Last week, Bitcoin (BTC) looked poised for a huge move up to $11,000. Instead, we saw a sidewards week of price action coupled with a small pullback. Has Bitcoin topped out? Is there too much selling pressure around $10K?

Let's take a look at what's happening with the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, BTC.

Daily crypto market performance. Source: Coin360.com

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: TensorCharts

Bitcoin currently faces huge resistance between $9,500 and $10,005, according to the Binance order book shown on the Tensor Chart heat map above. At present, these sell walls, the bulk of which is represented by the yellow lines, show a total of 1,737 Bitcoin sells vs. 1,351 buys represented by the darker blue lines.

While this data is only on the Binance BTC/USDT chart, it gives us a good indication that at present there is not enough buying pressure to push BTC/USD above $10K. However it's important to note that this data changes constantly, and it should only be relied on as long as its constantly referenced.

That being said, this does explain why the price of Bitcoin is stuck in a tight range between $9-$10K, and until more buyers step in, it's obvious that this wont change.

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView

Over on the weekly chart, Bitcoin is currently holding above the previous resistance. However, we are yet to see a full candle body close above this line. At which point, itll be a clear signal for the bears to switch bias, and while it currently looks good at the time of writing, if we close below $9,000 today, itll be a big setback for Bitcoin in the short term.

All eyes should be on the $9,000 level throughout next week, however, as this is a breakout from a descending channel. Each week, this support level goes down by around $100, so a prolonged failure to significantly break through the sell walls could see Bitcoins support slowly fall to $6,400 by the end of the year. That is, of course, until a new path emerges.

(This Week) BTC/USD daily MACD chart Source: TradingView

(Last Week) BTC/USD daily MACD chart Source: TradingView

The moving average divergence convergence (MACD) indicator is continuing its bearish divergence as it played out exactly as expected from last week's analysis. The top MACD image is this week, and its starting to show signs that it has reached its peak divergence denoted by the blue MACD line beginning to curve in slightly.

The bottom MACD image shows last week's positioning where it looked prime for the signal line to fall to around 400 and the MACD line to 200. This is exactly where it sits today, and what is needed for a bullish reversal is for both lines to converge around 350.

Should the MACD start to move in this direction then its a clear sign for bulls to step in, and I would expect the level of buyers to increase. However, should the MACD and signal lines continue to diverge in this manner then dont expect fireworks anytime soon.

BTC/USD Daily chart. Source: TradingView

Moving down to the daily timeframe, and another path for Bitcoin opens up. At present, we are hovering just above the support of around $9,100, which shows the midpoint resistance of this channel around $10,500 by the middle of next week.

The midpoint level also matches up with a 100% Fibonacci retracement. So should Bitcoin reach this level, it will most likely be met with a lot of selling pressure where a pullback to the support would be expected before seeing any substantial moves.

However, by the end of the week the support of this channel will be around the $10K level, and this dare I say it could be the last time you will be able to buy Bitcoin below $10,000 (yes, slap yourself now).

BTC/USD Daily chart. Source: TradingView

Finishing up on the hourly chart, and Bitcoin looks primed for a breakout to $9,400. This could close the week in a very bullish fashion. However, as I see it, even breaking down from this point to $9,000 would still leave bulls in control for the time being.

But breaking below $9K at this point would change everything, and as this is Bitcoin, be prepared for both eventualities as anything can, and usually does happen.

A close above $9,000 is bullish. From here, I will be looking at first breaking past the sell walls that start at $9,500 to $10,005. Should we get past this, then I expect major resistance at $10,500 before $11K-$12K can even start to be considered as possibilities.

Falling below $9,000 opens up the .618 Fib on the daily of $7,890 as a stark reality. This would also completely invalidate both channels Im looking at this week. From this level it would be time to break out the $6,400 and $4,000 charts again. But with that said, my personal outlook is another sideways week for Bitcoin.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of @officiallykeith and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

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Why All Eyes Should Be on the $9,000 Bitcoin Price Level This Week - Cointelegraph

Allen Farrington writes at Quillette, Areo and Merion West, as well as extensively on Medium, where he has several much longer essays on Bitcoin, finance, economics and related topics. His collected writings can be found here. He lives in Edinburgh.

At approximately 8:23 p.m. GMT on Monday, May 11, the 630,000th Bitcoin block was mined, the first to offer the reward to its successful miner of 6.25 bitcoin rather than 12.5, as has been the case for the past four years. You may have caught wind of this, what with #BitcoinHalving briefly trending on Twitter, an uptick in coverage of Bitcoin in the media over the past few days, or for some other reason.

There are good ways and bad ways to describe the halving. Or rather, there are ways that are factually true and then there are ways that are spiritually true. Whatever mainstream coverage you read on this if you found any at all I would bet took the factually true route. They will have told you something like the following:

Miners secure the network by wasting electricity solving useless mathematical puzzles. Whoever solves the puzzle first gets a reward and all the pending transactions get logged. The reward just halved, meaning the supply to the market will likely contract, leading many to suspect the price will go up, while others disagree. So far markets have done

Then whatever markets did in the following hours, which I really dont think is important at all. It is factually important, for sure. But it is not spiritually important. And to ignore the spiritual importance is to misunderstand the halving entirely, just as it is to misunderstand Bitcoin. It is only spiritually important what happens to the price of Bitcoin over years, decades, and centuries.

The halving was not just the mining of the 630,000th block. It was a social event perhaps unlike any other in history, and perhaps even never to be repeated. Previous halvings (this was the third) were celebrated in bars, beaches, and barbecues, as I am sure this one would have been in normal times. But given the lockdown, the celebrations were migrated to Zoom, YouTube and Twitter, for the most part.

Many thought this a shame, reminisced spending previous halvings or previous get-togethers of any kind in person, and looked forward to being able to do so once again whenever normality returns. But I think the circumstances forced their own beauty, their own poignancy. Not everybody can afford to go to New York on a random Monday in May, but everybody can afford to turn on YouTube. The lockdown meant everybody in the world celebrated the halving in the same place: on the internet. In Bitcoins home.

And so rather than take planes, trains, and automobiles to the bars, beaches, and barbecues, tens of thousands of individuals tuned in live from all over the world for what factually was little more than a countdown. Many likened it to New Years Eve, but it was different for at least two reasons, one factual and one spiritual.

Factually, the event itself can only be said to exist on the Internet. It was not in a place, except insofar as it was in every place. Unlike New Years, therefore, it happened for everybody at the same time.

But spiritually, the importance of this universality really cannot be overstated. The Bitcoin halving happened at the same time for everybody because the Bitcoin protocol is the same thing for everybody. It knows no borders and no nationalities. It knows no time zones. One might say it is its own reference time. The halving didnt happen at 8:23 p.m. GMT 8:23 p.m. GMT happened at block 630,000.

Similarly, the halving didnt happen at ~$8,500 BTC:USD, it happened at 1 BTC:BTC. There will be a time when no exchange rates matter or are even meaningful. In anticipation of this, I would encourage the adoption of a different, more consistent metric perhaps Bitcoins share of the aggregate global capitalization of currency? Bitcoin is its own reference value.

Bitcoins reference time is the same for everybody, as is its reference value, as is its reference software, as indeed are its engendered social celebrations. Provided you have an internet connection you can use Bitcoin to tell the time, to transfer value, to inspect its code, and to join the party.

Moreover, these must be the same for everybody, because they exist as references in the first place because Bitcoin, the ecosystem, strongly encourages nonviolent agreement. Bitcoin has elevated the importance of the word consensus in the English language, and its translations in every language, for that matter. Bitcoin is written in C++. This is the factual reason that everybody can read it. The spiritual reason is that it is open source, and that it must be open source for consensus to form and be maintained.

Every block has a field called coinbase, which the lucky miner may fill with a limited string of text that has no strictly functional purpose in terms of the code, but, due to the open source nature of the blockchain, anybody can read, and hence can be used as a kind of meta-tool for signaling purposes. The very first block ever mined by Satoshi Nakamoto was given the following text as its coinbase:

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

Factually, this served as a timestamp. Spiritually, it served as a statement of purpose: a call to arms that cheekily elucidated why this radical experiment was even being attempted. It was soon discovered after the halving that the coinbase of the 629,999th block, the last to reward 12.5 BTC, was filled by mining pool f2pool with the text:

NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Feds Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue

I wont insult this astonishing gesture by explaining its content. I wish merely to draw attention to its beautiful duality; factually, this achieves nothing. It is a throwback: an impressively well-executed meme.

But spiritually, this is a battle cry. Because here we are again, twelve years and goodness knows however many trillions of unbounded dollars later. Bitcoin is no longer an experiment. It is a nonviolent revolution against financial tyranny, led by nobody, fought by anybody and everybody. And it is literally trolling its way to victory.

A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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Spiritual Reflections on the Bitcoin Halving - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

When Bitcoin crashed to $3,700 in March on the back of a global liquidation in financial markets, there were many throwing in the towel.

At the time, there were prominent analysts calling for the cryptocurrency to fall under 2018s lows, while critics doubled down on their assertions that BTC was a scam and an asset for criminals.

Just two months later, a prominent Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor has asserted that Bitcoin isnt going anywhere going as far as to say that the crypto winter has become a crypto spring.

Some think Bitcoin is on its way out, but Alexis Ohanian the co-founder of Reddit and a managing partner at Initialized Capital begs to differ.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance in an interview published this week, the Silicon Valley investor said that he thinks the recent developments in the industry make it fair to say that we are now in the midst of crypto spring:

I try not to track prices, I cant predict any of that stuff. What I can say is we really do see a crypto spring right now in terms of top-tier engineers, product developers, designers, building real solutions on top of the blockchain. And that to me is the most interesting part Were seeing really top-tier talent building on the infrastructure.

On Bitcoin specifically, Ohanian explained that the flagship cryptocurrency is here to stay because of the growing involvement of Wall Street OGs in this nascent market:

I do think its a prudent hedge. Its interesting to see OGs of Wall Street now getting into crypto and buying bitcoin. Its increasingly showing that its here to stay.

The past few weeks and months have seen prominent names on Wall Street express interest in Bitcoin.

Just weeks ago, billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones announced that his fund will be allocating a small portion of its portfolio to Bitcoin futures. Jones said that he sees the cryptocurrency as a hedge against the inflation of fiat money.

Corporations like Fidelity Investments and the Intercontinental Exchange have jumped into the game too, announcing cryptocurrency platforms in response to institutional interest.

Importantly, it is not like Ohanian is all talk, no game when it comes to cryptocurrency.

In the same interview with Yahoo Finance, the Reddit co-founder asserted that he has a material percentage of his wealth in cryptocurrency:

Ive had a percentage of my wealth in crypto for quite some time now and I still feel pretty good about it, I dont want to change too much of it.

This point was not elaborated on but his fund, Initialized Capital, has a number of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency centric investments. These include but are not limited to Coinbase (Initialized Garry Tan was one of Coinbases first investors), Polychain Capital, and Bison Trails.

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Reddit CEO: Bitcoin Is Here to Stay Because of Wall Street Involvement - Bitcoinist

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency watchers are nervously waiting for bitcoin to make another move after a sudden sell-off this week.

The bitcoin price, the main driver of the cryptocurrency market, had been more-or-less trading sideways after rallying hard through April.

Now, one small cryptocurrency that isn't even in the top 30 most valuable tokens has suddenly soaredclimbing a staggering 230% over the last month.

Many bitcoin and crypto analysts are worried the bitcoin price could be heading lower before it ... [+] rallies again--but some small cryptocurrencies, such as omiseGO, have outperformed the wider market.

OmiseGO, an ethereum token that powers a smart contract platform and trades as OMG, was sent sharply higher after San Francisco-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase revealed it would list the token.

"The good ol' Coinbase listing pump is back," Larry Cermak, director of research at bitcoin and crypto news and analysis outlet The Block, said via Twitter, pointing to OmiseGO's sharp rally since "it was announced that it's listing on Coinbase."

OmiseGO's smart contract platform, based in Bangkok, is designed to facilitate the movement of funds between traditional payment systems and decentralized blockchains like ethereum.

The omiseGO price began climbing earlier this month after Coinbase, the largest U.S. bitcoin and crypto exchange, said it would allow Coinbase Pro users to make inbound OmiseGo transfers.

OmiseGO, which has a market value of just $257 million compared to bitcoin's $170 billion, jumped again this week after Coinbase said it would fully list the minor cryptocurrency everywhere but in New York State.

"Coinbase customers can now buy, sell, convert, send, receive, or store OMG," Coinbase said in a blog post on Thursday announcing the listing.

The OMG price is still heavily down on its all-time high of almost $30 per token set in late 2017 as bitcoin and cryptocurrency mania was sweeping the globe.

The omiseGo price has soared by 234% in just a month as investors cheer its new Coinbase listing.

The likes of bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have also failed to return to their all-time highs, with the bitcoin price now trading around half its December 2017 high.

Some smaller cryptocurrencies, such as chainlink and tezos, have rallied hard in recent months, however, pushed higher by demand for decentralized finance platforms.

Meanwhile, the broader bitcoin and cryptocurrency market is closely-watching for price swings after bitcoin went through a supply squeeze earlier this month.

The number of bitcoin rewarded to those that maintain the bitcoin network, called miners, was cut by half, dropping from 12.5 bitcoin to 6.25 on May 11.

Some had warned the bitcoin price could crash in the aftermath of the third halving but most analysts seem confident the bitcoin price will climb eventually.

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As Bitcoin Struggles, This Tiny Cryptocurrency Has Soared A Massive 230% - Forbes

The cryptocurrency community has noticed a number of bitcoins from the August 2, 2016, Bitfinex breach has been moved. A small 30 BTC transaction ($282,000) from the stash has moved from the hackers address to an unknown bitcoin address. The last time coins from the Bitfinex incident moved was June and August 2019, as the bitcoins hadnt transferred for three years since then.

On August 2, 2016 the popular cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex was hacked for approximately 119,756 BTC, which is worth a touch over $1 billion using todays exchange rates. The breach crippled trader confidence that day, and the price per BTC slid 22% immediately after the event.

After the incident, the value of bitcoin staged a modest comeback a week later and Bitfinex promised customers they would be paid back. Those stolen coins were moved to an address that anyone can follow using a standard blockchain explorer. The bitcoins sat for three years and didnt move until June and August 2019. When a BTC transaction in August took place, the transaction monitoring account Whale Alert notified the public on Twitter that roughly 300 BTC ($2.7M) was moved in ten transactions.

During the first week of June 2019, the hackers also moved around 170 bitcoins worth more than $1.5 million using todays exchange rates. At the time, BTC prices were much higher and came awfully close to touching $14,000 per coin. It is common for hackers to move digital assets when prices are higher than usual.

Armchair sleuths and observers have noticed this type of trend taking place with the Plustoken scammers as well. When the prices of bitcoin and ethereum are higher, the Plustoken bandits start moving coins to different wallets. No one knows if these stolen coins are being exchanged on a well known trading platform, but it is suspected that its more likely coins like these are sold using an over-the-counter (OTC) desk after being mixed.

On May 21, 2020, 30 coins from the August 12, 2019 move, had been transferred once again to another unknown address. Back when Bitfinex was breached in 2016, the going exchange rate for BTC was around $600 per unit. The moved coins on Thursday saw approximately 30.66754180 BTC or $282,000 moved and back then they would only be worth $18,000.

It is also common for hackers to move coins into smaller increments and they may not have been sold on the market. This type of method is noticed because the 30 coins moved on Thursday, stemmed from the 300 BTC ($2.7M) transfer that was done in 10 separate transactions.

Blockchain surveillance firms and law enforcement officials have these addresses flagged and it becomes difficult to move a stash of 119,756 BTC without being seen. Unless of course you split up the stolen bitcoins and possibly mix the UTXOs using the Coinjoin process.

What do you think about the recent 30 bitcoin ($282,000) move from the 2016 Bitfinex hack? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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Bitcoin Worth $282K from the 2016 Bitfinex Hack on the Move - Bitcoin News

The latest implementation of bitcoin (BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain quietly went live this week.

There are 1.24 renBTC live on the Ethereum mainnet now, according to Etherscan. Three sources with knowledge of the project have confirmed this is the Ren smart contract, live ahead of its launch announcement.

Kain Warwick of Synthetix tweeted Wednesday that he was the first person to hold a full bitcoin in renBTC.

However, theres no way yet for members of the public to mint additional renBTC, the CEO of the company behind the project told CoinDesk in an email.

While the smart contracts have been deployed on Ethereum, RenVM itself is not actually on mainnet. This is because RenVM is a distinct network separate to Ethereum. The final mainnet subzero version of RenVM wont be deployed until later, Taiyang Zhang wrote. The minted renBTC so far has been from our own internal testing [and] Kain from Synthetix testing the system. The public hasnt been able to mint renBTC thus far.

RenBTC becomes the latest in a rash of products built to expose bitcoin-backed assets to the benefits of Ethereums various decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

Heres a succinct description of the system from a Medium post by the companys CTO, Loong Wang:

"Any asset minted on Ethereum by RenVM is a 1:1 backed ERC-20. This means that if you have 1 renBTC (an ERC-20), you can always redeem it for 1 BTC. It's a direct supply peg. renBTC isn't a synthetic, it doesn't rely on a liquidation mechanism, and it's not the price of Bitcoin on Ethereum. It is a one to one representation of Bitcoin on Ethereum that can be redeemed for BTC at any time, in any amount."

Ren is a project that grew out of the $30 million initial coin offering (ICO) for the Republic Protocol, originally envisioned as a way to run dark pools privacy-preserving trading venues where the order book is kept secret. According to Crunchbase, its backers included Polychain Capital and FBG Capital.

But, in a recent issue of The Defiant newsletter, Wang explained his firms pivot away from dark pools.

The big trades were on chains that werent Ethereum, he said. ETH had a lot of liquidity, but it was predominantly Bitcoin and USDT. So we would had to leverage things like atomic swaps, and theyre just too painful, Wang told The Defiants Cami Russo. And so we kind of turned around to say, well, we need to solve this interoperability problem before large liquidity is actually truly accessible in this space.

The RenVM is a way to hold a cryptocurrency in a multi-signature wallet controlled by nodes in the RenVM and mint a representation of that asset as an ERC-20 token for use on Ethereum. Unlike other projects, RenVM is bringing more than bitcoin to Ethereum (see bitcoin cash (BCH) and zcach (ZEC) above), with other assets to follow.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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RenBTC Quietly Goes Live in Latest Bid to Bring Bitcoin Into Ethereum - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Bitcoin (BTC) wallets with a positive address have crossed 30 million for the first time but less than 1% contain even 10 BTC.

According to the latest data from monitoring resource Bitinfocharts, a wallet balance of 10 BTC or around $91,000 at todays prices is enough to place the holder in the top 0.51% of addresses.

Balances of 10-100 BTC make up 0.45% of the total, while even wallets between 1-10 BTC contribute just 2.17%.

While it should be assumed that individuals holdings are often spread between multiple wallets, the figures imply that at current prices, $91,000 is sufficient to place the holder well within the minority of large BTC holders.

Wallets with much larger balances exchanges and a small number of Bitcoin whales also sway the statistics. There are now just over 30.4 million addresses with a balance, up from around 25 million at the same point in 2019.

Total Bitcoin addresses with a balance. Source: Glassnode

As Cointelegraph reported, wallets holding certain balances have also hit new highs this year. Those containing at least 1 BTC were on target for 800,000 in March, indicating that at best, just that number of people controlled an entire Bitcoin.

Since the stock market meltdown, from which Bitcoin bounced back completely within weeks, exchanges have signaled that a fresh influx of interest has fuelled growth.

Coinbase, for example, reported a spate of Bitcoin buys worth $1,200 at the time that the United States government began dispersing stimulus checks. The second round of checks is already in progress.

Elsewhere, frustration with fiat currency is leading to the desire to own Bitcoin increasing. As reported earlier this week, Lebanese employees appear to be overwhelmingly in favor of earning in BTC, not the Lebanese pound or even the U.S. dollar.

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Got 10 BTC? Youre Now in the Top 0.5% of 30 Million Bitcoin Addresses - Cointelegraph

How the myth-making around Satoshi reinforces what makes bitcoin unique in the landscape of global monies.

On Wednesday, a batch of coins mined just a month after bitcoins birth were moved. It was the first time since August 2017 that any bitcoin from early 2009 had been transferred, and the action set Bitcoin Twitter on fire. While a number of bitcoin archaeologists quickly and persuasively argued the tokens were almost assuredly not mined by bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, it was a moment that reinforced the living history in the bitcoin ecosystem.

In this episode, NLW looks at what makes the Satoshi mythology powerful:

And while the battles within the bitcoin community around interpretation may look more like the early history of religions than like a business ecosystem, NLW argues that fervor is a key part of what de-risks bitcoin, even for investors who dont at all care about the mythology.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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The Shadow of Satoshi's Ghost: Why Bitcoin Mythology Matters - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Bitcoin fell for a second day, extending a downdraft triggered by Wednesdays revelation that a member of the cryptocurrency community from the blockchains earliest days in 2009 had moved a long-dormant cache of coins.

As of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. ET), bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $9,044, a loss of 5.6% over 24 hours.

Bitcoin remains well below its 10-day and 50-day technical indicator moving averages a signal of bearish sentiment.

At 14:00 UTC (10 a.m. ET) the worlds oldest cryptocurrency began experiencing high selling volume on exchanges including Coinbase, dropping bitcoin below $9,000 for the first time since May 13.

While the market appears to have turned bearish, Rupert Douglas, head of institutional sales at asset management firm Koine, said he planned to buy the dip a popular phrase for accumulating an asset when prices drop in the belief that theyll soon start going up again.

In a way I was hoping for this, Douglas said in an email. Im a buyer at $9,000, as this is shaking out the weak longs before taking it higher.

Volatility in the notoriously fickle bitcoin market has declined since collapsing in March, when the devastating economic toll from the coronavirus started to become clear.

I wouldnt call this a dump, Darius Sit, managing partner at crypto quantitative fund QCP Capital, told CoinDesk via a Telegram message. Its nowhere near statistically significant.

The price drop could take a toll on the profitability of bitcoin miners, already hurting from a revenue cut following last weeks rewards halving. The miners have had to rely more on transaction fees to maintain revenue.

Fortunately, fees are up post-halving, said Marc Fleury, CEO of digital asset brokerage Two Prime.

Transaction fees associated with moving bitcoin around have increased from 60 cents to upwards of $5, providing some income for the miners, he said.

Fleury said many bitcoin miners are counting on a price increase to stay profitable.This has historically happened in the past two halvings, within a span of 18 months, said Fluery. It will take some time for the market to adjust.

Digital assets on CoinDesks big board are in the red Thursday. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), lost 5.6% in 24 hours as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. ET).

The biggest losers in 24-hour trading were cardano (ADA) slipping 7.6%, iota (IOTA) losing 6.5% and neo (NEO) down by 6.1%. All price changes were as of 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. ET) Thursday.

In the commodities sector, oil is trading up 1.4%, with the price of a barrel of crude at $33 at press time.Oil has experienced a wild ride in 2020, up 101% the past month yet still down 44% for the year to date.

Gold is in the red today, with the yellow metal falling 1.2% to $1,725 at the close of New York trading.

In the U.S. the S&P 500 fell less than 1% on the day, but still up over 2% since Monday despite U.S. jobless claims coming in at over 2.4 million for the past week, the seventh weekly increase.

U.S. Treasury bonds slipped Thursday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the two-year bond, falling 5.6%.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 index ended its trading day down less than a percentage point on losses in the real estate and transportation sectors. Trading of Europes largest public companies by market cap on the FTSE Eurotop 100 index was also down less than a percent, dragged down due to continued coronavirus uncertainty.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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Market Wrap: Traders 'Buy the Dip' as Bitcoin Hovers at $9,000 - CoinDesk - CoinDesk

Things havent quite been the same since the Bitcoin (BTC) halving. A substantial number of miners have pulled the plug on their equipment due to the halved reward. Consequently, transaction fees are now considerably higher, the hash rate has shed around 25%40%, and new blocks are generated at remarkably low speed.

So, what can be done to prepare for this new post-halving reality, or will things return back to normal in the near future? Here is a closer look at which blockchain processes have been affected.

One of the most important post-halving trends is the decreased hash rate, which was something experts had warned about shortly before the event. Because the profitability of miners has plunged due to the halved block reward, the older generation of mining units, such as the widely popular Antminer S9, have been mostly turned off. Currently, an Antminer S9 is estimated to generate a negative of more than $2 per day, so it doesnt make sense to keep such units online unless miners have access to free electricity.

As a result of the halved reward and a substantial portion of outdated miners being unplugged, the BTC hash rate saw a major 30% drop in the three days after the halving. Although there has been a minor rebound since, the metric is still down around 25%.

Given that the most recent difficulty adjustment a precoded, self-regulating mechanism that occurs every 2016 blocks and is designed to keep mining speed at approximately 10 minutes per block allowed Bitcoin to regain just 6% of its hash rate, the trend is likely to continue for the next couple of weeks.

We might see some more miners leave the network for the time being, despite the beginning of the rain season in China, Ian Descoteaux, the head of mining at Bitcoin.com, suggested in a conversation with Cointelegraph, referring to the most dominant region of the sector.

Miner capitulation has led to a series of consequences for the sector, which include a significant reduction in block generation speed. The BTC daily block generation metric fluctuated at around 100120 blocks per day following the halving, but then it plunged to just 95 blocks on May 17, thereby reaching its 2017 lows.

Miners turning off after the halving caused a hashrate reduction, which causes blocks to be found less often than every 10 minutes, Philip Salter, the head of mining operations at Genesis Mining, explained to Cointelegraph:

So the blocktimes rose to something like 12min instead of the usual 10min but the capacity for transactions in each block stayed the same. This causes congestion (less space in the blockchain, same demand for sending tx), and this in turn causes an increase of tx fee. Yesterday [May 19], the average block time was 14min, which reduces transaction capacity of Bitcoin.

This trend has played a big role in the huge increase in fees, Salter continued, adding: There must also be increased interest in Bitcoin transactions.

I feel it [the high fee level] more likely driven by the increasing interest in Bitcoin, Chun Wang, the co-founder and managing partner of F2Pool the largest BTC mining pool stated in a conversation with Cointelegraph. Not because the halved block reward or slower block generation. However, the halving might also be one of the major reasons behind the increasing public interest, Wang added.

The increase in fees is perhaps the most notable halving-related ramification. Transaction charges went up by more than one-third three days after the halving, reaching the $5.16 mark as a result of an 800% monthly increase. The escalation has continued since, as the current fee for a single BTC transaction is about $6.65.

Mark DAria, the CEO of crypto consulting firm Bitpro, doesnt find the sudden increase in fees alarming, telling Cointelegraph:

Even though fees are high relative to the weeks before the halving, they are nowhere near their peak in 2017 and sit at about the range of the mid-2019 rally or the early days of the 2017 bubble.

But what exactly is driving the fees up? Fees have nothing to do with mining, Alejandro De La Torre, the vice president of top four mining pool Poolin, told Cointelegraph. There is no correlation between transaction fees and mining difficulty. He elaborated further:

Fees increase or decrease primarily because of the fee market created in entering the limited space in a block. If there is a continuous amount of transactions in the Bitcoin network then the fees will remain high. The block space is limited, this creates a fee market. Miners naturally choose the tx's with the highest fees as this will increase the amount of Bitcoin they make.

In DArias view, the fees are unlikely to increase further in the near future. In the short run, I expect fees to quickly normalize back to previous levels, and then continue the slow increase in average fees over the past few years, he said, explaining:

There is nothing intrinsic about the halving that will lead to persistently higher fees going forward. All other things being equal, fees would drop back to pre-halving levels once the average block time has normalized down to 10 minutes. But of course this is a multivariate problem and all other things are never equal.

DAria also noted that an increase in market price tends to correlate with an increase in transaction volume, which would in turn raise the competition for block space. On the other hand, he continued, persistently high fees will force high-volume holders to decrease them using external methods such as transaction batching and Segregated Witness.

The revenue for Bitcoin miners has recently reached early 2019 levels for the second time in 2020 the first time was around Black Thursday in mid-March, the day Bitcoins price bled by nearly 50%.

This time, Bitcoins price has remained stable. But because the halving mechanism caused Bitcoin miners to generate half the amount of BTC just 900 coins per day as opposed to 1,800 miners profits have been slashed. Specifically, miners earned 2,188 BTC on May 10, whereas this number fell to 852 BTC on May 12, constituting a 61% decline. However, there is a silver lining of sorts for miners: Network congestion has led to a sharp increase in transaction fees, which now account for as much as 17% of miners revenue.

F2Pool recently made headlines in crypto news media after mining six consecutive blocks, covering block numbers 630804 through 630809. While one might suggest that the network has become too centralized as a result of the halving and decreased hash rate, Wang simply wrote it off as pure luck in a comment for Cointelegraph.

It was likely just a fluke, DAria of Bitpro argued in regard to F2Pools streak. A single pool containing 20% of the hashrate is nowhere near dangerous levels of centralization, he added, elaborating:

F2Pool has about 20% of the hashrate, so there is a non-insignificant probability that they would mine 6 blocks in a row. Any other pool could in theory also mine 6 blocks in a row, but it would be somewhat less likely.

Therefore, consecutive blocks are unlikely to be the new norm for the post-halving mining sector, and the networks security has seemingly been unaffected.

So, will the situation return to normal? As mentioned above, the latest adjustment didnt make a big enough impact, and experts predict that it might take another three to four corrections (around six to eight weeks) before miners can get back to business as usual. A decrease in the hash rate could also help to normalize the situation, Marc Fresa, the founder of mining firmware company Asic.to, told Cointelegraph:

The only way to go back to what would feel like normal for miners is if we were to lose a substantial amount of hash rate so the difficulty can adjust even further.

Investing in the next generation of miners is also a viable option, as Fresa added. Earlier this year, mining hardware juggernauts such as MicroBT and Bitmain unveiled their new units, which are capable of producing 100120 terahashes per second. Most of these devices are being sold for a June delivery, which is why their impact on the network hasnt been tangible.

The fact of the matter is that this is the new normal, Fresa concluded. These post-halving realities are not necessarily for Bitcoin at large, however. Some experts argue that the overall volatility surrounding the halving event hasnt been that extreme, which is why it can encourage further adoption.

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As Bitcoin Halving Dust Settles, Network Awakens to Costly New Reality - Cointelegraph