Tron (TRX)

Tether, the leading stablecoin, has allocated $1 billion USDT to bolster the Tron network. This authorization, while significant, is not an immediate issuance. Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CTO, clarified that it is set aside for future issuance requests and chain swaps from Tron.

He explained on X post that the recent $1 billion USDT minting is to restock the network’s inventory. Importantly, this doesn’t affect USDT’s total market value as it’s an “authorized but not issued” transaction. The freshly minted tokens will be held in reserve till the next phase for future issuance requests and chain swaps.

💵 💵 💵 💵 💵 💵 💵 💵 💵 💵 1,000,000,000 #USDT (1,000,719,999 USD) minted at Tether Treasuryhttps://t.co/NA4NnBjhyD

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) September 19, 2023

This move comes as Tether’s market capitalization surged past $83 billion in 2023, with an issuance of around $16 billion in USDT since January. This firmly establishes USDT as the top stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. On the other side, Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) faced a decline, going from $50 billion at the start of 2023 to $26 billion presently. This drop is attributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), where Circle had significant holdings.

However, Tron has struggled to maintain its pricing in a bear market. TRON (TRX) will remain slow unless it breaks beyond $0.08000.

Pre-authorization is an Enhanced Security Feature

Despite this, The Tron blockchain has seen a record-breaking surge in USDT issuance this year, boasting $42.8 billion in circulation. This surpasses Ethereum’s $39 billion circulating supply of USDT. Tether’s strategic allocation of “authorized but not issued” USDT is a security measure. It reduces the frequency of accessing authorization private keys, safeguarding against security threats during the token issuance process.

By pre-authorizing USDT in their Treasury, Tether ensures swift issuance once customer funds are received, maintaining a 100% reserve. This move underscores Tether’s commitment to maintaining stability and security while supporting the growing demands of blockchain networks like Tron.

The cryptocurrencies and tokens held in the publicly-known wallets of Tron (TRX) founder Justin Sun have seen their value increase by over 50% over the last month.

Data gathered from blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence shows that as of Aug. 19 Sun’s wallets contained $733 million, and as of Sept. 19 the balance increased by just over 50% to $1.1 billion.

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Sun’s current top holding is Wrapped Stacked Ethereum (WSTETH) for a total of under 169,000 tokens worth approximately $315 million. This token represents Ethereum (ETH) stacked to get stacking rewards that has been wrapped with the Lido (LDO) decentralized finance (DeFi) to be liquid.

The second top holding is $293 million USDD — Tron’s U.S.-dollar stablecoin, the third one USDJ, another Tron-based stablecoin. This is followed by $139 million of Tron, $39.5 million of Bittorrent (BTT) file-sharing Tron-based network token and other relatively minor holdings.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bulls have struggled for dominance this week, with several cryptos posting losses while others gained. Bitcoin (BTC) has seen some bull activity this week, recording a weekly increase of 2.6% as Bitcoin price is at $26.5K. Bitcoin has a market cap of $517B as the trading volume stood at $6.8B as of press time.

Volatility on Bitcoin price for the week has been relatively stable as the Bollinger bands move closer to each other. However, BTC’s relative strength indicator is moving below its average line, indicating some bear dominance still on BTC as the MACD indicator hovers in the red zone, close to a shift to the green zone.

BTC 1-week chart | Source: TradingView

Ethereum price analysis

Ethereum (ETH) has also seen slight bull activity as the asset’s weekly rise now stand’s at 0.19% as Ethereum price stands at $1,630. Ethereum has a current market cap of $196B, as the trading volume now stands at $2.7B.

Volatility levels on Ethereum price have also been low over the week as the Bollinger bands now move at a relatively close distance. In contrast, the RSI indicator moves below its average line, showing bear activity on Ethereum as bulls and bears struggle for dominance as the MACD moves in the red zone.

ETH 1-week chart | Source: TradingView

Tron price analysis

Tron (TRX) has also seen slight bull activity as the asset’s weekly rise now stand’s at 5.8% as Tron price stands at $0.0833. TRX has a current market cap of $7.4B, as the trading volume now stands at $142M.

Volatility levels on Tron price have also been low over the week as the Bollinger bands now move at a relatively close distance. The RSI indicator moves above its average line, showing bull activity on Tron as bulls dominated the week as the MACD moves close to the green zone.

Tron 1-week chart | Source: TradingView

Toncoin price analysis

Toncoin (TON) has seen massive bull activity this week as the asset’s weekly rise now stand’s at 34% as Toncoin price stands at $2.37. Toncoin has a current market cap of $8.1B, as the trading volume now stands at $83.9M.

Volatility levels on Toncoin price have been high over the week as the Bollinger bands now move at a far distance from each other. The RSI indicator moves high above its average line, showing bull activity on Toncoin as the MACD moves in the green zone.

TON 1-week chart | Source: TradingView

Bitcoin Cash analysis

Bitcoin cash (BCH) has also seen bull activity as the asset’s weekly rise now stand’s at 11.7% as Bitcoin Cash price stands at $211.9. Bitcoin cash has a current market cap of $4.1B, as the trading volume now stands at $159M.

Volatility levels on Bitcoin cash price have also been low over the week as the Bollinger bands now move at a relatively close distance. In contrast, the RSI indicator moves below its average line, showing bear activity on Bitcoin cash as bulls and bears struggle for dominance while the MACD also moves in the red zone close to the neutral line.

BCH 1-week chart | Source: TradingView

VanEck’s monthly crypto market recap reveals that trading volumes of centralized exchanges declined to $52.8 billion in August, representing a 15.5% decrease compared to July.

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) faced a challenging month, recording 9% and 10% losses, respectively.

VanEck: Crypto markets hit lows

In August, as reported by VanEck, the trading volumes of digital assets hit a two-year low, coinciding with an all-time low in their volatility.

According to the analysis, this decline was attributed to waning investor interest. The analysts attributed the declining investor interest to the allure of beach vacations in the U.S. and the U.S. 10-year treasury bond, whose yield reached its highest level in 15 years in August.

The report also revealed a substantial decrease in venture capital funds allocated to blockchain projects, with only $500 million deployed in August 2023, representing a significant drop from the $1.9 billion and the $2.7 billion recorded in August 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Simultaneously, crypto Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs) also experienced substantial redemptions.

The report also indicated various factors that may have contributed to the negative price action in the cryptocurrency market. Firstly, concerns were raised about the solvency of Binance, one of the prominent cryptocurrency exchanges.

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Another noteworthy event was the liquidation of a $200 million position by an individual exploiting vulnerabilities on the BNB DEX Venus, which added to the negative sentiment. Additionally, exploits were observed on fundamental Ethereum DeFi applications like Balance and Curve, further eroding confidence in the ecosystem.

Curve’s heist raised the possibility of liquidating Michael Egorov’s substantial $168 million CRV position, which represented a significant 34% of the total CRV supply, making it a focal point of concern within the crypto community.

Rumors also circulated regarding the potential arrests of executives at Huobi in China and the potential insolvency of the Huobi exchange. These speculations added an extra layer of uncertainty to the cryptocurrency landscape.

Furthermore, Bitstamp’s decision to suspend trading of altcoins for users in the United States also had a noticeable impact on market dynamics during this period. There were also significant outflows totaling $260 million from cryptocurrency ETPs in August, indicating a broader trend of investors exiting the market.

Despite these challenges, it’s important to note that none of the SCPs (Smart Contract Platforms) featured tokens that experienced price increases in August.

Bitcoin and Ethereum experienced losses during this same month, dropping their values by 9% and 10%, respectively. These declines starkly contrasted with the Nasdaq Composite, which saw a relatively modest decrease of 2%. This marked the second consecutive month in which cryptocurrencies underperformed compared to traditional financial indices.

According to researchers, the best-performing assets during this challenging period on the platform were Ethereum, which saw an 11.3% decrease in price, and Tron (TRX), with a more modest decline of 1.6%.

Conversely, the month’s biggest underperformers included ATOM, with a 21.9% decline; MATIC, down 19.3%; and AVAX, which saw a substantial drop of 22.1%. These numbers underscore the overall bearish sentiment that characterized the cryptocurrency market during the month.

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A gloomy August

August unfolded as a turbulent month; many factors, including regulatory developments, smart contract vulnerabilities, solvency concerns, and apprehensions of potential liquidations, buffeted cryptocurrency markets.

The conclusion of July had brought renewed optimism to the crypto sector, thanks to Ripple’s partial victory against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Grayscale was also seeking permission to transform its Bitcoin Investment Trust into a spot Bitcoin ETF, and there was hope for the approval of other similar ETFs. Additionally, there were hints from the SEC that they might allow the launch of Ethereum Futures ETFs.

However, as August progressed, these hopeful expectations took a disappointing turn. None of the anticipated ETF approvals happened, leaving many disappointed. To compound the uncertainty, the SEC made an announcement that they intended to challenge the court’s decision in the Ripple case. This decision added another layer of doubt and unpredictability to the world of cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency market has remained mostly flat for the past 24 hours, and Bitcoin has been unable to make a move throughout the period. However, this might as well be a stepping stone and a preparation for an attempt at $27K.

Most of the altcoins have remained flat with certain exceptions, so let’s dive in.

Bitcoin Preparing for $27K?

Bitcoin’s price has failed to produce anything of substance throughout the past 24 hours and remains largely situated around where it was trading yesterday – at around $26,500.

That said, according to the co-founder of Glassnode, $27K seems to be the next resistance to overcome, while there might be some selling pressure induced by profit booking at around $27.4K and later at $28.2K, if the cryptocurrency is to reach that level.

All in all, he seems to believe that the current increase in Bitcoin’s price will ultimately lead to another test of the coveted $30K level.

Altcoins Flat, TON Continues to Rip

Altcoins also failed to deliver any action in the past 24 hours, which is perhaps to be expected, given that the market tends to be slower on the weekend.

Ethereum, XRP, SOL, TRX, ADA, DOGE, BNB, and many other leading cryptocurrencies are all charting very slight changes below 1% in either direction, as seen in the heatmap below.

The most obvious example of the above is TON, which continues ripping and is up another 12% in the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency has consistently been among the best performers in the past week. It’s up almost 40% for the week.

Axie Infinity’s AXS token is today’s worst performer, down about 6.4%, followed by Kaspa’s KAS, which is down 5.5%.

In a new tweet, on-chain analytics firm Santiment notes that the second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH), and Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin are seeing dormant coin movements.

Santiment observes that Ethereum and BUSD have had historic dormant movements this week. This is because the average age at which both tokens have been sitting in wallets has become much younger after massive stagnation. In this regard, that of BUSD fell by 378 days, while that of Ethereum fell by 26 days.

🤔 The average age in which #Ethereum and #BinanceCoin tokens have been sitting in wallets both became much younger after massive stagnation. Do you believe both coincide with the #FTX liquidations and sell-offs that began this week? https://t.co/RyFfUbMe22 pic.twitter.com/KfRZPtCZn1

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) September 15, 2023

It is speculated that this historic dormant movement might be related to the FTX-triggered liquidations and sell-offs that began earlier in the week.

FTX, which currently controls over $3.4 billion in crypto assets, has been granted permission to sell its crypto holdings by a U.S. judge.

FTX will be allowed to sell off in weekly batches, with a first-week restriction of $50 million and following weekly limits of $100 million. However, BTC and ETH can only be sold after giving the creditors' committee, ad hoc committee and the U.S. trustee a 10-day notice.

This aside, in recent weeks, Ethereum has seen dormant ICO-era whale wallets come to life. In the past week, a dormant pre-mine address that held 185 ETH worth $302,096 revived after 8.1 years.

Binance moving to end support for BUSD

As part of its gradual move to end support for the BUSD stablecoin by 2024, crypto exchange Binance moved to burn several idle Binance-pegged tokens this week.

On Sept. 14, Binance set fire to idle Binance-pegged tokens, namely TUSDOLD (BSC), BUSD on the MATIC network, BUSD both on the BSC and BNB networks and BUSD on the TRX network.

In August, Binance announced it would gradually end support for BUSD, urging users to convert the token to other crypto assets by February next year. Paxos stopped issuing the stablecoin in February following a regulatory crackdown on the BUSD token.

Tron (TRX) founder and Huobi (now HTX) board member Justin Sun sparked controversy by minting a large amount of TUSD stablecoin and depositing it on his own lending platform JustLend.

According to the data, the Sun-linked address minted 815 million TUSD hours ago, which was eventually exchanged for stUSDT and deposited to JustLend. JustLend's TVL increased by 21.5% in the last 24 hours.

Sun claimed that the transactions were his personal funds and had nothing to do with Huobi's business. The funds were then sent to an anonymous contract whose code was “minterproxy”. Minterproxy then sent $865 million in TUSD to another address, which also burned the tokens.

However, TUSD burnings occurred almost completely in sync with stUSDT mints. $865 million worth of stUSDT was printed on Sun's address in 10 transactions. Sun then deposited stUSDT into Tron-based lending platform JustLend in six transactions.

In a recent statement, a Tether spokesperson said that stUSDT “is an independent project and is not affiliated with Tether.”

Today's deposits make up half of Sun's $1.5 billion JustLend position.

*This is not investment advice.