Equity markets started September in a positive territory, erasing some of the losses incurred during the previous month. Treasury yields slowed down on reported US unemployment figures, while the crypto market was supported by the Grayscale`s lawsuit win against SEC`s after the regulator denied its application for BTC ETF. Bitcoin is ending the week close to 26K, while ETH manages to hold above 1.6K.
The crypto market has been supported during the previous week with the news that the US Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Grayscale in its lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission, after the SEC has denied Grayscale`s application for conversion of company`s Bitcoin Trust into an Exchange Traded Fund. Such a decision is important in a manner that it might support other companies which have filed with SEC for the first BTC ETF, to gain approval. This is at least per market expectations. However, the last word is with the SEC, so it might be too early for higher optimism. As the news was published, BTC surged by more than 7%, while other major coins also gained in value.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission delayed to issue a response to all applicants for spot BTC ETF`s, including BlackRock, WisdomTree, VanEck, Valkyrie Digital Assets and others. As per information provided, such a decision could be expected to be brought up in October this year. One of the rationales for such a decision is expectations to have adequate public feedback on applications. Bitcoin dropped more than 4% on this news.
The US banks continue to struggle with regulation, opting for their survival of current unfavorable economic conditions. In their latest call to regional banks, the US regulators unveiled plans by which regional banks, with at least $100 billion in assets, will be forced to increase their capital through debt issuance in order to strengthen their position. The aim of such a decision is to protect depositors in case of some further difficulties faced by banks in the US. Analysts perceive such a government move as a negative, considering that it is going to increase costs of conducting business for banks, which are already struggling to sustain their profitability and capital levels.
Paolo Gentiloni, the European Commissioner for economic affairs, requested CNBC journalists not to call the current state of the EU economy a “recession”. He rather preferred the wording of “double crisis”. The double crisis refers to geopolitical impact and “subsequent economic hit” to the EU. As per IMF estimate, the Euro Zone ended 2022 with GDP growth of 3.5%, while expected GDP for this year would account to 0.8% and 1.4% in 2024. At the same time Gentiloni is certain that the Euro Area can avoid a recession.
Crypto market cap
Previous week was a bit volatile for the crypto market considering two important news which hit the market. Both were related to the probability for the first spot BTC Exchange Traded Fund to see the light of the day. First the market was thrilled with the court decision which ruled out in favor of Grayscale, a leading crypto asset management fund, in its lawsuit against SEC for denying the company to convert its Bitcoin Trust into an Exchange Traded Fund. The market perceived positively such a court decision, increasing the probability that the SEC might finally approve the first spot BTC ETF. However, the optimism was soon reverted by the SEC`s decision to postpone the response to all applicants for spot BTC ETF for October this year. Currently the waiting list includes names like BlackRock, WisdomTree, VanEck, Valkyrie Digital Assets and others. On this news, almost all previous gains on the crypto market were erased. Total crypto market capitalization remained flat for another week in a row. Compared to the week before, total market cap was down by 55B, ending the week at a level of $1.025 trillion. Daily trading volumes increased a bit during the week, moving around 60B on a daily basis. This was an increase in volumes from previous week`s 43B. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year remained flat at level of 36%, where it has added total 269B to the market cap.
Crypto coins were traded in a mixed manner during the week. Major coins were mostly on a losing side, while several altcoins had quite a good performance. BTC lost 22B in value or 0.43%, while ETH was down by 0.6% losing more than 11B in value. XRP also finished the week in red, down by 11B or 4.2% w/w. Among other altcoins some of the highest drops in value were with Stellar, which was down by more than 7%, Uniswap dropped by 4.5%, Solana was down by 3.2%. There have been several altcoins with relatively good performance, like Bitcoin Cash, who managed to increase its market cap by 5.15% w/w. IOTA was up by an incredible 9.7%, OMG Network also had a good week with an increase in value of 8.3%. The winner of the week was Maker, which managed to surge by 12% in a single week. As for coins in circulation there has not been significant changes, except for Polkadot, which increased its circulating coins by 5.7% on a weekly basis. Filecoin`s circulating coins were up by 0.5%, while Stellar and Solana also had an increase of coins in circulation by 0.2% both.
Crypto futures market
The crypto futures market has stabilized a bit during the previous week, after a strong downtrend in futures prices since three weeks ago. Short term BTC futures were traded around 2% lower from the end of the week before, while long term futures remained relatively flat on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year, ended the week at price $26.655 without significant change from the previous week. At the same time, December 2024 was last traded at price $29.285, also without significant change on a weekly basis.
ETH short term futures were traded down by 1.5% on average, while there has not been significant changes in prices for longer term futures on a weekly basis. December 2023 ended the week at $1.666, down by 1% from the previous week, while December 2024 was last traded at $1.800, almost flat from the week before.
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