Bitcoin (BTC) has remained almost entirely locked below the $26,000 mark since Sept. 1. BTC is basically unchanged over 24 hours, down 0.1% at around $25,700. The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) is down by a negligible 0.04%. Investors are seemingly holding off making any substantial moves until further developments emerge, both in the cryptocurrency market and the wider economy. “It seems as though most of the speculative money has already fled the crypto space and the market participants are waiting for the Fed’s next move,” Yuya Hasegawa, a crypto market analyst at Japanese exchange Bitbank said.

Ether (ETH) will outperform bitcoin in September and October, according to crypto analytics firm K33. Given the high chances that the U.S.’ first ether ETF will be approved in mid-October, investors can ride the momentum that will drive ETH as the deadline approaches, according to senior analyst Vetle Lunde. September is a difficult month for BTC, having recorded negative returns in that month every year since 2016. The odds, therefore, are “stacked in favor of ETH,” Lunde said, citing the 60% gain that bitcoin made in the three weeks prior to its first U.S. futures-based ETF winning approval in 2021.

The first legally issued digital security could be available to retail investors later this month. SOMA Finance, a joint venture between decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) MANTRA and FINRA-registered broker dealer Tritaurian Capital, plans to sell up to $5 million in tokens that will give the holders the right to a dividend on profits. The SOMA tokens will actually represent a financial interest, given the token would be a non-cumulative, participating preferred stock of SOMA.finance, the company said. This would address the criticism that crypto tokens don’t represent a financial claim on the equity or debt of the issuer.

A message from Benzinga

Bitcoin is set to form a so-called death cross, whereby its 50-day simple moving average drops below its 200-day SMA, which would be the first such instance since January 2022. A death cross points toward the short-term price momentum of an asset underperforming the long term.

The death cross pattern could form next week, Alex Kuptsikevich, the senior market analyst at FxPro, said on Monday. “Such a signal suggests a further decline, emphasizing the bearish trend here.”

However, history suggests that a bitcoin death cross is not necessarily a reliable indicator in and of itself. BTC has seen nine previous instances in the past, of which only two were followed by negative returns over the next three-, six- and 12-month periods.

In this instance, however, bitcoin’s death cross looks set to coincide with the dollar index (which tracks USD against major world currencies) doing the opposite. A golden cross is widely seen as an indicator of the start of a bull run. Bitcoin, like other risk assets, is usually inversely correlated with the dollar index. The index has risen 5.3% to 104.90 since mid-July, according to charting platform TradingView, while BTC declined 19% in the same period.

- Omkar Godbole