A promising upward rally across the cryptoverse has reignited the hopes of another bull run as we move into the second week of February.
The market is stabilizing quickly, pushing overall trading sentiment to “neutral” after multiple months of losses.
BTC Breaks Out
Bitcoin, the world’s largest crypto by market capitalization, registered a promising uptick this week as it broke past the $42,000 resistance mark. Currently hovering close to the $44,000 mark, the value of BTC rose by nearly 19% over the past seven days.
According to the latest data from TradingView, BTC whales have become active once again, moving BTC in large volumes, signaling either a market dump or pump.
The market sentiment, too, has changed drastically this week, jumping from lows of 20 (extreme fear) to 50 (neutral). Another report by on-chain data provider Santiment suggests that a new BTC rally may start sooner than expected, primarily due to the significant drop in activity of USDT wallets.
In the meantime, the U.S. Justice Department has successfully recovered BTC worth $3.6 million, marking its biggest financial seizure ever. The recovered Bitcoins are linked to a 2016 Bitfinex hack when 119,754 BTC were siphoned from the exchange.
More promising news comes from the Lightning Network, a second layer payment solution resting atop the Bitcoin network, which registered exponential growth in the first month of 2022.
Based on Arcane Research’s latest report, the total amount of BTC locked in the network is close to the 3,500 mark. Jack Dorsey’s Cash App has integrated Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, enabling its users to send and receive instant BTC payments globally for free.
XRP, SHIB Register Massive Upward Surge
Following the announcement that the protocol will soon launch its “Shiberse” metaverse, popular meme coin Shiba Inu (SHIB) surged by more than 50% this week.
Designed to mimic existing metaverses like Decentraland and The Sandbox, Shiberse aims to redefine the incentivization model for its growing community.
As of now, SHIB has recaptured its spot as the top token on whale wallets, with more than $1.7 billion worth of SHIB held by multiple investors on the Ethereum network.
Another reason behind this upward rally is the upcoming launch of the Shibarium testnet. In addition, Shiba Inu’s community leader Shytoshi Kusama has also announced major partnerships with restaurants, helping propel its price higher.
Ripple (XRP), too, broke out of its downward rally, registering as much as 50% growth over the past week. Rebounding from the lows of $0.58 on February 3, XRP is all set to mark its eighth consecutive day of positive momentum.
This promising uptick in value was triggered by the ongoing lawsuit between the SEC against Ripple, with Judge Analisa Torres’ decision to authorize the release of certain documents related to the dispute helping support recent gains.
Immutable Struggles
Immutable X (IMX), the first layer-two scaling solution for NFTs on Ethereum, lost more than 13% of its value over the week. The 24-hour trading volume of the token also witnessed a sharp dip after tumbling by more than 50%.
The platform recently partnered with GameStop to help build its NFT marketplace. Under the terms of the arrangement, GameStop was set to receive total grants of up to $150 million worth of its IMX token upon reaching certain milestones as part of the deal. The latest move downward in IMX tokens resulted after GameStop began selling its IMX holdings.
To date, GameStop has received more than 37.5 million IMX tokens per Etherscan transaction reports. Over the previous seven sessions, the move to liquidate these holdings was handled across several exchanges, including OKEx, Huobi, and Binance, delivering GameStop a return of nearly $47 million.
This sudden flood of IMX tokens hitting the market, amounting to roughly 7% of the total supply, contributed to the sharp decline in IMX’s prices this week.
Russia Controls Crypto, Gene Simmons Lists House
After significant back and forth and statements for and against, Russia, the world’s 11th-largest economy, has announced that it will regulate cryptocurrencies instead of banning them.
Per the latest announcement, the Russian government and the Bank of Russia have agreed to set up a regime before February 18, 2022, to control cryptocurrency circulation in the country.
Finally, Gene Simmons, the legendary KISS bassist and vocalist, has announced that interested buyers can pay for his $13.5-million Las Vegas home with digital assets.
The rock icon said that in addition to fiat, he’s open to accepting BTC, ETH, DOT, LTC, UNI, AAVE, as well as a combination of multiple digital assets.
Download the TipRanks mobile app now
To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
Read full Disclaimer & Disclosure
