BTC off and running again
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 11th December 2024.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
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What’s up
Bitcoin Reclaims $98,000
Bitcoin shot back above $98,000 early Wednesday as the market changed its mood from sad to gladness. Inflation numbers came out, sans any negative surprises, juicing macro tailwinds at least for the moment with traders bidding up the odds of a Fed rate cut next Wednesday to a level of near certainty.
Among Big Ten digital assets, Cardano and XRP are making the biggest upward moves. Two coins (XDC, SOS) in the Top 100 are sporting returns of more than 20% in 24 hours. Several smallish-cap memecoins are up about 30% today, including GIGA and TURBO.
What's down
Magic Eden's Tumultuous Tuesday
Just as quickly as it debuted and pumped, Magic Eden's long-awaited ME token has dumped. Along the way there's been a backlash of bitterness surrounding how the release was conducted.
Apparently, the NFT marketplace's roll-out of ME proved overly complicated and glitch-riddled but mostly users seemed frustrated at having to both downloaded mobile apps and also scan QR codes on desktop devices before linking to their wallets. No free money issuance goes unpunished as recipients took to social media to complain but at least did so humorously: “I would give up 50% of my $ME airdrop just to never use this F-ing mobile app again,” one of them sniped, per The Crypto Times.
ME surged to as high as $17 but fell steadily throughout the day. ("My app is stuck, people dumping like hotcakes - awesome," another user groused on X.)
ME was $5.40 as of 9:15 a.m. (EST), according to CoinGecko. Despite a turbulent opening day of trading, ME right now has a market capitalization of $700 million, making it the 173rd-largest coin.
What's next
Binance, Circle Partner Up On Stablecoin Push
Facing stepped-up competition in the stablecoin market, Circle has joined forces with exchange giant Binance which will support more USDC usage on its platform.
With a market cap of $40B, USDC is the second-largest stablecoin after Tether (USDT). But USDC's cap size is not even one-third of USDT's. Meanwhile, four stablecoins bringing up the rear behind USDC each have at least $1B. Those are USDE, USDS, DAI and FDUSD. Roughly a half-dozen more dollar-pegged stablecoins have market caps in the neighborhood of a half-billion dollars. A fast-growing PayPal offering, PYUSD, is included in that category.
"Binance will make USDC more available across its platform, while Circle will provide liquidity and technology and help Binance build new relationships, Cointelegraph said.
It means more USDC trading pairs and USDC-related promotions, a Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph. “Binance believes stablecoins have important use cases in the broader financial ecosystem," the spokesperson said.
These use cases include using a USD-pegged stablecoin to: hedge inflation; send remittances; and, of course, Binance's spokesperson added, "buy and sell other cryptocurrencies.”
Circle definitely seems to be girding for growth. The company is planning to move its headquarters to New York City early in 2025 and it's also prepping for a coming IPO.
