Crypto prices could have 'found a floor' as bitcoin, ether surge in July, analyst says

The cyclical slumps in bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ethereum (ETH-USD) that started in November 2021 could have "found a floor" as they blasted higher in July, JPMorgan analyst Kenneth Worthington wrote in a note to clients Monday. Worthington pointed out that bullish catalysts involving more limited new contagion from May's meltdown of digital tokens TerraUST (UST-USD) and Luna (LUNA-USD) supported the upswings in major cryptos. While bitcoin (BTC-USD) jumped 21% in July, ether (ETH-USD) soared nearly 59% as positive news surrounding Ether's transition to Proof-of-Stake from Proof-of-Work spread throughout the cryptoverse. In fact, ether's boost was the biggest among the six largest cryptos by market cap, as seen in this chart. "The real driver has been the Ethereum (ETH-USD) merge and positive data following the launch of the Sapolia testnet in early July and Ropsten testnet in June, indicating the merge is viable in 2022," Worthington emphasized. Taking Worthington's points into account, it appears that bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ether (ETH-USD) have "bottomed" at sub-$19K and sub-$1K in mid-June, respectively. By comparison, bitcoin rose 3.2% to $23.9K in Monday afternoon trading, while ether gained 3.8% to $1.77K over the past 24 hours. Bear in mind, though, that the 100 largest tokens gained 36% in July, but are still off 54% in 2022 in a backdrop of central bank's monetary tightening, a shortage in liquidity and increased regulator...