The 2022 crypto winter seems to be one of the most severe bearish trends in cryptocurrency history. This saw the entire crypto market cut down by over 50% in value since the beginning of the year. Also, the situation in the crypto market got worse with the collapse of the Terra-LUNA ecosystem.

However, the crypto market is recovering slightly from its trauma in the years first half. Bitcoin price is suddenly picking up despite its weeks instability and swings.

According to the data from Glassnode, a blockchain analytics firm, the derivatives of the leading cryptocurrencies are making positive progress. Bitcoin and Ethereum derivatives are receiving increased attention from investors with more trading of BTC futures and higher ETH holders.

The record from Glassnode indicates that the Bitcoin derivatives market has a slight directional bias. This means that investment in the market is coming with more caution from the investors. But on the side of Ethereum, there is evidence of optimism from the investors.

The network records more demands for ETH against little withdrawals from the wallets. These overall events for Ethereum could be due to the upcoming Merge.

As per Glassnodes Future Open Interest (BTC) Metric, investors seem to have more confidence in the derivatives market. They are laying aside the events and fear that came with the collapse of Terra-LUNA tokens. Also, the effect of the May-June mining capitulation is wading off gradually.

Glassnode noted the increasing stability in futures trading volume. It recalled that the past 12 months from the sell-off since May 2021 posed a structural dip in trade volume. However, it seems to be staging a come-back as it boasts $33 per day.

Also, the futures markets passed through a structural change within the past one and half years. This was at the beginning of 2021, as the Bitcoin price was in a bullish trend. The underlying spread was stable even as leverage was going up.

Currently, Ethereum derivatives are receiving more attention from investors than Bitcoin. This appears to be the first time in the history of cryptocurrency to experience such a twist between the two leading assets. While Ethereum derivatives record about $6.6 billion in ETH, those of Bitcoin are at $4.8 billion in BTC.

Additionally, the outplay depicts that ETH options Open Interest is almost at its ATH as of Nov 2021. This was when Ether hit $4,900.

A more acceptable explanation for the price increase is the influence of the upcoming Ethereum Merge. Most investors make bullish bets on prices between $2,200 and $5,000.

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Glassnode Report Shows Bitcoin And Ethereum Derivatives Gain Massive Traction - NewsBTC

With bullish momentum starting to wane across the cryptocurrency market, analysts hold varying views on whether the bear run in June brought in the bottom or not.

With the total cryptocurrency market capitalization pegged at $1.064 trillion at the time of writing, a mere 1% growth has been logged by all crypto-assets this week. On the contrary, the figure for the same was 6% in Julys first trading week.

At press time, Bitcoin (BTC) had declined by 17% over the past week to be spotted at $22,994.74. With most crypto-assets sharing a correlation with the king coin, their prices are mostly impacted by how BTC fares.

According to data from CryptoWatch, leading metaverse tokens, Apecoin (APE) and Decentraland (MANA), share a positive correlation with BTC. Hence, they have also not seen much traction over the week.

Over the last 7 days, key stakeholders holding the king coin have shed part of their holdings. This category of whales holds between 10,000 to 10,000,000 BTCs in their portfolios. With a total of 2.95 million BTCs held by these addresses, a 1% decline was recorded over the aforementioned period.

For APE, addresses holding between 10,000 to 10,000,000 APEs held 941.97 million APE tokens, as of this writing. Seven days ago, this stood at 945.09 million Representing a 0.33% decline in whale APE holdings.

After key stakeholder holdings rose to a high of 814.02 million MANA tokens on 1 August, this soon dropped by 0.5%. In fact, the same was pegged at 810.3 million at press time.

Over a 30-day window, the price per BTC rose by 9%. Taking advantage of the price rally, some investors made a profit as the coins 30-day MVRV hiked to +2.364%.

Treading a similar path and registering a 41% price uptick in the last 30 days, APEs 30-day MVRV rose to 10.04%, showing that a sizeable number of holders took profits.

MANA was no different as its price rallied by 14% in the last 30 days. Its 30-day MVRV was spotted at a positive 8.109%, at press time.

Furthermore, on the social front, BTC and MANA recorded negative weighted sentiments at press time.

With a figure of -0.52 on 5 August, MANA logged the lowest weighted sentiment it has seen in the last 30 days.

On the other hand, APE registered a positive weighted sentiment of 0.921. Additionally, the token recorded a weighted sentiment of 1.96 on 2 August, the highest value the token has seen in the last three months.

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The true scope of APE & MANAs correlation with Bitcoin for investors - AMBCrypto News

Bloomberg Analyst also highlighted the importance of tasks, who have repeatedly shown a remarkable relationship with bitcoin. The bottom line is that there are somewhat more powerful forces in the markets when the stock market falls at the same pace as it did in 1H, he said.

McGlone also insisted The key role played by the Federal Reserve Which is doing aggressive rate hikes in 2022. This development could create headwinds for riskier assets such as cryptocurrencies and stocks by increasing the returns paid by less risky securities and making them more attractive.

Fight fight the Fed has been my mantra for riskier assets since late last year, he said, adding that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were an important part of the 2021 race and therefore part of the 2022 discharge, but I see bitcoin and ethereum coming next,

,Bitcoin on its way to becoming a global digital security In a world that is running like this and Ethereum is a major driver of the digital revolution, as evidenced by making possible the most widely traded cryptocurrency: the dollar token, McGlone said.

Bud White, co-founder and chief product officer of crypto software company Tassen, also weighed in on the matter, stating that the digital currency is currently trading well below its actual value,

I believe bitcoin is not only incredibly oversold, but it is also in a major accumulation zone. With bitcoin every price increase, We increase both its market value and utility value, he indicated.

If you look at the market cap, or MVRV, of bitcoin at its real value, we see it around one, which suggests that the market cap of this asset has dropped to its true utility value, White said. This also tells me that the massive selloff we have experienced in recent months due to Terra, Three Arrows and LOT has a relatively small number of forced sellers staying in the market. So Bitcoin It appears that $18,000 . have a very solid baseline at or near , He continued.

White said that despite strong support near the above price level, Bitcoin Is Hovering Near $23,000 Recently, Until now, and keep in mind that cryptocurrency prices can change rapidly and dramatically, this has been very high despite the employment report coming in, White said.

,Looks like markets are already pricing in monetary tightness These sky-high figures resulted in an even more aggressive outburst by the Federal Reserve. Stocks are down and yields are up, said the expert. And then, bitcoin is just floating, said the market watcher.

I am not saying that we are experiencing a separation of bitcoin from stocks. Certainly we may be down another leg in terms of the price of bitcoin. But this relative strength tells me that Most bitcoin sales may be overdue , And barring any external shocks to the markets, such as credit markets looking to be on the verge of a breakdown, I think investors still see bitcoin as a good buy at these levels, White said.

While White was discussing bitcoins recent price resistance, Tim Enning, managing director of Digital Capital Management, said that the cryptocurrency There may be a retest of recent lows below $18,000which arrived in June.

Bitcoin has made a good if not completely reassuring change, of US$20 thousand as recent resistance (as of 15 July) to support (after that date, tested once on 26 and 27 July, and solidly up since then), Ennejing said. He added: Although it has been a good move Yes, it has been quite slow and, apparently, uncertain, especially given the pause of the summer.

As a result, most people are still hedging their bets on whether BTC will retest the June 18 low at $17.6k. Going forward, I would expect a more general slide, a slight positive move, and this That the floor will not be retested. It is a 50-50 proposal if $20,000 will be retested, he said.

According to the Crypto Fear and Greed Index provided by Alternative.me, investor sentiment has steadily strengthened in recent weeks. This index, which ranges from zero The 100 for extreme fear and extreme greed is currently at 31, indicating fear.,

The figure has been on an upward trend since June 19, when it reached a value of six, indicating a state of extreme fear. Too, Index remains at 20 or higher since July 18 ,

Armando Aguilar, an independent crypto analyst, commented on how the measure has changed in recent weeks. ,fear and greed index From the low 20s after the big crash of some crypto protocols and service providers, he said.

Investors have returned to buying the digital asset and the fear indicator has moved towards the yellow/buy zone, Aguilar said. ,Historically, when the index was 30. , the market has seen an uptick in prices, He continued.

Aguilar provided a comprehensive analysis assessing the big picture. ,There are still hidden macroeconomic and geopolitical pressuresSo if stocks take a hit and investors exit the riskier asset, bitcoin could hit previous lows, he said. However, given the current environment and if bitcoin is able to break above the resistance level, So it could experience a positive price increase, Aguilar concluded.

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Bitcoin In The Price Race: What's Next For The Cryptocurrency According To Crypto Gurus - Nation World News

Despite crypto market turbulence, active contributors across Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solanas top projects have increased by an average of 71.6% per year since January 2018, according to a new report.

The findings come from a Tuesday report sent to Cointelegraph by technology investment firm Telstra Ventures, which found that Solana had the most significant annual increase in monthly-active contributors, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 173% since January 1, 2018.

Contributors are developers who push updates to code on GitHub, a code repository for computer programs.

Ethereum was second with a 24.9% compound annual growth of monthly contributors since 2018 and Bitcoin was third with a slow and steady 17.1% yearly increase.

Telstra Ventures also noted that it found Ethereum to have the largest and strongest developer community out of the three blockchains. The network had nearly 2,500 monthly active contributors in April, which fell to over 2,000 contributors in July, coinciding with a fall in the crypto price.

The higher number of active contributors could be due to the greater deal of output needed to prepare for the upcoming Merge, in which the network transitions into proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

The amount of monthly active contributors on Ethereum in July was more than four times higher than Bitcoins 400 contributors and nearly seven times higher than Solanas 350 contributors.

The report, however, noted that the contributor count fell by 9% since last November, coinciding with a fall in the cryptocurrencys price since its peak.

The technology investment firm also found that among the top ten fastest growing projects across Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana, around 40% of projects have not had any venture capital backing, meaning that investment opportunities remain abundant.

Those projects include Ethereum-based investment protocol OlympusDAO, smart contract developer ApeWorx, maximum extracted value (MEV) researcher Flashbots and Solana-based NFT standard MetaPlex.

Related: Investors shifting toward lower-risk crypto yields Block Earner GM

Venture capital funding in crypto throughout 2022 has shifted focus from decentralized finance (DeFi) to Web3 applications, according to research from Cointelegraph in July. Web3 investments accounted for 42% of the $14.67 billion invested in crypto projects in Q2, bringing the first half total to $29.33 billion.

Telstra Ventures is a technology-focused venture capital firm with 84 companies in its portfolio of investments and $30 billion in assets under management. It has invested in blockchain companies Blockdaemon and FTX exchange.

Data were derived from 1,000 active organizations that contribute more than 30,000 open source projects on Bitcoin, Ethereum,and Solana. Eligible projects for study have at least 100 stars in GitHub repositories and were active between January and April 2022.

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Contributors piling into Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana since 2018: Report - Cointelegraph

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday that Alexander Vinnik, a 42-year-old Russian, has been extradited from Greece to the United States to face multiple charges relating to money laundering and operating an illegal cryptocurrency exchange.

Vinnik first got into legal trouble with the DOJ in 2017 for allegedly operating the now-defunct crypto trading platform BTC-e in the U.S. without proper authorization and helping criminals launder at least $4 billion through Bitcoin.

That same year, he was arrested in Greece at the request of the U.S. government. After his arrest, Vinniks assets, worth $90 million, were confiscated by police in New Zealand police. At the time, the authorities noted that BTC-e allegedly had no anti-money laundering policies, thus facilitating a range of cybercrimes, including laundering illicit proceeds, ransomware attacks, fraud, theft, and drug crimes.

In January 2020, the 42-year-old was then extradited to France after a years-long extradition tussle between Russia, France, and the United States.

After his extradition to France, Vinnik denied the allegations and requested a transfer to Russia, where he faces lesser criminal charges involving about $11,000. His request was denied by a Paris-based judge who ruled that he would face charges in France for defrauding at least 100 people through ransomware between 2016 and 2018.

In December 2020, French prosecutors sentenced Vinnik to five years in prison for money laundering. However, he was acquitted of the initial allegation that he had defrauded people through ransomware.

On Thursday, the criminal was transferred back to Greece and extradited to the U.S. He now faces 21 charges, including operating an unlicensed money service business, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and unlawful monetary transactions.

After more than five years of litigation, Russian national Alexander Vinnik was extradited to the United States yesterday to be held accountable for operating BTC-e, a criminal cryptocurrency exchange, which laundered more than $4 billion of criminal proceeds, said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Departments Criminal Division.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division are still investigating the case. Vinnik risks spending up to 50 years in an American prison if found guilty.

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BTC-e Operator Who Used Bitcoin to Launder $4B Extradited to U.S. to Face Charges - CryptoPotato