MARKETS week ahead: December 11 – 17Last week in the news
The strong resilience of the US economy continues to support market optimism, after the latest posted US jobs data for November. The USD gained during the week as well as both US and EU equities. While Gold is trying to get back into correlation with USD, US Treasury yields continued with a decline. The crypto market continues to be supported by both the resilience of the US economy and the BTC ETF frenzy, with Bitcoin reaching new highs for this year, below $45K.
The US non-farm payrolls rose by 199K in November, modestly better from market forecast. At the same time, the unemployment rate fell down to 3.7%, from 3.9% posted for October. The job market continues to be resilient to macroeconomic developments. November figures came as a surprise to analysts, but eventually some of them call it a “relief” as it shows that despite strong rate increases during the past year, the US economy managed to sustain jobs and businesses.
The European Union is aiming to regulate AI technology and products like ChatGPT. There has been a lot of discussion during the previous months, related to data privacy on platforms like ChatGPT or biometric models. At the same time, Italy, France and Germany are opposing tight regulating rules, especially for foundation models, stressing the concern that it might impact their competitiveness with the Chinese and the US tech industry.
The Binance exchanger has withdrawn their license for the investment license in Abu Dhabi. The company has noted that such a move is not related to recent legal settlements with US regulators, but they find it “unnecessary for the company’s global needs”.
A global regulator of the financial industry, the Basel Committee, is looking at risks that stablecoins pose for financial security, aiming to bring up regulations which will decrease identified risks. This regulation should address bank`s exposures to the crypto industry and mitigate potential risks of defaults like recently Silvergate Bank and Silicon Valley Bank.
El Salvador, the first state that made Bitcoin a legal tender, is going further with its state experiment with crypto currencies. The recently started project called “Freedom VISA” aims to attract 1.000 people on a yearly basis, which will gain El Salvador long-term residency permit, based on a minimum $1 million investment worth of bitcoin or USDT stablecoin. The country is estimated to receive at least $1 billion of cash inflow every year through this program.
Crypto market cap
The positive mood on financial markets continued through December, promising a very happy forthcoming New Year holidays. The latest published jobs figures for November this year supported further market optimism over the resilience of the US economy. Both EU and US stock markets reacted in a positive manner, boosting also further the crypto market, which is in addition, still moving within a sentiment over its further adoption by the mainstream. Analysts and investors are currently moving away from the US Fed rhetoric and pricing their view on the course of the economy in the future period. Total crypto market capitalization was increased by significant $179B, with an increase of 12.6% on a weekly basis. Daily trading volumes have also significantly increased to the level of $121B on a daily basis, which is a further boost from $ 67B traded the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 112%, where it has added a total $840B to the market cap.
Total crypto market significantly gained during the previous week, with the majority of coins finishing the week in green. In nominal terms, Bitcoin was once again star of the week, adding 13.8% to its market cap, or almost $105B. The second place belongs to Ether, with a surge in value of 12.6%, adding $ 32B to its market cap on a weekly basis. As a significant gainer should be mentioned Cardano (ADA) with a surge in value of $8.2B or 60.2%. This was a reflection of Cardano`s Robinhood listing in the EU. Solana was also in the spotlight of the market with a gain of $6.3B in market cap or more than 24%, which was supported by the successful network upgrade. DOGE gained $2.5B, increasing its cap by 21%, BNB also gained $ 2B which surged its value by 6%. Polkadot was also a $ 2B gainer of the week, adding more than 24% to its value. Majority of other altcoins gained significantly during the week, where especially should be mentioned Algorand, with an incredible surge in cap by 52.5%. There is still no official news what exactly was standing behind such a move.
Activity in circulating coins remains relatively high during the last couple of weeks. The highest changes during the week were with Tether, which added 0.9% of new tokens, Stellar increased the number of circulating coins by 0.4%, while Filecoin traditionally continued with a surge in coins on the market, adding 0.6% during the previous week. The only negative change was with Polkadot, which decreased its coins by 3.7% on a weekly basis.
Crypto futures market
In line with the spot market, the crypto futures market made its significant move during the previous week. This market is also providing some important inputs over the sentiment of investors on the crypto market.
BTC both short and long term futures were higher by more than 14% on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year reached the last price of $45.030. At the same time those maturing in December 2024 reached the price of $49.040, which is the first time within the last year that those futures finished the week around the level close to $50K resistance. Still, it should be noted that prices of futures maturing in March 2025 reached $47.760, which is a bit lower from December 2024.
Similar situation was with ETH futures. Short term ones were traded higher by around 11% on average. December 2023 ended the week at a price of $2.397, while December 2024 was last traded at $2.490. It should be also noted that March 2025 ended the week at $2.525 indicating current investors positive sentiment regarding future ETH price.
