Author: BTCLFGTEAM
-
STX outlook and the Bitcoin halving
- Stacks price has soared in the aftermath of interest in Bitcoin NFTs with the launch of Ordinals.
- STX rose to an all-time high of $3.39 in December 2021.
- Analysts say the upcoming Bitcoin halving could catalyse fresh rallies for the token.
Stacks, the Bitcoin layer that leverages smart contracts to enable decentralised finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) among other decentralized applications on the pioneer blockchain network, is currently one of the best performing assets in the market today.
The native STX is higher by more than 43% on the week even as most tokens struggle with downward pressure.
Stacks price: STX poised for BTC halving explosion?
The Stacks price has been rallying due to massive interest in Bitcoin-based NFTs and recently after the protocol released its whitepapers. The token’s price has in fact gained significant traction following the hype around the launch of the Ordinals project.
Ordinals is a novel NFTs protocol that allows for the minting and storage of digital artifacts on the Bitcoin blockchain. The huge interest that greeted the Ordinals’ launch helped push the price of STX as demand for the layer 2 blockchain Stacks’ native token skyrocketed.
Welcome to #Stacks 💜 👇
⭐ A #Bitcoin layer for smart contracts
⭐ Enabling smart contracts and decentralized applications to trustlessly use $BTC as an asset
⭐ Settling transactions on the #Bitcoin blockchain
⭐ Unlocking #Bitcoin Decentralized Finance, NFTs, BNS, and more pic.twitter.com/VoHnypE1dx— stacks.btc (@Stacks) February 21, 2023
Stacks Network’s leveraging of Bitcoin’s blockchain security and permanence, the idea of Bitcoin NFTs and DeFi are factors helping position STX for more upside action. But more than that, analysts predict that the STX price could see another explosive move as Bitcoin’s halving, which is about a year away, approaches.
Bitcoin price has rallied going into the halving and this looks to be the trajectory STX will take. As for now, market analysts say there’s a “cultural shift in Bitcoin”, and that sentiment might catalyse a huge move for STX.
Ordinals have catalyzed a cultural shift in #Bitcoin that will work to $STX‘s benefit. For those that want more programmable uses of $BTC, applications built on top of @stacks will provide what they seek. https://t.co/icPTUGrMFQ
— Chris Burniske (@cburniske) February 26, 2023
STX price today
The native token STX is up more than 43% in the past week and tops the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap in weekly performance.
While the STX/USD pair has retreated nearly 3% in the past 24 hours, the token’s price as at 8.20 am ET on 28 February was $0.89, showing a 3.5% jump on the hourly time frame.
And with over 200% gains in the past 30 days, Stacks has quickly risen up the charts in terms of market cap (currently at over $1.2 billion and ranked 47th on CoinGecko.)
-
Short-Bitcoin funds saw $10M in inflows last week
- CoinShares data shows crypto investment products recorded minor outflows of $2 million.
- But Bitcoin saw a third straight week of outflows totaling $12 million.
- Short-bitcoin funds saw inflows of $10 million amid negative sentiment driven by US economic data.
Digital asset investment products recorded yet another week outflows this past week as macro data continued to weigh on investor sentiment, according to asset manager CoinShares.
While weekly outflows across crypto-related products was a minor $2 million, the broader market sentiment was negative as indicated by the large inflows into short investment products.
Short-Bitcoin inflows hit $10 million
Investment products tied to the world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin recorded a total of $12 million in outflows last week, a third consecutive week of such action. Investors also bet huge on the price of Bitcoin going down that week, with inflows into short bitcoin funds rising to $10 million.
According to CoinShares, the negative sentiment around BTC price last week largely came from the United States.
“Opinions remain polarised though, with the US seeing outflows totalling US$14m, where recent macro data has increased fears amongst investors that the US Federal Reserve (FED) will be more hawkish than expected,” CoinShares head of research James Butterfill wrote.
As we highlighted, the past week was punctuated by the hot economic data (the Producer Consumer Expenditure (CPE) index that suggested inflation was still a key headwind.
Indeed, the market reacted negatively to the macro data, with Bitcoin price dropping to lows of $22,770 on the Bitstamp crypto exchange. However, BTC is back above $23,400.
-
Crypto VC exec on bulls’ case
- Chris Burniske says Ethereum could outperform Bitcoin in March due to the Shanghai upgrade.
- Burniske is a partner at crypto-focused VC Placeholder and formerly of ARK Invest (crypto division).
- According to the investor, pullbacks are likely to remain “within current uptrend.”
Chris Burniske, partner at venture capital firm Placeholder and former head of crypto ARK Invest, is bullish on crypto going into March.
The investor believes the recent flip in sentiment has not resulted in deeper rot for major cryptocurrencies, despite the weakness seen across stocks amid investor anxiety over interest rates.
In a tweet posted this weekend, Burniske said the outlook is mostly bullish as recent pullbacks have been largely mild.
“From where I sit, I’m surprised crypto hasn’t pulled back more given weakness in equities and upward repricing in rates — bullish,” he noted.
Ex-ARK Invest head of crypto shares Ethereum and Bitcoin price predictions
Bitcoin and Ethereum have both retreated from year-to-date highs, from above $25k and $1.7k respectively.
As noted above, the leading digital assets by market capitalization have given up the recent gains amid continued jitters over US inflation data. Buy-side volume has also tanked on shifting sentiment around the regulatory environment in the United States returned sell-off pressure across the markets.
But while Bitcoin has retraced to support around $23,000 and Ethereum continues to hover around $1,600, the crypto bull says any further losses in the short term are likely to be “within the current uptrend.”
“To those saying some version of “just wait,” sure we could pull back a bit more, but calls for new lows anytime soon are silly. Pullbacks are consolidation within the current uptrend, imo,” the investor added.
In terms of price prediction for the top two coins, Burniske thinks Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin in March. According to him, ETH is likely to gain fresh momentum from the highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade, which is expected to drive staking flows.
A guess:
-January $BTC beasted, led the rest
-February we mostly consolidated
-March $ETH beasts, leads the rest with Shanghai upgrade driving ETH staking flows— Chris Burniske (@cburniske) February 24, 2023
The outlook is supported by on-chain data, which shows new value sent to the ETH 2.0 deposit contract continues to rise.
Crypto analytics firm Santiment recently shared a chart showing that the number of newly staked coins rose a 5-month high count earlier this week.
📈 #Ethereum $ETH New Value Added to the ETH 2.0 Deposit Contract just reached a 5-month high of $69,991,765.78
Previous 5-month high of $62,631,647.91 was observed on 23 January 2023
View metric:https://t.co/0FBplusJVM pic.twitter.com/eKJuqYojRG
— glassnode alerts (@glassnodealerts) February 25, 2023
