Bitcoin steady at US$28,500; Dogecoin leads market decline in Asia

Bitcoin steady at US$28,500; Dogecoin leads market decline in Asia

Time Stamp: August 17, 2023 10:38 AM
Source Node: 2827846
Bitcoin prices hovered around US$28,500 on Thursday afternoon in Asia. Dogecoin led the drop in all other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Despite growing institutional interest in digital currencies globally, the cryptocurrency market remains subdued. 

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ETF momentum can’t reverse Bitcoin’s slide

Bitcoin dipped 1.97% to US$28,584 in 24 hours to 4 p.m. in Hong Kong, bringing its weekly losses to 3.06%, according to CoinMarketCap data . The world’s biggest cryptocurrency’s market cap fell 2.04% to US$555.2 billion as its trading volume increased 21.81% in the past 24 hours.

All other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies were down with Dogecoin leading the losers.

“It’s almost refreshing to see volatility pick up in crypto markets,” said Justin d’Anethan, head of Asia-Pacific business development at Belgium-based crypto market maker Keyrock.

“While some might look for causes specific to crypto like the news of Binance delisting a series of trading pairs… or maybe Coinbase shares in a continuing downtrend, my suspicion is that the decline is macro driven. With bond prices down and rates up, investors will see most risk assets falling, as is certainly the case for equity indexes, gold and, yes, crypto,” he added.

The declines in cryptocurrency prices come despite their continued adoption at the institutional level in the United States, Europe and elsewhere in the world. 

On Wednesday, asset management firm Valkyrie filed an application with the SEC for an Ethereum futures exchange-traded fund (ETF), called the Valkyrie Ethereum Strategy ETF. Coinbase Global — the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S. — announced on Wednesday that it has received approval from the National Futures Association to offer crypto futures to U.S. investors. 

These developments come in the same week that Europe’s first spot Bitcoin ETF was launched on Euronext Amsterdam under the name Jacobi FT Wilshere Bitcoin ETF. 

Many U.S. asset managers are still awaiting SEC approval to launch several spot Bitcoin ETF, including BlackRock . The SEC was expected to announce its decision on Ark Investment’s spot Bitcoin ETF application on Aug. 13 but the agency said it will solicit public comment on the ETF proposal, thereby pushing back the deadline.

“I believe that the growing momentum to launch more cryptocurrency-related financial products reflects the growing interest and confidence in the importance of this technology to institutional investors, whether as a payment settlement method or as a trustworthy investment asset,” Samer Hasn, market analyst at multi-asset broking firm XS.com, said in an emailed statement.

“However, the concerns of lawmakers and regulatory hurdles will continue to hinder the launch of more of these financial products, as the crisis of confidence continues between cryptocurrency developers, legislators, and law enforcement authorities around the world,” Hasn added.

The total crypto market capitalization fell 1.83% to US$1.14 trillion, while market volume rose 11.22% to US$35.66 billion. 

Small-cap NFTs fuel sales surge

The indexes are proxy measures of the performance of the global NFT market. They are managed by CryptoSlam , a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.

The Forkast 500 NFT index dropped 0.63% to 2,454.32 in 24 hours to 6.30 p.m. in Hong Kong, bringing its weekly losses to 1.23%. Forkast’s Ethereum, Solana and Polygon indexes all logged losses in the past 24 hours. 

At the same time, NFT sales volume rose 4.42% to US$15.64 million, according to data from CryptoSlam. NFT transactions gained 10.77% while the number of buyers jumped 7%.

“Most metrics in the NFT market are up today, including sales volume, buyers and total transactions… The NFT space is in the midst of having a shift in its identity, moving to high volume, low dollar sales, and this is exactly what will eventually lead NFTs to mass adoption,” said Yehudah Petscher, NFT strategist at Forkast Labs. 

“Traders are very active right now, and if average sales prices had not fallen to a three-year low to just US$20, we would probably be seeing some massive sales figures today that mirror the bull market,” Petscher added. 

Ethereum-based DeGods topped CryptoSlam’s sales rankings among NFT collections across all blockchains, gaining 59.53% to US$1.51 million in the past 24 hours while its number of unique buyers surged nearly to 46%. 

DeGods recently launched its “Season 3” collection update, but received a poor response. 

“Holders are selling and driving down the price of the NFTs after the poor Season III launch, and a single collector named Machi has been on a buying and selling spree,” Petscher explained. Machi has bought 400 DeGods. 

“Two large NFT funds have reached out to Machi asking to buy 200 of his DeGods each in an attempt to bring some stability to the collection’s prices. This type of activity is very putting off for new traders who are trying to value NFTs, but can’t due to manipulation like this,” Petscher said.

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