After holding support on Friday, cryptocurrency markets continue to trade sideways with little to no change for Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, and other major crypto assets. We’re not seeing any movement today because of Bitcoin’s peg with the stock market, and since global markets are closed today, BTC is waiting on the sidelines for the next move.

Key Points:

• Cryptocurrency markets continue to lose momentum as BTC dips below $20k and ETH remains above $1,300.
• This week has been quite bearish for crypto markets, with the biggest stories including a Binance Bridge Hack and Kim K being fined by the SEC.
• Ethereum’s merge is causing an increase in block censorship and isn’t without its limitations.
• We’ll likely see a slight price dip this weekend before a rebound next week.

Bitcoin News

While Bitcoin’s price is down roughly 1%, dipping below $20k, the fluctuation isn’t notable, and a slight bearish momentum is to be expected during the weekend.

Moreover, we’ve had some bearish news this week in crypto markets, including Kim Kardashian being fined by the SEC over $1.2 million for promoting crypto security and the $120 million Binance Smart Chain bridge hack, which caused BSC to halt its chain and freeze the stolen assets to ensure recovery efforts.

There’s never a boring week in cryptocurrency with numerous hacks, regulation actions, and development regarding blockchain upgrades. This week we’ve had our share of negative news, and despite the negative events, the crypto market held its support relatively well.

We can only hope that next week will bless us with some positive news that could provide crypto markets with a chance to establish momentum for a bull run.

Ethereum News

This weekend, there aren’t any developments from Ethereum either, as Bitcoin is seemingly outperforming ETH. While Ethereum’s network merge has brought substantial improvements to the network, it didn’t come without its drawbacks. Specifically, the SEC now claims ETH is a security since the chain is proof of stake and over half the validators are in the US. In addition, the merge has increased the issue of block censorship in ETH, which now provides more power for validators and nodes to effectively censor transactions.

Whether that’s a good thing or not is up for debate, but crypto maximalists will tell you that blockchain is built on decentralization, which is a holy concept in their eyes that shouldn’t be in a gray area.

In addition, it seems that cryptocurrency is generally failing as an inflation hedge against the dollar, as most crypto assets have lost significant value this year. According to a report from Forbes, some reasons that cryptocurrency isn’t making an effective inflation hedge include a stronger dollar, cryptocurrency’s high volatility, and the fact that most investors still think of cryptocurrency as digital gold, which only contributes to crypto’s peg to traditional stocks and assets.

ETH remains above $1,300, but the rapidly declining trading volume could send the crypto asset as low as $1,200 by Sunday before rebounding next week.

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

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