Bitcoin remains rangebound in the high $30,000 to low $40,000 areas. The first crypto by market cap has seen its volatility reduce as several factors contribute to the slowdown across the sector. Related Reading | TA: Bitcoin Trims Gains, Support Turned Resistance At $41K At the time of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) trades at $40,500 with a 6% loss in the last 24-hours and a 1% profit over the past week. Trading firm QCP Capital believes Bitcoin has been trading in a larger range as it reclaimed the area around its current levels. The firm claims that there are 2 main reasons behind BTC’s recent price action. In addition to the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) hinting at an aggressive monetary policy, there are expectations of Bitcoin and Ethereum revisiting critical support at $30,000 and $2,500, respectively. These expectations were generated by former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes’s latest post, “The Q Trap”. In the options markets, traders are preparing for a potential drop as QCP Capital records a “massive selling of May and June calls, causing BTC and ETH risk reversal”. These levels dropped from negative 6% to negative 10%. Conversely, the demand for BTC and ETH puts has increased. In other words, traders seem to be hedging for the upcoming crash by buying put (sell) options. If the price crashes, they will be able to benefit. Ethereum has seen the biggest uptick in demand for put calls. QCP Capital attributed it to the delay of “The Merge”. The event is set to combine Ethereum’s execution layer with its consensus layer and make ETH 2.0 fully operational. Bitcoin Finds Bottom With Stablecoin Craze Bitcoin’s recent price action characterized by low volatility could also be the result of the popularization of algorithmic stablecoins, QCP Capital believes. These digital assets have been in the crypto space for many years, but Terra’s UST managed to give them new life. The demand for UST has increased as users want to leverage the 19% annual percentage yield (APY) offered by Anchor Protocol. Other projects have begun imitating this model creating what the trading firm called a “soft floor in the market”. QCP Capital added: We mentioned in a previous post that the precedent set by Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) would spread and that has happened quickly with a wave of announcements from FRAX, NEAR and TRON (…). Similar to how LFG bought BTC and AVAX, these algo stables will build their treasuries in the major coins and provide material support in the market from their buying. The short-term relief in the market could be translated into long-term pressure. The trading firm claims that these digital assets could become a systematic risk for the sector. If the entities managing these stablecoins buy BTC or ETH to maintain the pegged of their assets, there is a chance that a de-pegged scenario could increase the selling pressure in the market. If the stablecoins are at risk of becoming volatile, the entities will sell their assets to try to keep the pegged. In any case, QCP Capital and others wonder about the long-term sustainability of the algorithmic stablecoins. UST, Terra’s native stablecoins, has been battle-tested, but many wonder if it will be able to keep its users with the rising competition. Related Reading | Why A “Boring” Bitcoin Could Be A Good Thing In the meantime, as expectations of a May/June crash increase and algo stablecoins proliferate, Bitcoin seems poised to remain rangebound with short-term price action to the downside. According to Material Indicators, BTC’s price will seek to take the liquidity of around $37,000. #FireCharts is showing ~$100M in #bitcoin bid liquidity between here and $37.5k range. Expecting it to get filled, but watching to see if #BTCUSDT liquidity moves to the active buy zone or the buy zone moves to the orders resting on the @binance order book.https://t.co/26BLOFwenL pic.twitter.com/NdAGc48yfY — Material Indicators (@MI_Algos) April 22, 2022
A blockchain research firm, Chainalysis, revealed crypto-ransomware attacks of 2021 racked up $602 million in Bitcoin and other currencies, and that figure could be even higher. In addition, the report pronounced a Russian-based hacker group named Conti as the most active and largest group of hackers by revenue last year. The analysis firm expressed that they have counted for all of it yet, and the figure of stolen money may be even more extensive, rising as high as $1 billion. Related Reading | Over $5 Billion In BTC Paid In Top 10 Ransomware Variants, Says U.S. Treasury In a Chainalysis preview report of 2022, the firm has confirmed the rapid growth in ransomware crimes. It explained that its initial estimate (that’s still an underestimate) of $350 million has jumped to $692 million. Chainalysis stated, In fact, despite these numbers, anecdotal evidence, plus the fact that ransomware revenue in the first half of 2021 exceeded that of the first half of 2020, suggests to us that 2021 will eventually be revealed to have been an even bigger year for ransomware. The firm explained that ransomware attacks, pretty much like computer viruses, are dangerous and ever-changing too, so they can easily avoid law enforcement and updated security measures in a system. Ransomware Attacks: 2020 VS 2021 Similarly, the average payout of ransomware rose to $118,000 in 2021, up 26% compared to its previous $88,000 in 2020. The most significant cause behind the higher increase of these numbers per the Chainalysis is a ‘big game hunting strategy. Ransomware strains have been employed in it increasingly to target big corporations for ransomware. The number of most active strains in 2021 also has broken all its previous records with 140 groups that received cryptocurrencies. It is up 21 from 2020’s figure and 61 from 2019. Conti Group Becomes The Biggest Strain Of 2021’s Ransomware Attacks The recorded ransomware payments of 2019 stand at $152 million and only $39 million in 2018. In contrast, the last year’s figure has increased dramatically. As a result, the Russian-based hacker group ‘Conti’ is the biggest strain by revenue, per the Chainalysis. Last year, the Russia-based hacker group Conti became one of the ransomware’s most active and profitable strains. The Conti Group has extorted nearly $200 million from their victims in Bitcoin and Monero. The group uses the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model as the key and believes in sharing its program with affiliates to exchange a fee. Another ransomware strain named ‘DarkSide’ who previously marked the historic attack on U.S Colonial Pipeline, which resulted in petroleum shortage, came in second to Conti. DarkSide asked the company to pay them $5 million in Bitcoin at the hack time. Additionally, it nearly fetched over $75 million through the course of a year in similar hacks. Related Reading | The US Offers A $10M Reward For Information On DarkSide Ransomware Group Chainalysis found Conti to be the only active strain throughout this past year. At the same time, most others “Wavered in and out like a wave going up then down.” Featured image by Pixabay and chart from Tradingview.com
Could blockchain technology and NFT collections have what it takes to go up against the established media forces, like Hollywood?
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