Valentine's Red

Chart of the Day

On Sunday, the weekend recovery momentum that was kickstarted last Friday night (Asian trading hours) was abruptly halted right after BTC inched up to touch the $43k handle. Unfortunately, this short-lived weekend rally did not manage to break BTC out of its tight trading range, and the gains made can be understood to be pretty insignificant, especially when compared to the movements that followed. During the early Asian trading hours on Monday, BTC started a fresh decline to trade below its former key support near the $42.5k level, and is now consolidating losses near the $42k region (as of the time of writing). Further, the bearish descending channel formed on the hourly chart implies that this downside correction could extend to the $40k level should the support region near $41.2k buckle under pressure. In a similar vein, ETH is currently (as of the time of writing) trading well below the $2,900 level, whilst the token performances of most major altcoins have also been hampered by minor setbacks over the past few days. On top of the growing geopolitical tensions and rising inflationary concerns, another big story that may have impacted the crypto market in a profound way was the U.S. Justice Department's seizure of a whopping $4 billion worth of BTC that was purloined from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. This constitutes the biggest token seizure of all time, and has significantly improved the U.S. government's standing as a major “BTC holder”, placing them right behind institutions like Grayscale and MicroStrategy. Meanwhile, Bitfinex's LEO token, one that has been consistently flying under the radar ever since its launch in 2019, has also surged to an all-time high after the DOJ's seizure.