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First Mover Asia: BTC Falls Below $22.4K; Coinbase Shares Remain Alluring for Institutional Investors

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest, ETF issuer Exchange Traded Concepts, Cullinan Associates and Utah-based Refined Wealth Management all significantly added COIN to their portfolios as per June 30 filings.

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Bitcoin traded sideways on Sunday to fall below $22,400, well-off mid-week highs. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading around $22,300, down a percentage point over the previous 24 hours.

Bitcoin had reached a more than one-month high on Wednesday, cracking $24,000, and was still trading comfortably over $23,000 early Friday before investors revisited their anxieties over inflation and the economy to back away from riskier assets.


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Ether, the second largest crypto by market cap, was trading at $1,560, also down slightly for the same period. Other cryptos were largely in the red, with YGG and AXS both off more than 7%.

The crypto Fear & Greed Index has improved over the past two weeks, but remains in fear territory, reflecting deep concerns about conditions potentially affecting crypto.
 

To be sure, market observers have viewed bitcoin's recent tenacity above $22,000 positively amid an unexpectedly high consumer price index (CPI) this month, slowing economic indicators and poor earnings.

But crypto markets this week also struggled to make sense of Tesla's decision to jettison $936 million of its bitcoin holdings, the latest pivot in company founder and crypto influencer Elon Musk's ever-changing relationship with digital assets.
 

Bitcoin has increasingly responded to the wider environment, including stock prices, which have plummeted this year. "BTC did see some positive price action following its resilience, post the CPI data earlier this month," wrote Joe DiPasquale, the CEO of crypto fund manager BitBull Capital, in an email to CoinDesk.

"The fact that news of Tesla selling its BTC holdings did not crash the price is also a positive sign for the bulls. FOMC meeting Investors will now be eyeing this week's interest rate decision by the U.S. central bank's Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC).

The FOMC is widely expected to approve a 75-basis point hike, robust enough to satisfy critics of Federal Reserve timidity in tackling inflation but reasonable enough to encourage those who prefer a more moderate approach that is less likely to spur a steep recession and affect assets.

"With this month's FOMC around the corner, we will be taking a conservative approach until the Fed's future direction becomes clearer," DiPasquale wrote.Crypto declines tracked major equity indexes on Friday as the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell nearly 2% and the S&P 500, which has a heavy tech component, dropped almost a percentage point. 
 

Stocks, like cryptos though, had their best week in a while after months of losses. Gold rose slightly, although it has also steadily fallen from March highs over $2,000. In a weekly review to investors, First Republic Bank noted weakening in the once-hot housing market, a sign that rising interest rates may finally taking a bite from demand.

The National Association of Home Builders index dropped for a seventh straight month. U.S. housing starts in June were also unexpectedly weak, among other falling indicators.


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Meanwhile, the founders of insolvent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, described the firm's collapse as "regrettable," but denied claims they pulled money from the fund before its collapse, according to Bloomberg report.

3AC's implosion stemmed from the fall Terra ecosystem that has rippled through the industry since May. Investors are claiming 3AC still owes them $2.8 billion.
 

Yet in a report, banking giant Citi said that crypto contagion fears tied to recent events, including digital asset lending platform Celsius' failing, have peaked.

Staked ether’s discount to ether (ETH) has narrowed, which suggests some liquidity stress may have passed, the report said, adding that the “acute deleveraging phase” has now ended given many of the large brokers and market makers in the sector have disclosed their exposures.

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In a further positive sign, stablecoin outflows have been stemmed, the bank said, and outflows from crypto exchange-traded funds (ETF) have also stabilized in recent weeks.

DiPasquale wrote that "if the Fed remains aggressive" with rate hikes, "we could easily see BTC return to $20,000 or lower." But he added optimistically that "accumulation in that range could be a promising long-term opportunity." - coindesk