'Greed' sentiment, BTC price, climbing

For the first time in a month, Bitcoin crossed $50,000 as institutional bulls charged into the most valuable digital asset amidst worrisome signs of worsening inflation and a general uptick in macro uncertainty.

At 5:45 a.m. (EST), BTC passed the psychologically important 5-0 barrier. Then, within the span of about three hours, intense volatility took hold, resulting in an awkward lurch back toward the vicinity of $49,990.

Markets are anything but calm on Tuesday as bulls grapple for control of significant price points (Cointelegraph).

BTC this morning at 7:50 a.m. (EST) was $50,300, representing a 5.5% gain over 24 hours. Meanwhile, as for Ethereum, it rose too, but not by as much.

Of the Big Ten coins (excluding stablecoins), only Dogecoin (DOGE) is outpacing BTC today. DOGE jumped 10% overnight. Several others, including XRP, are on the rise, but each by levels, on a percentage basis, of only in the 1%-3% range.

As for BTC's dominance over coins other than itself, well, that metric is rising, "as most alts have failed to follow BTC upwards," said CryptoPotato.

Less than a week after registering "extreme fear," the Bitcoin Crypto Fear and Greed Index, measuring sentiment, is now flashing "greed."

The index's read-out of 59/100, as recorded earlier this morning, is reflected visually by a needle set against a color-coded backdrop, with the gauge at rest within the lightest-possible shade of green, even bordering on yellowy neutrality.

Last Thursday, Sept. 30, the BTC F&G plunged clearly into the red zone at 20/100. That frightful descent began on Sept. 28 with BTC on the brink of slipping below $40K (U.Today).

Circle, a pioneering crypto firm which in recent years has gone all in on being the backer of stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), in a public filing on Monday revealed that in July it received an "investigative subpoena" from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Enforcement Division requesting "documents and information regarding certain of our holdings, customer programs and operations."

The filing was made in connection with Circle’s planned merger with a publicly traded SPAC company, a deal price-tagged at $4.5 billion. USDC, with a market capitalization of more than $30 billion, is the 9th-largest digital asset, per CoinGecko.

"We are cooperating fully with their investigation,” the filing said (CoinDesk).

Circle on Aug. 22 made a major revelation concerning the contents of its coffers.

"Given our commitment to maintaining high standards, which in some cases go beyond those required by our regulators," Circle said, "we will, effective in September, hold all USDC reserves in cash and short-duration U.S. government treasuries."

To build his crypto exchange's brand, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, has enlisted NFL great Tom Brady, who, to help build his brand, has embraced crypto. So have many other celebrities, as well a growing cadre of famous money managers, including Alan Howard and Dan Loeb.

Michael Novogratz, former head of Fortress, was among the first bastions of the hedge fund realm to lean digitally - but he's not the last. Ken Griffin, founder of Citadel, told Bloomberg that he still remains troubled by so many young investors losing faith in the centralized money system; but ... if cryptocurrencies were better regulated, his firm would trade them.