Leading crypto exchange Huobi Global in its 2022-2023 annual report, has predicted that the current bear cycle may soon be over, as it expects the crypto market to reach its bottom in early 2023.
On Jan. 1, 2022, the global crypto market had a total market capitalization of approximately $2.2 trillion. However, the heat of the bear market has flushed out almost $2 trillion of its value, dropping to a low of $847.6 billion as of press time.
The 2022 bear market was worsened by macroeconomic distortions resulting from interest rate hikes and surging inflation. In addition, the Terra-Luna, Three Arrows Capital, and FTX collapses led to widespread contagions that have forced many crypto companies into bankruptcy and put investors at a considerable loss.
According to Huobi’s report, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem was worse hit as the total value locked (TVL) across chains declined by over 70%. According to DefiLlama data, the TVL of DeFi protocols fell from $171 billion in January to roughly $55 billion at the end of October.
The Non-fungible token (NFT) bubble seemed to have busted as its number of active users fell by 88.9% and the total market cap declined by 42% from a high of $35 billion to $21 billion.
Layer-2 scaling solutions witnessed more growth than other ecosystems over the year. As a result, the total value locked in Layer-2 protocols reached a peak of $7.5 billion and bottomed at $ 3.7 billion. However, since the July crash, it has gradually surged to $5.32 billion.
The light ahead for crypto
The crypto market has evolved significantly over the year, with new fields like GameFi, NFTfi, and Metaverse gaining mainstream attention. For example, the GameFi industry reportedly raised about $2.9 billion over the period.
The much-anticipated Ethereum merge was completed on Sept. 15 and introduced a new era of staking-as-a-service to the industry. As of October 2022, about 15 million ETH has been staked on the PoS chain, representing 12.56% of the total ETH supply.
In concluding the market performance segment of the report, Huobi considered the 200-Week SMA indicator, Fed’s interest rate hikes, and deleveraging of risky financial institutions to predict that the crypto market may likely find its bottom by the end of March 2023.
Considering Bitcoin’s price action, the current $16,945 falls below the 200-Week SMA Indicator. A trend pattern is observed by juxtaposing the 2022 price cycle with 2014, 2015, 2019, and 2020 cycles. If historical data is anything to go by, Huobi predicts that Bitcoin may see a rebound soon and will lead other crypto assets out of the current bear market.
On the macroeconomic front, after four consecutive interest rate hikes of 75bp, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to lower rates starting from Dec 2022, likely lowering inflation significantly around March 2023. With the monetary policy reaching its bottom in early 2023, the crypto market may as well find its bottom.
The recent FTX implosion saw many overleveraged financial institutions wiped out. The overall effect of the collapse is expected to last until the first quarter of 2023.
If Huobi’s parameters play as predicted, the crypto market is expected to reach its bottom when BTC and ETH prices trade at $1,500 and $1,000, respectively.
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