The situation in the cryptocurrency market is ambiguous right now. On the one hand, users of Bitcoin and other blockchains are showing a huge interest in what is happening within the coin industry. In particular, on May 1, 2023, BTC network users conducted 682,000 transactions, which was a record for this metric in the cryptocurrency’s history.

According to Glassnode analysts, such a figure is as much as 39 percent ahead of the previous high from 2017. That is, BTC holders managed to beat the previous high even during a bearish trend, when cryptocurrencies traditionally do not attract outside attention due to their questionable price results.

That said, traders are in no hurry to transact in digital assets – statistics on trading volumes on centralised exchanges support this. In particular, the result for the half of May is $230 billion, making it the worst month in terms of volumes since October 2020.

However, clarity in the coin market is sure to increase in the near future.

Where the Bitcoin price will go

The previous candle on the scale of the 1-week BTC chart closed at $26,930. This was the largest drop in the cryptocurrency’s value since mid-March. At the same time, Bitcoin gave away 69 per cent growth in the first quarter, putting it ahead of most traditional investment vehicles.

Bitcoin is valued at $27.2 thousand this morning, but if the cryptocurrency fails to gain a foothold, a new drain on the market will begin. That was the opinion shared on Twitter by a popular crypto analyst nicknamed Rekt Capital. He noted that Bitcoin now needs to break the $27,600 line to continue to rise. This will allow the cryptocurrency to move on to storm to new price highs in 2023

Traditionally, we should note that traders assess the market situation using probabilities. Accordingly, the scenario may not happen in the end, but at the moment the amateur trader sees it that way due to his experience.

On a more global scale, however, Bitcoin’s foreseeable future remains cloudless. The aforementioned trader added that the cryptocurrency has already gone up after the 2022 “crypto-zima”. Which means market participants now have to wait for important support levels to be tested.

Why LightCoin is rising

Among crypto-enthusiasts, LTC is becoming an increasingly popular trading tool. In particular, the altcoin has indeed risen markedly since it formed lows in a bearish trend. And an important reason for its continued growth is the upcoming halving.

This event will take place in about 80 days. During it, the remuneration of altcoin miners per block will drop from 12.5 to 6.25 LTC. As with Bitcoin, in this context, halving is considered an important bullish event because it reduces the rate of cryptocurrency issuance, that is, it makes new coins a rarer phenomenon.

According to Cointelegraph’s sources, this event is highly anticipated by traders who will surely want to play on expectations.

In the backdrop of what’s happening, owners of addresses with a thousand LTC or less have accumulated 120,000 litecoins. And this happened in just the first ten days of May. Here’s this chart from Santiment.


Also an important new development in the Litecoin network is the recently announced LTC-20 standard, which allows the creation of NFTs based on the Ordinals protocol. The latter, in turn, was a fork of the Ordinals protocol, a related project from the Bitcoin network.


What is happening in macroeconomics

In terms of important events for the US economy, it is going to be a relatively quiet week. The biggest interest is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s forthcoming speech. He is scheduled to speak on May 19, but before that there will be several other important Fed officials who will comment on market conditions.

Powell is expected to say whether the Fed is satisfied with the recent release of the consumer price index (CPI) data. It was released on May 10, and the index rose 4.9% year-on-year instead of the forecasted 5%. This is one of the most important metrics upon which the benchmark lending rate is based.

Traders will also be watching the performance of the Dollar Index (DXY). A rise in this instrument is undesirable, as it usually leads to a fall in markets due to investors’ desire to exit various instruments into fiat currencies.

If Jerome Powell hints at fixing the benchmark lending rate at its current level, Bitcoin along with the rest of the cryptocurrencies may well respond with growth. And if word of a rate cut by the end of 2023 gets out, then the risky asset market will probably be even better.

Crypto traders become less greedy

After Bitcoin’s spectacular rise at the beginning of the year, the market is slowly “coming to its senses,” which has led to a change in sentiment among traders. They are now less likely to feel greedy when they open trades. This is confirmed by the dynamics of the Fear and Greed Index from the Alternative portal.

Here is the corresponding graph.


The cryptocurrency industry is now attracting more and more users, as can be seen from the data on the blockchain. They are interested in NFT and various tokens, and are willing to shell out a lot of money for the sake of interacting with this asset category. Most importantly, investors here are not hampered by the bad macroeconomic situation, which has already led to ten consecutive increases in the benchmark interest rate. Therefore, so far the niche is clearly heading in the right direction and is successfully preparing for the onset of a new bull run.


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