Friday morning in Asia, prices fell for Bitcoin, Ether, and the majority of the top ten non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has recovered the majority of the gains made following the favourable U.S. court decision for Grayscale Investments on Tuesday in its Bitcoin ETF dispute against the SEC. It is currently trading a little above US$26,000. Following a mixed day on Thursday, equity futures in the United States showed little movement. As consumers kept spending, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index increased. Investors anticipate that today’s August U.S. payroll report will provide further insight into future interest rate policy.
Cryptos fall as the SEC postpones additional ETF rulings.
As of 7:00 a.m. in Hong Kong, Bitcoin had decreased 4.42% over the last 24 hours to US$26,042.84. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the token is down 0.26% for the week.
Following the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s announcement on Thursday that it will postpone seven spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund applications until October, the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies decreased. BlackRock, WisdomTree, and VanEck, three of the biggest asset managers in the world, are among those awaiting the SEC’s approval of ETFs.
Benjamin Stani, director of business development at Hong Kong-based digital asset broker Matrixport, texted, “The move is very clear; the pump we had from Grayscale-SEC news is now faded.”
According to Stani, the market “was hoping that after Grayscale, there [would be] a path forward and had some analysts upping the probability of a spot ETF approval before the year-end—but it looks like not so soon.”
Over the last 24 hours, Ether fell 3.15% to US$1,648.76, representing a weekly loss of 0.33%.
Rachael Lucas, a technical analyst for cryptocurrencies at BTC Markets, texted Forkast, “The current technical signals for Ethereum appear to be going through a period of mixed trends across different time frames.”
As per statistics from the Ether market, the token is on course to form a so-called “death cross—a development often viewed with caution by market participants,” Lucas added. The cross, which happens when the short-term average drops below the long-term trend, typically indicates that there will be further losses in the future. According to TradingView, the 50-day short-term average is currently at 1808.3, and the 200-day average is at 1802.9.
According to Lucas, Ether has entered negative territory within a weekly timeframe, which could result in a brief pullback. As the cryptocurrency industry can be characterised by quick price changes, Lucas said it’s important to take these fluctuations into account in the context of broader market trends.
With Solana’s SOL leading the losers, the majority of the other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptos experienced losses. It fell 5.07% to US$19.81, marking the lowest point in more than six weeks. Clockwork, a smart contract automation network with a Solana, California, base, shut down on Monday. Nick Garfield, the project’s originator, claimed there was “limited commercial upside” to the endeavour.
The main reason we are leaving at this time is the opportunity cost.
We admit that the protocol’s continued development has limited commercial potential, but we are becoming more personally interested in looking into other possibilities.
A class action lawsuit brought against five businesses, including decentralised trading platform Uniswap Labs, has been dismissed by a U.S. court in the meantime. Plaintiffs claimed they were entitled to compensation because they were the victims of a rugpull involving scam tokens on the Uniswap cryptocurrency market.
The defendants are not accountable for those losses, the court ruled. The identities of the scam token issuers are essentially unknown and unknowable because of the decentralised structure of the protocol, according to presiding judge Katherine Polk Failla.
Crypto analysts saw the decision as a triumph for decentralised finance with broad ramifications for the sector.
According to Samer Hasn, market analyst for online brokerage XS.com, “I think what happened in the case against Uniswap Labs could be the first steps in clarifying the legal and regulatory environment for DeFi applications and could make investors’ concerns about unforeseen lawsuits and regulatory actions less and more predictable.”
The inability to regulate and enforce the legislation over these applications, Hasn continued, “on the other hand, may restrict investors’ confidence in these applications if other similar potential measures are taken in the future.”
While trading volume increased by 16.61% to US$37.31 billion, the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies decreased by 3.46% to US$1.05 trillion.
After a day of varied performance for the three primary stock indexes during regular trading hours on Thursday, U.S. stock futures showed minimal fluctuations as of 10:15 a.m. in Hong Kong.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index for July, which was released on Thursday, revealed that U.S. consumer spending increased by the largest margin in six months. Other economic indicators, Conversely, these indicators suggest a potential downturn in the economy, leading experts to predict that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cease its interest rate hikes in September.
Nigel Green, the founder and CEO of financial management firm deVere, has highlighted the significance of monitoring the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) metric. He pointed out that earlier in the week, investors found encouragement in the underwhelming payrolls data and the annual gross domestic product growth forecast. Both of these factors strongly argue that the Federal Reserve should halt its exceptionally aggressive tightening measures, which have been in place for decades.
The Federal Reserve increased its interest rate in July to a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, the highest level in 22 years. The probability that the central bank would retain the present rate at the next meeting in September is predicted to be 88.0% by the CME FedWatch Tool, up from 81.0% a week ago.
Investors are now anticipating Friday’s release of the August jobs report for the United States, which will likely confirm the labour market downturn from the previous month.
According to Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Chicago-based outplacement company Challenger, Grey & Christmas, “job openings are declining, and American workers are more reluctant to leave their positions right now. He also mentioned that the market is seeing a reset following the post-coronavirus hiring boom.
The major Asian equity indexes were fluctuating in the meantime. South Korea’s Kospi, Japan’s Nikkei 225, and China’s SSE Composite all increased, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index decreased.
In an effort to stimulate the nation’s sluggish property market, China decreased the minimum down payment requirement for homebuyers in its major cities on Thursday. Starting on September 25, the minimum down payment requirement across the country will be 20% for first-time purchasers and 30% for repeat buyers.
After the collapse of the Evergrande Group, China’s real estate market is in crisis. The nation’s purchasing managers’ index for non-manufacturing, which was announced on Thursday, fell to a yearly low. As traders examine a downturn in the second-largest economy in the world, the news has increased caution in the market for global equities.
According to Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Washington-based Centre for a New American Security, “the conventional wisdom seems to be shifting from a concern with the unstoppable rise of Chinese power to a worry about the irrevocable decline of China’s economy and population.”
