After showing slight bullish momentum on Friday, cryptocurrency markets are again in the bearish territory this Saturday as BTC dips below $20k and ETH struggles to hold support at $1,600. The global cryptocurrency market remains below $1 trillion, valued at $974 billion, down 2.5% in the past 24 hours. Let’s look at relevant Bitcoin and Ethereum news impacting today’s markets.

Key Points:

• Crypto markets are showing slight bearish momentum this Saturday as BTC and ETH are down 2-5%.
• Last week, a Bitcoin whale decided to offload 10k Bitcoins, creating further bearish momentum for BTC.
• Jerome Powell’s speech last week was the most significant influence on the selling pressure for crypto markets.
• Ethereum’s outlook remains bullish as the network merge is eleven days away.
• Ethereum could show significant price growth post-merge, and we recommend keeping a close eye on the crypto asset.

Bitcoin News

A report from Coindesk today mentions over 10k long-dormant Bitcoins worth over $200 million finally traded last week, suggesting that whales might be cashing out at least some of their holdings.

According to data from CryptoQuant and LookIntoBitcoin, 5,000 BTC were transacted over two days last week. According to analysts, the transaction data doesn’t draw any conclusions, but it does suggest a possibility that long-term holders might be selling off their Bitcoin bags.

It’s never a bullish sign when dormant coins move onto exchanges, but at the same time, just because one whale decides to sell off part of his holdings doesn’t mean Bitcoin won’t recover and rise in price.

The most significant piece of news which affected crypto and global market prices last week was Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole on August 26th, where he announced that the Fed will continue with its monetary policy to curb inflation and that traders should prepare for some pain ahead. Powell said:

“While higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses. These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation. But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”

August 26th marked a significant bearish correction for Bitcoin, where the cryptocurrency dipped from a high of $21.7k to a low of $19.6k only two days later. Since then, Bitcoin has struggled to hold support as crypto, and traditional markets remain shaky.

Ethereum News

When it comes to Ether news, the talk of the town is still the network merge, which the traders are highly anticipating. In a recent interview, Vitalik mentioned that he believes Ethereum’s merge isn’t priced in yet, and won’t be priced in until ETH entirely switches to a proof-of-stake consensus model.

Talks of Ethereum turning fully into a proof-of-stake network have been going on for several years, and once the network fully transitions, then we will likely see substantial price growth for Ethereum.

Ethereum’s network merge is scheduled to go live in roughly eleven days, which gives traders some time to accumulate ETH before it surges past the $2k level.

Even with the current bearish crypto market sentiment, the short and long-term outlook for Ethereum is highly bullish, and we recommend keeping a close eye on the crypto asset in the next several weeks.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any service.

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