The situation in the cryptocurrency market has remained unchanged for quite some time, but that could change in the near future. As it became known thanks to analysts CryptoQuant, now there is a noticeable influx of stabelcoins to exchanges – that is coins with a link to the value of the dollar. This usually happens when traders want to buy digital assets. Here is the relevant chart.

However, the current case may be an exception. Analysts have suggested that traders here could wind up trading platforms with BUSD tokens from Paxos and Binance, whose release was banned in mid-February 2023 due to activity by US regulators.

Stable holders may want to exchange them for other popular alternatives like USDT or USDC.

What will happen to Bitcoin’s exchange rate

The previous week was for the bears – the cryptocurrency market has seen a noticeable dip after negative news related to Silvergate Bank. As a reminder, Silvergate Bank announced the shutdown of its Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) cryptocurrency transfer network. Rumours of the bank’s insolvency have also surfaced online.

At the same time, one of the bank’s most popular offerings, represented by the SEN network, provided round-the-clock transfers between investors and cryptocurrency exchanges. The situation was quite different from traditional bank transfers, which could take several days to settle. And because Silvergate was used by many popular cryptocurrency platforms, the situation caused concern and panic.


In the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, there may be no real reason for investors to panic. The events of December 2022 are proof of that. At that time, rumours began to circulate on Twitter about the alleged insolvency of the Binance platform. Although in hindsight such reports turned out to be false, many cryptocurrency owners did take it upon themselves to withdraw their assets from the trading platform. As a result, the equivalent of billions of dollars worth of coins were withdrawn from Binance overnight.

Why did this happen? The rumours began to emerge shortly after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, whose founder Sam Bunkman-Fried was using user funds for his own needs. This was a reason for people to distrust the centralised platforms, which created the conditions for panic to spread.


What is clear so far is that the Bitcoin chart has found a new and rather narrow horizontal channel. And the longer it stays in that channel, the more it will break out in one direction or the other. At least that’s what has happened before.

It should be noted that in the longer run, Bitcoin's price movement depends on a host of other factors. For example - the situation in the US economy.

When will the base lending rate rise

The situation in the US macro economy is starting to heat up after a relatively quiet week – Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is due to address the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee in the coming days.

According to Cointelegraph’s sources, Powell’s words could affect the general mood of the markets, as the US Federal Reserve chief will outline his agency’s future strategy, including regarding the benchmark lending rate. The decision on the extent of the next round of de facto rate hikes has not yet been made – the procedure itself will take place in a fortnight.

The next key rate change will take place on 22 March 2023. The index will then be reviewed on May 3 and June 14.

Popular crypto traders agree that Bitcoin volatility will push back from the bottom during Powell’s speech, but that does not guarantee a market uptick.

According to the FedWatch Tool, there is a 28.4 per cent chance of a 0.5 per cent rate hike on March 22. It is likely that the rate will be raised by 25 basis points, i.e. 0.25 per cent. Such an event is sure to be received positively, although analysts do not rule out that the rate will also be raised in subsequent meetings.

Cryptocurrency market fundamentals

In terms of basic fundamentals, the prerequisites for BTC price growth have been steadily present in the market for the past few weeks. In particular, Bitcoin’s hash rate and mining complexity continue to update their all-time highs, reflecting the cryptocurrency’s popularity among miners and the BTC network’s record security against possible blockchain manipulation.

Analysts at the Glassnode platform also report a significant increase in the profitability of mining the cryptocurrency compared to 2022. This is a positive factor, because ideally, the higher the profitability of miners’ businesses, the less coins they will sell on the market, trying to accumulate BTC with the expectation of a bull run.

You can see the dynamics of miners’ reserves in the chart below.

At the same time there remain more open long positions in the market – at least two shorts for every Bitcoin long, experts say.

This suggests that most traders are confident about BTC's growth in the near future. Although it is impossible to claim anything with complete certainty, as anything can happen in the coin industry.

Traders are losing their positive sentiment

The dynamics of the Fear and Greed Index, formed by the Alternative portal, shows that traders’ optimism has dipped to its lowest level in the last six weeks.

This was expected, as Bitcoin had previously failed to consolidate above the $25,000 line, which many had hoped for. Now that the cryptocurrency is balancing in a narrow horizontal channel, there are growing doubts among market players about BTC’s prospects in the short term.


We believe that the situation in the cryptocurrency market has indeed become too low. However, in previous bearish trends, it was about the same, and at the end of the collapse, only the most resilient players remained in the industry. Probably, this time it will be the same.


What do you think about it? Share your opinion in our millionaires’ cryptochat. There we discuss other important topics that affect decentralized asset rates in one way or another.