A bitcoin rally past $28.5K
DOGE was down and so were the jobs. But Bitcoin wasn’t.
The largest cryptocurrency by market value recently traded at $28,622, up 2.6% as investors eyed a welcome dip in the heated labor market, but also cautious about the future after weeks of uncertainty in the banking sector.
Trading and volatility were low. On Monday, BTC had slipped below the $28,000 mark, which it had largely surpassed for the past two weeks, following rumors that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was facing a request from international law enforcement to arrest him to arrest. (Binance denied the rumor in an email to The Block.)
“Bitcoin is hovering at the top end of its recent range as crypto traders wait and see how it will benefit from the current banking crisis,” Edward Moya said, although he also noted that “the Bitcoin bear case” is growing.
Ether spent the day outperforming BTC, changing hands above $1,900 for the first time since last August. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market value rose 5.5% from Monday at the same time.
Other major cryptos were mostly in the green, albeit in lighter shades. Layer 2 platform Polygon token MATIC and Solana blockchain token SOL recently surged 5.2% and 3.8%, respectively. Popular meme coin DOGE fell 0.7%. The drop came a day after its dramatic surge, when Elon Musk’s Twitter replaced the social media platform’s familiar blue bird logo on its homepage with the cryptocurrency’s iconic Shiba Inu dog. DOGE is up 21% week-to-date.
The CoinDesk Market Index, a measure of the overall performance of crypto markets, recently rose more than 3%.
US stock markets fell slightly, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq and S&P 500 both down about half a percentage point. But gold — the traditional safe haven asset — surged above $2,000 to hit its highest level since last March after the US Department of Labor’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report showed the number of job vacancies rose for the first time had fallen below 10 million for almost two years and a day later another report showed that orders for durable goods were easing. Signs of economic slowdown combined with persistent inflation concerns have created a supportive environment for more conservative assets that have historically held their value through good times and bad.
“A flagging economy continues to drive safe-haven flows toward gold,” Oanda’s Moya wrote. “The JOLTS report supports the view that the economy is steadily heading into recession.”
He added that investors should monitor Bitcoin’s price towards the end of a Good Friday-shortened work week, and the Labor Department is releasing figures on non-farm payrolls. “Bitcoin had a key price barrier at the $30,000 level and if Friday’s NFP report shocks to the downside, we could see high-frequency trading systems and algos trying to capture any momentum opportunities,” Moya wrote.
Jason Pagoulatos talks about Binance and Bitcoin
Even crypto exchange giant Binance can’t outpace bad news, crypto research firm Delphi Digital’s head of markets said in an interview with CoinDesk TV on Tuesday.
Jason Pagoulatos linked Binance’s dramatic market share loss over the past two weeks to recent regulatory entanglements in the US and beyond.
“I would definitely say that these rumors that Binance is in trouble with global regulators were a pretty big contributor to the drop in market share,” Pagoulatos said.
Binance remains the top exchange by trading volume, but its market share has fallen from around 70% to 54% since the last few weeks of March. Sure, the dip came as the exchange suspended its fee-free trading promotion for 13 bitcoin spot trading pairs. Binance saw its lowest Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume since July 2022 on March 27.
But the exchange also lost ground after the US Commodity Futures Futures Trading Commission sued the exchange and its founder Changpeng Zhao for allegedly offering unregistered crypto derivatives products in the US in violation of federal laws.
On Monday, Binance suffered another blow when a rumor surfaced that Zhao was facing a request from international law enforcement to arrest him, dubbed the Interpol Red Notice. Binance Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann wrote on Twitter: “One of two things is true: 1. It’s bullsh-t; 2. A law enforcement officer illegally discloses elements of a case file.” He added, “My bet is #1.”
Pagoulatos saw BTC’s decline Monday following the rumor as a flight to safety. “When people trade bitcoin, they will trade on places like Binance, Coinbase, Bybit,” he said. “And if there are rumors that, for example, the CEO of the largest exchange is a wanted fugitive, people will obviously withdraw their money, sell their bitcoin and want to get rid of it as soon as possible.”
Bitcoin has more recently recovered above the $28,000 level, where it has stood for much of the past two weeks. Pagoulatos wondered about his future path. “We had this significant rally from 20km all the way up to 28km,” he said. “And like 28,000 to 30,000 is a big range of meaning. It’s sort of where Bitcoin was trading before last year’s collapse of Three Arrows Capital — that huge hedge fund liquidation event — so that’s going to be a tough place for Bitcoin to go through.”
He added: “It will be interesting to see where bitcoin goes from here. Will it trade more in line with risky assets? Or will it trade more in line with what gold is doing?”
Canadian crypto exchanges WonderFi, Coinsquare and CoinSmart have announced plans to merge, creating one of the world’s largest crypto trading platforms. O’Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O’Leary, along with WonderFi President and interim CEO Dean Skurka, attended “First Mover” to discuss. Also, Joshua Frank, co-founder and CEO of The Tie, commented on dogecoin hopping after Twitter replaced its blue bird logo with the token’s dog. And FTX believer Sunil Kavuri shared his thoughts on the future of the failed crypto exchange.
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