Every major financial institution will be thinking about buying and selling crypto in the years to come, according to Vikram Pandit.
Bitcoin may face some selling pressure around $70,000, one trader said.
Bitmain is set to launch a new and more efficient Bitcoin miner, a source familiar with the matter told The Block.
The post Bitmain to launch new Bitcoin miner with a touted hash power of 150 TH/s appeared first on The Block.
Good morning, Here’s what’s happening:
- Market Moves: Bitcoin rose over the past 24 hours, and the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization experienced low volatility.
- Technician’s Take: Bitcoin is holding support at 60K, and slowing momentum suggests a period of consolidation.
- Watch CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.
Bitcoin (BTC): $62,877.06
Ether (ETH): 4,601.22
Market Moves:
Bitcoin continued to hover comfortably above $60,00. At the time of publication, it was $62,877.06, up 2.4% in the past 24 hours. The No. 1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization experienced low volatility over the weekend, as bitcoin’s trading volume was thin across centralized exchanges tracked by CoinDesk.
Ether, the second most valued cryptocurrency, also rose over the past 24 hours. However, the transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain are soaring. Data from BitInfoCharts shows that the average transaction fee on Ethereum was $41.5 on Saturday, nearly triple from three months ago. A few notable winners outside bitcoin in the past 24 hours were XRP (XRP), internet computer (ICP) and cosmos (ATOM). Among the biggest losers were solana (SOL) and shiba inu (SHIB). At the time of publication the price of 15 of the top 20 cryptocurrencies as listed by CoinDesk had gained.
The market’s main narrative has shifted to altcoins (alternative cryptocurrencies), as bitcoin’s market dominance continues to drop. Entering the week, tokens associated with layer 1 blockchains, including avalanche (AVAX) and solana, continue to grab the market’s attention as ether’s transaction fees surge.
Technician’s Take:
Bitcoin Faces Resistance Near $64K, Support Between $55K-$60K
Bitcoin (BTC) continues to trade in a tight range, although buyers appear to be holding support above $60,000. Short-term indicators are neutral, although pullbacks could be limited given a series of price breakouts over the past month.
If buyers fail to hold $60,000, lower support around the 50-day moving average, currently near $55,000, could stabilize a pullback.
After remaining flat on Friday, Bitcoin rose to nearly $63,000 at the time of publication of First Mover Asia, rising almost 4% over the weekend.
For now, upside momentum is slowing, which suggests a period of consolidation could persist in the short term. Eventually, indicators suggest momentum could improve to support a breakout in BTC above $65,000 based on positive historical returns in the fourth quarter.
Important Events
Be on the lookout for the following today:
- 05:00 UTC (01:00 p.m. Hong Kong):
-
- Japan Leading Economic Index (September)
- Japan Machine Tool Orders (October)
- 09:30 UTC (5:30 Hong Kong):
-
- Sentix Investor Confidence (Eurozone)
On CoinDesk TV
In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of “First Mover” on CoinDesk TV:
Circle CEO and Founder Jeremy Allaire on White House Stablecoin Report
“First Mover” hosts spoke with stablecoin USDC issuer Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire as the company faces increasing scrutiny from regulators amid the Biden Administration’s stablecoin report. Voyager Digital CEO Steve Ehrlich shared insights into the multi-year partnership signed with Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks. Plus, Blockchain Research Institute Co-founder and Executive Chairman Don Tapscott shared his take on big tech diving into the Metaverse.
Latest Headlines
House Sends Infrastructure Bill With Crypto Tax Provision to US President
Market Wrap: Bitcoin Could Break Out and Rise With Altcoins Next Week
Kazakhstan Passes Law to Monitor Crypto Services for Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing
A look at global currency, institutional trust, activist monetary policy and all that comes with it.
In one of the most iconic scenes in American TV history, Jan Brady complains to her parents about all the attention her sister receives. “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia … I’m tired of being in Marcia’s shadow all the time,” Jan whines to her mom on season 3, episode 10 of “The Brady Bunch” in 1971.
One could almost hear ether (ETH) kvetch in much the same manner about bitcoin (BTC).
After all, ether is up around 500% since Jan. 1 while bitcoin has only doubled in that time. Yet it’s bitcoin that is legal tender in one country and has several futures-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs). And then some.
While they are in the same asset class, comparing bitcoin to ether is tantamount to comparing apples to oranges for those with more than a cursory understanding of crypto. It turns out the derivatives markets agree about the difference in at least one subtle way: the relative volume of ether options to the spot market compared to that of bitcoin.
That matters because higher options volume relative to spot is a sign of a mature market and can help with price discovery.
To be sure, both ether and bitcoin have shown astounding growth in both their spot and options markets over the past year.
In October 2020, ether spot trades averaged roughly $93 million per day combined for seven major exchanges; a year later, that daily average was $1.6 billion, according to figures compiled by data provider Skew. Meanwhile, options daily volumes jumped to $335 million from a mere $23 million the previous year.
[The seven bitcoin and ether spot exchanges tracked in this piece were Bitstamp, Coinbase, FTX, Gemini, ItBit, Kraken and LMAX Digital. While exchanges such as Binance were not included, one can still get a sense of the relative size of each spot market.]
Bitcoin’s market was even bigger to start. The October daily spot volume average in 2020 was $395 million while the options market was $206 million. Fast forward 12 months later and it was $2.2 billion and $989 million, respectively.
Still, when it comes to growth, ether was the more impressive of the two. Its spot market grew roughly 16x in one year and its options market nearly 15x. Bitcoin’s numbers gained “just” 5.7x and 4.8x, respectively. That’s a dream for any other market but small potatoes compared to ether.
It’s all relative
Yet when looking at those numbers, the relative size of each currency’s options market to its spot market stood out.
Again, the spot data we looked at are just from a handful of the exchanges where the assets trade. However, these were some of the biggest exchanges in the world, and their data is generally reliable. Therefore, they were helpful in giving a sense of what’s happening in the markets.
Going back to mid-June 2020 to now, bitcoin options volumes averaged 45% of spot while it was just 20% for ether. That isn’t to say it stayed at that level.
Just eyeballing it, you’ll see that bitcoin’s options volumes relative to spot have stayed within a range of 30% and 50% since June. The market, of course, had a massive spike in options in April, where it nearly rivaled the spot market, even surpassing it on April 8. Ether’s options market appears to have more modest ranges, generally staying between 15% and 25% over the past five months or so.
For those who care, the standard deviation for bitcoin’s ratio was 17% while it was a tighter 5% for ether since June 2020.
Of course, we’re still in the early stages of the crypto derivatives market. One exchange, Deribit, has the lion’s share of both bitcoin and ether’s options trades. “It’s still nascent,” Luuk Strijers, the exchange’s chief commercial officer, told CoinDesk, adding his prediction that growth will be fast as the market is still maturing.
Stephen Ehrlich, CEO of brokerage Voyager Digital, concurs, saying that crypto options are similar to where equity options were two decades ago but will eventually catch up. “I think it’s just a matter of time,” he told CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” program on Friday. “As those products become more easily to obtain and to trade, you’ll see that volume grow. But we’re still a few years from that happening.”
And in that still-maturing market, it’s bitcoin which is the older sister. That brings us back to the Brady Bunch.
Growing pains
For those who haven’t memorized that episode, Jan hid Marcia’s trophies in the closet out of jealousy.
“Every time Marcia turns around, they hand her a blue ribbon or something,” Jan laments to her mother Carol. “All I hear all day long at school is how great Marcia is at this, or how wonderful Marcia did that.”
“Jan, you’re not in anybody’s shadow,” Carol consoles her second daughter. “Marcia’s three years older than you. She should have more to show for herself.”
Look, there’s a lot more to this episode, where Carol tells Jan to go out and do something special, and Jan writes some essay for a contest and brags about winning when she doesn’t and… That’s not the point.
The point is that bitcoin is Marcia here. It’s six years older than ether. It should have more to show for itself, including more options volume relative to its spot market than ether.
And all the other cryptocurrencies out there have their own thing going on, much like each of the Bradys – I’m not sure where Alice the housekeeper falls, but she may be XRP.
Eventually, they will mature. The oldest Brady kid is 67 and the youngest is now 60. That will happen in crypto and we can expect their options markets will grow, too. Just hope they don’t all do a three-part episode in Hawaii.
A reading of two Twitter threads that paint a very different picture of the world.
The daytime event felt like a pretext for the lavish after-parties.
What is Slot Auction ？ Slot Auction is a resource competition model unique to Polkadot. Polkadot is designed as a sharded network consisting of relay chains and parachains. The essence is that by letting the validator of the relay chain be responsible for verifying the blocks of the parachain, the shared security of the parachain […]
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Quick Take
- SDX, the digital asset exchange developed by SIX Group, will launch before the end of the year, according to a Swiss central banker.
- The Swiss National Bank itself has concluded yet more trials with CBDC, which could ultimately come to be used by SDX.
