October 27, 2021
Flushing out the Leverage – Will the Dip Keep Dipping?
Introduction
What we warned you about yesterday and the days before, has played out today: While everyone got extremely bullish, opened leveraged longs, and bought their favorite altcoins, the risk of an imminent washout was getting higher and higher by the day. Now, we are seeing the result with hundreds of millions of dollars of longs being liquidated in a matter of minutes.
Market Outlook
Does today’s dump mean the bull market is over (again) and it’s time to pack your bags? Of course not. Medium and long term, things are still looking positive with no macro top signals insight.
However, be prepared for some more downside before upside in the short term. Especially when everyone is talking about “buying the dip” we oftentimes get another shakeout. Then it’s time to buy!
The Meme Coin Frenzy Continues
In other price-related news, we get reminded of the jaw-dropping power of memes and retail frenzy… 🐶
It really feels like meme coins have decoupled to a large extent from the rest of the crypto markets with two of the top three performers today being meme coins… Or it’s a precursor for more short-term pain which will put a bigger damper on the whole market – including meme coins.
Ethereum Altair Upgrade – The Warm-up to the “Merge”.
Without many noticing it (which is arguably a good sign), Ethereum performed another important hard fork today, paving the way towards the “Merge” next year. The Altair hard fork has likely been the last upgrade before the Merge!
Because the Altair upgrade introduced improvements to the Beacon Chain (the new proof-of-stake chain), Altair won’t lead to any frond-end changes for Ethereum users right now.
On a more technical level, the upgrade brought support for light clients, pre-validator inactivity leak accounting, a rise in slashing severity, and clean-ups to validator rewards allowing for simplified stated management. 🤓
The First Super Bowl Crypto Ad Is Coming
In the last few years, the idea of seizing one of the biggest marketing opportunities in the world – displaying ads during the Super Bowl which gets watched by almost 100 million people – has been fantasized about many times. It’s no surprise that FTX is the crypto company to finally achieve this major publicity stunt!
Don’t Miss These New Crowdloan Opportunities!
After a short break, Kusama parachain auctions have resumed this week, presenting exciting opportunities to get your hands early on the next possible Polkadot gems. There are two interesting contenders with ongoing crowdloan campaigns: Picasso (which we presented a few days ago) and Bit.Country Pioneer, an ambitious Metaverse project which caught the attention of Acala’s Dan Reecer and got the backing of NFT powerhouse Animoca Brands (never a bad sign!)
Both Picasso and Bit.Country seem to be very solid projects offering token bonuses for anyone participating in their crowdloans. As of right now, Picasso is likely to win the next parachain slot, with Bit.Country following thereafter.