BTC's Dormancy Flow Hits New Low; Optimism Loses 20M Tokens in Interlayer Confusion

Chart of the Day





On Wednesday, the broader crypto market resumed its sideways movement. BTC has managed to defend the $30k key psychological level despite marginal price changes over the last 24 hours. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap seems to be stagnating in the midst of its month-long range, but not without a few positive signs. A major contracting triangle is forming with resistance near the $31.2k level on BTC's hourly chart, suggesting that BTC could be building some strength for a stronger breakout. 

Despite choppy price actions and mid-session pivots, BTC's fundamentals are intact. For one, the on-chain dormancy flow (30-day moving average) has just hit an all-time low, indicating that the market has reached a historical buying zone. While the market continues to struggle against brewing macro uncertainties, the plummeting dormancy flow could shed some light on whether the market is reaching a bottom in the near-term. 

The completion of Ethereum's Ropsten testnet merge marked an important milestone in its roadmap toward the transition of its consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake. The transition, however, failed to provide enough tailwind for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. As of the time of writing, ETH is moving in tandem with BTC, trading just shy of the $1,800 handle after posting a marginal gain during the same period. Most major altcoins are struggling to maintain their previous gains. More notably, the price of LTC is going south on the back of some troubling news related to being delisted by Korean exchanges. 





Talk of the Town





The launch of Optimism's native token is off to a rough start. The scaling solution provider was given an incorrect blockchain address by the market maker Wintermute. As a result, a total of 20 million tokens that were intended for Wintermute in preparation for the much-hyped OP airdrop were instead sent floating on Layer 1. The tokens were eventually seized by an anonymous hacker, who sold off one million OP tokens and transferred the rest to an unknown address via Tornado Cash. The stolen OP tokens were valued at $35 million at the time of the hack. Following the news of the hack, OP's price tumbled by 20% in a matter of hours.