BTC Whales Remain Dormant; Celsius Bankruptcy Filling Reveals $1.2B Hole

Chart of the Day 

Comments from several Federal Reserve officials signaled a pivot to a 75 basis point rate hike in July, which eased some concerns in the risk asset markets. U.S. stocks bounced off lows while the crypto market saw a strong comeback. 

BTC has reclaimed the $20k psychological support level and is testing the 100-hour moving average, after posting a 2.7% gain in the last 24 hours. A bullish trend line with support near the $20.4k level is taking shape on BTC's hourly chart. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap will likely gain upside momentum after it clears resistance levels near the $20.1k to $21k zone. 

On-chain spent output indicates that whales, entities with BTC holding of more than 10k, have largely remained on the sideline since the collapse of Terra's LUNC. During the whale hibernation, the market is primarily driven by entities with 1k to 10k BTC through acts of wallet rebalancing. As such, we will probably see more whale activities once the market presents more explicit directions. 

In a similar vein, ETH is back above the $1,200 handle after experiencing an 8% gain on the back of the network's ninth shadow fork going live. Most major altcoins are basking in a green glow, thanks to recent positive news on the dev and adoption front. UNI is leading the pack on a double-digital percentage gain over a similar time frame. 

Talk of the Town 

Crypto lender Celsius, the casualty of a $2 trillion crash that has wiped out some of the biggest names in the crypto industry, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday. The filing unveiled a $1.2 billion hole in the company's balance sheet, as its assets, totaled $4.3 billion after reclaiming collaterals from major DeFi protocols, cannot match its $5.5 billion worth of liabilities. Back in its heyday, Celsius boasted a 12% interest rate on stablecoin deposits, a number made possible by untenable yields in DeFi protocols such as Anchor on the Terra blockchain (before it went ablaze and unleashed a wave of contagion). Celsius maintained that a bankruptcy filing was necessary, "the amount of digital assets on the company's platform grew faster than the company was prepared to deploy," said Celsius's CEO as he recounted the company's path to bankruptcy.