Hi, I’m Jimmy He, here to take you through the day’s crypto market highlights and news.
Bitcoin was on the rise in Friday trading, even cracking $22,000 at one point early in the day before dipping to its previous day’s perch closer to $21,500.
The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was trading at about $21,800, roughly flat although more on the green side over the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin has enjoyed a rare up week so far, jumping over 14% since Monday, swept up in the same optimism that has carried equities higher this week amid encouraging signs the U.S. Federal Reserve will be undeterred in its battle with inflation. Bitcoin has risen for three consecutive days.
Still, the rally has done little to impress a number of analysts, who have yet to see evidence of a longer-term price surge that would carry bitcoin further beyond the current upper threshold in the low $20,000 range of the past month.
“Since the beginning of the month, BTC/USD has gained more than 17%, which looks like an impressive result but only at first glance,” FxPro senior market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich wrote in an email about the bitcoin/U.S. dollar pair. “The thing is, bitcoin was driven as low as possible by the end of June, and the current remarkable rise is just a recovery to the levels of three weeks ago.”
Kutpsikevich said that BTC is still below its 200-week average and its Friday morning sell-off indicates there is still “a significant supply overhang from sellers.”
Bitcoin is over 50% down from early 2022 levels and over 68% from its all-time high in November 2021.
Analysts at crypto exchange Bitfinex said on Friday that the S&P 500’s rally this week and rebounding tech stocks increased risk appetite, supporting BTC’s price despite a wave of recent liquidations and solvency issues in the crypto space.
“It will be interesting to see if a buoyant cryptocurrency market over the past 24 hours carries forward into more buying this month,” Bitfinex wrote to CoinDesk.
Most altcoins were recently higher on Friday, with Internet Computer’s ICP leading the charts, up 7% over the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was down 0.4% over the same period.
Latest prices
●Bitcoin (BTC): $21,800 +0.9%
●Ether (ETH): $1,238 +0.2%
●S&P 500 daily close: 3,899.38 −0.1%
●Gold: $1,741 per troy ounce +0.2%
●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 3.10% +0.09
Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices.
Trading volume spiked higher at Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, after its worldwide, zero trading fee policy went live on Friday morning. The zero trading fees for 13 crypto pairs began Friday at 14:00 UTC (10 a.m. ET). The move caused an explosion in trading at the exchange, with bitcoin/tether (USDT) spot volume surging to 320,000 coins within hours. The exchange hasn’t seen volume that high for even a full day since March 2020.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao attributed the surge to people trying to gain VIP tiers via high trading volumes. “We will exclude BTC trading from VIP calculations,” he tweeted. “Remove all incentives to wash trade. Announcement with details coming shortly.” A wash trade occurs when an investor buys and sells an asset for the purpose of artificially inflating the price. Read more here.
Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.
Read More:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Gains for Third Consecutive Day as Binance Launches Zero Trading Fees
