Cryptocurrencies one step closer before a bigger move?

Cryptocurrencies are trying to regain bullish momentum, Bitcoin has halted declines near $18,500:

• Ethereum is on track for 'The Merge', which is expected to take place in a week or so. Analysts at ConsenSys expect significant institutional interest in 'staking' in the Ethereum network, which is estimated to generate returns of up to several percent per year. This will potentially position Ether as a 'competitive' asset to bonds and make it a deflationary digital commodity. Additionally, the merge will make Ether 99% less energy-intensive which could also account for the positive sentiment of ESG-focused institutions (including BlackRock, the world's largest fund, which has been active in the cryptocurrency space recently); 
• The bullish narrative has been supported by, among others, one of Bloobmerg's key strategists, Michael McGlone, who expects cryptocurrencies to unwind as the Fed pulls back from restrictive monetary policy and inflation begins to slow (but it is unclear when this will happen). McGlone assumes that cryptocurrency returns will once again eclipse the traditional stock market;
• These forecasts, of course, assume a successful Merge, devoid of significant errors. Stacked stETH tokens will not be able to be liquidated until a year after 'The Merge', they remain frozen. Nonetheless, the market has already observed their depeg against the native ETH token on several occasions, resulting in a flurry of speculation about the risks around the frozen reserves and the migration to Proof of Stake;
• Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell will speak today again about US economy conditions and monetary policy at Cato Institute Conference, so crypto market volatility can be higher today.

The chart shows the ETH tokens 'burned' so far.  Etheruem is on its way to a deflationary model - the current one is not effective enough. We can see that as ETH transactions decline, the amount of tokens burned also decreases. However, Ethereum is facing a so-called 'hardship bobma', which will ultimately freeze the supply of new Ether and cause a massive migration of miners that brought new tokens to the market. The potentially deflationary nature of Ether will limit declines in its price and favor demand, if positive sentiment from developers and users around the network persists. Source: Watch the burn

Ethereum is clearly performing better against its competitors in terms of annual supply growth. Despite the still relatively small impact of the EIP 1559 (London hard fork) update from that year, we can see that Ether has turned out to reduce supply by 1.8% compared to its competitors, whose supply has grown diluting the token price during that time. Source: CoinShares

Bitcoin, H4 interval. 'The king of cryptocurrencies' is trying to rebuild strength after the recent sell-off, which ended with a drop below the 71.6 Fibonacci retracement, which runs at $19,600. Bitcoin, however, managed to make up a significant portion of the losses. Looking at the trendline, we can conclude that Bitcoin traders will eventually have to 'decide' to make a big move in either direction. On the positive side, however, the declines have been halted in the vicinity of $18,500, from which demand has regained some momentum relatively quickly and on considerable volume. In addition, in previous downturns, after large declines Bitcoin often drew a stretched out 'double bottom' formation with which it confirmed a patched bottom. High volatility may again be triggered by today Jerome Powell's speech. Source: xStation5