American broadcaster and Bitcoin proponent Max Keiser believes the stablecoin issuer Tether and El Salvador, as well as the declining United States dollar (USD), will push BTC’s price to $220,000 in no distant time.

In a Saturday tweet, Keiser said the USD is doomed because inflation will “sky harder,” while this happens, BTC will be well on its way to $220,000.

The USD Is “F****d”

In comments sent to CryptoPotato, Keiser explained that Tether’s stablecoin business is strengthening Bitcoin and weakening the USD, which forces the U.S. government to keep raising interest rates.

According to the Bitcoin bull, every country in the BRICS union, including China and Russia, has understood that the United States is dying in a debt trap of its making, possibly leading to hyperinflation in the printing of USD. As a result, China and Russia are discarding the USD as the world reserve currency and conducting bilateral deals instead.

Worse still, BRICS is reportedly launching a new, gold-backed digital currency later this year, putting “the final nail” into the dollar and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

While BRICS continues its fight against the U.S., American financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether have an ongoing speculative attack against the dollar, Keiser added. Unfortunately, the attack would hasten the demise of the fiat currency.

Tether’s Role in The Dollar’s Demise

Millions of crypto users swap fiat money for Tether (USDT), and the stablecoin company, in turn, swaps the fiat for U.S. treasuries at Cantor, using the interest paid by the firm to buy more BTC. With the increasing rates in the U.S., Tether’s profits are rising, as are the company’s BTC purchases.

“It’s a USD doom loop that can’t be stopped,” Keiser said.

Besides Tether, Michael Saylor’s business intelligence firm MicroStrategy is part of the speculative attack, according to Keiser. The broadcaster said the difference between the two firms is that MicroStrategy has to “dilute shareholders with serial issuance of preferreds,” while Tether does not need to pay any interest.

With time, the pace of BTC purchases from several entities, including Tether, MicroStrategy, and El Salvador, will explode, Keiser noted. Speaking about the first country to legalize BTC as a legal tender, Keiser, who has had several meetings with the nation’s President, said:

“El Salvador is always looking to increase its bitcoin position, substantially so.”

On the other hand, the dollar will implode, and soon, no market participant will accept fiat for BTC. The rise in BTC purchases would push the asset’s value to $220,000, he asserted.

By the time the U.S. launches their central bank digital currency, it would be too late, as the BRICS currency will be the world reserve currency, Bitcoin will be the world’s reserve asset, and Tether will be the global replacement for the SWIFT network.

TL;DR

Bitcoin (BTC) experienced notable volatility early in the month but has recently stabilized around $67K.
Ethereum (ETH) saw a substantial 5.6% increase over the past week, currently trading around $3,100, with predictions of further significant gains in the coming months.
Shiba Inu’s Shibarium witnessed a rise in daily transactions and transaction volume, coinciding with recent network upgrades enhancing functionality and wallet compatibility.

How’s BTC Doing?

The price of the primary cryptocurrency did not start the month on the right foot, briefly plunging below $58,000. Over the next few weeks, it experienced enhanced volatility, rising above $65K and dropping to $60K. However, its price condition looks much more stable as of the moment, consolidating around the $67K mark for the past three days.

The latest rally started on May 15, shortly after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. The total CPI clocked in at 3.4%, meeting previous expectations.

The Federal Reserve aims to decrease annual inflation to 2%. To achieve that goal, it has enforced numerous policies, including rate hikes. The central bank previously hinted at a pivot, but it remains unknown if that will happen before mid-summer. 

The next Federal Open Market Committee Meeting is set for June 12, and it will be interesting to follow what the Fed announces. 

ETH Price Outlook

The second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization – Ethereum (ETH) – also witnessed a substantial uptick in the last week. It currently trades at around $3,100 (per CoinGecko’s data), a 5.6% increase on a 7-day scale. 

Some industry participants recently predicted that the asset’s price would pump much more significantly in the following months.

The X user World of Charts argued that ETH had broken the falling wedge pattern consolidation in the 12-hour timeframe. The falling wedge pattern is largely accepted as a bullish pattern characterized by a wide top and subsequent contraction as the price moves lower, as can be seen on the following chart.

$Eth

Finally Breaks Falling Wedge Consolidation In H12 Timeframe Trend Is Already Up And Expecting Continuation Towards 4500$ In Coming Weeks#Crypto #Eth #Ethereum pic.twitter.com/e6NWIqwGgc

— World Of Charts (@WorldOfCharts1) May 16, 2024

CryptoYoddha was even more bullish, expecting a price explosion towards the $10,000 milestone before the end of 2024.

SHIB Advancements

The popular meme coin is well in the green on a weekly basis, too, with its uptrend coinciding with some rising metrics related to its ecosystem.

Last week, SHIB aggregated daily volume, where each transaction exceeds $100,000, reached $223 million (a whopping 2,300% increase compared to the figure observed the day before). 

The project’s layer-2 blockchain solution – Shibarium – also experienced a revival. As CryptoPotato reported on May 16, daily transactions on the network surged to almost 18,000, a 193% rise compared to the data on May 15.

Officially launched last summer, Shibarium is designed to enhance the functionality and scalability of the Shiba Inu ecosystem. It also aims to lower transaction fees and improve speed. 

Not long ago, the network underwent two important upgrades to enhance user experience and enable compatibility with popular wallets, including MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, and Trust Wallet. Those curious to learn more about Shibarium, feel free to take a look at our dedicated video below:

The price of bitcoin (BTC) has surged past the $60,000 level to the $67,000 zone due to news of a lower-than-expected inflation rate in the United States.

According to the latest CryptoQuant weekly report, bitcoin’s latest rally has also been sustained by a recent decline in selling pressure. However, demand for the cryptocurrency has yet to pick up.

Bitcoin Selling Pressure Declines

The fall in BTC selling pressure can be seen in the on-chain activity of short-term holders and the balances on over-the-counter (OTC) desks.

The BTC balance on OTC desks has stabilized since late April, indicating less bitcoin supply from market participants. The balance on OTC desks began to rise by 60,000 BTC on March 10 when the asset hit an all-time high of $73,000; however, it has been flat since late last month.

Similarly, the profit margins of short-term BTC holders are currently at low or negative levels following high margins that triggered high selling pressure in early March. Since they have depleted all profits accumulated in 2024, traders are now faced with unrealized losses on the positions. Historically, this has coincided with a local bottom in prices.

The possibility that the market has bottomed is substantiated by miners’ low profitability. CryptoQuant analysts said Bitcoin miners are extremely underpaid at the moment, and their profitability has plummeted to levels last seen since March 2020, a few days after the COVID market crash. Historically, extremely low miner profitability has been associated with price bottoms.

Demand is Yet to Pick Up

On the other hand, Bitcoin demand growth appears to be stabilizing following a month of deceleration. The rise in the BTC balances of permanent holders and large investors indicates higher demand from these market participants.

Nonetheless, BTC demand would need to surge further to enable the market to sustain the latest price rally. The demand could come from the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) market and other Bitcoin investment funds.

Per CryptoQuant analysts, the crypto market needs a new wave of spot Bitcoin ETF purchases to refresh demand growth. Demand for these products appears to be picking up already, with the funds seeing total inflows of more than $560 million in the last two trading days.

Additionally, stablecoin liquidity growth is surging, signaling potential movement to the upside for BTC.

By examining the processing speed of the largest blockchain networks in terms of total value locked on DeFiLlama, CoinGecko outlined the fastest based on the actual and realized transactions-per-speed (TPS) metric.

The report concluded that Solana leads the way, followed by Sui and the Binance Smart Chain. Interestingly, Ethereum and Bitcoin are not even in the top 15.

Solana’s World

Despite its several outages in the past few years, the Solana blockchain has emerged as the fastest on CoinGecko’s list. The average daily TPS stands at 1,053.7, while the network marked a record on April 6 at just over 1,500.

According to the report, this makes Solana “46 times faster than Ethereum, and more than 5 times faster than Polygon, which has the highest TPS among Ethereum scaling solutions.”

Still, CoinGecko said that Solana’s average TPS is still far away from the theoretical maximum speed claimed by the developers of 65,000 TPS.

1/ Which blockchains are the fastest?

Our study shows that @solana has proven to be the fastest blockchain, with its actual daily average transactions per second (TPS) reaching a record high of 1,504 on April 6.

Read the full study: https://t.co/YNXbOBmsz7 pic.twitter.com/h7HXBbZavu

— CoinGecko (@coingecko) May 17, 2024

Perhaps due to its speed and the relatively low transaction fees, Solana became the home to numerous meme coins that popped up during this cycle, such as WIF, BONK, BOME, POPCAT, MEW, and others.

CoinGecko’s top 3 list is concluded by two other non-EVM networks – Sui and BSC. The paper said non-EVM blockchains are, on average, 4x faster than their EVM counterparts.

Polygon 8x Faster Than Ethereum

Ethereum transitioned from proof of work to proof of stake in late 2022 but it still cannot find a place within the top 15 on CoinGecko’s list. It takes the 17th spot with an average TPS of 22.7. In contrast, Polygon, the largest layer 2 network on Ethereum, posted 190 TPS.

“Polygon is therefore currently the fastest among the largest Ethereum scaling solutions and 8.4 times faster than Ethereum itself, even as Polygon lags further behind the top 3 fastest blockchains.”

Bitcoin, being among the few networks still on proof of work, is expectedly not in the top positions, either. The world’s largest blockchain’s average TPS was at 10.73, according to CoinGecko, which placed it at the 20th spot. Interestingly, though, Blast, Merlin, Mode, zkLink Nova, and Thorchain ranked behind Bitcoin.

Since 2021 when El Salvador began validating Bitcoin blocks with volcanic energy, the Central American country has mined 474 BTC worth approximately $29.6 million at current prices.

According to a Reuters report, El Salvador mined the cryptocurrencies using a geothermal power plant fueled by the Tecapa volcano in the nation’s east central region.

El Salvador Mines 474 BTC With Volcano

The energy generated from the Tecapa volcano is relatively small, but it powers 300 mining processors installed by El Salvador’s Bitcoin-friendly President Nayib Bukele. The nation dedicated 1.5 megawatts (MW) out of the 102 MW produced by the power plant to crypto mining.

El Salvador’s volcano-powered mining plant presents a sustainable alternative to the electricity-consuming operations of other Bitcoin mining entities, which have been criticized for their negative impacts on power grids and carbon emissions.

Adding the 474 BTC mined since 2021 to the number of bitcoins El Salvador has purchased, the country now holds 5,750 BTC worth roughly $354 million at current prices.

Interestingly, El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office revealed that several crypto mining entities, including Foundry USA, Ant pool, ViaBTC, F2Pool, and Binance Pool, joined the resources to win a reward for creating a blockchain that verified Bitcoin transactions validated by the geothermal power plant in the last three years.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bet Pays Off

El Salvador has come a long way after becoming the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. From using renewable energy sources for mining to launching Bitcoin bonds and offering a citizenship-by-Bitcoin-investment program.

In mid-March, El Salvador’s Bitcoin HODL strategy paid off, with BTC rallying above $70,000. The country began accumulating the digital asset in 2021 and announced in November of the following year that it would buy one BTC every day. Bitcoin’s value hovered around $16,000 at the time of the announcement; however, the asset was worth roughly $63,000 at the time of writing.

CryptoPotato reported that the country’s stash saw a 55% return on investment, registering unrealized gains of about $66 million. Notably, the profits did not account for the nation’s total Bitcoin holdings, as there were assets received through additional revenue streams unknown to the public.

The crypto market is rife with greed again following bitcoin’s (BTC) latest rally to a three-week high of over $66,000.

Data from Alternative.me shows the Crypto Fear and Greed Index is currently as high as 74, indicating a period of greed among digital asset investors.

Crypto Investors Are Greedy

The surge in crypto market sentiment to greed follows a period of neutrality among market participants. CryptoPotato reported earlier this month that the fear and greed index stood at 54 for the first time since January, representing neutral sentiment among investors, while BTC traded around in a range between $57,000 and $60,000.

At the time, BTC and the broader crypto market experienced heightened volatility and a massive wipeout in total market capitalization. On one occasion, BTC fell below its crucial support levels, crashing 11% within 36 hours.

The plunge drained the crypto market of more than $200 billion, leaving a trail of ruins among altcoins and meme coins. Notably, digital asset investment funds were affected, with some networks seeing consecutive weeks of outflows.

However, the tide has changed this week, with the bulls taking over the reins on Monday. After hovering around $61,000 during the weekend, BTC surged to $63,000 on Monday and then persisted to $64,000 on Wednesday. At the time of writing, the leading cryptocurrency was changing hands at $66,200, up 5% in the past seven days.

Bitcoin’s upward trajectory has extended to the spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) market, with inflows surging to a multi-week high. On Wednesday, flows into the ETFs hit $303 million, a figure last seen on May 3. Yesterday, the funds also saw inflows totaling $257 million. The two consecutive days of substantial inflows contrast the flows seen in the last two weeks, which are mostly less than $100 million.

What Happens Next?

For the uninitiated, the Fear and Greed Index determines investor sentiment by analyzing several factors, including market momentum, volatility, bitcoin’s dominance, trends, and social media. On a scale of 0 to 100, 0 indicates extreme fear, 50 signals neutrality, and 100 means extreme greed.

With the index at a point of greed, a further market rally could push it to the extreme greed zone. Unfortunately, this would give room for a correction, which is typical in crypto markets.

Regardless, the surge in liquidity entering the market could push BTC out of its current price range to a higher level.

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis recently posted “Bitcoin laser eyes” on X, showing her support for laws supporting the cryptocurrency.

The move follows the passing of legislation H.J.Res. 109 in the Senate, which aims to overturn the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) No. 121.

Senator Lummis Advocates for Bitcoin Legislation

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis, representing Wyoming, is well-known for her advocacy of Bitcoin. She views the asset as a dependable store of value and a safeguard against inflation. Serving on the Senate Banking Committee, she aims to enforce a regulatory framework that fosters crypto innovation while safeguarding consumers.

We are so ₿ack. pic.twitter.com/ckHmXMHFL8

— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) May 16, 2024

The Senate recently passed legislation targeting the dismantling of SAB 121, which imposes stringent restrictions on financial institutions, preventing them from acting as custodians for digital assets like Bitcoin. Under the Congressional Review Act, H.J.Res. 109 aims to eliminate these barriers, allowing regulated financial firms to provide custody services for cryptocurrencies.

Prior to the legislation’s passage, Senator Lummis vocalized her support for overturning SAB 121. She denounced it as a rule disguised as accounting guidance crafted and implemented by SEC staff without majority commission approval.

Recently, Senator Lummis, along with Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, penned a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland expressing concerns over the perceived divergence in the Department of Justice’s interpretation of “money transmission” regulations. They argued that this deviation from FinCEN’s established definition could criminalize fundamental aspects of crypto networks, affecting responsible financial innovation in the U.S.

White House Cites Investor Protection Concerns

Meanwhile, the White House has clearly stated its opposition to the passed legislation. A recent statement indicated that President Biden would veto the bill if it reached his desk. He might argue that overturning SAB 121 would undermine the SEC’s efforts to protect investors in the crypto-asset markets and safeguard the broader financial system.

Critics of SAB 121 believe that the rule is excessively restrictive and limits financial institutions’ ability to meet the growing demand for Bitcoin services. They argue that these institutions, with their established compliance frameworks and security protocols, are well-equipped to manage the risks associated with digital asset custody.

Despite the Senate’s approval, the future of H.J.Res. 109 remains uncertain due to the potential presidential veto. If President Biden follows through on his veto promise, it would stop the resolution’s progress, maintaining the current restrictions on financial institutions’ custody of digital assets. Biden has the option to sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action, in which case the bill would become law without his signature.

Coinbase became arguably the most important crypto player in the US this year as numerous ETF providers, including BlackRock, chose the platform to serve as custodian to their Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

Adding the overall bull run for the entire market resulted in positive price movements for its shares, which jumped to over $250 earlier this year. However, COIN dumped hard on Thursday, perhaps due to rising competition on local soil.

The Brian Armstrong-spearheaded company has become something of a monopolist on the Bitcoin ETF custodian front mostly because it is among the few publicly-traded crypto exchanges in the States.

This benefited the company during the first quarter of 2024 – when the ETFs launched – and its Q1 report beat expectations, posting a massive revenue surge of 72%.

Naturally, this also impacted Coinbase’s shares, which jumped from about $156 at the start of the year to a multi-month peak of $280 in late March, taking advantage of the broader crypto market resurgence and BTC’s new ATH.

However, COIN started to retrace alongside the rest of the market in April and May but still maintained a healthy level of over $200. That changed yesterday when the shares dropped by 9.43% from $215 to $199.

The most probable reason for this is not related to the market moves, as BTC was well in the green, skyrocketing to a 3-week high of over $66,500. In fact, it could be related to impending competition on the spot trading front in the US.

CME Group, typically known for its involvement in futures Bitcoin and Ethereum trading, outlined initial plans to introduce spot BTC trading services. Given the fact that CME is a well-established player in traditional finance and has a rich history in crypto, such a potential launch could take away market share for dominant forces like Coinbase and Binance.

Separately, Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has been gradually offloading its COIN shares for the past few weeks, which could also increase the selling pressure.

More than 19 months after Ethereum’s historic Merge upgrade, the data is clear: the network’s native asset, Ether (ETH), is not keeping up with Bitcoin (BTC).

The ETH/BTC price ratio tapped another three-year low on Thursday at 0.044, with Ether last experiencing less market dominance against Bitcoin in May of 2021.

Why Does ETH Keep Dumping Against BTC?

The trend has been offputting and confusing for Ethereum bulls, of whom many assumed ETH would become a more appetizing investment than Bitcoin following the September 2022 Merge.

At the time, the upgrade introduced a proof of stake consensus mechanism, and lowered ETH’s inflation rate by 90%.

Combined with Ethereum’s previously implemented transaction fee-burning mechanics, this meant ETH was now both an investment with intrinsic yield and a negative inflation rate – bullish properties that its older brother BTC did not possess.

Despite these qualities, ETH/BTC has fallen 45% since the Merge took place. This is especially noteworthy given that crypto has been in a general bull market for the past 18 months. During such times, altcoins are accustomed to outperforming BTC.

Joe McCann, the founder of crypto fund Asymmetric, tweeted on Wednesday that “the flippening” – a dream that the market cap of ETH might one day surpass that of BTC – “was always a dream that has turned into a nightmare.”

“Bitcoin is ‘ultrasound money’ and Solana is the “global supercomputer,” McCann argued. “Ethereum is neither.”

Experts at CryptoQuant argued that Ether is no longer “ultrasound money” since its Dencun upgrade took effect in March 2024. While lowering transaction fees for users, it also turned Ether into an inflationary currency again, hurting its investment thesis as a better store of value than Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, recent technical breakthroughs have allowed developers to bring applications to Bitcoin that were once unique to Ethereum and other more programmable chains.

These include Ordinals NFTs, Runes trading, and BitVM – a new framework for bringing smart contracts and trust-minimized layer 2 networks to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

After little more than one year since Ordinals gained traction, Bitcoin has already become a more popular chain for NFT trading than Ethereum, data from CryptoSlam shows.

Ethereum’s Regulatory Woes

Aside from technical concerns, Ethereum also faces major headwinds on the regulatory front.

While Bitcoin spot ETF products were approved in January, experts believe any imminent approval for an Ether spot ETF remains highly unlikely. Furthermore, most altcoins including Ether appear to be on the radar of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, prompting legal trouble for against exchanges and other companies interacting with such assets.

“We do think that as long as Gary Gensler chairs the SEC, any advancement in the digital-asset space is going to have to come through the judiciary channels,” said Mark Connors, head of research at 3IQ, in an interview with MarketWatch.

Solana (SOL) is up a whopping 665% over the past year, compared to ETH’s 61% rise. Ether’s total crypto market dominance is now down to 15.1%, versus Bitcoin’s 54.5%, according to CoinMarketCap.

TL;DR

Bitcoin’s price surged from $61,500 to over $66,500, possibly driven by the release of US CPI data.
Shiba Inu saw a 9% price increase, with analysts predicting further gains of up to 50% based on technical patterns.
PEPE achieved a new all-time high on May 15, becoming the third-largest meme coin by market cap, with all holders realizing paper profits at one point.

BTC Resurgence

After trading sideways in the past several days, the price of the primary cryptocurrency has once again headed north on May 15. It soared from $61,500 to over $66,500 in a matter of hours, currently standing at approximately $66,000 (per CoinGecko’s data).

The uptick occurred shortly after the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data was released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It showed that the inflation rate in the world’s largest economy clocked in at 3.4%, meeting previous expectations.

The Federal Reserve’s goal is to decrease the annual inflation to 2%. As such, it implemented multiple measures in the past few years, including rate hikes. America’s central bank hinted at a pivot sometime this year which is seen by many industry participants as a bullish factor for Bitcoin and the entire industry.

After all, lowering interest rates makes money borrowing easier, possibly sparking more interest in riskier assets such as cryptocurrencies.

SHIB Forecasts

The popular meme coin has also experienced a substantial uptick, with its price soaring by 9% on a 24-hour scale. 

Several analysts, such as the X users Ali Martinez and Dami-Defi, believe SHIB is yet to witness a bull run. The former envisioned a 20% surge should it break “the upper boundary of this descending parallel channel at $0.00002444.”

Dami-Defi was even more bullish, predicting a 50% increase based on “a falling wedge pattern on the 1D time frame.” They also suggested that the entire meme coin sector will continue to flourish in the following months.

PEPE’s Success

The frog-themed meme coin has outperformed many of the leading cryptocurrencies in the last few days, registering a double-digit price spike. As CryptoPotato reported, it hit a new all-time high on May 15, whereas its market capitalization neared a whopping $5 billion.

PEPE’s price slightly retraced in the past several hours, but it remains the third-biggest asset in the meme coin cohort. The forth-largest – dogwifhat (WIF) – trails behind with a market cap of approximately $3 billion.

Somewhat expectedly, PEPE’s latest revival has benefited investors. According to IntoTheBlock, 100% of the coin’s holders stood at paper profits on May 14.