By Marcus Sotiriou, Analyst at the publicly listed digital asset broker GlobalBlock 

The crypto market cap fell back below $1 trillion over the weekend, after the Jackson Hole symposium where Federal Reserve chairman Powell reaffirmed the hawkish stance of the U.S. central bank.

Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed yet another decision on VanEck’s latest bid to launch a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). VanEck was previously denied a spot Bitcoin ETF in November last year. The date which the SEC will make their decision has been changed from August 27th to October 11th, which coincides with when many predict the Ethereum Merge will occur. If the application gets approved and we do actually see the Ethereum Merge come to fruition, this could lead to renewed interest in the crypto market, at a time when retail sentiment is at yearly lows.

Despite retail interest and liquidity in the crypto market being low, Bitcoin whales may have started to accumulate again. Data from Coinmetrics shows that the 30-day change in Bitcoin held by Bitcoin whales (addresses with 1k-10k Bitcoin) has turned from negative to positive in the past week or so. Bitcoin whales could be deciding that $20,000 is a great deal with a long-term outlook.