Aug 20

21 août

Overview:
For the first time in the last six trading days, the S&P 500 closed with a red candle (-0.20%), even though its wick extended higher than the previous trading day. The key macroeconomic event to watch this week is the release of the "Minutes of the Fed's July FOMC meeting" on Wednesday, which will provide insights into the discussions and debates among Federal Reserve officials, revealing their views on the current state of the economy.

Overall, this week might be relatively calm as the market anticipates potential rate cuts, election outcomes, and TradFi executives wrapping up their vacations. For example, much of Western Europe essentially shuts down in August, with many French citizens heading to the south of France, Germans traveling to Turkey, and Italians and Spaniards taking a more relaxed approach to work all year round.

By the way, it's been a while since we’ve seen any major hacks or rug pulls in the crypto space. Imagine running the 15th largest crypto exchange and starting to see diminishing returns as enthusiasm for the current bull run fades. You also notice more consolidation among the top 2-3 CEXs, while DEXs are gaining traction and cutting into your profits. This grim outlook might lead to some troubling thoughts cooking up. Although FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 12th, and BTC at that time dropped by 70%, we still have time to make informed decisions as we sit at the end of August. Remember: not your keys, not your crypto ...cough ...cough Lido...

Alts Relative to BTC:
Alts haven’t diverged much from BTC, but on the 4-hour chart, ETH shows a small MACD divergence between Sunday the 18th and Tuesday the 20th, with SOL showing it even more clearly. This suggests that while BTC remains within its daily range, alts are showing more weakness. Only AR and TAO have shown positive price action in the last two days. We know about the Grayscale news regarding the TAO trust, but what’s driving AR?

In the DeFi sector, AAVE continues to pump.

Bull Case:
We’ve reached the bottom and are now heading upward. Alts are already at their lows, and major institutional investors and governments haven’t even started accumulating the new digital gold. The world’s major economies are relatively healthy, and in 3-4 years, we might look back at 2024 as the bottom and the end of the "COVID economy." More money could flow into risky and alternative assets like crypto.

Bear Case:
Despite the macro outlook, crypto has likely reached its intermediate bull run, driven mainly by ETF demand without any major crypto breakthroughs or new use cases like DeFi. In reality, only a few market participants hadn’t yet entered the crypto space and needed an institutional vehicle like an ETF.

Fear and Greed Index:
45.39. The index has flattened over the last three days, mirroring BTC’s price, indicating neither strong buy nor sell opportunities.

Weekly: Range trading, slowly moving toward the BB MA, which it may reach within the next two weeks (conveniently the last two weeks of August).

Daily: BTC continues to trade within its daily range. It broke above the BB MA, but no significant pump followed. Bulls appear weak and may need more accumulation, a "whale push," or this might not be the time. Was it a fake-out?

4-Hour: Range trading, no divergences.

1-Hour: Range trading, no divergences.

Prediction:
Range trading with a possible spike up to 62k.

Opportunities:
SOL: Shows a bearish divergence on the 4-hour timeframe but could quickly reverse if BTC prints a green candle.
TON: Has completed the "Motive" part of Elliott’s wave pattern. In about 40 hours, it might finish the B wave, presenting a short opportunity that could last through the entire C wave down.

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