Crypto market in the accumulation stage, awaiting critical decision on Ripple

Yesterday, on March 29, the Financial Times once again put up FUD claiming that cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been hiding ties to China for several years. Hey, pretty weak reasoning for an attack on the front page of the leading financial media outlet in the U.S. But what do the numbers say about this ongoing FUD? Should we fear for Binance?

FUD had no effect on Binance

According to new data from Dune Analytics, after the CFTC filed a lawsuit against Binance, the equivalent of $2.2 billion was withdrawn from the exchange. But during the same period, about $1.4 billion was deposited on the exchange. From this, we can see that platform users do not particularly panic, and the consequences of the joint attack by U.S. regulators and the Financial Times are minor.

In December 2022, against the background of rumors about the insolvency of Binance, also triggered by the media, it withdrew a much larger amount ($7 billion), but even then the exchange has stood. This comparison shows that the crypto market has become much more stable in recent months, even under direct pressure from regulators.

Other data from CryptoQuant shows that BTC and ETH reserves on Binance are also stable:

CZ’s reaction to FT’s latest lunge: Binance claims it does not operate in China and has no technology, including servers or data, and that FT is “grossly misrepresenting events.”

What stage is the BTC market in now?

Below is a graph comparing the behavior of Bitcoin in the current market cycle (in pink) and previous ones — in 2012-2016 (in black) and 2016-2020 (in green). Situations are similar, and now the cryptocurrency is most likely at the accumulation stage, i.e., investors’ accumulation of the asset before the next growth stage (Hype).

Increased volatility due to closing options

The price of BTC set a new local maximum above $29k today. BTC’s price quickly reached $29,184 (Binance data) and then rolled back $1,000 down in less than an hour, a gain of 6.42% in 24 hours. Traders and analysts expect even more volatility on Friday because tomorrow is the day of quarterly settlements and the expiration of BTC options. The day options close always increases temporal volatility in both directions.