News updates April 21 &22, 2022
1. Bitcoin Weekly Forecast: Early longers trapped, a move to $46,200 likely.
Bitcoin price shows an interesting move to the downside to purge the sell-side liquidity before heading up to $46,200.
Investors can expect BTC to stabilize between $40,100 to $40,500 and trigger a run-up to yearly open.
A daily candlestick close below $34,752 will invalidate the bullish thesis.
Bitcoin price reveals an opportunity to buy as it stoops to crucial support levels. This downswing looks to be a ploy from market makers to purge the sell-side liquidity before triggering an uptrend.
Bitcoin price and what to expect
Bitcoin price crashed 7% since the April 21 swing high at $42,988 and is currently hovering around $40,540. This downswing shows strength around the $40,100 to $40,500 support area and investors can expect a bounce here.
The resulting upswing is likely to push BTC to retest Monday’s high at $41,152. If the bullish momentum is enough to produce a four-hour candlestick close above the weekly open at $42,137, there is a good chance the run-up will continue until Bitcoin price retests the $44,591.
2. IMF Official: Regulating Crypto Assets Is High on the Agenda for India
A director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that crypto regulation is “certainly high on the agenda” for India. “We are trying to come up with global standards for #crypto asset regulations. I think that’s important for India to also adopt,” said the IMF official.
3. Bahamian government hopes to allow residents to pay taxes with digital assets in 2022
Residents of the archipelago nation, the Bahamas, may soon be able to use digital assets including the world’s first central bank digital currency, or CBDC, to pay for taxes.
In a white paper on the future of digital assets released on Wednesday, the Bahamas’ Office of the Prime Minister said the government will begin to “enable payment of taxes using digital assets” by working with the country’s central bank as well as the private sector. In addition, the government plans to work on giving citizens access to crypto with the Bahamian dollar and encourage greater use of the country’s CBDC, the Sand Dollar.
4. Mexican Football Club Tigres Now Accepts Bitcoin For Tickets
Mexican football club Tigres is now accepting bitcoin as payment for match tickets, the team said in a statement Wednesday.
5. Tesla Hodls Bitcoin: Balance Sheet Shows $1.26B in Digital Assets
Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, is hodling bitcoin. The company’s balance sheet shows $1.261 billion in digital assets. Tesla has neither purchased nor sold any crypto assets since the first quarter of last year.
6. Australia’s Financial Regulator Issues First Regulatory Roadmap for Crypto Assets
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), a major regulator of the Australian financial services industry, announced on Thursday that it has issued a policy roadmap for implementing regulation for financial firms that engage in business activities associated with cryptocurrencies.
7. Coinbase in Talks to Buy Turkish Crypto Exchange BtcTurk
Coinbase is reportedly in talks to acquire Turkey’s BtcTurk cryptocurrency exchange.
The move by Coinbase highlights its efforts to expand its presence in developing economies, according to Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
The deal could be worth around $3.2 billion and is identified to be in the later stages of closing. Coinbase has signed the term sheet and the firm is doing its technical due diligence, report.
8. Binance Exchange Restricts its Services to Russia
Binance exchange is implementing a new account restriction policy for its Russian users in response to the European Union’s fifth financial restriction on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
According to the trading platform, all of its users with account balances of €10,000 or more will henceforth be restricted from performing such actions as spot or futures trading and custody services, staking, and earnings, respectively.
The new restrictions will not impact the accounts of Russian citizens or individuals' residency in Russia with balances below €10,000.
9. Bitcoin drops to $40K as FED looks for faster rate hikes.
Crypto markets fall as Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell states that they need to move “more quickly” in raising interest rates. Powell also expressed that a “0.5 percentage point interest rate increase was on the table in May.” Bitcoin dropped to $40,586 from a daily high of $42,965, while the total crypto market fell to $1.88 trillion.
Crypto continues to follow the recent trend of following the tech industry as the Nasdaq was also down 2% on the day in the sharpest drop since mid-March. St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said Monday that he expects interest rates to reach as high as 3.5% by the end of the year. The FED would have to raise rates by at least 0.5% at each of their remaining meetings to get to this number. Given that Powell has indicated that a 0.5% increase is on the cards for May, Bullard’s projection seems to be a viable prediction.
The goal of raising interest rates is to combat the rising inflation, which reached 8.5% last month. However, high-growth investments such as tech are valued based on a discounted cash flow model. This model considers interest rates in its calculations, and higher interest rates mean lower valuations.
