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1 Aug, 2024

Fed hint fails to inspire

What's being bought and sold*

TOP TRENDING ASSETS

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*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 1st August 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.

Don’t invest in crypto unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.

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What’s up

Tensions In Middle East Rise, Lifting Oil, Bonds; In Crypto, Kaspa Wins The Day

Perhaps a sprinkling of even oh-so-subtle hints from the Fed about a looming rate cut might have flipped the market into risk-on mode – if not for escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Fears of a widening war indeed are growing. Evidence of that yesterday: Treasury bond prices ticked higher by 10 basis points while oil futures shot up 5%. Safety-play gold rose, too, nearing a record level.

Bitcoin took a spill, going from $66,500 yesterday morning to $64,500 by yesterday afternoon. As of today, at 8:50 a.m. (EST), the largest crypto was $64,750, and shading green over the prior hour. Compared to last Thursday at this time, BTC somehow is still +0.8%.

Meanwhile, Kaspa (KAS) is now the 24th-largest digital asset. Only moments ago, KAS hit an all-time high above twenty cents.

What's down

Memecoins Mauled, Some More Than Others

Total crypto assets lost 3% in the past 24 hours. Coins' collective $2.5T mark has given way to $2.42T, per CoinGecko.

Majors are down. Their 24-hour losses range between 3% and 8%. Memes, as a general category, took a moderate beating over the past day. Solana-based memecoins in particular got punished.

For example, Dogwifhat (WIF), 50th-largest token, plunged 13% since this time yesterday as a risk-off mood swing gripped markets; No. 57 Bonk (BONK), a Solana mascott of sorts, shed 9% in that span. Let it be recorded there’s an Ethereum-based meme token, No. 114 Mog Coin (MOG), down 16%.

By comparison, two of the biggest, best-known memecoins, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), each fell in the neighborhood of 3%-4%.

What's next

DeFi, TradFi Worlds Collide

Crypto is selling off today but in the so-called real world there are assets in demand.

The price of physical gold, which has rallied ever higher throughout 2024, surged once again on Tuesday in an angst-ridden environment. Also rising was the price of the 10-year treasury (as its yield fell, owing to a flight to safety).

Around this time yesterday, investors felt chills from reports about Iran planning a retaliatory strike against Israel for earlier strikes against Iranian proxy group commanders in Beirut and Tehran. All sorts of worrisome wildcards seem to be lurking in the deck, including trader speculation that a rate cut might actually not be in the cards for September and the up-for-grabs U.S. presidential election in November.

While looking at various crypto categories earlier today, we came across a bucket of tokens that CoinGecko refers to as being under the banner of "real world asset (RWA)," including platforms such as XDC Network (XDC) which is known for having an ecosystem comprising a range of RWA projects, such as bringing stocks, bonds and real estate to the blockchain via a process known as "tokenization."

Earlier today, Cointelegraph reported on a noteworthy platform in this sector, OpenEden, having just launched tokenized T-bills on Ripple Labs' XRP Ledger (XRPL).

According to Ripple, the platform’s TBILL tokens are backed by short-term T-bills and reverse repurchase agreements, which are, in turn, collateralized by treasuries.

Cointelegraph said this effort marks the first time a traditional finance instrument has been made available on a decentralized platform.


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