As per a report by Messari analyst Ryan Watkins, the market cap of Tether (USDT) surpassed $10 billion yesterday, making it the 3rd cryptocurrency presently in this 10-figure range.
This remarkable growth comes as investors move their capital to the stablecoins, seeking to insulate their investment from possible crypto market turbulence but without going outside the crypto ecosystem.
Taking these positions allows them to react very quickly when buying opportunities arise, as the money is already in the crypto space.
USDT’s growing market capitalization may also be profiting from advances in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, especially the Compound (COMP) protocol.
The compound is an Ethereum-based DeFi-market ecosystem that allows investors to borrow and earn returns by lending out digital currencies. The platform supports digital assets such as ETH and stablecoins like DAI and USDT.
Due to a number of variables, USDT has emerged as one of the most prevalent digital coins on the platform. Case in point, compound recently reported that there was more than $150M worth of USDT coins deposited in the platform.
Key Indicator shows BTC’s Momentum is Weakening
In the past few sessions, BTC remained well bid above the $9K support against the US Dollar, with the flagship cryptocurrency closing yesterday’s trading above the $9,100 mark.
Bitcoin is currently settled in a contracting range below the $9,300 resistance and is changing hands at $9,161 during press time.
Over the last two months, the top crypto has shown sluggish movement and has been stuck in the $8,500 to $10K range.
While the number one crypto has managed to maintain the $8,500 support level on numerous occasions over that period, a key indicator now displays that the bullish momentum is weakening.
According to crypto analyst Josh Olszewicz, the “Ichimoku Cloud” indicator in the chart below shows that Bitcoin has “weakening bullish momentum” due to its ongoing consolidation.
Olszewicz added that as per his technical analysis, Bitcoin is currently trapped in no man’s land, which is an “awkward spot” that is disallowing him from taking either a bearish or bullish position with conviction.
These Three Fundamentals Could Hint to BTC’s Next Move
Although there has been increased “HODLing” by BTC investors, there are three influences that threaten to send BTC lower.
Firstly, on-chain analyst Cole Garner revealed a few days ago that miners had withdrawn a significant amount of Bitcoin BTC exchanges, implying that they want to liquidate a portion of their coin holdings as soon as possible due to potential downside.
Secondly, a retracement in the S&P 500 could lead to a retracement in the Bitcoin price, due to the apparent correlation that has formed between the two asset classes.
And lastly, more than $450M worth of crypto has recently been moved from PlusToken addresses, with observers reporting that the scammers are slowly siphoning some of their stolen ETH and BTC coins into exchanges.
