Bitcoin Price Holds Above $22K as Crypto Market Continues to Trade Sideways

Bitcoin’s price found its sideways trading range around the $22k level as the crypto asset continues to trade sideways this week. After dipping to a low of $20k last week and peaking at $24k, the global crypto market is slowing down its momentum and trading volume. The good news is that the global cryptocurrency market cap remains above the $1 trillion level, signaling an overall healthy market that could turn bullish at any time.

Key Points:

• Bitcoin holds $22k support as the global crypto market remains healthy and trades sideways.
• Ethereum overtakes Bitcoin in options on Deribit.
• Craig Wright gets awarded nominal damages in a defamation lawsuit.
• BTC will continue to test the $22k support as long as the global crypto market cap remains above $1 trillion.
• Bullish tech stocks’ performance could contribute to a Bitcoin bull rally.

Bitcoin News

According to a recent report from Yahoo Finance, Ethereum overtook Bitcoin in locked options contracts:

“On Monday, the world’s largest options exchange, Deribit, saw $5.7bn locked into ether options contracts. This is 32% higher than the $4.3bn locked into open bitcoin options trades on the same market.”

The increase in options contracts for Ethereum signals that investors are anticipating a substantial increase in ETH’s value, likely due to September’s network merge, which will switch Ethereum from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus model.

Ethereum continues to outperform Bitcoin in terms of last week’s price action, rising by over 12% compared to Bitcoin’s price by rising 8%. However, in the past 24 hours, ETH has been down 4.91% compared to Bitcoin’s 1.46%. Moreover, Ethereum is yet to overtake Bitcoin’s 50% market cap range, with a current valuation of $193 billion, compared to BTC’s $437 billion.

In other news, Craig Wright was awarded a nominal £1 in damages after his lawsuit against a blogger who criticized Wright’s claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto. The judge found that some of the blogger’s comments were, in fact, defamatory and awarded the plaintiff damages.

However, according to a report from The Guardian, the judge said that: “Wright’s pre-trial case over the serious harm to his reputation made it “unconscionable” that he should receive any more than nominal damages.”

Bitcoin Price Analysis and Prediction

Looking at the 1-month chart, Bitcoin is trending down to test the $22k support level. As long as the global cryptocurrency market cap remains above $1 trillion, the bulls will essentially control the market, and current support levels will hold.

However, if the global cryptocurrency market cap dips below the $1 trillion level, BTC will likely drop below $22k and could see prices as low as $19k in the next week.

Moreover, while Ethereum is looking to overtake Bitcoin in market cap, we’ve yet to see substantial price growth from ETH, and BTC remains the top-most-valued crypto asset on the market.

Tech stocks are one piece of data worth keeping an eye on that could affect Bitcoin price significantly. We see Uber shares rally on earnings reports, and NASDAQ is up 5% in the past five days, signaling bullish territory ahead.

With the Fed’s latest announcement that they will slow down monetary policy contributing to the stocks rally this week, BTC could break through the $24-25k support range if the bulls take control of crypto markets.

With the 24-hour trading volume for Bitcoin up 13% in the past 24 hours, the market is healthy, and many traders are waiting for BTC’s next move before committing any substantial funds and opening their next position.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.

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