Crypto needs a breather. Crypto Market Gains 3.9% Despite Stock Indexes' Decline; Bitcoin Consolidates as Challenges Persist
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Market picture
The crypto market has gained another 3.9% in the past 24 hours, reaching a capitalisation of $1.18 trillion. It has diverged from the stock indices, which have fallen sharply in the previous days due to expectations of a rate hike.
Bitcoin has surged more than 15% in two days, revisiting the area of April highs just above 30k. However, this is where the recovery has paused. Bitcoin needs to consolidate a bit before it can resume its ascent. Moreover, there are doubts that the cryptocurrency rally will continue soon, as the stock indices create a challenging environment for risk-sensitive assets across the board.
The technical targets for the BTCUSD correction are the 29.3 and 28.5 levels, 76.4% and 61.8% of the latest rally, respectively. If the decline is halted at either of these levels, we could expect new multi-month highs soon.
News background
The official launch of the new crypto exchange EDX Markets boosted Bitcoin’s rise. The project is backed by financial giants Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab. The market also reacted positively to BlackRock’s application to the SEC for a spot bitcoin ETF, filed last week.
Grayscale Investments’ GBTC bitcoin fund saw its trading volume increase five-fold to $80 million after BlackRock’s filing with the SEC. Following BlackRock, three other major investment firms - WisdomTree, Invesco and Bitwise - also applied for a spot bitcoin ETF.
Fed chief Jerome Powell said the regulator considers payment stablecoins as money and therefore has to regulate their issuance. He said it would be a “grave error” to allow large amounts of private funds to be created without oversight.
Stablecoins and DeFi projects could be the following targets of the SEC’s crackdown, according to investment bank Berenberg. After suing major exchanges, the SEC may now go after the issuers of the two largest stablecoins, Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC).
