Crypto reasserts itself
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Customers buying or selling the asset as a percentage of all customers who have traded the asset in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. EST 9th August 2023
All investments and trading are risky and may result in the loss of capital. Cryptoassets are largely unregulated and are therefore not subject to protection.
What’s up
Bullish Bitcoin Sentiment Grows As $30K Mark Comes Back Into View
Straddling $29,000 with a profound ambivalence has been Bitcoin's jam for the better part of the past fortnight.
Attitude adjustment appeared to arrive as of Wednesday morning. At 8:20 a.m. (EST), BTC was careening toward $30,000 on a nearly 2% gain over 24 hours.
Not the stuff of grand prix racing but even a go-cart needs to build its head of steam. Wind could be at the largest crypto's back via renewed bullish sentiment, measurable in many ways, including an exchange-action metric known as the "taker buy-sell" ratio.
Market "making" is an age-old concept. Such entities provide liquidity. Automated market maker (AMM) platforms make up the beating heart of the decentralized finance (DeFi) movement.
If there’s a great big order book in the sky, it's because market makers made it their business to make it. Market "taking" is less talked about. Because basically it is just trading firms doing their thing, putting in buy and sell orders for execution, no delays, straight up taking liquidity from the order book.
At ByBit, among the world's largest crypto perpetual futures exchanges, the taker buy-sell ratio (dividing takers' buy volume by sell volume) yesterday hit 1.17, its highest level in nearly four months, a sign of bullishness in the air (CoinDesk).
Overall, the total crypto market has reached $1.23 trillion, up 2.1% in 24 hours as of 9:03 a.m. (EST), according to CoinGecko.
What's down
Cadre Of Chastened Altcoins Hold Their Heads High
Not to be confused with ByBit buying is Bitstamp-related dumping which is, and is not, a thing.
Bitstamp did apparently say it would delist about a half-dozen altcoins branded as unlawful securities by U.S. regulators.
These tarred/feathered cohorts include Solana, Polygon, Near, Axie Infinity, The Sandbox and Decentraland, per U.Today.
We expected some selling pressure but saw no evidence of it. These tokens are all in the green as of this morning. Chinese blogger Colin Wu reported on an SEC-codified list of nearly 50 coins deemed to be unlawful securities. Left off it: Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP, green, green and greener as of 8:55 a.m. (EST).
XRP is the coin associated with Ripple, a ledger technology company that last month won a monumental, life-affirming victory in court over the SEC.
At $0.64, XRP is up 4.2% since yesterday at this time. But it remains down 7% over the past two weeks.
XRP got near $0.83 at the height of the post-ruling euphoria on July 20.
What's next
Fed To Banks: Show Us You Care
The crypto industry has craved clarity. It just got some. The U.S. Federal Reserve is introducing a fresh slate of specific steps for banks to take if they want to dabble in digital assets.
The new "novel activities supervision program" spells out a way for banks to let central bankers know of their intentions while coordinating baseline oversight with a team of examination regulars augmented by crypto specialists.
Additionally, the Fed expounded on a pre-approval stage for any stablecoin dealings, a noteworthy wrinkle considering Monday's announcement by PayPal that it's launching a dollar-pegged stablecoin under the auspices of New York’s regulatory framework by way of PayPal's partnership with Paxos.
Banks, holding stablecoins such as PayPal USD, really? Yes, perhaps, provided they get a green light from the Fed. Merely transacting with them in the course of some payment facilitation? Again, maybe, talk to the Fed, and do it ahead of time.
Banks need to prove to supervisors they can engage with crypto in a “safe and sound manner” before the Fed will formally sign off (CoinDesk).
Prior attempts by major companies to launch stablecoins have met opposition, as Reuters pointed out. Recall if you might Meta's stablecoin, Libra, scotched after regulators fretted it could upset the global apple cart.
Per fresh Fed guidance, the blessing for banks to engage with stablecoins comes formally, specifically, by way of a “written non-objection.” And that in-writing wink/nod gets issued when banks can demonstrate appropriate risk management. How? At a minimum, banks will need to show they have a system in place to identify and monitor potential risks, including cybersecurity and illicit finance threats, according to the Fed.
After being put through paces and receiving a written non-objection, banks engaging in crypto will continue to be subject to ongoing supervisory review. This last bit is par for the course and hardly a new concept.
Meanwhile, in other banking sector news, a major rating agency, Moody's, cut credit ratings of several small to mid-sized U.S. banks and said it potentially could downgrade some of the nation's biggest institutions, including Bank of New York Mellon and US Bancorp.
Moody's analysts are warning of overall credit strength deterioration due to funding risks and weaker profitability.
