Upswing time

A funny thing happened on the way to the apocalypse. Markets bounced back.

As of Wednesday at 6:53 a.m. (EST), Bitcoin had gained 4.4% in 24 hours. This followed an impressive advance recorded as of yesterday around this time.

BTC, approaching $58,000, suddenly can see itself as it existed before the stunning risk-asset meltdown that began on Sunday night, continuing into Monday.

Fifth-largest coin Solana completely shrugged off its brush with death by quicksand. Since mid-morning on Monday, SOL has shot up from a recent nadir of $110 to a sturdy $152. Solana-based memecoins are a band of happy warriors. These include Bonk (BONK), the first Solana dog coin, up 9% since yesterday at this time, and dogwifhat (WIF), which is now the largest Solana dog coin. WIF has shot up 26% in 24 hours. It has a market capitalization of $1.72 billion, making it the 48th-largest coin on CoinGecko's widely followed chart. BONK, with a market cap of $1.46 billion, is No. 55.

European stocks shaded into the green and U.S. stock index futures were also rallying ahead of the open. It’s a possible signal that Tuesday's rebound on Wall Street has some staying power. Japan's policymakers came right out and said that as long as markets remain unhinged, the notion of another rate hike is off the table, easing fears of any further unraveling of trades done with borrowed yen.

Sensing that the Federal Reserve may now see itself as squarely behind the policy curve, traders not only have baked a fifty-basis-point cut (in September) into the proverbial risk-reward cake, but there's a longer-view school of navigation that envisions 2.25 percentage points having been lopped off the Fed's short-term borrowing rate by the end of 2025 (CNBC).

Like some potent prescription laxative, yen carry trade deleveraging helped flush out prices for assets other than U.S. treasuries. But in less than 48 hours, risk appetites have returned.

In that daredevil fantasy camp of a sector known as micro-cap memes, there’s a highlight reel of wild jumps and also ample evidence that yesterday’s upswing was no dead cat bounce.

Take, for example, Ginnan The Cat (GINNAN), 483rd-largest coin, which has soared 76% since yesterday.

Ginnan is a creature of the Solana ecosystem and boasts of being related to two of Atsuko Sato’s cats (turned memes), Neiro and Suji. Iconic pet owner Sato was master of Kabosu, the rescued Shiba dog who 15 or so years ago inspired the "Doge" meme; sadly, Kabosu passed away in May.

As risky cat tokens go, Solana-based Popcat (POPCAT) has demonstrated at least nine lives and improbably can now be considered a relative mega-cap.

It's actually now the 110th-largest digital asset, per CoinGecko. As of Wednesday at 8 a.m. (EST), POPCAT had surged 31% in 24 hours to bring its market capitalization to more than a half-a-billion USD.

POPCAT is a coin based on a meme stemming from videos of a cat called Oatmeal known for lip-synching songs with its mouth photo-shopped agape.

Adorable meme? Sure. A rollercoaster ride of a token? But of course!

At the start of 2024, POPCAT was as low as $0.003797. It has since exploded by nearly 15,000%. POPCAT almost tasted one dollar earlier this summer. Since July 21, POPCAT has shed 43%. Only a couple of days ago, POPCAT reached a two-month low of a quarter, only to bounce by 128% to roughly $0.60.

Referencing a trio of technical trading ranges (lower, middle and upper) known as "Bollinger Bands," Crypto.News suggests POPCAT could, even now, after all that hellacious movement, have "room for further growth before resistance."