Meme coins burst onto the scene in early 2021 and helped kickstart the bull market after Dogecoin (DOGE) rallied above $0.01 to new highs while being shilled by the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Cuban.

Shortly afterwards, Dogecoin clones and other canine-themed tokens popped up to catch the wave of bullish momentum and Shiba Inu (SHIB) was one of the projects that quickly caught wind and sailed higher.

Now that Bitcoin (BTC) has hit a new all-time high again, it appears that the meme tokens are ready to continue their run and this time they’re not waiting for the big-name influencers to get on board. In the last two weeks, SHIB has rocketed to new highs and befuddled cryptocurrency traders are scratching their heads as to the exact cause.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since trading at a low of $0.0000069 on Oct. 1, the price of SHIB has scorched 914% higher to a new record high at $0.0000699 on Oct. 27 as its 24-hour trading volume surged 137% to $24.67 billion.

Three reasons for the surging price and trading volume for Shiba Inu include its listing on multiple exchanges, the launch of its own line of Shiboshi nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and SHIB’s surging open interest on derivative exchanges.

Exchange listings increase access to SHIB

One of the biggest factors helping to lift the price of SHIB over the past month has been the increase in user access to the token, thanks to its listing on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges.

Some of the new listings for SHIB and the protocol’s LEASH token include the BitKan exchange, AOFEX, StealthEx and CoinFlex. Change Now also launched a “flip DOGE for SHIB campaign” to celebrate its listing of LEASH.

The ecosystem also got a bump in momentum after it was announced that a partnership with the crypto payment provider NOWPayments made it so that SHIB and LEASH can be accepted as a form of payment, used for donations and is available to issue salaries in crypto via the mass payment feature.

As an added deflationary feature, 3% of the profit NOWPayments receives from all SHIB transactions will be burned.

Shiboshi NFTs

A second reason for the building strength of Shiba Inu was the launch of its own line of NFTs known as Shiboshi’s.

NFTs continue to be one of the most popular sectors of the cryptocurrency ecosystem and are a reliable way for projects to increase their community interaction and support.

The Shiboshi drop included 10,000 individual NFTs and community members had 24 hours to purchase them using the protocol’s LEASH token.

All Shiboshi’s have now been minted and listed on the OpenSea NFT marketplace.

Surging open interest

A third reason for the rising strength of SHIB has been the surge in futures open interest (OI) on multiple exchanges including OKEx, FTX and Huobi.

As seen in the chart above, the OI for SHIB has surged from $15.7 million on Oct. 3 to a record $178.95 million on Oct. 27 as the price of SHIB spiked to a new all-time high.

According to markets analyst and Cointelegraph contributor Marcel Pechman, “the open interest seems to be following the price pump instead of an actual increase.”

What is interesting to note is that while it’s “usually expected during bull runs for sellers to have their position liquidated,” that did not happen in this recent run-up which means traders either “doubled the short by adding more margin,” which Pechman sees as unlikely, or “those are market makers who are fully hedged and don’t care about the price.”

Pechman said,

“Longs are in huge profit, so it’s easier for them to keep buying spot and pushing the price up. There seem to be no ‘real’ short-sellers, only market makers. Had there been huge liquidations, the open interest would have gone down.”

VORTECS data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for SHIB on Oct. 24, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS Score for SHIB began to pick up on Oct. 23 and climbed into the dark green zone for a high of 89 on Oct. 24, around seven hours before the price increased 119% over the next three days.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

By Jordan Finneseth

The post SHIB keeps hitting new all-time highs, but what’s really behind the altcoin’s moon mission? appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Bitcoin (BTC) sees a volatile start to a new week and a new month after its first-ever monthly close above $60,000 — what’s next?

After a highly anticipated end to “Uptober,” bulls are looking to November to provide the next phase of what they hope — and sometimes promise — will be a BTC price surge like no other.

The timing varies, and so do the predictions. In store for BTC/USD this month could be a monthly close of nearly $100,000 — but also a dip to near $50,000.

With everything to play for and solid buyer support in the upper $50,000s holding, Cointelegraph takes a look at what could help shape Bitcoin price action in the coming week.

October 2021 becomes best month since 2020

Regardless of what comes next, market participants are in a celebratory mood this week as Bitcoin sees the highest monthly close in its history.

Not only $60,000 but $61,000 has now become the target to beat for November.

Bitcoin is anything but “up only” on short timeframes, however, and Sunday’s close was met with noticeable downside volatility post factum — a trip to $59,500 — before another surprise took it above $62,000 hours later.

Perhaps slightly nervous are fans of PlanB’s “worst-case scenario” price predictions, these calling for at least $63,000 for the end of October.

While still more or less on track, for the series to continue its historical accuracy, $98,000 needs to be on the table by the end of this month.

For PlanB himself, however, the results have been more than satisfactory.

“Yes, Bitcoin might not close above $63K this month,” Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, meanwhile, added about the situation.

“However, @100trillionUSD his hitrate on the stock-to-flow model is way better than your trading performance, so I wouldn’t really roast him at all. Bitcoin at $61K is just as fine and close enough.”

After a correction from overnight lows, BTC/USD is trading at around $62,000. October, then, was its best month since December 2020, with returns just shy of 40%.

Difficulty lines up eighth straight increase

Those looking for something that truly is in “up only” mode need look no further than Bitcoin network fundamentals.

This week, difficulty will put in its eighth consecutive positive adjustment — something which has not happened since 2018.

Reflective of the increasingly competitive mining arena, the mining difficulty has now all but made up for the losses it necessarily inflicted after China forced miners to down tools in May.

Difficulty will increase to 21.89 trillion this week, just over 3 trillion below all-time highs.

The hash rate — the measure of processing power dedicated to mining — tells a similar story.

Despite being impossible to “measure” in definitive terms, the hash rate is still trending toward new all-time highs, estimates show.

Raw data trends up and down, and different estimates often end up with considerably different readings. The weekly average hash rate, however, now stands at around 159 exahashes per second (EH/s) — closer than ever to the 180 EH/s-record from April.

Hodlers hodl on

September provided a golden “buy the dip” opportunity for Bitcoin buyers, and October was likewise not without its brief retracements.

Did you buy the dip? If you did, you added to the increasingly strong cohort of long-term hodlers whose conviction has only increased in October.

As noted in research from major exchange Kraken last week, the price gains and run to $67,100 all-time highs have failed to tempt hodlers to sell BTC.

“Notably, while long-term holders were unfazed by the retracement last month and used it as an opportunity to continue accumulating, this trend has not changed despite a significant rebound in price to new all-time highs near $67,000,” researchers concluded.

“In other words, the supply shock bought by long-term holders last month has only grown stronger this month.”
It is these entities, rather than short-term speculators, who are driving price performance in Q4 this year, they add.

This chimes with a previous analysis, notably by analyst Willy Woo, showing that the so-called “hodlers of last resort” or “Rick Astley” investors remain committed to their investment. Among the long-term holders, since 2020, are miners themselves.

“Since 2020 miners have been HODLers (and buyers) of BTC, this is a sea change in behaviour,” Woo noted this weekend.

“Miners have not been in sustained accumulation behaviour since the 2009–2014 era.”

Exchange balances lowest since October 2018

On the topic of a supply shock, the picture from exchanges is grim — from the perspective of a Bitcoin bear.

According to fresh data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, exchange BTC reserves are now at their lowest in three years.

At that time, in late 2018, Bitcoin was heading into the pit of its previous bear market, which bottomed out in December at $3,100.

Since then, price action has changed by an order of magnitude, but balances are still dwindling — all pointing to the scale of the potential shock should demand increase heavily from here.

Exchanges now control 2.47 million BTC. While at its peak in April 2020, over 3.1 million BTC stood on their orderbooks.

Balance changes can vary considerably among exchanges. Over the past 24 hours, for example, Coinbase Pro led the decrease, down almost 20,000 BTC, while some other players saw slight increases in their balance.

Markets expect Fed tapering announcement

The coming week could produce some familiar trends on traditional markets — and their traditional knock-on impact on crypto markets.

These could come thanks to fresh comments from the United States Federal Reserve on coronavirus management Tuesday and Wednesday as markets expect further cues on asset-buying tapering.

This comes as inflation ramps up worldwide, while Fed Chair Jerome Powell previously admitted that the accompanying narrative — supply chain crisis — will likely persist “well into next year.”

“I think the Fed has pretty well determined to start the taper pretty quickly. We expect them to announce it next week and then start it soon thereafter, so that’s pretty well carved in stone,” Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab, told Yahoo Finance last week.

“I think the big debate now is how quickly the Fed moves toward actually raising rates. The expectation in the market has really shifted to expecting as many as two rate hikes in 2022 and 2023… that’s a pretty aggressive pace of tightening.”
Such conditions serve to increase Bitcoin’s attractiveness as an inherently deflationary asset class with a mathematically verifiable supply cap.

Institutional inflows into extant Bitcoin investment products, along with the newly launched futures exchange-traded funds (ETF), highlight growing demand.

By WILLIAM SUBERG

The post Top 5 things to watch in Bitcoin this week as ‘Uptober’ closes at record high appeared first on Crypto Insider.