The latest moves in crypto markets, in context By Jamie Crawley, CoinDesk news reporter Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. |
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Happy Friday! Here's what you need to know today in crypto: |
- Bitcoin regains $66,000.
- Ether may offer a surprise to the upside, says Coinbase.
- Fantom's FTM is one of the best performing tokens of the past week.
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CoinDesk 20 Index: 2,303 +1.8%
Bitcoin (BTC): $66,248 +0.1%
Ether (ETC): $3,031 +1.1%
S&P 500: 5,297.10 −0.2%
Gold: $2,392 +0.5%
Nikkei 225: $2,392 +0.5% |
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Bitcoin (BTC) rose to past $66,000 early Friday, reversing Thursday's pullback below $65,000. At the time of writing, it was priced around $66,440, 0.4% higher than 24 hours ago, while the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), which offers a measurement of the wider digital asset market, was up about 1.4%. Inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs turned positive again this week, recording additions for four consecutive days. This week has also seen numerous big-name institutional players disclose sizable BTC ETF holdings. Morgan Stanley, for example, revealed a $269.9 million investment in Grayscale's GBTC yesterday. |
Ether may have underperformed other major digital assets this year, but Coinbase says it had potential to surprise to the upside. Ether does not have significant sources of supply side overhangs, the exchange said in a research report this week. "To the contrary, both staking and layer 2 growth have proven to be meaningful and growing sinks of ETH Liquidity," wrote analyst David Han. "ETH's position as the center of DeFi is also unlikely to be displaced in our view due to the widespread adoption of the EVM and its layer 2 innovations." Coinbase also noted that the potential of spot U.S. ETH ETFs being approved cannot be overstated. The Fantom blockchain's FTM is one of the best-performing non-meme tokens of the past week as the market looks favorably on the roll-out of its Sonic upgrade and increases in the total value locked on the protocol. FTM has gained 13% in the past seven days to about 81 cents, according to CoinDesk Indices data, while the CD20 is just 1.5% higher. In the past few weeks, the Fantom Foundation has been pushing Sonic, its latest upgrade, which is expected to boost transaction speeds to 2,000 transactions per second with a 1.1-second finality. That compares with just over 2.5 TPS during the past month, on-chain data shows. |
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| Market Insight: Bitcoin Options Suggest Institutional Investors Are Wary of Near-Term Pullback |
Institutional investors may still be wary of a near-term pullback in bitcoin's price despite a rally earlier this week. CME's bitcoin options, often seen as a proxy for institutional sentiment, show investors are paying a premium for short-dated put options – contracts that offer protection against drop in price. Implied volatility for short-dated, out-of-the-money (OTM) put options was higher than implied volatility for OTM calls (which offer insurance against rallies) following Wednesday's softer-than-expected U.S. CPI release, according to CF Benchmarks. These options are based on CME's cash-settled standard bitcoin futures contract, which is sized at 5 BTC. "The higher implied volatility [demand] for OTM puts compared to calls suggests investors are still cautious about near-term downside risks and are willing to pay a premium for protective puts," CF Benchmarks said in a note shared with CoinDesk on Thursday. |
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- The chart shows bitcoin's "hodler net position change," which gauges the net buying/selling activity of addresses that have held coins for six months or more.
- The metric has flipped positive for the first time since December, a sign holders have become net buyers.
- Source: Glassnode
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Disclaimer: The information presented in this message is intended as a news item that provides a brief summary of various events and developments that affect, or that might in the future affect, the value of one or more of the cryptocurrencies described above. The information contained in this message, and any information liked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. The information presented herein is accurate only as of its date, and it was not prepared by a research analyst or other investment professional. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency before deciding to purchase or sell any such instruments. |
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