News Updates December 28, 2022
1. Bitcoin beats Tesla stock in 2022 as BTC price heads for 60% losses
Bitcoin (BTC) circled $16,750 after the Dec. 28 Wall Street open after stocks dragged markets lower.
Bitcoin analysts stick to downside fears
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked BTC/USD as it recovered from local lows of $16,559 on Bitstamp.
After days of barely any movement up or down, Bitcoin finally saw a flicker of action as traditional markets opened after the Christmas break. Unfortunately for bulls, volatility was to the downside, with BTC/USD seeing its lowest levels since Dec. 20.
On equities markets, United States indexes improved after a weak first day, this nonetheless failing to leave much of an impression on BTC commentators, many of whom stuck to grim short-term price forecasts.
“I can't stress this enough,” Toni Ghinea wrote in part of a Twitter update on the day.
“The sell-off will accelerate in the coming weeks. This bear market is far from over.”
Accompanying charts showed targets for Bitcoin and several altcoins, with Ether (ETH) due a trip as low as $600.
Amid an absence of buyer interest, only MicroStrategy and its CEO, Michael Saylor, were on record increasing BTC exposure.
The firm, already the public company with the largest Bitcoin treasury, added another 2,500 BTC to its reserves, it confirmed in a filing.
Down, but better than Tesla
At $16,700, meanwhile, BTC/USD traded at around 60% down year-to-date, with three days until the yearly close.
This was noticeably comparable to Tesla (TSLA) stock, which $113 was on track to seal year-to-date losses of 72% or more.
For Mike McGlone, senior macro strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, there was enough evidence in the assets’ performance to entertain the possibility of Bitcoin coming out on top.
“The near certainty of declining Bitcoin supply vs. the rising amount of Tesla shares outstanding favors outperformance by the crypto, if the rules of economics apply,” research posted on Twitter last week read.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s offloading of TSLA in 2022 remained on others’ radar. Discussing trading activity at the firm on Dec. 25, analyst Christopher Bloomstran described both Tesla’s BTC stake and shareholders as “suffering mightily” this year.
“Since the March 15, 2021 rebranding, Tesla and Bitcoin are down 48% and 70%, respectively. Great fun,” he summarized.
2. Microstrategy Bought 2,395 BTC From November to December 2022 for $42.8M
Microstrategy acquired 2,395 bitcoins for $42.8M between November 1st and December 21st.
MicroStrategy increased its total bitcoin holdings to 132,500 BTC after making two major purchases this month, the company’s 8-K filing with the SEC showed. The company bought 2,395 BTC between Nov.1 and Dec. 21 for $42.8 million and another 810 BTC on Dec. 24 for $13.6 million.
MicroStrategy Bought 3,205 BTC Since Nov. 1
Microstrategy bought 2,395 BTC between November 1, 2022, and December 21, 2022, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, the firm’s 8-K filing with the SEC showed. The transaction’s worth was around $42.8 million in cash at an average price of $17,871 per bitcoin, including fees and expenses.
The business intelligence firm then sold around 704 bitcoins for $11.8 million in cash, at an average price of $16,776 per bitcoin, excluding fees and expenses, the filing revealed. The company said it intends to “carry back the capital losses resulting from this transaction against previous capital gains, to the extent such carrybacks are available under the federal income tax laws currently in effect, which may generate a tax benefit.”
The Dec. 22 sale marks the first time Michael Saylor’s firm sold the Bitcoin since it first purchased it in 2020. Two days later, MicroStrategy purchased a further 810 bitcoins for roughly $13.6 million in cash at an average price of $16,845 per coin, including fees.
After taking into account all of the aforementioned transactions, MicroStrategy and its subsidiaries increased their bitcoin holdings by 2,500 BTC to a total of 132,500 BTC as of Dec. 27. The filing showed that the firm acquired the total amount at an aggregate buy price of around $4.03 billion and an average purchase price of $30,397 per bitcoin, including fees.
3. Solana Sinks Below $10 for First Time in Nearly Two Years
SOL has dropped a further 29% this month after taking a hard hit amid the FTX collapse, plus Solana’s top NFT projects are moving on.
Solana is a layer-1 blockchain network. Image: Solana
Solana Sinks Below $10 for First Time in Nearly Two Years
Solana (SOL) fell below $10 early this morning for the first time since February 2021.
The cryptocurrency has shed 94% of its value since the beginning of 2022.
Even with the prices for top cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum sitting relatively stable over the last month, Solana has continued to bleed out. Early this morning, the once-surging altcoin fell below the $10 mark—the first time it has done so in almost two years.
Solana (SOL) hit a recent low of $9.90 early on Wednesda, per data from CoinGecko, although it has rebounded slightly to an even $10 as of this writing. The last time that Solana traded for less than $10 was in February 2021, just as the cryptocurrency was beginning its ascent.
Six months later, Solana exploded in price and began a meteoric rise in value that would top out at nearly $260 per coin in November 2021. Since then, Solana has shed nearly 96% of its value, compared to a 76% drop for Bitcoin and Ethereum from their respective all-time highs the same month.
4. These Cryptos Could Dump in 2023 as Millions of Tokens Unlock From Vesting Period.
The unlocking of millions of dollars worth of DeFi tokens in 2023 could spark a significant selloff as investors dump risky assets during an extended bear market.
Several crypto projects, including move-to-earn project Sweatcoin and metaverse-focused Yuga Labs, will release additional tokens into circulation based on a vesting schedule in 2023, despite much of the crypto market still feeling the effects of the collapses of significant crypto firms, including Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, and FTX.
Vesting Schedules in Crypto Projects
Projects lock their native token into special “vesting” smart contracts to ensure the controlled release of their token at predetermined dates. A vesting schedule also reassures investors that the project’s creators are committed to fulfilling the project’s ultimate goal.
Price data surrounding previous token releases often provides a window into the effects of future releases. Here, we look at the potential for major sell-offs of three cryptos slated for major token releases in 2023.
Sweatcoin Could Dump 30% if Bear Market Continues
The first crypto token that could see a market dump in 2023 is Sweatcoin.
BitDAO Could Fall Below $0.25 after the Release of 188 Million BIT
The second crypto token to watch out for is Ethereum-based BIT, a tradeable governance token of BitDAO. BitDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that supports DeFi projects through research and development, token swaps, and grants.
APE Likely to Fall if Crypto Winter Continues
ApeCoin (APE), launched by Yuga Labs in March 2022, is the third crypto that could dump in 2023. Yuga Labs is behind the blue-chip NFT collection, the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
APE holders have governance rights in the ApeCoin DAO to help drive Yuga Labs’ Web3 and metaverse development. Yuga Labs first rolled out 150,000, 000 APE to holders of the Bored and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs, and plans to unlock 7.3 million ($26 million) APE for the ApeCoin DAO treasury on Jan. 17, 2023. Smart contracts will also release about 33 million APE ($105 million) on March 17, 2023.
5. Elon Musk: Possibilities of Liquidation by Swapping Shitcoins.
Elon Musk, owner and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter, responded to the crypto journalist platform, Autism Capital’s tweet, simply with an exclamation mark, “!”.
Earlier today, Autism Capital tweeted notifying the swapping of shitcoins into BTC by the crypto trading platform Alameda Research.
Initially, the OXT research analyst Ergo, tweeted today:
Alameda ETH addresses are digging around in the sofa for spare change and swapping bits ERC20s for ETH/USDT.
Significantly, the crypto community turned alarmed at the possibility of the process being an effort by Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of the fallen crypto exchange FTX, to liquidate his holdings.
On Thursday, it was reported that SBF’s bail was approved on a $250 million bond, and was permitted to live with his parents in Palo Alto, California. It is noteworthy that the bail condition created suspicion among the crypto community. One Twitter user claimed:
Funny how SBF is able to post the $250M bail not long after saying he only had $100k. So he probably is using stolen customer deposits to stay out of jail.
Responding to Ergo’s tweet, one of the tweeters commented that SBF is desperately trying to “funnel money out.” He added his concerns on why the court hasn’t denied SBF access to a computer or internet, during the bail.
Moreover, crypto analyst ZachXBT stressed that the Alameda wallet is using the mixers FixedFloat and ChangeNow, which “seems unlikely to be liquidators.”
Furthermore, there have been many comments from crypto aspirants, who found the situation quite confusing. Along with the numerous comments was the comment of Elon Musk, showing all his exclamations.
