Crypto keeps rallying

An across-the-board crypto rally continued into Friday morning. Bitcoin over the past week has notched a 12.6% gain, while flirting with $19,000 on the back of macro tailwinds. Ethereum is up 12.8% during that same seven-day span.

Apparently, crypto hasn't decoupled from the stock market and the Fed is the leading catalyst of late, as investor hopes are now pinned on a policy pivot after an encouraging CPI print yesterday. Among the largest non-stablecoins, Cardano is outstanding in terms of biggest weekly gainers. As of Friday, at 7:40 a.m. (EST), Cardano's native ADA token had jumped 23% since last Friday.

Input Output Global (IOG), the company behind the Cardano blockchain, yesterday introduced a new develop-it-yourself sidechain creation kit for testnet use. Although, ADA didn't exactly spike following IOG's announcement. As of 8 a.m. (EST) today, ADA, eighth-largest digital asset, was $0.32, having increased 2% in 24 hours. ADA is 89% off its all-time high above $3 hit in September of 2021.

As far as the largest one-day gain on this brightly greened-up midwinter Friday, that would be Aptos' APT (+29.5%) awash in community buzz, pumping against the backdrop of supposed Solana-slaying capabilities. Two-thirds of APT's current market capitalization has been amassed in just the last five days.

Digital Currency Group (DCG), the elephantine crypto conglomerate at the center of the industry's latest wig-out, is under investigation by U.S. prosecutors in the wake of one its subsidiary companies, Genesis, halting customer withdrawals back in November amidst FTX chaos.

On Thursday, the SEC charged Genesis and crypto exchange Gemini with selling, together, unregistered securities to retail investors.

In the weeks leading up to that regulatory hammer drop, Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss publicly browbeat DCG head honcho Barry Silbert over his allegedly blowing off a $900 million IOU. Silbert via tweet denied such a specific unmet giant obligation was in fact the case. DCG's finances remain under a spotlight. Bloomberg last week reported on a DOJ/SEC probe focused on financial transfers between DCG and Genesis.

The entanglement between Winklevoss Twins-founded Gemini and DCG-owned Genesis has to do with some 340,000 Gemini customers using Gemini Earn accounts – funds that got steered to (borrowed by) Genesis as part of a yield-generation arrangement.

But the curious kinship that is causing even more industrywide consternation is the one that binds DCG and its subsidiary Grayscale, which manages the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust which owns 653,633 BTCs.

Arcane Research released a report urging investors to pay attention to the ongoing financial distress related to DCG as the outcome could "severely impact" crypto markets, especially if it turns out DCG has to liquidate assets. (Yahoo Finance).

Not a black cat to be found on a Friday the 13th session in which Bitcoin crossed paths with $19,000. That spot hasn’t been marked since right before the first FTX horrors. BTC has gained 13% since the start of the year.

"If we can take out that $19K level," StockCharts.com's Julius de Kempenaer told CoinDesk, "then we are definitely en route for $21K."

Definitely maybe, were markets to stay upbeat and if recession-detour signs continue to line the road ahead.

Technically buttressing the case for a potentially sustained rally: BTC options' so-called "volatility smile," a graphical depiction of the demand for out-of-the-money (OTM) call options; these are bullish bets at strikes higher than BTC’s spot price. And as it turns out, data examined by crypto derivatives analytics firm Block Scholes reveals bullish bets have increased relative to bearish bets, or puts, per CoinDesk.

Block Scholes' analyst Andrew Melville said the BTC options market is now "reflecting an increase in demand for exposure to upwards movements."

FX Street pegs as crucial a hurdle it sees looming at $19,250 after a scour of IntoTheBlock’s Global In/Out of the Money (GIOM) data that shows 3.67 million addresses, having purchased nearly 2 million BTC, and which are OTM, and thus likely inclined to book profits at around the $20,000 mark.