Bitcoin Weekly (10/31/2022)
Bitcoin Weekly - Edition 31
Happy Halloween! Bitcoin (BTC) had a green candle before the orange Halloween kicked in to close above $20K and finish the week with at its highest close since mid-September thanks to a weakening dollar. It has been hocus-pocus lately, with the bulls and bears fighting it out and the largest cryptocurrency trading sideways for some time now. With a potentially ghoulish week ahead, how will the major macroeconomic news impact the price of BTC?
It is always scary when the Federal Reserve announces a decision on interest rates and that time has come. That should stir the cauldron after one of the least volatile Octobers BTC has ever witnessed. On Tuesday and Wednesday the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will meet and let us know their decision on rates. It is widely expected to come in at a 0.75% increase just like it did the prior two months. Any other decision, due 2:00pm EST on Wednesday, will sway the markets greatly one way or another. Assuming that the anticipated rate increase is implemented, the comments after the meetings could give us a clue to future direction.
After a string of rate hikes this year, I expect Fed Chair Jerome Powell to indicate that the agency will be moving to a less "hawkish" stance meaning this could be the last of increases - at least at this level. This would be welcome news for investors and could help give US stocks and crypto some positive momentum as we head into the final quarter of what has been a difficult year. If not, Powell can simply turn into a pumpkin after all the haunting comments he has made so far this year.
Then again, recent indicators could give the Fed the ammo it needs to raise interest rates a full 1%. The jobs market in the US continues to be very strong after adding 263,000 jobs in September according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In addition, GDP in the US grew a surprising 0.6% in the third quarter (2.6% adjusted annually) an after falling the first two quarters of 2022 signaling a recession. Despite these two positive economic signs, anything more than a .75% rate hike would be a shock to the system.
From a technical standpoint, Bitcoin has hit a "double top" (along with a "double bottom") and should rally if there is any good news coming out from the Fed. In most cases, BTC has a slight drop after the committee releases its findings. This week, based on the 100-day moving average and other indicators, I expect Bitcoin to begin to finally rally after a slight dip early to mid-week so long as there isn't any major bad news.
Have we hit rock bottom? I doubt it but we could be close as previous market bottoms have come with similar patterns, in particular periods of low volatility.
The Crypto fear and greed index, highlighted below, is at 31 and up nine points from last week moving out of the "extreme fear" range finally into just the "fear" range just in time for Halloween. Isn't it interesting how this index is at 31 in my 31st edition of Bitcoin weekly on the 31st of October? It is almost as if some witch has cast a spell on all of us...
Ten Must-Read Bitcoin Articles This Week
14 years since the Bitcoin white paper: Why it matters (Cointelegraph)
Bitcoin Options Market Signals Bottom as Skews Climb to Zero (CoinDesk)
The U.S. Will Weaponize The Dollar By Backing It With Bitcoin (Bitcoin Magazine)
9 years after the first Bitcoin ATM, there are now 38,804 globally (Cointelegraph)
El Salvador and Lugano Sign Agreement to Spread Bitcoin Adoption (Decrypt)
What Bitcoin and the Stock Market's Correlation Really Means (CoinDesk)
At 14, Bitcoin is Battered but ‘Battle-Tested’ (Nerd Wallet)
Which Bitcoin Monster Do You See In The Mirror? (Bitcoin Magazine)
How Much Bitcoin Has Been Lost Forever? (Blockzeit)
Morgan Stanley Says Record Number of Bitcoin Have Not Been Used for 6 Months (CoinDesk)
Bitcoin Price Statistics (as of 10/30/2022, weekly close)
Bitcoin Price = $20,626
Last Week = $19,571
Weekly High =$20,924
Weekly Low =$19,260
Market Cap =$390,242,597,702
Market Cap Dominance =37.675%
All-Time High = $69,044.67 on November 10, 2021
Bitcoin Fun Fact of the Week
What is BTC Halloween? The Halloween Strategy is a trading method based on the belief that stocks, Bitcoin (BTC) and other assets perform the best between 31 October and 1 May. Traders who use this strategy have a saying - “to sell in May and go away,” until the next Halloween comes around. Didn't work so well this year however as the markets have been more trick than treat...
Bitcoin Mining Statistics
Miners = 5,360,443
Hashrate = 272.57 EH/s
Difficulty = 36.84T
Emission (24hr) = 1075 BTC
Circulating Supply = 19.19M (91.4%)
statistics provided by MiningPoolStats
Crypto Fear & Greed Index
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Crypto.com (Get $25 to sign up)
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What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin (BTC) is a decentralized digital cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was invented by the person or persons under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto as described in the Bitcoin Whitepaper released on October 31, 2008. The original cryptocurrency began trading in January of 2009 and could be transferred in a peer-to-peer fashion implemented using open-source software. The transactions are recorded and stored on a public ledger called a blockchain. Only 21 million Bitcoins will ever be minted with one million being owned by its creator(s).
For more on Bitcoin, please read What is Bitcoin? [A comprehensive Guide to Understanding Bitcoin] on Publish0x written by Mr.CryptoWiki
For information on the Bitcoin whitepaper, please read I Finally Read the Bitcoin Whitepaper on Publish0x written by CryptoMasterMiner
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