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MARKETS week ahead: September 4 – 10Last week in the news 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 $5B, 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 $2B in value or 0.43%, while ETH was down by 0.6% losing more than $1B in value. XRP also finished the week in red, down by $1B 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.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
Markets week ahead: August 28 - September 3Last week in the news Major weekly event, a Fed Chair speech at the Jackson Hole on Friday left the markets relatively volatile, as well as the US Treasury yields. At the same time the crypto market was traded in a flat mode. Bitcoin is ending the week around $26K, while Ether manages to hold above $1.6K. Major event during the previous week was the Jackson Hall symposium, and speech of Fed Chair Powell as of the end of the conference. The markets were waiting for his speech with high interest, considering many opposite standing points of both analysts and economists in the US whether the country will be able to avoid a recession in the coming period and if the Fed will start to cut interest rates somewhere at the beginning of the year ahead. Fed Chair Powell stressed that the ultimate goal of Fed's policy is bringing inflation down to 2% target and that the Fed might increase interest rates to the higher levels if inflation remains persistent. The policy will remain restrictive “until inflation sustainably slowing”. Since some progress has been made, the Fed will proceed carefully but flexibly from this moment. Negative news for Binance continues as Mastercard decided to end its partnership with this company, and will no longer offer cards in Latin America and the Middle East for Binance-brand. Binance's card issuer in Europe was Visa, however, this company also ended the business relationship with Binance during July. As per publicly available information, the rationale for such decisions is currently ongoing regulatory scrutiny of Binance in both the EU and the US. The company noted that only a small portion of its users will be affected by this decision, as customers are usually using Binance Pay, a “ borderless and secure cryptocurrency payment technology designed by Binance''. The U.S. Treasury department finally proposed amendments to the tax law, by which, crypto brokers will be differentiated from the traditional brokerage companies. The new amendments also address the question regarding user’s personal data, which these companies should gather. Namely, based on the proposal, crypto companies will declare their tax obligation on a new form – called 1099-DA. Miners are excluded from this new form. Amendments are currently open for a public view and discussion, while its final adoption could be expected by the end of this year. The Monetary Authority of Hong Kong will further explore possibilities of the bond market tokenization. This decision comes after the Government issued $100 million of tokenized green bonds in February this year. Their aim is to dig further into potential for increasing efficiency, liquidity and transparency of the bond market. Crypto market cap After the final break to the downside two weeks ago, the crypto market remained relatively quiet, in anticipation of the Fed Chair Powell speech at the Jackson Hall conference. Generally, markets did not hear anything new from his speech; however, it brought some modest optimism to the equity markets. The bottom line is that there is still a way to go when it comes to inflation, and the Fed might increase interest rates even higher if inflation remains persistent. The crypto market remained relatively flat during the week. Total crypto market capitalization was increased by modest $1B, actually, without much change from the week before. Daily trading volumes modestly increased to the level of SGX:43B on a daily basis, from $35B the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year remained flat at level of 36%, where it has added total $274B to the market cap. Crypto coins were traded relatively flat during the week, with modest movements in prices of coins. There were almost equal numbers of coins that finished the week on a positive and negative side. BTC managed to gain $2.5B in its market cap, which is an increase of 0.5% on a weekly basis. ETH was shiny down by $1.1B or 0.5%. XRP was one of the major winning coins during the week, with an increase in market cap of $1B or 4%. Few other coins with relatively solid performance on a weekly basis were Tron, with a gain of 4.85%, Miota was up by 2.5% and Litecoin with a modest surge of 2.1%. Several coins finished the week in red, like Filecoin, which was down by 7.7%, Uniswap lost 6.7% in its market cap and Solana decreased its value by 6.5%. As for coins in circulation, there also has not been too much change. Tron was the one coin whose coins in circulation were down by 0.1%, while Polkadot increased the number of its coins in circulation by 0.2%. Crypto futures market Although the crypto spot market remained relatively flat during the week, the crypto futures market went through some changes in investors long term perception for both BTC and ETH futures. Analysts from JPMorgan were commenting on current open interest on the crypto derivative markets and noted that current unwind of long positions can be perceived as they are in the end phase. “As a result we see limited downside for crypto markets over the near term”, as noted by a JPMorgan analyst. If that is the case, then traders might hope that September will be a better month for cryptos, than it was August. BTC short term futures ended the week down around 1% on average, but the longer term ones suffered a huge drop of around 7% on a weekly basis. During the first part of August and major downturn, BTC long term futures were holding pretty steady, however, this is the first week when December 2024 dropped below $30K levels, ending the week at price of $29.145. At the same time, futures maturing in December this year were last traded at $26.730, or 0.63% lower from the week before. With ETH futures the situation is a bit different, considering that almost all maturities dropped by more than 5% on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December 2024 were last traded at price $1.793 or 5.13% lower from the week before, while those maturing in December this year were also down by 5.30% ending the week at price $1.684.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: August 21 – 27Last week in the news China is evidently slowing down, while Fed's meeting minutes revealed the possibility for interest rates to move even higher from currently expected levels. Negative sentiment continues to prevail on financial markets. Both EU and US equities continued their negative trend for the third week in a row, while US Treasuries continue to rise. Bitcoin had the worst week since May this year, followed by other crypto coins. Markets are clearly revisiting their optimism from the beginning of this year. China's housing market is passing through difficult times. During the previous week markets were hit by a series of negative news related to some Chinese big players within this industry. One of the largest real estate companies, Country Garden, defaulted on its bond payments on Monday. On the other side, by far the largest real estate company in China, Evergrande, registered in the US, filed for protection under the bankruptcy law in the US. The company was previously in trouble, trying to save the business through restructuring, but it failed to find supporting funds for that mission. Further destiny of the company is currently unknown. Another important event which made an impact on market sentiment was a release of FOMC meeting minutes from its meeting held in July. One of the concerns expressed at this meeting was the possibility that more rate hikes will be necessary in the future period in order to fight inflation. Several FOMC members were concerned that a tight job market could support further increase in inflation, which would require more rate hikes. Markets were holding to previous Fed Chair Powell's statement over possible two rate hikes till the end of this year. Since the Fed increased rates in July, markets were expecting another one in September through December. However, minutes revealed something on which markets were not prepared, and that is the possibility for further rate hikes, which made them reassess their economic growth prospectus for the next year. Minutes mentioned another important topic, which is related to FOMC members' concern over the issues in commercial real estate and problems which they can cause to some banks and financial institutions. The market reaction was that both the equities and crypto market lost in value during the week, while Treasury yields surged. Coinbase announced that the company gained the regulatory approval from National Futures Association to offer crypto future products to US customers. The company also noted that it filed an application for this product in 2021. This approval refers to only federally regulated futures. News was perceived positively by the markets, as shares of Coinbase gained 5% after the announcement. Although CBDC`s are still not officially launched, many companies are preparing for this moment, and trying to create full ecosystems around CBDC`s. One of the world’s largest payment and cards companies, Mastercard, organized a forum related to this topic, including some of the well-known names from the crypto industry, including Ripple, Fireblocks and Consensys. At this moment, their program partnership includes only discussions on innovation drives and efficiencies, however, it could be easily expanded in the future. Crypto market cap Final break to the downside occurred on the crypto market during the previous week. There are two major reasons which supported negative market sentiment. On the one side are published FOMC meeting minutes which revealed concerns of some FOMC members that more rate hikes will be necessary in the coming months / year in order to cope with inflation. There is also expressed concern over issues in commercial real estate which can bring potential negative consequences to some banks and financial institutions. At the same time, China's real estate market exposed some huge concerns, when big real estate company Country Garden defaulted on part of its bond payments, while the biggest player in this field, company Evergrande, filed for protection under the US bankruptcy law. Economists called such developments “a perfect storm” for financial markets. Not only that crypto market lost a significant portion of its value within a week, but was also followed by US equity markets. Total crypto market capitalization decreased during the week by 9%, losing a total $107B. Daily trading volumes almost doubled during the week, trading around $65B on a daily basis, from $35B during the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 36%, where it has added total $273B to the market cap. All coins lost during the previous week, however, drop in value of $107B on a weekly basis was driven by major coins, which participated with 89% in this drop. BTC lost FWB:68B or around 12% on a weekly basis, and was followed by ETH, with a drop of $23B or more than 10%. XRP was another coin with a significant drop in value of $6.6B or less than 20%. BNB was down by almost $4B or 10.6%. DOGE decreased its value by 17% or $1.8B in nominal amounts. Both ADA and SOL dropped around $1B losing 9.8% and 11.5% in value respectively. Majority of all other altcoins lost between 10% and 20% in value. As for coins in circulation, Tether managed to lose 0.7% circulating coins in a single week, which is not recently seen on the market. At the same time, Solana increased its circulating coins by 0.4%. Crypto futures market Negative news and investor’s sentiment left its mark also on the crypto futures market. As per Coinglass data, around $1B loss in liquidations of long positions were wiped out from this market. It was one of the worst sell-offs of the year. Short term BTC futures ended the week around 11% lower from the week before, while ETH futures dropped by more than 10%. On a positive side is that longer term futures suffered a lower drop in prices. BTC long term futures were down by more than 5%. Futures maturing in December this year ended the Friday`s trading session at level of $26.900, while those maturing in December next year were last traded at price $31.275. On a positive side is that December next year is still holding above $30K level. ETH long term futures dropped more than 6%, with December 2023 ending the week at price $1.778. Futures maturing in December 2024 dropped below $2K level where they were managing to hold for a few weeks. Last price for those futures was $1.890.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: August 14 – 20Last week in the news The stock markets continued with their modest correction for a second week in a row. US banks ended the week in negative territory after Moody's downgraded ten banks and put some big US names on watch for a downgrade in the coming period. At the same time US Treasurys modestly increased during the week, after published inflation data in line with expectations. Crypto market gained on Moody's downgrade of US banks. Bitcoin is ending another week below $30K, while Ether found strong support above $1.8K level. The US Consumer Price Index published for July increased 3.2% y/y, less than market expectations, rising 0.2% for the month. Core CPI also rose 0.2%, running at 4.7% on a yearly basis. Figures are showing that the inflation is slowing down in the US, but it is still running above Fed's target of 2%. Many analysts are of the opinion that this trend would make the Fed probably to hold its next rate increase and postpone it till the end of this year. On the other side investors are looking for a moment of Fed`s pivot, which would mean that the Fed would start to decrease interest rates. Still, Fed Chair Powell noted that it should be expected for rates to stay elevated for a longer period of time even if inflation slows down further. Two weeks ago credit rating agency Fitch downgraded US government long-term currency issuer default rating to AA+, while during the previous week another credit rating agency Moody's downgraded ten US banks. In addition, Moody's put several banks to watch for the downgrade, including some big names like Bank of New York Mellon, State Street and Northern Trust. As a rationale for such a decision, Moody`s is noting asset-liability practices in these banks, with high exposures to the interest rate risks, coming from depression of Treasury holdings due to increased interest rates which might deteriorate banks value and earnings potential. This news supported Bitcoin trading, while negatively affecting equity markets. Tesla`s Chief Financial Officer, Zach Kirkhorn, announced to step down from his position in the company, after spending the last four years in this position and a total 13 years in Tesla. There has not been announced reason for such a decision. Markets reacted in a negative manner, pushing TSLA shares 3% lower. Nvidia passed the $1 trillion valuation, with the latest surge in stock price, putting this company in line with other big 4 names – Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet. This came as a result of making the best graphic processors for OpenAI and ChatGPT. Although investors see high earnings potential with this company, still, there are analysts who are arguing that the company is highly overpriced at this moment. Their opinion is that the general AI market is highly overvalued and its potential to drive future gains. Some analysts are even making a parallel between the 1999 dot-com bubble and current frenzy about AI. PayPal launched its stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD) aiming to keep pace with increasing interest for payments in crypto currencies. Analysts see it as a positive move from PayPal as it will be able to adjust easily for forthcoming central bank digital currencies, which will be available in the near future. Crypto market cap Markets continue to move flat, digesting both positive and negative news. Credit rating agencies in the US are continuing with downgrades, after Fitch downgraded US Government long term debt by one notch, Moody's downgraded ten US banks with more of them on the watchlist for the same move in the coming period. On a positive side is that the inflation in the US is slowing down, holding at the level of 3.2% in July. Although this is positive news, still, analysts are questioning whether this slowdown in inflation would impact Fed's decision to hold with further increases of interest rates. A fear of recession vanished on the market, with increasing voices over so-called soft-landing of the economy. With a strong jobs market, strong earnings and higher than expected Q2 GDP assumptions on soft-landing are well supported. Total crypto market capitalization remained flat during the previous week, with a modest increase of FWB:14B or less than 1% on a weekly basis. This is the third week when daily trading volumes have significantly decreased. Previous week`s range was around $35B on a daily basis, which is a further decrease from FWB:46B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 50%, where it has added total $380B to the market cap. The crypto market entered into side trade during the previous week. Significantly decreased daily trading volumes are not able to push the price to either side. Still, the majority of coins finished the previous week on a shy green side, with few of them with good weekly performance. Bitcoin added $5.5B to its market cap during the week, increasing its value by less than 1%. Same performance had ETH with an increase in cap of $2B. In a relative term, Solana continued with gains, adding more than 10% during the previous week. Algorand also had solid performance with an increase in value of 6.4% w/w. LINK gained 4%, while DASH managed to increase its cap by 5.8%. Few coins were on a losing side, like Bitcoin Gold, which decreased its value by 3.5%, Ethereum Classic was down by 1.1%, while Maker and Polkadot were both down by 2.4% w/w. There has not been significant changes in coins in circulation, where Filecoin was the highest gainer with 0.6% increase in its circulating coins. Crypto futures market The crypto futures remained relatively flat during the previous week, in line with developments on the spot market. BTC short term futures were up by some 0.5% on average, while long term ones were traded higher by modest 0.3% w/w. BTC futures maturing in December this year are still holding above $30K, and finished the week at level of $30.425, while those maturing in December next year were traded modestly higher with last trade on Friday closed at price $33.065. ETH futures were also in a flat mode. Short term ones were traded down by some 0.4% on average, while long term ones were traded in green. December 2023 is finishing the week at level of $1.894, 0.37% lower from the week before, while December 2024 was traded 0.2% higher and finished the week at price of $2.013. It remains positive that the long term price of ETH sustains the levels above $2K.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: August 7 – 13Last week in the news The rating agency Fitch downgraded the long term credit rating of the US by one notch to AA+ from previous AAA. Market reacted with a negative sentiment, bringing the US equity markets lower and Treasury yields to the upside. The crypto market was traded flat most of the week, sliding down as of Friday`s trading. Bitcoin is ending the week at FWB:29K , while Ether is still managing to hold modestly above $1.8K. Quite a negative news hit the markets at the beginning of the previous week. One of the largest US credit rating agencies, Fitch, downgraded the US Government long-term currency issuer default rating to AA+, from previous AAA grade. The rationale for such a decision was “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years” as well as lack of governance for its debt-ceiling. This was certainly a huge surprise for markets which were traded in a red zone through the rest of the week. However, economists have different opinions. On one side are those who are questioning why such a decision is coming at this point of time, when all said in the Fitch`s report is well known from a long time ago. On the other side are those who are cheering such a decision as it could help the Fed to finally halt its monetary tightening. Markets were cheering Ripple Lab`s win over SEC with higher optimism that it could be of some use in other SEC`s disputes with several crypto market participants, for which closure is still pending. It was a sort of surprise and also disappointment for markets when this ruling was rejected by the Southern District of New York Judge Rakoff in a case between SEC and Coinbase. Rationale for a rejection was “a misinterpretation of the Howey test”. This makes it an extremely hard task for Coinbase to use Ripple`s ruling for its own benefit in this case. Finally some good news for Binance. Binance`s CEO CZ officially announced that a subsidiary of the company in Japan will start its operations in this country from August 14th. Binance entered Japan`s market in November last year, by acquiring Sakura Exchange BitCoin crypto exchange. This is good news for Binance in a moment when the company is facing scrutiny from regulators in the US and the EU. As per CME reports, investors have doubled their positions in the crypto options during July. Options trading activity increased by 24% in July from the month before for both BTC and ETH options. This might be an indication that investors are currently looking for a hedging tool for their positions in these coins. Filings for BTC exchange traded funds are growing among financial institutions in the US. While BlackRock is still waiting for the final resolution of its application with the SEC for the first BTC based ETF, during the previous week ProShares and Bitwise also filed their applications for both BTC and ETH exchange traded funds. In case that BlackRock receives a positive outcome for their filing, it will be a huge gain for the BTC and crypto community, and would certainly open the door for other ETF`s based on other coins, like ETH. Crypto market cap Markets are calming down after surprising news during the previous week that the Fitch rating agency has downgraded the US long-term debt by one notch, to AA+ from previous AAA. How this move would impact the future economic outlook is about to be seen. Economists are noting that a downgrade would mean further increase of costs of borrowing, considering that the financial industry would now seek higher interest rates on borrowed funds, in order to cover increased risk for borrowing funds. Higher costs of borrowing might further slow down economic activity, but to what extent, is to be seen, as the US economy has been pretty resilient to significant increase of Fed's interest rates during the previous period. The crypto market continues to be on hold, marking the third week on a downside. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by additional 2% during the week, losing $24B in total value. Daily trading volumes continue to decrease, moving around FWB:46B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 48%, where it has added total $366B to the market cap. Another week the crypto market finished in red. Two coins were leading the drop in total market cap in nominal terms. Ether lost almost $5B, dropping its value by 2.2% on a weekly basis. ETH was followed by XRP, with a drop in value of more than 12% or $4.5B. This time, Bitcoin took the third place, whose market value dropped by $2.2B or 0.4% compared to the week before. Solana was another coin with a significant loss of $1B in value, dropping by more than 10% on a weekly basis. At the same time, BNB managed to sustain its value flat during the week. Significant losers in relative terms during this week were Stellar, with a drop of 13.6% w/w, Litecoin was down by 9.4%, LINK lost almost 8% in value same as OMG Network, Theta also dropped by 7.5%. The only coin with a significant increase in value was Bitcoin Gold, which managed to increase its value by more than 16% during the week. At this moment there is no official information available as to why this surge occurred. Coins in circulation remained relatively stable during the week, except for Polkadot`s increase of circulating coins by a significant 1.4%. Solana had a modest surge by 0.2%, same as Stellar. Crypto futures market For the third week in a row, crypto futures were traded lower. Short term Bitcoin futures were traded around 2.8% lower from the week before, however, longer term futures were traded in a green zone at Friday`s trading session on CME. Futures maturing in December 2023 ended the week at price of $30.355, while December 2024 managed to end the week at price of $32.955. Although the price did not manage to reach levels above BER:33K , this is still a positive sign of investors' expectations for the future price of the BTC. Market optimism for ETH futures is still lacking a higher level of confidence. Short term futures were down by some 2.5% on average, while longer term futures were last traded about 1% lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year were last traded down by 1.5%, ending the week at price $1.892. Futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week at level of $2.009, or 1.13% lower from the week before.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 30 – August 5Last week in the news Both Fed and ECB increased their reference interest rates by 25bps, which was fully in line with market expectations. Markets ended the week digesting the central banker`s view on the current state of both economies, in expectations that pivoting might come somewhere during the course of the next year. All markets slowed down during the week, still S&P 500 ended the week 1% higher on the inflation data. Bitcoin continues to struggle to hold FWB:29K , while Ether finished the week below $1.9K. There have not been any surprises when Central bankers are in question. Fed increased its reference interest rates by 25 bps as it was expected, with some probability for additional rate hike till the end of this year. In the meantime, figures are showing that the US inflation continues to ease further through the course of this year. Still, Fed Chair Powell continues to stress that further rate increases would be data-driven and that FOMC members will rely their future decisions exclusively on economic data. Some economists are again raising a question of how further increase of interest rates will affect small banks in the US, implying that some of them might enter into trouble, considering incurred fair value losses on Treasury bonds portfolios. At the same time, Central bankers in the EU also raised interest rates by 25 bps, with an old note that inflation will stay elevated for a longer period of time. However, the ECB President Lagarde did not exclude the possibility to pause further rate hikes in September. The recession fears are still very high on the EU market, especially with its major economy, Germany, significantly slowing down since the beginning of this year. A huge surprise during the previous week was an unexpected move for the monetary policy of the Bank of Japan. As they called it, “a greater flexibility”, means that the BoJ would leave its yield curve to fluctuate within a range of plus/minus 1% instead of current 50 bps. The BoJ is well known for its 0% yields policy on 10Y government bonds. It is keeping their rates around 0% in order to support economic growth. However, this move might have broad implications on developed financial markets, considering that many large institutions were taking advantage of interest rate differentials in Japan and the US or EU. They were taking JPY funds at 0% or near 0% in order to invest them in the western markets at higher yields. A new BoJ policy would mean more expensive funds for investors and lower level of investments in other markets. Both EU and US markets reacted to this news with lower closes. Worldcoin (WLD) became live during the previous week. It is a project of Sam Altman, a CEO of Open AI, which drew many controversies before its official launch. The coin is based on privacy-preserved identity, or World ID, which allows for humans to have an identity in the digital world. It is also noted that its aim is to “distribute a universal basic income to people worldwide”. However, for authorities in the EU it rang a bell for its data protection rules, as they are currently investigating legality of such a data collection. At the same time, the Worldcoin Foundation commented to CoinDesk that they will cooperate with the government on their “privacy and data protection practices”. Crypto market cap The Fed increased its interest rates by 25 bps as it has been expected. Still, posted inflation figures for the US are showing that inflation continues to be on a down-track, which supports investors optimism that the monetary tightening might soon come to an end. Still, it should be taken into consideration that Fed Chair Powell promised two rate hikes till the end of this year, which leave us with one additional 25 bps hike in the coming months. A potential Fed`s pivoting will support investors' appetite for riskier assets. Until then, investors remain oriented toward the equity markets and US Treasury bonds, especially the short term ones. The crypto market is for the last two weeks left aside from investors' attention. Second week in a row the crypto market capitalisation is finishing the week with a modest drop in value. During the previous week, total market cap dropped by 2%, losing $19B in the total value. Major coins on the market were the ones which were dragging the market to the downside. This week, the majority of altcoins also followed the same path. Daily trading volumes were further decreased to the level of FWB:37B on a daily basis, from FWB:49B traded during the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year stands at 52%, where it has added a total $390B to the market cap. Several altcoins finished the previous week in green. Major coins on the market were the ones that were leading the total market capitalization to the downside in a nominal sense, participating with a total 75% in $19B value decrease. Bitcoin lost even $11.8B or 2% of its market value during the week. Ether managed to hold relatively flat, with a modest drop in value of $2.2B or less than 1%. XRP was also on a losing side, with a drop in market cap of almost $3B or 7.4% on a weekly basis. Other altcoins were losing less than 10%, among which NEO lost almost 6%, EOS was down by 5.3% and Polygon dropped by 6.3% w/w. There were few coins with relatively solid performance, like Maker, who managed to gain 13% in value. There was also a DOGE with an increase in market cap of 8.6%. As for coins in circulation, the market calmed down compared to the week before, and there has not been much change. Polkadot managed to increase its circulating coins by 2.9% w/w, while XRP continues to increase its coins in circulation, adding 0.3% during the previous week. Tether remained flat during the week. Crypto futures market Crypto futures market continued its correction which started a week before. During the previous week, there has been a further drop in BTC short term futures by more than 2%, while ETH futures were traded down by some 1.5% on average. BTC longer term futures also had a correction of more than 2%. Futures maturing in December this year were last traded down by 1.98%, and finished the week at price $30.500. At the same time, futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week by 2.16% lower from the week before, at price $32.880, and down from $33.605 traded as of the end of the previous week. ETH long term futures dropped by 1.60% w/w. December this year was last traded at the price of $1.911, dropping below $2K psychological level. Futures maturing in December 2024 were traded 1.55% lower from the week before, while still managing to hold above $2K level. Last traded price was $2.032 on CME.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 24 – 30Last week in the news While EU markets finished the week in green, amid positive corporate results, US markets were traded in a mixed manner, as investors still need to digest the latest corporate data and prospectus for the future period. The S&P 500 was traded almost flat on Friday, after adding 0.69% during the week. The crypto market remained relatively flat on a weekly basis, with Bitcoin ending the week testing $30K support, while Ether was traded below $1.9K. Market interest is currently focused on the next Fed move with respect to its monetary policy and increase of interest rates. The FOMC meeting will be held on July 26-27, where its members will decide whether current economic conditions support another rate hike. Majority of market participants continue to be of the opinion that another 25 bps rate increase is coming. Fed Chair Powell previously promised two rate hikes till the end of this year. There is a small portion of investors and economists who are of the opinion that Fed might pause during July`s meeting. Such an opinion is supported by the latest inflation data, which shows that it is cooling down, but still, it moves at a higher level from the Fed's target of 2%. The Federal Reserve officially launched its new payment system called FedNow. It represents an instant payment system, which is expected to improve the flow of money for individuals and businesses. As it has been noted, 35 financial institutions have accepted FedNow, including big names like JPMorgan and Wells Fargo. Fed is expecting to further develop the system and to include it into websites and applications of banks. Ripple – SEC dispute might be over, but SEC`s fight against digital asset industry is still not. During the previous week SEC Chair Gensler asked the US government for additional $72 million of funds in order to protect investors in the crypto market from “noncompliance”. He also called the current crypto market a “Wild West” and stressed the need to protect investors' “hard earned money” from “fire and noncompliance” of the crypto industry. Cathy Wood, CEO of Ark Investment fund, was commenting on the strategy of its Innovation Fund and noted that the fund had decreased its exposure to China to zero. The rationale for such a decision was a slowdown of this market. Funds are transferred to the local US market and companies within the tech industry like Tesla and Coinbase. Metaverse continues to drag businesses, as they are trying to expand reach to the customers even in the digital world. During the previous week McDonalds, a fast food giant, opened a McNuggets Land in the Metaverse, as a sort of virtual restaurant. The European Union is speeding up its efforts for the introduction of its digital currency – digital Euro. The Central bank of France conducted testing of the cross border payments, during the previous period, and concluded that a wholesale digital currency, created for use by business entities within the EU, will significantly improve cross border payments and settlement of transactions for various financial assets. Crypto market cap The celebration of Ripples' win over SEC has been short. During the previous week SEC Chair Gensler asked the US Government for additional funds in the amount of $72 million in order to fight the “Wild West” in the crypto industry. This move represents his determination to make crypto businesses comply with the current Securities laws in the US. There are still pending SEC lawsuits against several big players in the crypto industry, waiting for its court resolution. Although, on one side there are businesses who are arguing the lack of clear crypto regulation, there are still those, including SEC, arguing that the regulation exists and it just needs to be implemented among crypto participants. Instead of making an argument-deal between the SEC and the crypto industry, it seems that the regulation in the US will be determined by the court decisions. On the other hand, investors are also weightening potential Fed moves on July`s FOMC meeting which will be held in a week ahead. Those were the main reasons why the crypto market slowed down during the previous week. Total crypto market capitalization was modestly decreased by 1%, losing FWB:13B within a week. Major coins were the ones that were driving the crypto market cap to the downside. Daily trading volumes significantly dropped during the week to the level of FWB:49B on a daily basis, from $82B traded during the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year stands at 54%, where it has added a total $409B to the market cap. Major coins on the crypto market were slowing down, however, investors' interest is still on altcoins. Bitcoin lost $7.6B on a weekly basis or 1.3% and was followed by Ether, with a loss of 5B in market cap or 2.1%. Binance Coin also finished the week 2.6% lower from the week before or $1.65B. XRP continues to be positively impacted by the resolution of the Ripple – SEC dispute. The coin managed to add an additional 8.3% to its market cap during the week, increasing it for $3B. Several other coins had a very good week in relative terms. Stellar managed to gain 26% during the week, while Maker increased its market cap by 24% w/w. LINK was also in the group of significant gainers, adding almost 15% to its total capitalization. Within coins in circulation there had again been some interesting developments. BNB decreased its circulating coins by 1.3% on a weekly basis, which is something not frequently seen on the crypto market. At the same time, Algorand continues to increase its coins in circulation by 1.1% during the previous week. Solana had an increase in coins by 0.3% w/w, same as Stellar. Crypto futures market Crypto futures market was in a modest correction during the previous week, but most importantly, the prices are still holding above significant levels. BTC short term futures were traded lower by 1.3% on average, which is in line with the spot market. Longer term futures were lower by more than 6%. Futures maturing in December this year are still holding above FWB:31K , finishing the week at level of $31.115. At the same time, futures maturing in December 2024 were last traded at price $33.605 on CME, down from $35.8K traded a week before. ETH short term futures had a lower drop during the week than the spot market. These were traded around 1.5% lower from the week before. Longer term futures were traded around 6% lower from the week before, with December 2023 finishing the week at level of $1.942, while December 2024 ended the week at price of $2.064. On a positive side is that the price is still holding above $2K, which is a psychological level for ETH.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 17 – 23Last week in the news Aside from general developments on financial markets, the previous week was the winning one for Ripple and altcoins. The court ruled that XRP is not a security, which significantly boosted the price of this coin. The US equity markets were further boosted by the market expectations of the soft landing in the US economy. At the same time, the same expectation pushed the value of USD and Treasury yields to the downside. Bitcoin is ending the week relatively flat and modestly above $30K, while Ether is holding above $1.9K. Ripple Labs made a huge win in a lawsuit with SEC, as the court ruled out that in terms of the US Laws, XRP is not a security. Other rulings stress that sales on exchanges and sales by executives are not securities. However, there is a tricky part to a court decision. Namely, such outcome is based on a fact that during early 2020 investors were not able to fully understand the crypto, their price was just a little fraction of their current prices and regulators were only mildly interested in these digital assets. It was a huge win for XRP, but not for all investors in digital assets. Namely, the second part of the ruling suggests that institutional sales could not be treated as the offer and sale of investment contracts. This part of the court decision might have some impact on other SEC`s lawsuits against Binance, Coinbase or Gemini. Analysts are noting that the SEC might use these court conclusions against these companies, so it is still not time for a celebration. Positive investors sentiment was supported by the latest published figures on inflation. The Producer Price Index for June showed that inflation is slowing down at a higher pace as anticipated by the market. PPI for June was 0.1% and lower from 0.2% market estimation. Core PPI also rose by 0.1%. At the same time, released figures for the consumer price index for June showed an increase of 3% compared to the year before, which is its lowest level since March 2021. Such development is supporting investor’s opinion that FED might be at the end of its quantitative tightening period. The SEC filed a lawsuit against Coinbase for its staking products more than a month ago, while California, New Jersey, South Carolina and Wisconsin requested changes in Coinbase staking products. Coinbase strongly disapproves treatment of its staking products as securities, but will pause offering these products in mentioned states. Larry Fink, a CEO of the world largest asset manager BlackRock, talked again about crypto, after his company filed for the first spot BTC ETF a month ago. This time he noted his observation that there is increasing demand for crypto assets from those investors who previously preferred to invest in gold. He was also mentioning the role of the ETF`s in allowing easy access to gold, where BTC ETF might do the same thing. He also noted that their ETF will be “safe, sound and protected”. Luxury industry is just heating up for the NFT market. A famous fashion brand Gucci is preparing to release a digital NFT collection called “Future Frequencies: Explorations in Generative Art and Fashion”. The collection will be offered for a sale at auction house Christie's. Crypto market cap A week like the previous one is rarely seen on the crypto market. A lawsuit between SEC and Ripple Labs, which lasted since 2020 is finally resolved. There is a mixed sentiment as to who actually won the lawsuit, however, the most important part is that XRP is ruled not to be a security, as per current Securities Law in the US. This had a huge implication also for other altcoins on the market, for which the SEC recently claimed that they are securities. Market reaction was quite positive, where altcoins were leading the increase in total market capitalization during the previous week. BTC was left behind in this round. Total crypto market capitalization was increased by 4% during the week, adding FWB:44B to the market cap. Major coins on the market were participating with a modest 30% in this increase. Daily trading volumes remained elevated around $82B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year is 56%, where it has added a total $422B to the market cap. Bitcoin was not the one to lead the market during the previous week. The coin remained relatively flat, ending the week with a plus of only $2B or 0.36%. Absolute winner of the week was XRP who skyrocketed after the news about SEC dispute resolution with an additional $12B in value or 51% w/w. Other altcoins were following the XRP, but at lower levels. Among those coins were Solana, with an increase in market value of $2B or 26.7%, BNB added also more than $2B to its market cap, increasing it by more than 6%, DOGE, ADA and Polygon added more than $1B each to market cap, increasing it by 11%, 14% and 18.5% respectively. It should be mentioned that Stellar increased its value by 31% w/w, but in nominal terms this increase was below $1B. There were also coins which lost some of their value during the week, like Bitcoin Cash, which was down by 3%, Bitcoin Gold was down by 3.75%, Litecoin lost 3% in value, while Maker dropped by 5.5% w/w. As for coins in circulation, XRP increased its circulating coins by 0.6% w/w, Algorand continued with a strong push in circulating coins adding 1.8% during the previous week, while Tether gained 0.3% of new coins. Crypto futures market Previous week was a rare one where the crypto futures market was not fully aligned with the spot market, but certainly, there are quite positive developments. BTC short term futures were down by some 0.3% on average, however, long term futures gained significantly. In this sense, futures maturing in December this year were traded by more than 4% higher from the week before, ending the week at level of $33.105. At the same time, the price of futures maturing in December 2024 were traded almost 10% higher, with closing price at $35.840. More important developments occurred with ETH futures. Short term ones were traded by 2.5% higher from the week before. Futures maturing in December 2023 reached level above $2K for the first time since April, and were 8.6% higher from the previous week. On a positive side is also that futures maturing in December 2024 skipped the $2K level, ending the week at price of $2.187 and 9.4% higher from the previous week`s close. Such developments imply increased market sentiment for both coins, especially ETH, suggesting that the price of coins will reach higher grounds in the coming period.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 10 – 16Last week in the news The US equity market closed lower on Friday amid market expectations over further interest rates increase. At the same time, the crypto market ended the week modestly lower compared to the week before. Bitcoin is ending the week above $30K, while Ether is holding above support at $1.850. Whether it is just a seasonal effect, or the US jobs market is cooling down is about to be seen during the following months. Still, published data for June show that payrolls in the US increased by 209K which is far less from the market expectation of 240K. At the same time, the level of wages was up, as average hourly earnings in June were up by 0.4% m/m, which is 4.4% increase from the same period last year. This shows a bit of a mixed picture when the jobs market is in question, which increased market expectation that FED might bring rates higher in the coming month. According to the market poll, there is currently a 92% chance for rate increase at July`s FOMC meeting. In an interview with CNBC, Chicago FED President Austan Goolsbee noted his expectations that inflation can be brought back to target without a recession in the US. He stressed that the primary goal of the FED currently is to take inflation down to targeted 2% level with a “golden path” which does not include a recession. On the other hand, economists are convinced that such a pace of rate increases would certainly lead to at least modest recession in the coming months. Goolsbee`s recent notes are also not fully compliant with released June FOMC minutes. The Minutes revealed that some Fed officials are concerned over the possibility of a recession within next six months, followed by “moderately paced recovery”. During the previous week a lot of market and news attention was on the statement of the BlackRock`s CEO Larry Fink, who significantly changed his view on Bitcoin. Namely, in an interview he noted that Bitcoin could “revolutionize finance”, which is a significant shift in thinking from previous extreme skepticism toward the crypto coin. Analysts are noting that the initial idea behind the creation of Bitcoin was decentralization, where the middle-institution is not necessary, in which sense, they are arguing that BlackRock is entering the crypto area with wrong reasons. Just as a reminder, BlackRock recently filed with SEC for its first BTC ETF, still pending official conclusion. Problems for Binance exchanger continues to emerge. During the previous week, authorities in Australia demanded a copies of internal communication from both current and former employees of Binance. There is currently no official information what was the aim of these requests, or whether it is in connection to recent trials from US regulators, or raids within the EU of Binance exchanger. Crypto market cap The SEC issue over the question of what is and is not treated as a security in the crypto world is digested by the market, so now old issues emerge. Latest officially published job and earnings data in the US continue to send mixed signals, but due to an increase in wages in June, markets raised expectations of another rate hike in July. The sentiment has now increased to 92% for a rate increase at the FOMC meeting in July. Fed Chair Powell stressed potential two more rate increases till the end of this year, but it will take some time until monetary measures fully transmit into the economy. While economists are certain that there would be at least a modest recession, some Fed officials are stressing a possibility of no-recession. Total crypto market capitalization ended the previous week 2% lower from the week before, losing $24B in value. Daily trading volumes significantly decreased from the week before, trading around SGX:40B on a daily basis, from $94B a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year is 50%, where it has added a total $378B to the market cap. Although during the previous week the market was generally oriented toward the short term correction, not all coins lost in value. Major coins were leading the drop in total market capitalization. Both Bitcoin and Ether lost more than $7B in value, leading to drop in market cap of BTC by 1.20% and ETH by 3.1% on a weekly basis. Due to issues with regulators in the EU and Australia of Binance exchanger, BNB lost $1.6B in value or 4.2%. Other coins with significant drop in value during the week in relative terms were ZCash, with a drop of 18%, DASH was down by 12%, same as NEO. Ethereum Classic lost 10% in the market cap, while Bitcoin Cash decreased its cap by more than 8%. Among coins which finished the week in green were Solana, with an increase of 19.2% in value, Polygon was up by 1.6%, Filecoin increased its cap by 6.2% and Maker managed to finish the week 11% higher from previous one. As for coins in circulation, Algorand increased its circulating coins by 2.6%, while Solana`s coins were higher in number by 0.5% w/w. Crypto futures market There have been some interesting developments in the crypto futures market when ETH is in question. Regardless of developments on the spot market and previous inverted futures curve, during the previous week, short term ETH futures were down by more than 3%, while longer term futures were traded up between 1.4% and 3%. This situation is not so frequently seen with ETH futures. ETH futures maturing in December this year were traded higher by 1.42% w/w, finishing the week at level of $1.935. At the same time, ETH futures maturing in December next year were traded at level $1.999 which is 3% higher from the week before. This implies that the market is perceiving some positive developments with ETH in the future period and potential that the price might return to the level of $2K during the course of the next year. BTC short term futures were traded in line with the spot market, down by some 0.7% w/. Futures maturing in December this year ended the week at level of $31.790 or 1.7% higher from the week before. However, futures maturing in December next year were down by 0.97%, ending the week at level of $32.610.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 2 – 8Last week in the news Both EU and US markets finished the week in green, mostly driven by stocks from the tech industry. June was an extremely good month for the S & P 500, considering that it managed to gain 6.5% during the month, and 15.9% since the beginning of this year. The crypto market was relatively flat during the week, although with good performance of altcoins. BTC is ending the week below FWB:31K , while Ether is holding above $1.9K. Equity markets in the US continue to be supported by the tech industry. Nvidia is certainly one of currently most interesting companies for investors, however, the biggest news during the previous week was that Apple reached a market cap of $3 trillion, after its share price reached $190.73. Share price of Apple has increased around 49% since the start of this year. Fidelity investment fund followed the steps of the BlackRock and filed with the SEC for their own BTC ETF. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that SEC returned filings from CBOE and Nasdaq for BTC ETF as being “inadequate” and not sufficiently clear. The major concern of SEC with a BTC ETF is its structure, which needs to be sufficient in order to prevent potential fraudulent and manipulative actions. Spokesman of the CBOE noted that they are planning to update filings and submit them once again. Bitcoin reacted to this news, by modest return to the levels below $30,5K, waiting for positive news in order to bring the price to the higher grounds. The FED published the results of an annual stress test on banks. The aim of this stress test is to show how resilient are US banks to highly adverse stress scenarios. Stress test is conducted by 23 largest US banks, and included scenarios of unemployment rate surging to 10%, a 40% drop in prices of real estate and 38% decline in housing prices. As per results published by FED, banks were able to sustain a $541 billion in projected losses and still manage to sustain minimum required capital levels. As CoinDesk is reporting, Kraken has been ordered by the court to provide account information to the IRS for all users which transacted more than $20.000 for the last calendar year. As it has been noted, the aim of these data would be for the IRS to check whether users have filed their taxes properly. Bloomberg is reporting that Citigroup, one of the largest banks in the world, is in negotiations with Metaco and several other crypto custodians, in order to expand its business to the digital asset area. It is also interesting that Metaco was acquired by company Ripple, which has an ongoing lawsuit with SEC, over its offer of crypto tokens. Problems for Binance continue, as the market regulator in Belgium ordered Binance to stop offering its services in this country. As it has been noted, the European financial markets regulator, FSMA, stressed that Binance is offering its services to EU clients from countries other than the European Economic Area, which is a violation of the local regulation. Crypto market cap It is still a game of nerves on the crypto market when dealing with regulators is in question. BlackRock was the first one to start another round of filing for spot BTC ETF. Several companies followed the move, among which were Fidelity fund, CBOE and Nasdaq. Based on news from the previous week, SEC rejected CBOE`s and Nasdaq`s filings as “inadequate”. The major issue for SEC continues to be the structure of the product which might allow potential fraudulent and manipulative actions. CBOE officials noted that they will update filings and start another round of the process for gaining the approval for BTC ETF product. Initial market positive sentiment is currently on hold, until it is finally resolved with the latest round of filings for the first spot BTC ETF. On the other side, the market is still waiting for the resolution of the Deutsche bank filing with German regulators for the license to conduct a custody service for digital assets, including crypto currencies. During the previous week total crypto market capitalization stayed almost flat, with a modest increase of 1% or FWB:14B on a weekly basis. Interestingly, daily trading volumes were further increased to the level of $94B on a daily basis, from $80B during the previous week and $60B from two weeks ago. This is positive signal that investors are back on the crypto market. Total crypto market capitalization increased since the beginning of this year by 53%, where it has been added total $402B to the market cap. During the previous period, Bitcoin was a leader of the crypto market capitalization increase, however, during the previous week altcoins were the one in the spotlight of investors. BTC finished the week flat compared to the end of the previous week. But, the absolute gainer of the week was actually Bitcoin Cash, which gained an incredible 56% on a weekly basis, adding more than $2B to its market cap. ETH also finished the week in green, with an increase in cap of more than $4B or 1.8%, and was followed by Litecoin with a gain of $1.2B or 19% in the market cap. Binance Coin managed to recover some of previous losses, by increasing its value by 4.7% or $1.7B w/w. Few other coins with good weekly performance were Bitcoin Gold, with a surge of 18.8% in cap, Stellar was up by 18.6%, ZCash gained 19.5%, Uniswap was up by 16% and Maker returned to the crypto game with an surge in value by 24.2% on a weekly basis. There have been only a few losers during the week, like Algorand, with a drop in value of 7%, OMG Network was down by 13%, and XRP lost almost 3% in value. There has been increased activity when coins in circulation are in question. Stellar increased its circulating coins by 0.4%, Algorand gained a significant 1.8%, Filecoin was up by 0.2% same as Polkadot and Tether. Crypto futures market BTC futures gained significantly during the last few weeks, but the previous week was a sort of short-term halt, when both spot and futures markets were in question. BTC short term futures were down approximately 1.5% from the week before, while December 2023 is still holding above $31K. On the other side, futures with longer term maturity gained some 1.5%, which is positive for this coin. It shows that investors see some prospectus for BTC in the future period. Futures maturing in December 2024 were closed at price $32.930, which is 1.5% higher from previous week`s close at $32.425. Situation with ETH futures is opposite to developments with BTC futures. Those maturing in July and August this year were up by 1.25% and 1.45% respectively, however, all other maturities were traded lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year were traded 0.78% lower, finishing the week at a price of $1.908. At the same time, futures maturing in December next year were closed at price $1.940 and 1.12% lower from the week before. Spread between futures maturing in July this year and December next year is almost zero, which shows that investors are still not sure about future prospectus for this coin.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: June 25 – July 1Last week in the news The US equity market entered into a short reversal on Friday, after a strong push for the last two months. On the other side, the crypto market is back on its track, with more positive news coming from German largest bank, Deutsche bank. Bitcoin is back at $30K level, Ether is following the increased investors optimism, ending the week modestly below $1.9K. Fed Chair Powell held a speech to a Senate banking panel on Wednesday, touching several currently important topics. He noted that the US economy still holds strong, however, inflation pressures are persistent, in which sense, it could be expected that further rate hikes will occur by the end of the year. He perceives the jobs market still as tight, with some signals that the conditions are loosening. Still, in order to get inflation at a targeted 2%, the US economy would need to slow down, as per his comments. One of the questions imposed by the Senate members was related to de-dollarisation currently occurring in some parts of the world, to which Powell answered that US dollar as a reserve currency is very important to the FED, and he believes that US dollar would remain a world reserve currency also in the future period. One of the important questions for the crypto community was FED`s standing on the crypto currencies, with focus on stablecoins. Powell noted that the FED perceives stablecoins as a form of money and that the US should not allow private money creation. Mainstream companies are not ready to give up on Bitcoin. Considering the latest developments, they acted like “white knights” for the crypto industry. Two weeks ago, the crypto market stopped its downtrend after it was announced that BlackRock, a largest US asset manager, filed with SEC for its first BTC based ETF. During the previous week Deutsche bank, the largest bank in Germany, announced that the bank had applied to gain a license from local regulators to manage a custody service for digital assets, including crypto currencies. With this move, Deutsche bank is strategically moving toward building up its digital assets and custody business. Markets were more than thrilled with such positive news, and Bitcoin price ended the week swiftly reaching the level of $30K. At the State of Crypto Summit held in New York last week, a head of strategic partnership in BlackRock, Joseph Chalom, noted the importance of counterparty identification as a critical point in order for large institutions to involve in decentralized finance, or DeFi. Crypto analysts are now discussing potential BlackRock involvement in setting the mainstream for regulation of the crypto industry, considering the size of a company as well as its recent involvement into BTC ETF`s. News is reporting that one of the largest investment banks in the US, JPMorgan, is bringing its settlement of JPM Coin to the next level with expanding it to euro-denominated payments. With over $300 billion in conducted transactions over the last four years, the JPMorgan institutional clients will now be able to make settlements also in euros using the same blockchain technology. Crypto market cap It seems like a new dawn emerged on the crypto market, however, not for all coins. Last few weeks were quite critical, considering moves from the US SEC, aimed to get crypto companies to align with regulation, jeopardizing the whole crypto ecosystem. However, on a positive side was a comment from SEC Chair Gary Gansler, that not all coins on the market fall under securities, mentioning that there are only few which fall under the term of real crypto currencies, without mentioning which coins are in question. From two weeks ago, the market started to get a glimpse of what he meant with his statement, when the largest asset manager in the US, BlackRock, filed with the SEC for its first BTC exchange traded fund. During the previous week, the crypto market regained confidence when the largest German bank and important player on the world scene, Deutsche bank, applied with the German regulator for the license to conduct a custody service for digital assets, including crypto currencies. This news pushed the crypto market to the upside, gaining on the weekly level total $108B in market capitalization, increasing its cap by 10%. Daily trading volumes were increased to the level of $80B on a daily basis, from $60B traded the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year jumped to 51%, where it has added a total $388B to the market cap. Total crypto market capitalization gained $108B during the previous week, still, almost 90% of this amount belongs to Bitcoin and Ether. BTC was the winner of the week, by increasing its cap by $80B or 15.6%. Ether followed the up-path with a gain of $19B or almost 9% during the week. Other coins gained significantly but in relative terms. Bitcoin Cash was also in the spotlight of investors, as it managed to gain $1.5B or even 74% w/w, and was a winner of the week when it comes to percentage increase in value. Some other significant gainers were Ethereum Classic, with an increase in the market cap of almost 19%, OMG Network was up by a significant 37%, Litecoin, Link, NEO and Monero were up by more than 14% w/w. Binance Coin was in the group of rare losers of the week, as its value dropped by 4.2%, losing $1.6B in market cap. Surprisingly, Tether lost 0.4% of its coins in circulation, decreasing its market cap by this amount. Major changes in circulating coins relates to XRP, which gained 0.5% in circulating coins, while Polkadot`s and Filecoin`s coins were up by 0.3% Crypto futures market The optimism from the spot market was reflected also on the crypto futures market, however, not with equal expectations for BTC and ETH. Based on the long term price moves for ETH, it seems that investors are still reluctant to be more optimistic on the future prices of this coin. During the previous week, ETH short term futures were up by around 14% on average with futures maturing in December this year ending the week at level of $1.923. Longer term futures were up by more than 13%, where last trade for December 2024 futures was at price $1.962. Expectations of investors are mixed, but evidently, there is no strength to push longer term prices to the higher levels. The price difference between futures maturing in June this year and those maturing in December 2024 is only 39 points. As for BTC futures, the situation is a bit different. Short term futures were traded higher by more than 18% compared to the week before, with futures maturing in December this year ending the week at level of $31.185. Long term futures were traded more than 20% higher on the weekly basis, with December 2024 ending the week at level of $32.425. The market continues to make a significant difference on the price expectations between BTC and ETH.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: June 18 – 24Last week in the news Previous week was marked by the moves of central banks of both the US and EU. Fed made a short pause of further rate hikes, while ECB continued with a 25 bps increase. While EU equity markets were supported by the ECB decision, the US markets ended the week in red, after reaching new short-term highs during the week. On the other side, the BlackRock`s filing for first BTC backed ETF fund supported the crypto market as of the end of the week. BTC is finishing the week above $26K, ETH is holding above $1.7K. During the previous week, both FOMC and ECB meetings were held. As it was expected, the FED skipped to hike rates at June`s meeting, however, as per after-the-meeting statements, it is still not planned to halt further increases of interest rates, as two more are ahead. This pause will be used by FED officials to assess implications of current monetary measures. Two more rate increases would lead US benchmark interest rates to the level of 5.6% as of the end of this year. As Fed Chair Powell said, the full effect of current measures is still to be fully relieved in the future period. At the same time, their colleagues from the European Central bank continued raising rates by an additional 25 bps on Thursday. The rate increase is coming due to ECB`s expectations for headline inflation to be elevated during the course of this year at levels of 5.4% and 3% in 2024. The ECB also revised the expected growth rate for the EU for this year to the level of 0.9% and 1.5% in 2024. In her speech, ECB President Lagarde commented that the ECB is still not finished with rate hikes, indicating potential for another hike in July this year. Officially released data shows that the EU is in technical recession, where some economists think would be a limiting factor for ECB to continue further hakes from levels of 3.75%-4%. In a wake of disputes with the SEC, Binance is cutting jobs in order to prepare for the costly fight with the regulator, and also announced that the company will exit the Netherlands market. This decision is coming after Binance`s failure to obtain the license from Netherland`s authorities to conduct its business as a virtual asset service provider. In its official announcement, there has not been a comment over the cause why the Dutch regulator rejected Binance`s application. Still the company already obtained such licenses in France, Spain, Sweden, and several other EU countries. However, although Binance is claiming that the SEC`s allegations do not affect Binance`s businesses in other countries, still during the week the news hit the market that Binance`s office in Paris has been visited by the French police, investigating “money laundering”. As of the end of the week, the crypto market has been highly supported by the filing of the BlackRock, asset management company, for the first spot bitcoin ETF, where Coinbase will be its crypto custodian. Previous applications from other investment companies in the US for BTC ETF fund have been rejected by the SEC, so BlackRock`s filing would represent a sort of break-through on the market in case that it is approved by the SEC. Still, analysts are noting that BlackRock`s btc ETF fund is not the same as, for example, Grayscale`s ETF fund. The difference is coming from the structure of a trust which allows redemptions, so the fund will function like an ETF. On the other hand, GBTC did not have an option of redemptions. The crypto market gained significantly as of the end of the week, as this news was announced. Crypto market cap During the week the crypto market was trying to recover from the previous losses, but all investors' eyes were on the equity market, which gained strongly since the beginning of this year. Significant breakthrough was made at the end of the week, by the announced filling of the BlackRock, a largest asset manager in the US, for its first BTC ETF. This was the moment when markets regained positive sentiment, after the last two weeks of negative news related to the crypto industry and SEC`s allegations. Certainly, the recovery will be slow, but this move from BlackRock shows that investors are still not ready to give up on cryptos. Total market capitalization gained modestly from the week before, by adding total $27B to the market cap, which is a 3% increase. Daily trading volumes modestly eased to the level of $60B on a daily basis, from previous week`s $85B. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 37%, where it has been added total $280B to the market cap. It was a sort of mixed trading week on the crypto market, ending in a positive sentiment. Total crypto market capitalization has increased by 3% and was mostly driven by BTC in nominal terms. BTC gained $17.5B in its market capitalisation during the week, increasing it by 3.5% on a weekly level. ETH had a relatively modest week with a small loss of $1B in value or 0.5%. Regardless of all negative news, BNB managed to modestly recover from recent losses, adding $1.6B to its market cap, or 4.3% on a weekly basis. Altcoins with significant gain during the week in a relative terms were LINK, with gain of 10.4%, Uniswap surged by 13%, while Polygon, Algorand, Filecoin and Maker were up by 10% w/w. There has been an increase in circulating coins, where LINK managed to increase its coins by 4.1% and was the absolute winner of the week. Tether continues with an increase of its coins in circulation by 0.3%, while Filecoin added 0.4% w/w. Crypto futures market A relatively negative market sentiment was holding on the crypto futures market, regardless of the positive developments on the spot market as of the end of the week. BTC short term futures were holding relatively flat compared to the week before, still, the long term ones were traded more than 4% lower. BTC futures maturing as of the end of this year were traded at the price of $ 26.150, or 4.4% lower, while those maturing in December 2024 were down by 4.25% and were closed at price of $26.800. ETH futures experienced a higher drop from BTC futures, where short term ones were traded up to 10% lower on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year were down by 10.5%, finishing the week at price $1.689. Futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week at price $1.730, which was by 9.85% from previous week`s level of $1.919.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKET OVERVIEW 25.01.22Wild day for markets yesterday with Nasdaq erasing a 5% drop and finishing positive. Here's a couple of interesting facts about yesterday. The S&P 500 has recovered from an intraday loss of more than 4% only three times (since HLC data began in 1977): - Jan 24, 2022 (yesterday) - Oct 16, 2008 = down -4.63% and closed up 4.25% - Oct 23, 2008 = down -4.28% and closed up 1.26% Wild volatility like this tends to happen in a bear market, not a bull market. The only example of this kind of trading before today was in October 2008. That was the beginning of the market falling apart, it would go on to decline another 28% until March 2009. Also, $SPY traded over $100b worth of shares for only the second time ever. March 2020 was the other time - we all remember that month. Keep in mind that despite the huge reversal day we saw yesterday, NASDAQ net lows still outpaced net highs, which is a bearish indication. VIX is above 30 and Put/Call ratio is at its highest point since March 2020. Both indicators are showing fear in the market.
TVC:VIX
by teodorgun
Weekly Market Recap The past week had strong trends in currencies and metals across the board. As DXY broke down 94.50 long term support area and started gaining a downward momentum, all currencies received a boost against USD since the beginning of the week. Many trend setups emerged during the sharp move. European pairs benefited from the move the most, along with the JPY. GBP, EUR and CHF had the particularly smooth price action. Nothing holds the precious metals from rallying anymore. After choppy sideways of the last several weeks, gold broke out and offered beautiful trend setups with the intensive moves afterwards. Interestingly, gold and silver were breaking out, particularly around the beginning of the Asian session for three consecutive days. The week has ended with the beginning of the correction move in USD around another long-term support area around 93. I suspect the breakdown in oil caused it. In my opinion, next week we can expect some corrective bullish move in USD in the form of a ranging market or a bullish move. If USD keeps declining below 92.5, I would expect another momentum move and will look for bearish trend setups in USD related pairs.
OANDA:XAUUSD
by Cherry94
Market overviewBased on the positions I took last week and a few pairs that I am watching, I am sharing my thoughts with you in this video. Don't invest what you can't afford to lose. This is not investment advice. Subjective view/report of a financial product only. You can learn price action trading at no cost. Join my mailing list to receive more information zc.vg DISCLAIMER All information published within this website is purely for educational purposes and offers no guarantees. Profit Fx, Forex Bootcamp and any of its associates cannot be held responsible for any trades that you have executed in any way whatsoever. Please familiarize yourself with the relevant risks involved when trading forex, CFD’s and other products. Any trading is done solely at your own risk. Profit Fx, Forex Bootcamp and any of its associates are in no way employed by any broker or any other legal entity. All information published within this website does not constitute advice, but rather objective information about a financial product and analysis or report of a financial product.
OANDA:XAUUSD
by Cmasterza