Bitcoin_s Rally Toward $27K Stopped, But Network Fundamentals and Whale Activity Remain Strong (Weekly Crypto Recap)

The end of last week was a lot more eventful as the primary cryptocurrency dumped hard by over $3,000 in hours to see its lowest price tag in over two months at just over $25,000. Then came the recovery attempts that saw BTC regain around a grand.

However, not much has happened to bitcoin’s price since then, as the asset calmed at around $26,000. The only exceptions were on Wednesday when it dropped suddenly by over $500, and yesterday.

Thursday saw a more notable price jump that drove BTC all the way to $26,800. As the bulls were preparing to challenge $27,000, though, the landscape changed, and the cryptocurrency lost its moment by falling back down to a very familiar sight of $26,000.

Amid all of this underwhelming price performance come the network fundamentals (more on that later) and the behavior of larger investors. The crypto analytics platform Santiment outlined this week that the so-called sharks and whales have used last week’s price crash to accumulate over $300 million worth of BTC.

The firm further said the total number of wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC has grown to well above 150,000.

While BTC stands with minor weekly losses, altcoins like Ripple, Tron, TONCOIN, and Stellar have charted impressive gains of up to 6% in the case of XLM.

In contrast, PEPE is down by almost 20% in the same timeframe amid speculations and reports about suspicious transfers and claims about doxxing the meme coin’s creator.

Market Data

Market Cap: $1.09B | 24H Vol: $35B | BTC Dominance: 46.4%

BTC: $26,037 (-1%) | ETH: $1,657 (-1%) | BNB: $216 (-0.7%)

Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: Quantify Crypto## This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Soars to New ATH as BTC Price Struggles. As mentioned above, whales’ behavior is not the only promising development around Bitcoin. The network has never been stronger, according to the key difficulty metric, which hit yet another all-time high this week.

Only 5.8% of BTC in Circulation Sits on Exchanges But Bitcoin Price Struggles: Santiment. Something else worth mentioning is the declining immediate sell pressure for the asset. This is because the percentage of BTC stored on exchanges keeps dropping and is down to its lowest level in six years.

2 More Ethereum ETFs Added to Growing List But ETH Price Remains Bearish. While the race for a spot Bitcoin ETF in the States is heating up, the number of firms wanting to have an exchange-traded fund tracking the price of ETH is also growing. Two more applications were filed with the SEC this week.

**BitMEX’s Arthur Hayes: Bitcoin is Antidote for ‘Flawed, Corrupt, Parasitic’ Fiat Banking **. The BitMEX founder, Arthur Hayes, wrote in its latest blog post that the primary cryptocurrency could serve as the “antidote” for the flawed and corrupt fiat banking , which is poised to fail at some point.

SBF Pleads Not Guilty Again, Complains About Lack of Vegan Food in Prison (Report). With the set trial date of October 2 coming up quickly, the developments around Sam Bankman-Fried and its legal case keep popping up. The disgraced founder of FTX was thrown into one of the worst jails in the US, and he recently complained about having to survive on bread and water due to his veganism.

SEC Momentum Over? XRP Erases All Gains Charted After Ripple’s Landmark Court Victory. The blockchain company registered a landmark victory against the SEC earlier this summer that propelled a massive rally for its native token. However, the momentum seems to be over as XRP has returned to its pre-SEC victory levels of around $0.5.