Last week in the news
The rating agency Fitch downgraded the long term credit rating of the US by one notch to AA+ from previous AAA. Market reacted with a negative sentiment, bringing the US equity markets lower and Treasury yields to the upside. The crypto market was traded flat most of the week, sliding down as of Friday`s trading. Bitcoin is ending the week at
29K
, while Ether is still managing to hold modestly above $1.8K.
Quite a negative news hit the markets at the beginning of the previous week. One of the largest US credit rating agencies, Fitch, downgraded the US Government long-term currency issuer default rating to AA+, from previous AAA grade. The rationale for such a decision was “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years” as well as lack of governance for its debt-ceiling. This was certainly a huge surprise for markets which were traded in a red zone through the rest of the week. However, economists have different opinions. On one side are those who are questioning why such a decision is coming at this point of time, when all said in the Fitch`s report is well known from a long time ago. On the other side are those who are cheering such a decision as it could help the Fed to finally halt its monetary tightening.
Markets were cheering Ripple Lab`s win over SEC with higher optimism that it could be of some use in other SEC`s disputes with several crypto market participants, for which closure is still pending. It was a sort of surprise and also disappointment for markets when this ruling was rejected by the Southern District of New York Judge Rakoff in a case between SEC and Coinbase. Rationale for a rejection was “a misinterpretation of the Howey test”. This makes it an extremely hard task for Coinbase to use Ripple`s ruling for its own benefit in this case.
Finally some good news for Binance. Binance`s CEO CZ officially announced that a subsidiary of the company in Japan will start its operations in this country from August 14th. Binance entered Japan`s market in November last year, by acquiring Sakura Exchange BitCoin crypto exchange. This is good news for Binance in a moment when the company is facing scrutiny from regulators in the US and the EU.
As per CME reports, investors have doubled their positions in the crypto options during July. Options trading activity increased by 24% in July from the month before for both BTC and ETH options. This might be an indication that investors are currently looking for a hedging tool for their positions in these coins.
Filings for BTC exchange traded funds are growing among financial institutions in the US. While BlackRock is still waiting for the final resolution of its application with the SEC for the first BTC based ETF, during the previous week ProShares and Bitwise also filed their applications for both BTC and ETH exchange traded funds. In case that BlackRock receives a positive outcome for their filing, it will be a huge gain for the BTC and crypto community, and would certainly open the door for other ETF`s based on other coins, like ETH.
Crypto market cap
Markets are calming down after surprising news during the previous week that the Fitch rating agency has downgraded the US long-term debt by one notch, to AA+ from previous AAA. How this move would impact the future economic outlook is about to be seen. Economists are noting that a downgrade would mean further increase of costs of borrowing, considering that the financial industry would now seek higher interest rates on borrowed funds, in order to cover increased risk for borrowing funds. Higher costs of borrowing might further slow down economic activity, but to what extent, is to be seen, as the US economy has been pretty resilient to significant increase of Fed's interest rates during the previous period. The crypto market continues to be on hold, marking the third week on a downside. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by additional 2% during the week, losing $24B in total value. Daily trading volumes continue to decrease, moving around
46B
on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 48%, where it has added total $366B to the market cap.
Another week the crypto market finished in red. Two coins were leading the drop in total market cap in nominal terms. Ether lost almost $5B, dropping its value by 2.2% on a weekly basis. ETH was followed by XRP, with a drop in value of more than 12% or $4.5B. This time, Bitcoin took the third place, whose market value dropped by $2.2B or 0.4% compared to the week before. Solana was another coin with a significant loss of $1B in value, dropping by more than 10% on a weekly basis. At the same time, BNB managed to sustain its value flat during the week. Significant losers in relative terms during this week were Stellar, with a drop of 13.6% w/w, Litecoin was down by 9.4%, LINK lost almost 8% in value same as OMG Network, Theta also dropped by 7.5%. The only coin with a significant increase in value was Bitcoin Gold, which managed to increase its value by more than 16% during the week. At this moment there is no official information available as to why this surge occurred. Coins in circulation remained relatively stable during the week, except for Polkadot`s increase of circulating coins by a significant 1.4%. Solana had a modest surge by 0.2%, same as Stellar.
Crypto futures market
For the third week in a row, crypto futures were traded lower. Short term Bitcoin futures were traded around 2.8% lower from the week before, however, longer term futures were traded in a green zone at Friday`s trading session on CME. Futures maturing in December 2023 ended the week at price of $30.355, while December 2024 managed to end the week at price of $32.955. Although the price did not manage to reach levels above 33K , this is still a positive sign of investors' expectations for the future price of the BTC.
Market optimism for ETH futures is still lacking a higher level of confidence. Short term futures were down by some 2.5% on average, while longer term futures were last traded about 1% lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year were last traded down by 1.5%, ending the week at price $1.892. Futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week at level of $2.009, or 1.13% lower from the week before.
The rating agency Fitch downgraded the long term credit rating of the US by one notch to AA+ from previous AAA. Market reacted with a negative sentiment, bringing the US equity markets lower and Treasury yields to the upside. The crypto market was traded flat most of the week, sliding down as of Friday`s trading. Bitcoin is ending the week at
29K
, while Ether is still managing to hold modestly above $1.8K. Quite a negative news hit the markets at the beginning of the previous week. One of the largest US credit rating agencies, Fitch, downgraded the US Government long-term currency issuer default rating to AA+, from previous AAA grade. The rationale for such a decision was “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years” as well as lack of governance for its debt-ceiling. This was certainly a huge surprise for markets which were traded in a red zone through the rest of the week. However, economists have different opinions. On one side are those who are questioning why such a decision is coming at this point of time, when all said in the Fitch`s report is well known from a long time ago. On the other side are those who are cheering such a decision as it could help the Fed to finally halt its monetary tightening.
Markets were cheering Ripple Lab`s win over SEC with higher optimism that it could be of some use in other SEC`s disputes with several crypto market participants, for which closure is still pending. It was a sort of surprise and also disappointment for markets when this ruling was rejected by the Southern District of New York Judge Rakoff in a case between SEC and Coinbase. Rationale for a rejection was “a misinterpretation of the Howey test”. This makes it an extremely hard task for Coinbase to use Ripple`s ruling for its own benefit in this case.
Finally some good news for Binance. Binance`s CEO CZ officially announced that a subsidiary of the company in Japan will start its operations in this country from August 14th. Binance entered Japan`s market in November last year, by acquiring Sakura Exchange BitCoin crypto exchange. This is good news for Binance in a moment when the company is facing scrutiny from regulators in the US and the EU.
As per CME reports, investors have doubled their positions in the crypto options during July. Options trading activity increased by 24% in July from the month before for both BTC and ETH options. This might be an indication that investors are currently looking for a hedging tool for their positions in these coins.
Filings for BTC exchange traded funds are growing among financial institutions in the US. While BlackRock is still waiting for the final resolution of its application with the SEC for the first BTC based ETF, during the previous week ProShares and Bitwise also filed their applications for both BTC and ETH exchange traded funds. In case that BlackRock receives a positive outcome for their filing, it will be a huge gain for the BTC and crypto community, and would certainly open the door for other ETF`s based on other coins, like ETH.
Crypto market cap
Markets are calming down after surprising news during the previous week that the Fitch rating agency has downgraded the US long-term debt by one notch, to AA+ from previous AAA. How this move would impact the future economic outlook is about to be seen. Economists are noting that a downgrade would mean further increase of costs of borrowing, considering that the financial industry would now seek higher interest rates on borrowed funds, in order to cover increased risk for borrowing funds. Higher costs of borrowing might further slow down economic activity, but to what extent, is to be seen, as the US economy has been pretty resilient to significant increase of Fed's interest rates during the previous period. The crypto market continues to be on hold, marking the third week on a downside. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by additional 2% during the week, losing $24B in total value. Daily trading volumes continue to decrease, moving around
46B
on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 48%, where it has added total $366B to the market cap. Another week the crypto market finished in red. Two coins were leading the drop in total market cap in nominal terms. Ether lost almost $5B, dropping its value by 2.2% on a weekly basis. ETH was followed by XRP, with a drop in value of more than 12% or $4.5B. This time, Bitcoin took the third place, whose market value dropped by $2.2B or 0.4% compared to the week before. Solana was another coin with a significant loss of $1B in value, dropping by more than 10% on a weekly basis. At the same time, BNB managed to sustain its value flat during the week. Significant losers in relative terms during this week were Stellar, with a drop of 13.6% w/w, Litecoin was down by 9.4%, LINK lost almost 8% in value same as OMG Network, Theta also dropped by 7.5%. The only coin with a significant increase in value was Bitcoin Gold, which managed to increase its value by more than 16% during the week. At this moment there is no official information available as to why this surge occurred. Coins in circulation remained relatively stable during the week, except for Polkadot`s increase of circulating coins by a significant 1.4%. Solana had a modest surge by 0.2%, same as Stellar.
Crypto futures market
For the third week in a row, crypto futures were traded lower. Short term Bitcoin futures were traded around 2.8% lower from the week before, however, longer term futures were traded in a green zone at Friday`s trading session on CME. Futures maturing in December 2023 ended the week at price of $30.355, while December 2024 managed to end the week at price of $32.955. Although the price did not manage to reach levels above 33K , this is still a positive sign of investors' expectations for the future price of the BTC.
Market optimism for ETH futures is still lacking a higher level of confidence. Short term futures were down by some 2.5% on average, while longer term futures were last traded about 1% lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year were last traded down by 1.5%, ending the week at price $1.892. Futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week at level of $2.009, or 1.13% lower from the week before.
