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Bitcoin on Track for Record Sideways Action, With Eyes on November Elections as Bullish Catalyst

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Bitcoin is two weeks away from marking its longest-ever period in a sideways market range since its April halving, demoralizing bulls positioned for a bigger rally in the final quarter of this year.

“285 days have passed since the bitcoin halving,” CryptoQuant founder Ki Young-Ju said in an X post Friday. “If there is no bull market in 14 days, this will mark the longest sideways post-halving in history.”

Halvings happen about every four years and decrease the block rewards to miners. Bitcoin halving has always been associated with bull rallies, with asset prices increasing by several hundred percent in the months following previous events.

Prices tend to rise with fewer new bitcoin in the open market as long as demand remains constant or increases. BTC jumped above $73,000 to new lifetime highs ahead of the April 14 halving – with some targeting a continued rally to as high as $160,000 by the end of this year. However, prices have largely fluctuated in the $59,000 to $65,000 range since then, nearing a 300-day sideways action record from 2016.

Bitcoin’s boring price action, characterized by continued accumulation by small investors, is being attributed to several reasons, including the U.S. election uncertainty and renewed uptick in the U.S. Treasury yields.

“The higher bond yield move and SPX at record highs are helping to push USD higher, but it is coming at the expense of crypto, where BTC is back to hovering at around the 60k level again,” shared Augustine Fan, head of insights at SOFA, in a Telegram message to CoinDesk on Friday.

“Finally, defunct Mt. Gox’s fresh announcement that it has extended its repayment deadline by a year to Oct 2025 might help to alleviate some supply pressures in the short-run, but it appears that BTC will be in a holding pattern here heading into the final weeks of the election,” Fan added.

Republican candidate Donald Trump is viewed as crypto friendly. He is associated with the new decentralized finance project World Liberty Finance, while the Democratic party is considered less friendly toward the market. A Republican victory is widely expected to fuel a higher Bitcoin move.

Markets often enter a sideways phase where traders and investors reassess their positions, leading to a balance between buying and selling pressures.

Bitcoin would need to break and remain above the $69,000 level to be considered a bullish breakout above the current range, as per CoinDesk market analyst Omkar Godbole. A breakout would mean a resumption of the broader uptrend from October 2023 lows and shift focus to $100,000, a level anticipated by options traders.

Sideways movement can be interpreted as periods of accumulation (where investors slowly buy up supply without moving the price much) or distribution (where they sell off their holdings in a similar controlled manner). This typically leads to a period of high volatility.

Bitcoin is coming out of a seasonally bearish period of August and Septermber, where investors do not make big moves, to a historically bullish October. A CoinDesk analysis shows most gains in October arise in the second half of the month – usually after October 16.

But market strains remain. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week charged multiple market-making and trading firms on consecutive days – igniting debate on whether the crypto market could face more trouble in the weeks before the November elections.

(Omkar Godbole contributed insights.)

Bitcoin Bounces 7% Above $63K as Crypto Traders Eye China Stimulus Statement

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Cryptocurrencies sharply rebounded on Friday from the previous day’s lows with bitcoin (BTC) retaking $63,000 as investors quickly shrugged off worries over slightly hotter inflation readings, turning their attention to a fiscal policy update from China on Saturday.

Bitcoin, the leading crypto asset by market capitalization, shot up 7% from Thursday’s trough below $59,000 after the hotter U.S. CPI inflation report, bucking this week’s trend of giving up gains during the U.S. trading hours. Recently, BTC was up 5.5% over the past 24 hours, outperforming the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index’s (CD20) 4.7% advance.

Tokens from Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and Render (RNDR) were the leaders among altcoin majors with 6%-8% gains. The only token of the CD20 index with a negative daily return was Uniswap (UNI), which slightly shed some of its Thursday gains that were spurred by the decentralized exchange’s plan to launch its own layer-2 network.

The crypto rally happened as equities also gained, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 closing the week at record highs. The U.S. dollar index paused below 103 after steeply strengthening over the past week as traders repriced expectations of further Federal Reserve interest rate cuts following solid U.S. jobs reports and hotter inflation readings.

Crypto-related stocks also reflected the positive sentiment. Bitcoin miners including MARA Holdings (MARA), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Bitdeer (BTDR) soared 5%-10%, while U.S. crypto exchange giant Coinbase (COIN) ended the day up 7%.

MicroStrategy (MSTR), the largest corporate holder of BTC with nearly $16 billion of the asset, surged 16% to its highest price since March 2000. The company’s share price premium versus its bitcoin holdings also broadened to the widest since 2021.

China fiscal policy update may move crypto

Macroeconomic factors influencing crypto prices have shifted away from monetary policy to the U.S. election outcome, Coinbase analysts David Duong and David Han said in a Friday report.

The key catalyst for crypto volatility might be the upcoming China fiscal policy update by the finance minister slated for early Saturday UTC. Investors anticipate more financial stimulus for the ailing Chinese economy and financial markets, which could reverberate in the digital asset market, the Coinbase report noted.

“As most markets will be closed during this next briefing, we expect traders could turn to crypto markets as a way to express their (proxy) views on the size and strength of China’s fiscal announcements,” the authors said.

Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, noted that recent U.S. economic data shows a resilient economy and jobs market, allaying past concerns over an imminent recession.

“This sets the stage for risk assets to perform well into year-end, and it may take little to drive crypto prices higher,” Thielen said. “A significant move is likely on the horizon, and diligent traders will be well-positioned to capture it.”

RWA Issuer Midas Expands Tokenized Products to Retail Users with Regulatory Nod in Europe

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Real-world asset platform Midas announced Tuesday an expansion in access to its tokenized U.S. Treasury bills and yield-bearing carry trade products to retail users after acquiring a regulatory green light in Liechtenstein.

This means that Midas removed the $100,000 minimum investment requirement and investor accreditation process for its mTbill and mBasis tokens, and has also steamlined the process for investing in the tokens to make them available with as little as “one-click.” The tokens are accessible globally excluding the U.S. and sanctioned countries, the company said.

The issuance of the products received regulatory approval from Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority, and will be passported across Germany and Europe, co-founder Dennis Dinkelmeyer said in an email interview with CoinDesk. Passporting allows financial institutions to access all countries in the European Economic Area by acquiring regulatory approval in one of the member states.

“We will be the only RWA issuer with a regulatory compliant offering that has no minimum thresholds and investor accreditation process and full DeFi composability of a permissionless token,” Dinkelmeyer told CoinDesk.

Tokenized versions of real-world assets such as U.S. government bonds are increasingly in vogue among crypto investors to park their stablecoins and earn steady yield without leaving blockchains rails. The tokenized T-bill market tripled in a year to $2.3 billion with new entrants like asset management giant BlackRock entering the competition, rwa.xyz data shows. Midas’s mTbill is backed by BlackRock’s short-term Treasury bill exchange-traded fund (ETF), and gathered nearly $5 million of deposits.

Along with the success of T-bill tokens, new types of yield-bearing tokenized products emerged such as Ethena’s USDe “synthetic dollar,” which generates yield from market neutral trading positions also known as the “basis” trade. Midas launched its own version with mBasis earlier this year, and has over $4 million of assets under management.

Investors Lost Record High $5.6B to Crypto Scams in 2023, FBI Says

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Federal Soruşturma Ofisi’nin (FBI) İnternet Hataları Şikayet Merkezi’nden gelen yeni bir rapora nazaran, yatırımcılar 2023’te kripto parayla ilgili mali cürümlerden rekor düzeyde 5,6 milyar dolar kaybetti; bu sayı 2022’ye nazaran %45 arttı.

Pazartesi günü yayınlanan rapora nazaran, yatırım dolandırıcılığı 2023’te kripto ile ilgili dolandırıcılığın en yaygın ve değerli tipiydi. Ajansın geçen yıl aldığı 69.000’den fazla kripto ile ilgili hata raporunun neredeyse yarısı yatırım dolandırıcılığı raporlarıydı ve yatırım dolandırıcıları tam 4 milyar dolar çaldı. Kripto kabahatleri FBI’ın aldığı şikayetlerin sırf yaklaşık %10’unu oluştururken, 5,6 milyar dolarlık sayı şikayetçilerin toplam kaybının yaklaşık yarısıydı.

Yatırım dolandırıcılığı planları ekseriyetle kurbanlarına en az riskle büyük getiriler elde etme fırsatı vaat eder ve son yıllarda artış göstermiştir. Geçtiğimiz yıl, kripto ile ilgili en bariz yatırım dolandırıcılığı tipi FBI’ın “güvenle etkinleştirilen” planlar olarak tanımladığı şeydi. Bazen “domuz kesimi” olarak da isimlendirilen bu yatırım dolandırıcılığı tipi, dolandırıcıların kurbanlarıyla ekseriyetle iletileşme uygulamaları üzerinden münasebet kurmaları ve akabinde onları çekemeyecekleri geçersiz kripto para platformlarına büyük ölçüde para yatırmaya teşvik etmeleri ile uzun vakit dilimleri boyunca gerçekleşir.

FBI raporuna nazaran, bu domuz bölümü yahut yatırım dolandırıcılıklarının kurbanlarının birden fazla “bu düzmece yatırımlardan kaynaklanan kayıpları karşılamak için büyük ölçüde borç biriktirmiş.” 30-49 yaş aralığındaki kurbanlar yatırım dolandırıcılıklarıyla ilgili en fazla şikayeti bildirirken, 60 yaş üstü kurbanlar en fazla kaybı bildirdi – yalnızca geçen yıl 1,24 milyar doların üzerinde.

IC3, ABD vatandaşları ve yabancılardan gelen şikayetleri dikkate alsa da, geçen yıl kripto paralarla ilgili dolandırıcılık raporlarının %83’ü Amerikalı yatırımcılardan geldi. Kaliforniya sakinleri hem şikayet sayısı (9.522) hem de kayıp ölçüsü (1,2 milyar $) açısından birinci sırada yer aldı.

İnsan ticareti irtibatı

ProPublica’nın 2022’de yaptığı ve daha sonra Birleşmiş Milletler ve öbürleri tarafından da tekrarlanan bir araştırma, birçok kripto yatırım dolandırıcısının Güneydoğu Asya’daki kelamda domuz kesme çeteleri tarafından tutulan ve dolandırıcılık operasyonları yürütmeye zorlanan insan ticareti mağdurları olduğunu tespit etti.

FBI’ın raporunda, yurtdışına seyahat eden ABD vatandaşlarına “yurtdışındaki dolandırıcılık tesislerinde işgücü ticaretiyle ilişkili düzmece iş ilanları riski” konusunda ihtarda bulunuluyor.

Raporda, “Bu bileşikler çalışanları iradeleri dışında tutuyor ve emekçileri dolandırıcılık operasyonlarına katılmaya zorlamak için gözdağı veriyor. Hatalılar, öncelikli olarak Asya’daki insanları hedeflemek için toplumsal medyada ve çevrimiçi istihdam sitelerinde düzmece iş ilanları yayınlıyor” denildi.

“Çalışanlara sıklıkla seyahat ve öbür masrafları ödemeleri gerektiği söylenir, bu da çalışanın başlangıçta borçlu olduğu manasına gelir. Daha sonra borcunu öderken birebir vakitte oda ve yemek masraflarını da ödemeye çalışmak zorundadırlar. Hata aktörleri, çalışanın artan borcunu ve mahallî kolluk kuvvetlerinin korkusunu onları denetim etmek için ek bir araç olarak kullanırlar. Kaçak çalışanlar bazen satılır ve bileşikler ortasında transfer edilir, bu da borçlarına daha da eklenir,” diye devam etti rapor.