A major Canadian pension fund manager has written off a $150M investment in crypto lending platform Celsius Network as a total loss, expecting an impending shutter of the once high-flying CeFi platform.

According to a report from the Financial Times, the fund is the second-largest in Canada and has signaled the write-off as being indicative of the funds’ expeditious decision to have exposure to crypto assets.

Canadian Fund’s “Disappointment”

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, or CDPQ, is Canada’s second-largest pension fund in the country, according to the Times, managing over $300B in funds in Quebec. The fund’s stake in Celsius was written off “out of prudence,” according to the report, signaling that the fund has no expectation of Celsius Network achieving any semblance of a recovery.

The move comes less than a year after the fund described it’s investment into Celsius as being indicative of it’s “conviction” in blockchain technology, and serves as another unfortunate domino in the Celsius downfall. Chief executive of the fund, Charles Emond, said that the fund “went in too soon into a sector that was in transition, with a business that had to manage extremely quick growth.”

While the fund outperformed benchmarks, it still recorded a loss of nearly 8% in the six months ending in June. Emond added that “the first six months of the year were very challenging… Whether it is Celsius or any other investment, needless to say that when we write it off, we are disappointed with the outcome and not happy.”

Celsius token (CEL) has seen a major slide that is commensurate with the general consensus of the platform's future, despite a recent pump. | Source: CEL-USD on TradingView.com

State Of Celsius

Much like the loud and headline-grabbing downfall of Terra Luna, Celsius is certain to leave newer crypto investors with a bad taste in their mouth. When it comes to the CDPQ, the Times has reported that Celsius’ crumbling is enough to leave the Canadian pension behemoth on the sidelines when it comes to short-term crypto investors, while remaining optimistic on the long-term perspective around blockchain technology.

Meanwhile, it’s gone from good to bad to ugly (and worse) for Celsius as the threads unravel. In recent days, it has come to light that Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky took over the firm’s trading strategy earlier in the year. The news comes as Celsius works through it’s bankruptcy case with a New York judge, who recently granted the firm an approval to sell off mined Bitcoin to assist in paying for operations.

Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.

Ether options have been trading for a much shorter time compared to Bitcoin options, but the former has done an impressive job catching up with its predecessor. Bitcoin had dominated as the leading crypto options asset in the space, with billions pouring into it. However, the tide had begun to turn in the 3rd quarter of 2022 when an important update about the Ethereum Merge triggered a surge in interest for Ether options.

Ether Options Surpass Bitcoin 

Ether options debuted in the market back in January 2020, and it has enjoyed steady growth since then. However, no matter how much Ether options had grown, bitcoin options remained higher with open interest in crypto pouring into the pioneer cryptocurrency. Then in July 2022, Ethereum developers made an announcement regarding the network’s upgrade to a proof of stake mechanism, and this would change the game completely.

In July, interest in Ether options had ballooned, leading to a meteoric rise. It had packed at a new all-time high of $8.1 billion, which was more than 50% high than bitcoin at the time, with an open interest of $5.4 billion. From there until the present day, Ether options remain on an impressive uptrend, continuing to surpass bitcoin at each turn. 

Public miners sell more BTC than they produced | Source: Arcane Research

The rise puts Ether options trailing at 100% recovery compared to bitcoin, which continues to trail at 70%. It is the first time ever that the open interest in Ethereum has grown larger than that of bitcoin, and it is all thanks to the much-anticipated Ethereum Merge.

Is The Flippening Imminent?

The “flippening” is a word that has come to mean Ether surpassing bitcoin in value. Mostly, this school of thought has emerged following the fact that the performance of the price of ETH has surpassed that of BTC on a year-to-year basis. Hence, some investors expect the digital asset to flip bitcoin at some point to become more valuable.

There is no set timeline for when the flippening is expected to happen. However, each time Ether overtakes Bitcoin on any metric, the flippening debates begin. The same has been the case with the ETH options growing larger than BTC.

ETH declines to low $1,800 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

Presently, the price of BTC is still more than 10x that of ETH. So if there is going to be a flippening, then ETH would have to grow 1,000% while the price of BTC remains unmoved. This is unlikely to happen, given that the market actually moves with the price of BTC.

However, as the Merge draws closer and what is referred to as a “Triple halvening” is imminent, ETH will likely further close the gap between it and bitcoin. This event would see less supply of ETH in the market, giving it a genuinely deflationary model to be able to rival bitcoin’s limited supply.

Featured image from MARCA, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com

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A pricing analysis of bitcoin reveals that buyers are at a disadvantage. Price increased after a weaker opening and tested the session high of $24,448.40. However, it swiftly reversed course and tested the pivotal 21-day exponential moving average, where it is currently resting.

The market action right now suggests that the bulls are running out of steam close to the higher levels and that the bears are clearing the way for more correction. The largest cryptocurrency’s 24-hour trading volume is $30,603,898,759, up more than 7%. BTC/USD, however, is currently reading at $23,422.79, a 1.85% daily decline.

BTC/USD trades at $23k. Source: TradingView

The longer the price remains below this level, the more powerful the selling pressure will be as BTC slips below the crucial support level of $23,500.

FOMC Meeting Crushes Bitcoin Price

Data from TradingView showed that BTC/USD fell by more than 2% every day and reached $23,325.

Hours before the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) was scheduled to release minutes from its most recent meeting, the pair, which had already started to exhibit indications of weakness, fell further as trading in US stocks got underway.

Despite not having a rate decision, the meeting was timed to reveal the Fed’s perspective on the upcoming rate adjustment scheduled in September.

Michaël van de Poppe summarized in his latest Twitter update:

“The important event tonight with the FOMC minutes, through which information can be received whether the FED is going to be hawkish or dovish. I don’t think it will have a massive impact, however, crypto tends to give it a ton of value and, therefore, lots of volatility.”

Marcus Sotiriou, an analyst at the UK-based digital asset dealer GlobalBlock, believes a clearer picture may become apparent later on Wednesday in relation to the FOMC minutes.

“Bitcoin’s volatility has fallen over the past week or so, yet sellers have been dominant, as there is uncertainty around FOMC minutes being released this evening. The minutes will give an indication of the Federal Reserve’s stance and when they may begin to slow the pace of rate hikes.”

The US Federal Reserve recently increased interest rates by 0.75%, but month-over-month inflation readings were lower than anticipated. Can the FOMC’s remarks boost Bitcoin (BTC) and the larger crypto market at the right time?

According to Sotiriou’s note to clients:

“According to technical analysis, Bitcoin will face a significant test in the coming days because the 200 weekly moving average, which is currently at around $23,000, is just below the current price of $23,700. If this level cannot be maintained, it will imply that there will be additional downside in the coming weeks and that the market’s reversal may be delayed.”

Another crypto analyst and trader @EtherNasyonaL, however, believes the opposite – that Bitcoin is currently in a historic purchasing zone. The analyst thinks that right now is the best time to invest in Bitcoin because the asset is expected to increase in value in the future.

Featured image from Getty images, charts from TradingView.com

Dogecoin (DOGE) goes straight to weekly gains of 11.4% following an intraday movement hovering towards $0.0847.

• Dogecoin jumps 15% in a matter of 24 hours
• Rallies amid the upcoming merge with Ethereum
• Growth fueled by ‘fake projects’

Dogecoin (DOGE), Elon Musk’s favorite dog meme coin, has spiked by 15%.  Monday was phenomenal for Dogecoin as it surged by more than 16% and the meme coin is just warming up.

And it’s not just Dogecoin that’s enjoying the bullish movement because other dog meme coins like Shiba Inu have had explosive growth felt over the weekend with the upcoming Ethereum network upgrade.

Chart from TradingView.com

Dogecoin To Breach Key Resistance At $0.087

According to CoinMarketCap, DOGE price has plunged by 4.08% or trading at 0.0829 as of this writing.

At this point, DOGE’s goal is to breach the key resistance level of $0.087. If Dogecoin can successfully breach this barrier and fix its hold on the price, then the coin may see unprecedented growth in the coming days.

There is some buzz going on that refers to DOGE’s growth as fake and artificial because it’s linked to the upcoming launch of the layer 2 Ethereum.

But, traders are warned to be cautious with fake projects or initiatives may not be what it looks like.

One frightening fact is that there are many scams online that link themselves to Dogecoin for that clout effect.

Dogecoin’s growth was precipitated by market optimism.

There was some point in time, wherein the Dogecoin developers and community announced warnings to inform everyone to steer clear of chains that have the prefix DOGE.

Now, if the growth of DOGE is brought about by these fake projects then it would be easy to assume that Dogecoin’s growth is purely artificial because it uses popular influencers to promote the fakery in the effort to mislead users.

Investors Awaiting DOGE’s Ethereum Merge

Investors are now awaiting entry and positioned themselves just in time for DOGE’s merge with Ethereum.

This software upgrade is bound to happen in September 2022 which aims to transform Ethereum from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake mechanism.

Hayden Hughes, Alpha Impact CEO, is confident that retail investors have renewed confidence with DOGE which will impact not just DOGE but also SHIB and DOGE.

Both DOGE and SHIB made a breach over the weekend indicating the revival of investor confidence.

However, Cici Lu, CEO of Venn Link Partners, warned that traders be careful with meme coins because it lacks utilitarian and market value compared to Ethereum and Bitcoin.

Judging by DOGE’s technical outlook, Dogecoin price made a pullback coming from $0.0847 which may be long-term.

More so, the 100-day SMA is set in motion to avoid DOGE from weakening or pushing below the coin’s primary support spotted at $0.0700. With relatively little push, the DOGE price may soar to more than $0.1000.

DOGE total market cap at $10.7 billion on the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com

Featured image from Analytics Insight, Chart from TradingView.com