Tag: Bitcoin Markets

Market Wrap: Crypto Market Cap Breaks $1.5T as Buyers Show Up for the Dip

by Coindesk

Bitcoin has fully pared losses from Sunday’s dip as the leading cryptocurrency fell from around $48,600 to below $46,000 early Monday morning. As of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), bitcoin was trading above $48,600 on Coinbase. But the leading cryptocurrency still has yet to trade above the psychologically significant $50,000 mark. 

Much of bitcoin’s choppy price action and its recent dip could be attributed to futures deleveraging. Eager bulls piled into long trades expecting a swift breakout to $50,000 or higher. Funding rates for perpetual bitcoin futures have steadily increased through February, according to market data collected by Skew, with some funding rates reaching their highest levels in the past 12 months. 

Confirming this market condition, bitcoin futures saw over $520 million in liquidated contracts over the past 24 hours, according to data from Bybit. The eager buyback after these liquidations hints at the market’s resilient bullishness after resetting over-eager bullish futures traders. 

High positive funding rates signal an increase in long positions, whereas negative rates indicate a more bearish sentiment. The market tends to reset when traders, especially in overcrowded derivatives positions, become overly bearish or bullish. 

Even though some traders may be dissatisfied by the choppy price action, other market participants are enjoying themselves. Bitcoin miners, for example, hauled in a record $354 million in revenue last week, passing the previous record of $340 million set in mid December 2017. Network fees contributed over 15% of this revenue.

Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday trading around $1,820 and climbing less than 1% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).

Shortly after setting new record highs above $1,850, ether also suffered a sizable drop, falling almost 10% to roughly $1,660 early on Monday. Over $313 million in ether futures were liquidated in the past 24 hours, per Bybit. 

The DeFi sector in aggregate followed suit, per data from Messari. But Ethereum and the various assets in the DeFi ecosystem have since recovered, with DeFi’s aggregate performance up nearly 3% in the past 24 hours, per Messari. 

Other alternative cryptocurrencies have also recovered from the market’s dip. FTX’s altcoin index perpetual futures are up nearly 20% from early Monday morning lows, completely retracing the correction. 

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are X Monday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

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Market Wrap: Ether Sets New Highs as Bitcoin Stays Below $49K

by Coindesk

The price of bitcoin struggled to regain $49,000 Friday, continuing to bounce between $48,000 and $46,000 heading into the weekend. As bitcoin contemplated which way to go, ether made a new all-time high above $1,850. 

Much of bitcoin’s choppy price action could be attributed to futures deleveraging as eager bulls piled into long trades expecting a swift breakout to $50,000 or higher. Funding rates for perpetual bitcoin futures have steadily increased through February, according to market data collected by Skew, with some funding rates reaching their highest levels in the past 12 months.

High positive funding rates signal an increase in long positions, whereas negative rates indicate a more bearish sentiment. The market tends to reset when traders, especially in overcrowded derivatives positions, become overly bearish or bullish. 

In the past 24 hours, over $330 million worth of bitcoin futures contracts were liquidated, according to market data from Bybt. Most of the liquidated positions were longs.

Despite the choppy price action, news over the past few days has been extraordinarily bullish for the leading cryptocurrency. In one week, Tesla bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, Twitter’s CFO said the company is considering investing in the cryptocurrency, BNY Mellon announced plans to custody bitcoin for its clients, and PayPal confirmed its plans to add crypto to its Venmo product.

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Friday trading around $1,850 and climbing 3% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).

As it set new record highs above $1,850, other decentralized finance-related (DeFi) cryptocurrencies followed suit, with some even outperforming ether. The DeFi sector in aggregate rallied over 5% in the past 24 hours, according to Messari, led by Uniswap, yearn.finance and others, which gained by double-digit percentages. 

Ether’s fresh highs come the same week the CME launched its ether futures market, which some traders anticipated would be a bearish catalyst for the market. The expectations were almost exclusively pinned to the ominous timing of bitcoin’s peak in 2017 near the launch of CME’s bitcoin futures market. Yet, so far the bearish thesis has not played out. 

Since CME’s futures launch, ether has rallied over 12%. The product has had a quiet start, with less than $200 million worth of contracts traded this week. In contrast, Binance’s ether futures have traded nearly $40 billion worth this week.

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mainly green Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

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Bitcoin Miners Saw Revenue Rise 62% in January From December

by Coindesk

Bitcoin miners generated an estimated $1.1 billion in revenue in January, up 62% from December, according to on-chain data from Coin Metrics analyzed by CoinDesk.

The surge in revenue came as bitcoin‘s price climbed from $29,000 to just below $42,000 in the first half of the month before levelling off through the last two weeks.

Revenue estimates assume miners sell their BTC immediately.

Measured by per terahash per second (TH/s), miner revenues bounced between $0.2 and $0.27 for most of the month after peaking near $0.32 early in the month, per data from Luxor Technologies.

Network fees brought in $116 million in January, or over 10% of total revenue, a slight percentage increase from the 9.8% of revenue represented by fees last month. Fee revenue hit its highest mark since January 2018, per Coin Metrics data.

Fees measured in dollars were quite volatile in January, with average transaction costs bouncing between $5 to all the way to above $16 throughout the month, per Coin Metrics. 

Notably, fees as a percentage of total revenue continues a strong upward trend since April, prior to the network’s third-ever block subsidy halving in May. Increases in fee revenue are important to sustain the network’s security as the subsidy decreases every four years.

Despite calls by some investment professionals like Guggenheim’s CIO Scott Minerd that bitcoin’s price currently is too high, miners eye a continued phase of strong revenue. Around the world, bitcoin miners continue buying more mining machines and are beginning to receive and deploy ASICs pre-ordered last year as they act on plans for continued expansion.

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Increased Mainstream Adoption of Bitcoin Cutting Diversification Benefit, JPMorgan Says

by Coindesk

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.
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Bitcoin (BTC) $ 27,855.46 3.06%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 1,727.40 3.07%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 68.18 2.82%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 242.79 2.93%