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 Wednesday! Here’s what you need to know today in crypto. |
Bitcoin returns to $61,000.Goldman Sachs holds positions in seven out of 11 of the U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs.Coinbase appears to be developing its own version of wBTC. |
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CoinDesk 20 Index: 1,961 +3.2% Bitcoin (BTC): $61,384 +4.4% Ether (ETC): $2,754 +4.3% S&P 500: 5,434.43 +1.7% Gold: $2,513 +1.9% Nikkei 225: 36,442.43 +0.58% |
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Meet ETHA, The iShares Ethereum Trust ETF. ETHA enables investors to access Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, within a traditional brokerage account.1Learn More 1 Source: The Block, as of May 21, 2024. Ethereum’s market capitalization, which stands at $450 billion is measured using its native token, ether. For an ETHA prospectus, click here iCRMH0824U/S-3782218 |
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Bitcoin topped $61,000, reversing some of its losses from the steep drop at the start of August. BTC has risen more than 4% in the last 24 hours, outperforming the broader crypto market, which has increased just over 2%, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index. Despite the gains, some trading funds remain cautious amid a busy week for data, warning of possible short-term tremors that could impede the rally. “Investors remain cautious ahead of US CPI this week,” crypto trading firm QCP Capital said in a Telegram broadcast. “They will closely watch inflation numbers for guidance on whether the Fed will cut rates by 50 or 25 bps in September. The odds are now evenly split.” |
Goldman Sachs holds positions in seven of the 11 U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs, totaling over $400 million. Its largest holding is BlackRock's IBIT at $238.6 million, followed by Fidelity's FBTC at $79.5 million, then $56.1 million of Invesco Galaxy's BTCO, according to its quarterly 13-F report. During CoinDesk's Consensus 2024 festival in Austin, Mathew McDermott, the bank's global head of digital assets, said the BTC ETFs were a "big psychological turning point" for the industry. "The bitcoin ETF obviously has been an astonishing success," McDermott said on stage. Goldman Sachs' digital asset desk is primarily focused on the digitization of assets. Coinbase appears to be developing a version of wBTC to run on its layer-2 blockchain Base. Speculation was sparked by cryptic posts from Coinbase late Tuesday U.S. time. The posts contained the wording: "cbBTC" and "Coming soon." They were followed by a post from Jesse Pollak, who runs Base, saying how the team plans to build a "massive bitcoin economy" on the network. Wrapping a crypto token is a way of making it available on protocols other than the one it was originally designed for, bringing increased liquidity to the target ecosystem. |
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Market Insight: BTC Miner Capitulation, Record High Hashrate Point to Possible Bottom |
Bitcoin miners are expanding their capacity again as network hashrate reached an all-time high this week following a capitulation event, on-chain analysis firm CryptoQuant shared in a report with CoinDesk. Network hashrate set a record of 627 exahash per second on Tuesday, recovering from the 8.5% decline in early July. The expansion comes despite a recent drop in bitcoin prices and record-low hash price – or the average revenue per amount of mining power – indicating positive sentiment among miners after a bout of selling in the past few months. Hashrate refers to the computational power used by miners to mint new bitcoin and verify new transactions on the Bitcoin network. Millions of calculations are solved each second to "win" new blocks, in a process broadly called mining. “We may have seen a miner capitulation event last week as miner outflows spiked after prices touched $49,000,” CryptoQuant said. “Bitcoin daily miner outflows spiked to 19K BTC on August 5, the highest level since March 18.” A miner capitulation event is typically seen near local bottoms for bitcoin prices during bull markets. |
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The chart shows bitcoin dominance – the percentage of the total crypto market that BTC accounts for – over the last 12 months.Its current level above 57% is the highest since March 2021.This reflects the positive tailwinds such as ETF approval and the halving event in the face of challenging market conditions.Source: TradingView |
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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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