Bitcoin was lower, tracking what appears to be a new range between roughly $11,200 and $11,700. It’s a step up from levels that prevailed over most of September, between $10,100 and $11,000. “As the bulls push for a return to a $12,000 handle, resistance will be found just below, at $11,900,” Matt Blom, head of sales and trading for the cryptocurrency exchange owner Diginex, wrote in a daily newsletter. In traditional markets, US stock futures rose on fresh optimism that lawmakers might reach agreement on a new federal stimulus package. Gold strengthened. Happening Monday: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to […]
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Bitcoin (BTC) fell 2% Friday, the most in three weeks, after the market was spooked by the announcement that the cryptocurrency exchange OKEx had suspended withdrawals because founder Mingxing “Star” Xu was reportedly taken into police custody. The executive is the holder of a private key needed to authorize withdrawals, and that became impossible since he was out of touch, the exchange wrote in a notice published early Friday morning. Officials with OKEx, which is based in Malta but led by Chinese executives, said the issue involved a personal matter, not the exchange, and shouldn’t affect ongoing business. Traders said the price impact might be short-lived. “I don’t think this […]
Payments company Square’s announcement that it would put some $50 million, or 1% of its assets, into bitcoin has touched off speculation that more corporations might do the same. Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO who also helms Square, is a longtime bitcoin bull, so it wasn’t a huge surprise his company would put some of its corporate liquidity into the cryptocurrency. He’s following the path of MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who has invested at least $425 million of the company’s assets in bitcoin. None other than Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, tweeted a question: “Who’s going to be the […]
A slowdown in cryptocurrency trading on so-called decentralized exchanges has helped to alleviate congestion on the Ethereum blockchain, at least temporarily mitigating concerns the network was becoming overloaded. The trading lull comes as prices tumble for many of the hottest tokens from the fast-growing arena of decentralized finance, or DeFi. SushiSwap’s SUSHI token, one of this year’s splashiest debuts , fell by 77% in the past 30 days, while DeFi lender Compound’s COMP tokens lost 37%. On Uniswap, the biggest decentralized exchange, or DEX, daily trading volumes have crashed to $224 million, versus a record high of $954 million on Sept. 1. “Low volatility in the crypto market […]
Chinese tech companies were once seen as copycats of their Western peers: Alibaba was a knockoff of eBay and Baidu imitated Google. More recently, Chinese firms like TikTok and Huawei have established such dominant international positions that U.S. authorities have tried to hold them back. Now, the technological arms race is playing out in the cryptocurrency industry, where one Chinese company is taking on Ethereum, the world’s second-largest blockchain, which U.S.-based developers have used to build semi-automated trading and lending networks under the rubric of decentralized finance, or DeFi. Neo took aim at DeFi in late September with its launch of […]
A growing number of economists and analysts – and even the Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs – have speculated this year that the U.S. dollar might be on the cusp of losing its status as the dominant reserve currency for central banks around the world. That possibility has helped to support this year’s 50% increase in prices for bitcoin, seen by many cryptocurrency investors as a hedge against a dollar devaluation. But CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reported Tuesday that, according to one prominent foreign-exchange analyst, the dollar’s value could decline significantly even if the U.S. currency keeps its majority share of global […]
One is a Grammy Award-winning musician with lots of spare time. Another is a software engineer with nowhere to go during the pandemic. There’s also an editor for a data site and a fund manager who invests in digital assets. What these people have in common is an obscure side gig known as “yield farming,” a type of cryptocurrency trading and investing that didn’t really even exist until 2020. Yield farming is producing fixed-income-like returns that can, at least for brief stretches, provide annualized interest rates equivalent to percentages investors cannot find anywhere else. As documented in First Mover over the […]
A lot of crypto investors like to think of bitcoin as a bet on higher inflation, or as a futuristic hedge on some imagined economic-armageddon scenario – Gold 2.0, as they say. Lately, it’s looking more like Gold 2x: As bitcoin heads into the final months of 2020, the largest cryptocurrency’s 2020 investment returns are twice those of the yellow metal. Bitcoin gained 50% in the nine months through September versus gold’s 25%, during a year when a global pandemic ravaged economies and prompted central banks to print trillions of dollars. Many investors, while acknowledging that recessions are usually deflationary, say the extra flood […]
That was the story in cryptocurrency markets in September as prices tumbled for digital tokens from “decentralized finance” (DeFi), the fast-evolving arena of blockchain-based lending and trading platforms. Chainlink, which supplies data feeds to DeFi systems, saw its LINK token fall 42% month to date, the worst return among digital assets in the CoinDesk 20. The DeFi market correction came at a time when traditional markets also were hit hard by growing anxiety over the increasingly contentious U.S. presidential elections in November and resurgent coronavirus cases in the U.S. and Europe, according to Anil Lulla, co-founder of the cryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital. It […]
It might be part of every job in crypto to anticipate and react to fast-moving developments that seemingly change the industry’s direction overnight. And apparently not even Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the high-profile leader of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is immune to the industry’s capricious shifts. In a video interview with CoinDesk’s Muyao Shen, Zhao acknowledged that the emerging blockchain sector of decentralized finance, known as DeFi, could eventually upend the business that Binance has grown to dominate: running a centralized cryptocurrency exchange. “Our mission is not to build a CeFi exchange,” Zhao said in the interview, using a shorthand term for […]
There’s a degree of transparency in cryptocurrencies that doesn’t exist in traditional markets like stocks and bonds: Thanks to data that’s easily extracted from blockchains, everyone can see everyone else moving their money around. That means traders can keep an eye on exchange wallets to gauge whether investors and crypto miners are getting their bitcoin into position for a possible sale — or taking balances down from the exchanges in anticipation of holding for the longer term. The latter might be what’s happening now, CoinDesk’s Muyao Shen reported Monday. Total balances of bitcoin on major exchanges has hit its lowest levels since […]
Compared with the traditional financial system, the cryptocurrency industry is evolving fast. Technologists are experimenting with the vast-reaching potential of blockchain. And regulation is typically immature, inconsistent and unevenly applied across international borders, allowing entrepreneurs to move fast and break things, as it were. But there’s also no shortage of competition. The latest example comes from CoinDesk’s Ian Allison, who reported Thursday that Tron, the three-year-old blockchain headed by Justin Sun (the crypto executive who paid $4.5 million to have a meal with Warren Buffett), has entered into a strategic alliance with custody specialist BitGo to accommodate wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) tokens. Wrapped bitcoin is a […]
The upcoming U.S. presidential election has become one of the most contentious in history, fraught with searing divisions over everything from the economy to race to the continued health of democracy itself. So it’s not surprising that Wall Street options traders are now pricing in expectations of elevated market volatility around the November election. Analysts for the investment banking giant Goldman Sachs noted earlier this month that price swings of nearly 3% are implied around election day in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks. What’s surprising is that options trading on notoriously volatile bitcoin prices, which often trade in sync with stocks, […]
In seeking to explain Monday’s sell-off across traditional markets and cryptocurrencies, the digital-asset firm QCP Capital rattled off a list of seven major market events that occurred in Septembers past, from the 1929 stock-market crash to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. There might be some deep human connection with the fall equinox — when the days turn shorter than nights in the northern hemisphere and summer turns to fall, according to the firm. “The human nervous system typically undergoes major measurable perturbations” during this period, QCP wrote Monday in its daily market update. The outlook is cloudy but there’s a risk of a steep […]
It’s pretty much guaranteed at this point that higher inflation is coming. The Federal Reserve, which has already printed about $3 trillion of new money this year, is now explicitly devoted to reducing the dollar’s purchasing power in a bid to revive the economy. Higher inflation also typically happens when a country gets laden with debt and interest rates are cut to zero, as is now the case in the U.S. “We’re at a moment where you may see some inflation,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said last week. The trend could be good for bitcoin, which many crypto investors believe […]
Earlier this week, analysts with the cryptocurrency analysis firm Arcane Research were musing that new developments appeared to have slowed in the fast-growing blockchain arena of decentralized finance, known as DeFi. But they predicted any lull was likely to be temporary. “A new boost for DeFi tokens could be right around the corner,” Arcane wrote Tuesday in a report. “The sector seems determined to grow further.” As if on cue, the decentralized exchange Uniswap late Wednesday made a surprise delivery of its new governance tokens to anyone who had ever used the project. Traders each got at least 400 of the UNI tokens, worth about $1,200 – […]
Blockchain-based lending and trading systems known as “decentralized finance,” or DeFi, have dominated recent cryptocurrency-market headlines, with collateral locked into the semi-automated platforms surging 10-fold this year to more than $9 billion. DeFi trading platforms like Uniswap, Curve and Balancer have appealed to cryptocurrency traders with their low cost and ease of use, and they’re now starting to steal a growing and no-longer-negligible share of market trading volumes from bigger, established exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Huobi and OKEx. These “centralized” exchanges — the term is sometimes tossed around with a sneer — are rolling out new business initiatives they describe as decentralized, in an apparent bid to cash in on the trend and stanch a further […]
One of the interesting things about cryptocurrency investors is that they really do look at the world very differently from many of their counterparts in traditional finance. The thinking goes something like this: The efforts of governments and central banks to repair the economy are doomed to fail, and likely to make the situation worse. There is no point in moving to a defensive investment strategy, because prices for digital assets are going to the moon. Every time the stock market goes up, it just validates the reality that the dollar is being debased by trillions of dollars of central-bank money printing. […]
This column has written in recent weeks about the surprising possibility that cryptocurrency markets might have become the new home for capitalism, in an environment where central banks and governments are intervening deeply in markets while picking corporate winners via emergency aid. If anything, the ridiculousness of the recent weeks’ saga involving the deliciously named startup protocol SushiSwap shows that not only are market signals alive and well in digital assets, but competition is, too. While from the outside these markets may seem like a den of rampant speculation, the innovative mania now taking place in the fast-growing arena of decentralized finance , known as DeFi, is providing a test of […]
Bitcoin was rising for a second straight day, to about $10,281, after a rapid sell-off earlier in the week. “In a flash, investors have gone from running for the hills to buying the dip,” Mati Greenspan, founder of the cryptocurrency and foreign-exchange analysis firm Quantum Economics, told clients in an email. The crypto investment firm Stack Funds wrote in a weekly report that prices appear to have found a temporary floor around $10,000. Taimur Baig, chief economist for Singapore’s DBS bank, told CoinDesk that the pandemic and the associated central-bank money-printing have strengthened the case for bitcoin. “People are worried about […]
You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team and edited by Bradley Keoun, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. Price Point Bitcoin was down early Tuesday, barely holding above the important psychological threshold of $10,000. Prices for the cryptocurrency, up 40% year-to-date, have held above $10,000 for more than six weeks. The digital-asset firm Diginex wrote in a newsletter post that “prices will need to […]
You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team and edited by Bradley Keoun, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. HOLIDAY NOTICE: First Mover will publish next on Tuesday, Sept. 8. Happy Labor Day to our U.S. readers. Price Point Bitcoin (BTC) was up in early trading to $10,500, rebounding after Thursday’s 11% tumble, the biggest single-day decline since March. The sell-off, which took prices as […]
You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team and edited by Bradley Keoun, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. Price Point Bitcoin was down early Thursday to about $11,250, extending Wednesday’s sell-off and falling to its lowest price since early August. [Update: At press time prices had slumped further to around $10,850.] The cryptocurrency tumbled 4.4% on Wednesday, the most in a month, […]
You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team and edited by Bradley Keoun, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. Price Point Bitcoin (BTC) was up 2.2% early Tuesday, starting off September on a strong note after an anemic performance last month. The dollar dropped to a two-year low against major trading partners’ currencies. The largest cryptocurrency climbed 2.6% in August, underperforming the 25% gain […]
Price point Bitcoin was rising along with gold and U.S. stock futures early Friday as traders reacted to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s plan to let inflation run hot in coming years as the economy heals from the coronavirus-induced recession. The largest cryptocurrency, seen by some investors as a hedge against inflation, changed hands around $11,451, staying in the range between $10,900 and $12,400, where it has been stuck since late July. In Asian markets, the Japanese yen jumped on haven buying after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has pursued inflation-boosting policies, said he would resign due to an illness. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily […]
Market moves The explosive growth of decentralized finance, or DeFi, on the Ethereum blockchain has brought unwanted attention to the recent surge in congestion on the network, with a resulting jump in transaction fees. There’s another consequence for crypto traders: Rising volatility in prices for ether, the blockchain’s native cryptocurrency. That’s especially true when ether’s volatility is compared with that of bitcoin. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team and edited by Bradley Keoun, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context […]
Price point Bitcoin was up slightly at about $11,776 early Monday, rising along with European equities, stock futures, gold, copper and oil amid optimism over a coronavirus vaccine and treatments. The dollar weakened. The largest cryptocurrency is coming off a 2.2% decline in the seven days through Aug. 23, breaking a four-week string of gains. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you […]
Price Point Bitcoin was slightly lower early Friday, leaving the cryptocurrency on track for its first weekly price decline since mid-July. The largest cryptocurrency broke above $12,000 earlier in the week and failed to hold the gains, though John Willock, CEO of crypto asset manager Tritum, told CoinDesk Thursday that “maybe we’ve got $13,500 in the next phase up in the coming days.” You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. […]
Price Point Bitcoin traded slightly higher early Thursday at $11,772 after falling for two straight days. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has declined 1.3% this week as the U.S. dollar strengthened in foreign exchange markets. The greenback gained support Wednesday as the Federal Reserve said it wasn’t immediately planning to implement a “yield curve control” program that probably would have brought an accelerated pace of money printing. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in […]
Price Point It’s been two steps forward, one step back for bitcoin (BTC) over the past couple months. Prices were down early Wednesday for a second straight day after pushing earlier this week past $12,000 to a new 2020 high. The price move accelerated as traders got hit with margin calls on the BitMEX exchange. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have […]
Price Point Bitcoin was mostly subdued over the weekend, staying in its recent range between $11,000 and $12,000. Ether, trading around $430, is looking to extend a run of four straight weeks of gains during which prices have nearly doubled. In traditional markets, U.S. equity futures and European stocks advanced, after China’s central bank pumped about $100 billion into the country’s banking system. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and […]
Bitcoin climbed above $12,000 early Monday, before dipping once more, as traders weighed U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to provide emergency aid amid new signs that the labor market recovery is stalling. The oldest and largest cryptocurrency is up 63% on the year. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. Trump announced a series of executive […]
Ethereum’s biggest-ever upgrade is supposed to make the blockchain network faster and more efficient. But the new “staking” system could lock up so many of the network’s native ether tokens that investors who want to trade them may have to rely on derivatives markets. The blockchain, the world’s second-biggest, currently uses a validating mechanism similar to larger Bitcoin’s known as “proof-of-work,” where new data blocks and transactions are confirmed via power-hungry computers solving complex cryptographic puzzles. Under Ethereum’s multi-year upgrade now underway, the network would shift to a “proof-of-stake” model, where investors validate transactions by staking ether on the blockchain in […]
The Federal Reserve appears ready to pursue yet another untested strategy that could ultimately boost inflation – and possibly prices for bitcoin. The Fed is “preparing to effectively abandon its strategy of pre-emptively lifting interest rates to head off higher inflation,” according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal. The shift signals an explicit willingness by the central bank to tolerate higher inflation, at a time when the spreading coronavirus continues to ravage the economy. The U.S. unemployment rate stands at 11%, a level not witnessed since the early 1940s until this year. The Fed’s extra loosening of monetary policy could help support prices for bitcoin, which many cryptocurrency investors speculate […]
Crypto traders didn’t need to work too hard to make money last month. They just had to be in the market. Every digital asset in the CoinDesk 20 ended the month in the black. Bitcoin benefited from bets against the U.S. dollar while ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, gained from speculation over the future of “decentralized finance,” known as DeFi. Source: CoinDesk/Coin Metrics Bitcoin rose 24% during the month, its best July in eight years, and was changing hands as of late Sunday at around $11,100 – even after a flash crash earlier in the day that saw the […]
After a two-day closed-door meeting this week, the Federal Reserve issued a six-paragraph statement on Wednesday and held an hour-long press conference. None of that was news, of course, and neither was anything else emanating from the U.S. central bank, which announced no policy changes. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. But here’s what […]
Bitcoin has at last broken convincingly above the all-important $10,000 mark, but why has it struggled so much in recent months when gold has soared to an all-time high? Earlier this year, digital-asset investors were aflutter over the trillions of dollars of central-bank money injections in response to the coronavirus-induced global recession. The bet was that the flood of liquidity would eventually lead to inflation, in turn driving up prices for both gold, historically seen as a hedge against currency debasement, and bitcoin, sometimes referred to as “digital gold” or “Gold 2.0” due to its scarce supply. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s […]
The stock market isn’t usually considered an ally of cryptocurrencies, but with the big U.S. exchange Coinbase now rumored to be considering a share listing, some digital-asset industry insiders say a move toward more public ownership could accelerate mainstream adoption. By becoming publicly traded, cryptocurrency-focused companies could appeal to investors in the $35 trillion U.S. stock market. Back-of-the-envelope math shows that just a 1% allocation into crypto stocks could mean $350 billion of new investments for companies in the space. Compare that with the $287 billion total market value of digital-asset markets, and suddenly there’s a lot more capital going into the industry, even if it’s not […]
One of the things crypto traders like about bitcoin is that it’s resistant to inflation, potentially serving as a hedge against the trillions of dollars of money that central banks have printed this year to address the coronavirus-inflicted economic collapse. But what if a cryptocurrency were designed to produce its own inflation – as a good thing? You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so […]
In the race to become the dominant cryptocurrency platform, Ethereum is gaining on Bitcoin. Take a look at the market capitalization of ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain. Currently, the value stands at about $26 billion. But that figure doesn’t include all of the digital assets built atop the Ethereum blockchain, including some of this year’s hottest tokens: stablecoins like tether and USDC and altcoins like Crypto.com’s CRO, Chainlink’s LINK, Compound’s COMP and Kyber’s KNC. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never […]
Even as bitcoin prices languish below $10,000, North American cryptocurrency mining companies are tapping into a flurry of fresh financing from investors to pay for new equipment upgrades, bolstering the blockchain network’s resilience and reducing its reliance on Chinese operators. More than $1 billion of new bitcoin-mining computers will be purchased for North American bitcoin mining in the next two years, several people familiar with the industry told CoinDesk. That’s about five times the publicly traded mining-equipment maker Canaan’s revenue for all of 2019. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your […]
Cryptocurrency traders yawned at one of the year’s biggest news stories for bitcoin, with prices barely budging as the digital-asset industry became a primary victim of this week’s massive hack on Twitter accounts. The notoriously volatile bitcoin slid just 0.8% to about $9,100 on Thursday after slipping a meager 0.7% on Wednesday as the news hit. That’s in a market where it’s not uncomon, at least until recently, for prices to swing 8% in a day. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of […]
There’s one thing that all investors like: doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling their money. How about a 12-fold increase? That’s what traders have reaped this year from the decentralized lender Aave’s LEND token, up about 1,200% on a year-to-date basis. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. Other tokens from the realm of decentralized finance, known […]
In cryptocurrency markets, newfangled “decentralized exchanges” like Kyber are piddling compared with more-established and centralized venues like Binance. But in the eyes of traders, it’s the upstarts who are winning lately – at least based on the year-to-date performance of digital tokens affiliated with the various exchanges. Take Kyber Network Crystal (KNC), which is used to pay trading fees on the decentralized exchange Kyber. The token’s price has surged eight-fold in 2020. That compares with a 21% gain for Binance Coin (BNB), which customers of the exchange can use to pay trading fees, at a discounted rate. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily […]
Bitcoin’s notorious volatility has practically disappeared during the most-recent phase of the coronavirus-induced economic crisis – and that’s now taking a toll on trading volumes at cryptocurrency exchanges around the world. For more than two months, bitcoin has stayed in a range between roughly $8,500 and $10,200, an astonishing stretch of stability for an asset whose price rose 13-fold in 2017, tumbled 73% in 2018 and then jumped 94% last year. It’s up 29% so far in 2020, after wild gyrations earlier in the year that have mostly faded since late April. The largest cryptocurrency changed hands Tuesday at $9,257, down […]
Bitcoiners, already rocked by this year’s coronavirus-inflicted turbulence, face a fresh source of volatility as the market heads into the second half of 2020: the U.S. presidential elections. According to Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest lender, a reelection victory by President Donald Trump could threaten the U.S. dollar’s century-long reign as the world’s de facto reserve currency. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t […]
Bitcoin has traded in an ever-tightening range for two months, and digital-market analysts say a new wave of coronavirus cases and emergency measures could provoke the largest cryptocurrency by market cap out of the doldrums. The backdrop is an anemic economy, with the International Monetary Fund projecting last week that global output will shrink 4.9% this year: worse than its April forecast for 3% contraction. Confirmed deaths from the coronavirus passed half a million on Sunday, and authorities from China to the U.S. states of Florida and Texas enacted new restrictions to curb rising caseloads. The World Health Organization has also warned that the worst is yet to come. […]
Since the end of 2017, the assumed trajectory was that well-heeled financial institutions would take the reins from retail investors, becoming the main driving force and primary investor class in crypto. But a report out last week from derivatives exchange ZUBR argues that retail investors are not just here to stay, they could end up absorbing more than half of bitcoin’s daily fresh supply in as little as four years. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting […]
In the cryptocurrency markets, no two exchanges are alike. Even in major crypto exchanges, trading U.S. dollars for bitcoin can have fairly different order sizes and spreads, according to data compiled by aggregator CryptoCompare. Average order sizes over the past week were quite varied, CryptoCompare found. Orders on Bitstamp averaged $3,424.11, the highest of major dollar to bitcoin (USD/BTC) pair exchanges. ItBit was second to Bitstamp at $2,874.17, with Kraken at $2787.68. Gemini’s average was in the middle of the pack at $1,438.31, followed by Coinbase at $1,113.15. Bitfinex was lowest, with an average order totaling $342.09. The average order of […]
The speculative fervor surrounding the autonomous lender Compound’s new digital token rose another notch Thursday as its already relatively lofty price more than doubled in 24 hours. The rapid ascent of the COMP “governance” token comes as something a surprise given it was released just Monday and is still only trading on a handful of lesser cryptocurrency exchanges. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so […]
As Ethereum pushes slowly toward a new type of blockchain technology that some cryptocurrency experts predict could represent the future of decentralized finance, the upstart competitor Cardano is getting ready to go live. And Cardano’s digital token, ADA, is soaring this year in digital-asset markets on speculation that the project’s early embrace of a “proof-of-stake” blockchain might put it in a stronger position to challenge the much-larger Ethereum network. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context […]
In a redux of trading from the early days of the coronavirus crisis in March, bitcoin tumbled Thursday in tandem with a sell-off on Wall Street – rekindling an ongoing debate over the cryptocurrency’s use as a store of value. Prices for bitcoin fell 6.37% to about $9,100, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of large U.S. stocks lost 5.7%. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and […]
Even idle speculation that mysterious bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto might be moving around a small batch of the cryptocurrency appeared sufficient to spook the market on Wednesday. Bitcoin slid 2.3% on the day, retreating after a four-day rally and pushing the price down to about $9,500. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe here. But earlier in the […]
Bitcoin’s rally last week as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks floundered served to underscore just how different the conversations are right now in digital asset markets and traditional finance. As high-profile investors including Stanley Druckenmiller and David Tepper were warning of looming bankruptcies, overvalued stocks and the increasingly distant chances of a rapid economic recovery, bitcoiners celebrated the cryptocurrency’s third halving and held spirited discussions on the future of money during a virtual New York Blockchain Week. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, […]
Bitcoin is rallying again, and some analysts are looking at a potential driver of even higher prices: new data showing that mining pools are hanging onto the cryptocurrency rather than sending it to exchanges for a quick sale. But as with a lot of bitcoin analysis, the interpretation isn’t always clear-cut; the data might be seen differently as a sign of a weak market. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing […]
After bitcoin’s much-hyped halving failed to generate a price rally, crypto traders are already turning to a new bullish investment thesis: the possibility the Federal Reserve might cut its benchmark interest rate below zero. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a televised interview Wednesday that negative rates are “not something that we’re looking at.” The remark disappointed U.S. stock traders who were hoping for an easier monetary stance, helping to send the Standard & Poor’s 500 down by 1.7% to a three-week low. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date […]
Checking CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, you’d be forgiven for not seeing evidence that one of the largest events in the cryptocurrency industry’s history had taken place fewer than 48 hours ago. Wizened crypto greybeards (a status that really only takes about four years of experience in fast-moving digital-asset markets) were less surprised by the lack of price action in response to bitcoin’s third halving: The prior two halvings were similarly dull. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in […]
With fewer than four days left till bitcoin’s halving, popular interest in the once-every-four-years event is reaching a fever pitch. Google Trends, a barometer for gauging interest in trending search topics, shows searches for “halving” or “bitcoin halving” at five times the peak in 2016, when the blockchain underwent its previous halving event. You’re reading First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You can subscribe […]