indicator. The Pi Cycle is comprised of a 150-day exponential moving average (EMA) and a 471-day simple moving average that is multiplied by 0.745. 

Both the 2015 and 2018 bear markets have ended each time the 150-day EMA has fallen below the 471-day simple moving average (SMA). Last week, the 150-day dipped below the 471-day for only the third time in 7 years.

When the crossover happened in 2015, it was followed by a 12,000% increase in price. Similarly, the 2018 crossover was followed by a 2,000% increase in price. 

Alongside the Pi Cycle bottom, technical analysts have also highlighted Bitcoin’s price in comparison to Bitcoin’s 200-week moving average. According to a 200-week moving average heatmap from LookintoBitcoin, each time price has dipped below the 200-week moving average, the price of Bitcoin has rallied heavily.

Celsius files for bankruptcy 

Cryptocurrency lender, Celsius, confirmed on Wednesday that it would be filing for a reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the Southern District of New York. According to the filing, the company has been left owing $1.19 billion, which it claimed was due to a digital version of a “run on the bank”. 

In June, Celsius paused all withdrawals. This left all users unable to access their cryptocurrency assets. All customer claims will now be followed up through the Chapter 11 process.

The court filing revealed that Celsius owned $4.3 billion worth of assets against $5.5 billion worth of liabilities. Included within these liabilities is $4.7 billion which is owed to its 1.7 million users. 

Celsius claims that the Chapter 11 filing will “provide a breathing spell for the debtors to negotiate and implement a plan that will maximise the value of its business and generate meaningful recoveries to our stakeholders as quickly as possible.”

The incident demonstrates why now more than ever it is crucial to always have full control over cryptocurrency private keys. This is why it is safest to use an exchange that does not hold any private keys on your behalf, such as Xcoins. 

US inflation at 9.1% as Bank of America warns of recession in 2022

US Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures released last week indicate that inflation remains incredibly hot. The CPI’s basket of goods and services for June had risen 9.1% year-over-year and 1.3% in comparison to May.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report, “the increase was broad-based, with the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food being the largest contributors.” The new data also shows that combative interest rate hikes have not yet proved to be fruitful.

After previously implementing 0.5% and 0.75% interest rate hikes in both May and June, some economists were hoping to see a reduction, or at least a plateau, in inflation. Unfortunately, June’s CPI figures were higher than those posted in May and indicate that the peak of inflation has not yet been reached. 

As a result of the disappointing results, it is anticipated that the Federal Reserve will implement an aggressive 0.75-1% interest rate hike in July to try and calm the situation. Unfortunately, this will weigh heavy on those holding debt positions or risk-on assets.

Accompanying the release of inflation figures, the Bank of America released a report outlining the bank’s fears of a 2022 recession. “Our previous baseline outlook for the U.S. economy featured a growth recession. But a number of forces have coincided to slow economic momentum more rapidly than we previously expected. We now forecast a mild recession in the U.S. economy this year.”

Although disappointing news, both stocks and cryptos rallied into the weekend, with Bitcoin breaking back above $21,000 and Ethereum rising over $1400.

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