Yahoo Finanza Market Wrap: Crypto Markets Gain Momentum After Dipping Early in Tuesday Trading
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Hi, I'm Jimmy He, here to take you through the day's crypto market highlights and news.
After dipping early Tuesday during U.S. trading hours, bitcoin, ether and most major cryptos gained momentum and were in the green by the close of equity markets.
Bitcoin (BTC) was recently changing hands at about $20,600, up more than 4% over the past 24 hours. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has been struggling to stay above the $20,000 threshold for the past month and dropped almost 60% during this year's recently closed second quarter, its worst quarter since 2011.
Most altcoins climbed on Tuesday. Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, was recently changing hands at $1,160, up over 3% in the last 24 hours. Polygon’s MATIC token was among other altcoins' biggest winners, rising 8.4%.
The cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index rose by 5 points to 19 on Tuesday to hit its highest level since May 7, but remained in “extreme fear” territory.
FxPro senior market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich attributed any current growth in the crypto market to retail buyers intending to “buy when there is blood on the streets” and said that it is too early to expect a recovery.
“At this stage, when we see only timid attempts at growth it would be too early to talk about confirmation of a broken downtrend,” Kuptsikevich said.
Such pessimism comes amid a recent backdrop of industry calamities, including the implosion of the terraUSD stablecoin (UST), crypto lending services provider Celsius's decision to halt withdrawals and the bankruptcy filing of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Now market observers are warily eyeing the fate of bitcoin miners, which have been liquidating their crypto holdings in recent weeks. Some may soon face margin calls.
According to Glassnode, the total bitcoin balance held by miners has retreated to December 2021 levels. Core Scientific (CORZ), an IT service management company, revealed Tuesday it sold over 7,000 bitcoin in June to raise funds for payments and investments. The tokens sold for an average price of $23,000 and raised about $167 million.
Miners may soon feel an additional pinch in the form of tightened regulatory scrutiny.
Latest prices
●Bitcoin (BTC): $20,527 +5.5%
●Ether (ETH): $1,157 +6.5%
●S&P 500 daily close: 3,831.39 +0.2%
●Gold: $1,768 per troy ounce +NaN%
●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 2.81% −0.08
Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices.
Major Crypto Inflows From Short-Bitcoin, CoinShares Report Shows
According to a CoinShares report, crypto funds saw inflows totaling $64 million in the seven days through July 1. The majority of inflows came from short bitcoin investment products ($51 million), while bitcoin only saw about $600,000 million in inflows.
The short came after ProShares Short Bitcoin Strategy’s (BITI) launched its bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), which was designed to profit from bitcoin price declines. The fund became the second-largest bitcoin-focused ETF in the U.S. market after just a few trading days.
Ethereum saw its second week of inflows totaling $5 million, breaking the second-largest cryptocurrency’s 11-week streak of outflows. Many other altcoins saw minor inflows including SOL ($1 million), ADA ($600,000) and DOT ($700,000).
Regionally, Brazil, Canada, Germany and Switzerland all saw minor inflows into long investment products totaling $20 million.
“This highlights investors are adding to long positions at current prices, with the inflows into short-bitcoin possibly due to first-time accessibility in the U.S. rather than renewed negative sentiment,” the report said.
Altcoin roundup
Crema Loses $8.8M in Exploit: The Solana-based liquidity protocol had more than $8.78 million worth of cryptocurrencies stolen from its platform in an attack over the weekend. Crema Finance developers said that they are coordinating with “relevant organizations” to gather more information. Read more here.
EU lawmakers suggest NFT platform regulation: Non-fungible token (NFT) trading platforms should be made subject to European Union anti-money laundering (AML) laws, members of the European Parliament said Monday. The proposed amendments to the legislation would cover self-hosted wallets and DeFi apps. Read more here.
Parity Technologies Adds 3 Executives: The firm building the Polkadot and Kusama blockchain ecosystems has added three senior executives to round out its leadership team. Eran Barak (chief operating officer), Peter Ruchatz (chief marketing officer) and Fahmi Syed (chief financial officer) joined the firm alongside founder and CEO Gavin Wood. Read more here.
Relevant insight
Listen 🎧: Today’s CoinDesk Markets Daily podcast discusses the latest market movements and what the surprising lack of crypto contagion is all about.
Core Scientific Sold Over 7K Bitcoins for About $167M in June, Sees More Sales: The crypto company plans to cash in on more self-mined bitcoins to cover expenses, growth and debt payments.
TeraWulf Adds $50M in Debt to Build Data Center Infrastructure: The miner aims to seize opportunities created by the market slump.
UK Financial Regulator Hires Former Police Officer to Head New Crypto Unit: Matthew Long will be responsible for payments and digital money at the Financial Conduct Authority.
EToro SPAC Deal for Public Listing Canceled as Transaction Becomes 'Impracticable': The decision was taken mutually with FinTech Acquisition Corp. V.
Bank of England Panel Calls for Enhanced Crypto Regulation to Limit Contagion: The loss of $2 trillion of crypto market cap over a period of months has “underscored the need for enhanced regulation,” the Financial Policy Committee said.
Nexo Signs Term Sheet With Vauld for Potential Acquisition: Nexo said it has a 60-day exclusive due diligence period in which to decide whether it will buy up to 100% of Singapore-based Vauld.
Former JPMorgan Banker Joins Pantera Capital as COO: Samir Shah had worked at the Wall Street firm for 12 years, spanning roles in sales, strategy and digital.
UK Government Seeks Views on DeFi Taxation: Those deadline for submitting comments is Aug. 31.
Other markets
Biggest Gainers
Asset | Ticker | Returns | DACS Sector |
|---|---|---|---|
Solana | +8.4% | ||
Cosmos | +7.4% | ||
Polygon | +7.2% |
Biggest Losers
There are no losers in CoinDesk 20 today.
Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.
