Despite edging higher on Monday morning in Asia, Bitcoin remained below the US$26,000 resistance mark, giving back most of the gains made the previous week as a result of a favourable court decision regarding Grayscale’s application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed, with XRP leading the victors and Dogecoin the losers. Ether also remained range-bound at roughly US$1,650. U.S. stock futures decreased slightly on Monday morning as Wall Street ended the week on a positive note because to a slowdown in the labour market, which allayed fears of further interest rate increases.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin increased 0.30% in the last day to US$25,958.25 as of 7:30 a.m. in Hong Kong and traded 0.46% lower for the week. On Friday, the top cryptocurrency in the world lost grip of the US$26,000 support level, and throughout the weekend, prices shifted slightly near that level.
Due to a court order requiring the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to consider asset management Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF application, Bitcoin temporarily achieved a weekly high of over US$28,000 last Tuesday. However, the gains were quickly lost after the SEC delayed all pending ETF applications on Thursday.
While investors may be paying attention to the Grayscale v. SEC developments, it appears that recent price movement is related to activity from the FTX wallets, raising concerns about a potential dump as some (or all) of these assets would be liquidated into fiat for costs, paying investors, according to Justin d’Anethan, head of Asia-Pacific business development at Belgian crypto market maker Keyrock.
Blockchain journalist Colin Wu highlighted data from Arkham Intelligence that showed approximately US$10 million worth of cryptocurrencies, including LINK, SUSHI, LUNA, and YFI, were moved to Ethereum addresses from August 31 to September 2 by a cold wallet operated out of Solana that belonged to the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
According to Markus Thielen, head of research & strategy at digital asset service platform Matrixport, both Bitcoin and Ether prices are below their respective 50-day moving averages of US$28,299 and US$1,789, indicating price bearishness.
According to CoinMarketCap data, the top stablecoin in the world, USDT, has lost $1 billion in market cap over the previous month and has routinely traded below the 1:1 peg with US dollars.
“On August 8, $400 million was transferred from USDT to BTC, which is when the drop in (USDT) market cap was first linked to it. When the price of bitcoin dropped on August 18, however, it seemed like an additional $500 million had been redeemed. Liquidity leaving the ecosystem is never good, according to Thielen.
Ether increased by 0.17% to $1,635.19 and fell 1.27% during the previous seven days.
Over the past 24 hours, the majority of the top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded in a range and didn’t move more than 1%. The exception was XRP, which led the winners by rising 1.07% on the previous day to US$0.5048, but kept its weekly decline of 3.46%.
Dogecoin was the worst performer, losing 0.62% in the last day to US$0.06315 and remaining unchanged over the previous seven days.
The Tonne network’s native token, Toncoin, increased 23.86% during the previous week as a result of the network’s August 22 introduction of its new Tact smart contract programming language.
The layer-1 blockchain known as TONNE, or “The Open Network,” was created by messaging service provider Telegram before it withdrew from the project in 2020. On August 10, TONNE released the beta of TONNE Space, a cryptocurrency wallet service that was built right inside the Telegram client.
According to John Stefanidis, CEO and co-founder of blockchain infrastructure organisation Balthazar DAO, with 700 million users, Telegram “presents a substantial opportunity for the distribution and onboarding of new users into the Toncoin ecosystem.”
The messaging service company Telegram established the layer-1 blockchain known as TONNE, or “The Open Network,” before it withdrew from the project in 2020. The beta version of TONNE Space, a cryptocurrency wallet service that was integrated directly into the Telegram client, was published on August 10 by the company.
With 700 million users, John Stefanidis, CEO and co-founder of blockchain infrastructure company Balthazar DAO, claims that Telegram “presents a substantial opportunity for the distribution and onboarding of new users into the Toncoin ecosystem.”
The Labour Department said on Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate increased to 3.8% in August, the highest level since February 2022, which may allay worries about additional increases in interest rates in the country.
The U.S. August jobs report “increases the probability that the highly data-dependent Fed will not hike again in this cycle” due to the uptick in the unemployment rate, moderate job gains and wage growth, as well as an increase in labour force participation, tweeted Mohamed A. El-Erian, an adviser to the German financial services company Allianz, on Friday.
Raphael Bostic, president of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, said on Thursday that “inflation is conclusively on track towards 2% over a reasonable time frame” and that the Fed’s monetary policy “is already restrictive enough to get us there,” adding to the upbeat outlook for the U.S. central bank’s fight against inflation.
The Federal Reserve increased its interest rate in July to a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, the highest level in 22 years. Following the July meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell stated that the institution would use “data-dependent” reasoning when determining how to bring the nation’s annual inflation rate below its long-term target of 2%.
The probability that the Fed would hold the current rate at its next meeting on September 20 is predicted by the CME FedWatch Tool to be 93%, up from 88% on Friday.
The S&P’s August U.S. services purchasing manager index (PMI) will be released on Wednesday, and a number of Fed officials will be speaking on Thursday.
According to Reuters on Monday, China’s Shanghai Composite Index saw its largest weekly gains in more than a month last Friday as the nation increased the policy supports for its sluggish post-Covid economic recovery. In an effort to stabilise the nation’s shaky real estate market, China’s leading banks are opening the way for additional interest rate reductions in addition to easing home purchase restrictions.