MARKETS week ahead: May 14 – 20Last week in the news
The US debt ceiling was in the focus of the markets and news during the previous week. A potential default of the US government to meet some of its obligations would have serious consequences on the US economy, and the rest of the world. At the same time, the US equities were closed lower on Friday, following weaker than expected consumer confidence data. The crypto market was also traded at lower grounds, with Bitcoin ending the week at level of $26.8K, while Ether is holding above $1.8K.
During the previous week, the G-7 meeting of most developed countries in the world was held. Aside from globally elevated inflation, one of the main topics was the potential of the US to default on some of its obligations in the coming period, in case that debt ceiling is not increased. The US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, noted in her statement, that we are just weeks away from the first US-debt default, but she is hopeful that some solution for this situation would eventually emerge. At the same time, the White House and congressional leaders meeting, scheduled for Friday, was postponed. The main topic of this meeting should have been the debt ceiling. The Congressional Budget Office said on Friday that increased revenues from taxes collected in June would most probably help the US Government not to default in June, but they were unable to say the same for July.
The US equity markets fell on Friday, after reporting weaker than expected consumer sentiment results. The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment fell to the level of 57.7, which is the lowest level of this indicator for the last six months. Adding to it the news about potential US debt default, it increased markets fears over forthcoming recession in the US.
Binance, one of the largest crypto exchanges, announced that the company will cease operations in Canada, amid a “challenging” regulatory environment. The company tweeted that “new guidance related to stablecoins and investor limits” in Canada are not anymore “tenable” for this exchanger. The main issue with these new regulations is that purchase or deposits in stablecoins would require prior CSA`s approval, which requires taught due-diligence checks.
The Ethereum network experienced an outage on Thursday, when transactions could not be confirmed for 25 minutes. There was a high risk for users of the chain to be altered due to this malfunction. Although developers are investigating the cause of this outage, still, no official information has been provided.
Coindesk is reporting that House Democrats are considering issuing a bill on stablecoins, which seems to differ from the one that Republicans are in process of drafting. The Democrats are of the opinion that the Federal Reserve should have a power of veto when it comes to the registration of stablecoins and that special attention should be paid on protection of consumers.
Crypto market cap
The crypto market continued with a correction trend during the previous week. Although there is a lot of doubt among investors over potential US debt default and decreased consumer sentiment, which supports fears over potential recession in the coming period, still, at this moment there is actually nothing which could support the crypto market. The pull-out of bank deposits decreased during the last few weeks, and obviously, at this moment, these deposits are not ending in the crypto market. Charts were pointing to this correction, so the market needs to exhaust itself, before it starts a new round to the upside. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by 6% or FWB:70B during the previous week. Around 80% of this drop was led by the major coins on the crypto market. Total crypto market capitalization continues to hold modestly above $1 trillion. Daily trading volumes were also down, from $72B a two weeks before to $56B on daily basis during the previous week. This might be a positive indicator that the market is slowly drying the latest move to the downside. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year modestly dropped to 44%, where it has added a total $330B to the market cap.
A drop in crypto market cap during the previous week was led by major coins on the market. BTC, ETH and BNB participate with 80% in a market cap drop of $70B. BTC, the major coin lost around 7.5% in market cap, erasing $42B from its value. ETH followed with a lower drop of 4% on a weekly basis or more than $9B. BNB also took a downside, with a drop in value of 4.5% or $2.3B. XRP was another coin with a drop in value above $1B, where it has lost $1.7B or 7.5% on a weekly basis. It was interesting that Polygon was also among coins with a large drop in value in nominal terms, since it lost $1.2B or 13.6% in the market cap. This is not usually seen in nominal terms. Coins with some of the largest drops in relative terms were OMG Network, with a drop in value of 28.5% w/w, Filecoin was down by 15%, EOS decreased its value by 12% and DASH by almost 12%. The only coin which gained during the week was Tether, which increased value of circulating coins by 0.9%. There has been also developments with increased number of circulating coins of Ether by 2.1% w/w.
Crypto futures market
Developments from the spot market were also reflected on the prices of the crypto futures. BTC short term futures were closed at Friday`s trading at prices which were lower by 11% from the end of the previous week. At the same time, lower drop was with longer-term futures, which were down by more than 7% w/w. The price of futures maturing in December this year was closed at FWB:27K , while those maturing in December next year were closed at $28.3K.
ETH short term futures were trading by almost 11% lower from the week before, while longer ones were down by almost 5% w/w. ETH futures maturing in December 2023 were closed on Friday at price of $1.807, while those maturing a year later were closed at price of $1.858.
