Dip buyers bring it

Bargain hunters in the U.S. have snapped up more than $400 million worth of Bitcoin ETF shares over the past couple of days, helping to buoy the spot price of the biggest coin after it had endured a prolonged gutting.

Five weeks on a downbound train (connecting with Mt. Gox and Germany) may have left some passengers stir crazy or in some cases sickened but it appears many others craftily killed time buying the dip.

BTC's rebound has unfolded gradually over the past 48 hours. Earlier today, it hit $59,300. That was just after midnight in the U.S. As recently as Monday, BTC had been spotted lewdly associating with $54K.

"Investors are piling into [BTC ETFs], betting the supply overhang that’s pushed the token lower in past weeks has created a buying opportunity," Bloomberg said.

Meanwhile, Solana is poised to turn green over a seven-day frame as it inches back toward the $150 mark. SOL gained 2% in the past 24 hours as of Wednesday at 7:08 a.m. (EST).

Solana-based memecoin Bonk (BONK) notched a 9% gain in the past week. Sustained seven-day rallies are few and far between but there are a couple worth mentioning – Mantra (OM) which has gained 22% and Notcoin (NOT), up 25%.

Checking on U.S. stocks, the S&P 500 recorded still yet another record close on Tuesday amidst renewed hopes that the Fed might be ready to start easing.

In the darkest hours of a most bleak early July stretch, Bitcoin had shed nearly 20% of its value over four weeks’ time. Looking at the 30-day chart as of today, BTC is now only down 16%.

BTC's 1.9% gain in the past 24 hours seems hard won in the face of rampant sell pressures coming from the state of Saxony in Germany and also from the recent stirrings of Mt. Gox wallets belching BTC repayments to the creditors of the exchange which went belly up ten years ago after a massive theft.

The second-largest crypto, Ethereum, is also down 16% since June 10, per CoinGecko. As of 7:35 a.m. (EST) today, ETH was trying to reach $3,100. Two days ago, ETH was $2,870. ETFs tied to ETH are soon likely to launch but it remains unclear how these products will be received.

Next up on the SEC's ETF approval dance card would seem to be Solana. As mentioned, SOL is holding steady on the week. But SOL has declined 11% over the past four weeks.

Staying with our Big Ten damage assessment jag, and continuing to scan the past month's worth of activity, we find XRP (No. 8) also slid 11% in that time frame.

The worst monthly performer among the ten-largest coins – okay, that’d be Dogecoin. DOGE is down 25% relative to to thirty days ago.

Widening out the lens to look for other beaten down memecoins, we find Pepe (PEPE) and Dogwifhat (WIF); the former is down nearly 30% since early June while the latter plunged 40%.

In one of his semi-annual visits to Capitol Hill, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday treated the Senate Banking Committee to a stoic recitation of his signature spiel, the one about policymakers needing more statistical evidence that inflation is heading lower.

At an event in India last week, John Williams, president of the New York Fed, declared that while inflation is indeed now around 2.5%, "we still have a way to go” to reach the 2% target.

“I’m concerned that if the Fed waits too long to lower rates, that could undo the progress we’ve made in creating good-paying jobs,” said Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), chair of the Senate Banking Committee, during yesterday’s hearing.

Market observers pounced on Powell's repeated acknowledgement of the dangers of keeping rates too high for too long, and his verbalized cognizance of that risk may have helped spark a record close for the S&P 500 index.

Making sure the banking system is entirely well-cushioned to absorb any/all shocks and curbing outlandish executive pay tied to envelope pushing on Wall Street were among the other matters that lawmakers took up, putting Powell on the defensive and in the uncomfortable position of having to publicly deny the implication, made by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), that, as a financial system steward, the Fed is soft-handed.

Regulating the crypto industry perhaps with just the right touch will be a main focus of a roundtable in Washington, D.C., which is supposedly set for today. It's reportedly being hosted by Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from a California district that includes Silicon Valley. (Rep. Khanna is up for re-election in November and it's his campaign, and not any Congressional committee, that is organizing this gathering).

Among those set to be seated beside him are "Shark Tank" co-host Mark Cuban and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, as well as various crypto exchange honchos. Hedge fund guy/media gadfly Anthony Scaramucci, who was a Trump administration spokesman for about ten minutes and who is now better known for co-hosting a podcast with BBC journalist Katty Kay, said earlier this week on MSNBC that the summit was happening and he was going.

Where, exactly? The locale remains a secret. Fox Business' Eleanor Terret last week revealed the event maybe would be held at a hotel near the White House? And, adding to the needless intrigue, as of a few days ago, there was no confirmation of any Biden administration officials actually attending, assuming the precise location had been revealed to them.

Former president Trump, who has made no secret of his sharp, crypto-friendly pivot as part of his bid to return to the White House, is said to be considering making an appearance at the "Bitcoin 2024" confab in Nashville later this month.

Trump's increasing support from the industry, said Fox Business, is sparking anti-Trump Democrats, like Rep. Khanna, to appeal directly to the White House to do a pivot of their own. The SEC warming up to ETH ETFs appears to be connected with a Team Biden desire to at least not come off as waging war on crypto, which has been the case, particularly in terms of the actions by the top federal watchdog over the past few years.

Khana was among 71 Democrats in the House who voted to pass the "Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act" to establish regulatory clarity for the crypto industry.