The cryptocurrency market has been falling since early June, with BTC falling from a high of $72,000 on the 7th, to as high as $64,569 today. Although there has been a slight rebound since then, there is still no obvious rebound trend, and it was trading at US$65,445 at the time of writing.
In addition, Altcoin led by ETH also suffered heavy losses in this downward trend, with ETH, SOL, and BNB falling by 14%, 28%, and 20% respectively.
10X Research: The crypto market is facing multiple pressures
In this context, the analysis agency 10X Research released an analysis report today (18th) stating that the cryptocurrency market is facing multiple downward pressures:
- After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the 19b-4 application on May 23, we noted on June 3: “The speculative position of ETH in the market has reached its limit and may face the risk of liquidation, which may prevent Bitcoin from Hit another record high." Despite the recent decline in ETH, there are still too many ETH futures positions, which may indirectly lead to the liquidation of more Altcoin in the future.
- Last week (6/10~6/16) was a critical moment for cryptocurrencies, one of the most critical weeks of 2024, as the market struggled to digest huge token unlocks from a series of projects, totaling $483 million, including Aptos ( 97 million US dollars), IMX (51 million US dollars), STRK (75 million US dollars), etc. Early investors and venture capital firms appear to be under pressure to cash out, causing an overall decline in the market and dragging down the price of Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin miners have begun selling their BTC stocks, and the exchange's ETH balance has increased significantly by $2.5 billion, which may bring potential selling pressure. Despite improvement in inflation data, Bitcoin spot ETFs still experienced large outflows (5-day average outflow of $660 million). At the same time, total fund flows in various fields (stablecoins, futures leverage, ETFs, etc.) net outflows reached $2.4 billion. This is also the third week of decline in net flows since the launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF in January 2024.
- As Solana’s trading pair against USDT breaks below key trend lines and support levels, the coin may face further downward pressure.
QCP Capital: Bitcoin miner capitulation limits BTC gains
In addition, according to previous reports from Dongzhong, digital asset trading company QCP Capital stated that they believe this is because Bitcoin miners are experiencing "capitulation" after the halving, which directly limits the price increase.
Bitcoin miners mainly rely on two sources of income: mining rewards and transaction fees, which must exceed the cost of mining to be profitable. Therefore, miners need to consider the following points to avoid quitting the mining industry:
- Fee income rises
- Bitcoin price rises
- Mining costs reduced
However, Bitcoin’s fourth halving, completed in April, halved the block reward for miners from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Although the Bitcoin Runes protocol once allowed miners to earn generous handling fees, as the protocol quickly faded, the handling fee income plummeted, resulting in an increasing number of unprofitable miners who had to quit and surrender. QCP Capital believes that this situation has limited the rise in Bitcoin prices.
