Last week in the news
It was quite a stressful week for the crypto market, as the SEC continued with its effort to put crypto business in the US under “regulation”. On the other hand, US equity markets continue with gains during the last month, with S&P 500 moving above 4.300 points. Bitcoin is ending the week modestly above $25.5K, while Ether manages to hold above $1.7K.
Previous week started with bad news for the crypto market. Both Binance and Coinbase were sued by the SEC alleging unregistered business aside from a few other regulatory topics. As officially published on SEC`s website, the SEC filed 13 charges against Binance entities and its founder Changpeng Zhao. As noted, charges include “operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies; misrepresenting trading controls and oversight on the Binance.US platform; and the unregistered offer and sale of securities''. As for the lawsuit against Coinbase, SEC has officially published that the company is alleged for “unregistered offer and sale of securities in connection with its staking-as-a-service program”. Another issue is that SEC named at least 13 coins which they defined as “crypto asset securities' ', including Solana token, Cardano`s token ADA, Polygon`s MATIC and Protocol Lab`s Filecoin. Robinhood exchanger immediately took an action delisting all coins named in the SEC lawsuit. Market reaction was that altcoins crashed during the week. Still, BTC and ETH have not been significantly affected. All these companies made a statement during the week, strongly disagreeing with the SEC that these tokens are securities. On the other side, many analysts and investors are noting that this is all a result of lack of clear regulation in the US for crypto businesses. There are also those who find SEC lawsuits as positive for crypto, as they will finally bring some clarity into regulation.
After the lawsuit from the SEC, Binance.US made an announcement that from June 13th they will be transitioning to all-crypto exchange, in which sense, they will no longer support deposits in USD, including USD-based trading pairs. All products currently offered will be available but only in crypto currencies.
Markets in the US were generally supported by the recent debt-ceiling deal, and recent jobs data, where the US economy showed high resilience to the current macroeconomic environment and monetary measures imposed by the Fed. The US equity market indices were up to their highest level since August last year. However, not all economists are of the same opinion regarding resilience of the US economy. In an interview with CNBC, Bob Michele, Chief investment officer in JPMorgan Chase, noted that the previous recession in 1980 started after an average 13 months after the Fed`s final rate increase, and that current economic situation reminds him of that period. He also noted that industries which will suffer the most are “regional banks, commercial real estate and junk-rated corporate borrowers”. During the week ahead the inflation data will be released, and a FOMC meeting will be held, where potential for further rate increases will be discussed.
Crypto market cap
For one more time in the history of the crypto market, regulators were the ones to completely spoil a good game. Monday started with negative news about a new lawsuit from SEC against Binance, while already the following day another lawsuit emerged against Coinbase, one of the largest and also publicly listed crypto exchangers. Someone might say, there is nothing new with SEC, still, this time lawsuits were different and imposed significant market reaction. Namely, within the lawsuits SEC named at least 13 altcoins, treating them as the crypto asset securities. Some of the names mentioned include Polygon (MATIC), Sandbox (SAND), Filecoin (FIL), Axie Infinity (AXS), Chiliz (CHZ), Flow (FLOW), Internet Computer (ICP), Near (NEAR), Voyager (VGX), Dash (DASH) and Nexo (NEXO). This imposed significant run-off from these assets and also forced liquidations in margined open positions, pushing the prices further to the downside. Considering the circumstances, BTC, ETH and XRP were among rare coins which had a relatively good week, with a decrease in price below 9%. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by 9% w/w, losing FWB:98B in total value. Daily trading volumes doubled from a week before, moving around $85B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year decreased to 33%, where it has added a total $253B to the market cap.
It was quite a bad week for altcoins, which lost a significant portion of their previous value. Major coins, excluding BNB, lost less than 10%, which might be treated as positive considering general circumstances. BTC lost some 5.8% w/w, erasing almost
31B
in its total value. ETH was down by 8.3%, losing $19B in total market cap. XRP was also on the downside, with total cap decrease of almost 6% or $1.6B. BNB was strongly affected by the negative news, and lost more than 23% in value or $11B. ADA was mentioned in the SEC lawsuit, so its value dropped by more than 32%, loosing $4B in market cap. In this group belongs Filecoin, which was down by 31% , Polygon dropped by 37.6% w/w, while DASH was down by 31%. Majority of all other altcoins were down between 15% and 26%. The only coin which gained in value is Tether, with an increase in circulating coins by 0.26% w/w. As for other coins, there has been some increased circulation by 0.2% for Stellar and Polkadot, while Solana and Filecoin increased their circulating coins by 0.3% w/w.
Crypto futures market
Regardless of general negative news on the market, the BTC and ETH futures were holding relatively good during the week. However, it should be considered that CME is closed during weekends, so Saturday trading sessions on the spot market still have not been priced by futures on the organized market. BTC short term futures were closed on Friday less than 3% lower from the week before. December 2023 was traded at a 0.98% lower price from the week before, at level of $27.355. Futures maturing in December next year were down by 1.34% w/w, and were closed at a price of $27.990.
ETH short term futures were traded down by some 3.6%, while futures maturing in December this year ended the week flat, with the latest price of $1.889. Longer term ETH futures were down by some 1.2%, with December 2024 ending the week at level of $1.919.
It was quite a stressful week for the crypto market, as the SEC continued with its effort to put crypto business in the US under “regulation”. On the other hand, US equity markets continue with gains during the last month, with S&P 500 moving above 4.300 points. Bitcoin is ending the week modestly above $25.5K, while Ether manages to hold above $1.7K.
Previous week started with bad news for the crypto market. Both Binance and Coinbase were sued by the SEC alleging unregistered business aside from a few other regulatory topics. As officially published on SEC`s website, the SEC filed 13 charges against Binance entities and its founder Changpeng Zhao. As noted, charges include “operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies; misrepresenting trading controls and oversight on the Binance.US platform; and the unregistered offer and sale of securities''. As for the lawsuit against Coinbase, SEC has officially published that the company is alleged for “unregistered offer and sale of securities in connection with its staking-as-a-service program”. Another issue is that SEC named at least 13 coins which they defined as “crypto asset securities' ', including Solana token, Cardano`s token ADA, Polygon`s MATIC and Protocol Lab`s Filecoin. Robinhood exchanger immediately took an action delisting all coins named in the SEC lawsuit. Market reaction was that altcoins crashed during the week. Still, BTC and ETH have not been significantly affected. All these companies made a statement during the week, strongly disagreeing with the SEC that these tokens are securities. On the other side, many analysts and investors are noting that this is all a result of lack of clear regulation in the US for crypto businesses. There are also those who find SEC lawsuits as positive for crypto, as they will finally bring some clarity into regulation.
After the lawsuit from the SEC, Binance.US made an announcement that from June 13th they will be transitioning to all-crypto exchange, in which sense, they will no longer support deposits in USD, including USD-based trading pairs. All products currently offered will be available but only in crypto currencies.
Markets in the US were generally supported by the recent debt-ceiling deal, and recent jobs data, where the US economy showed high resilience to the current macroeconomic environment and monetary measures imposed by the Fed. The US equity market indices were up to their highest level since August last year. However, not all economists are of the same opinion regarding resilience of the US economy. In an interview with CNBC, Bob Michele, Chief investment officer in JPMorgan Chase, noted that the previous recession in 1980 started after an average 13 months after the Fed`s final rate increase, and that current economic situation reminds him of that period. He also noted that industries which will suffer the most are “regional banks, commercial real estate and junk-rated corporate borrowers”. During the week ahead the inflation data will be released, and a FOMC meeting will be held, where potential for further rate increases will be discussed.
Crypto market cap
For one more time in the history of the crypto market, regulators were the ones to completely spoil a good game. Monday started with negative news about a new lawsuit from SEC against Binance, while already the following day another lawsuit emerged against Coinbase, one of the largest and also publicly listed crypto exchangers. Someone might say, there is nothing new with SEC, still, this time lawsuits were different and imposed significant market reaction. Namely, within the lawsuits SEC named at least 13 altcoins, treating them as the crypto asset securities. Some of the names mentioned include Polygon (MATIC), Sandbox (SAND), Filecoin (FIL), Axie Infinity (AXS), Chiliz (CHZ), Flow (FLOW), Internet Computer (ICP), Near (NEAR), Voyager (VGX), Dash (DASH) and Nexo (NEXO). This imposed significant run-off from these assets and also forced liquidations in margined open positions, pushing the prices further to the downside. Considering the circumstances, BTC, ETH and XRP were among rare coins which had a relatively good week, with a decrease in price below 9%. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by 9% w/w, losing FWB:98B in total value. Daily trading volumes doubled from a week before, moving around $85B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year decreased to 33%, where it has added a total $253B to the market cap.
It was quite a bad week for altcoins, which lost a significant portion of their previous value. Major coins, excluding BNB, lost less than 10%, which might be treated as positive considering general circumstances. BTC lost some 5.8% w/w, erasing almost
31B
in its total value. ETH was down by 8.3%, losing $19B in total market cap. XRP was also on the downside, with total cap decrease of almost 6% or $1.6B. BNB was strongly affected by the negative news, and lost more than 23% in value or $11B. ADA was mentioned in the SEC lawsuit, so its value dropped by more than 32%, loosing $4B in market cap. In this group belongs Filecoin, which was down by 31% , Polygon dropped by 37.6% w/w, while DASH was down by 31%. Majority of all other altcoins were down between 15% and 26%. The only coin which gained in value is Tether, with an increase in circulating coins by 0.26% w/w. As for other coins, there has been some increased circulation by 0.2% for Stellar and Polkadot, while Solana and Filecoin increased their circulating coins by 0.3% w/w. Crypto futures market
Regardless of general negative news on the market, the BTC and ETH futures were holding relatively good during the week. However, it should be considered that CME is closed during weekends, so Saturday trading sessions on the spot market still have not been priced by futures on the organized market. BTC short term futures were closed on Friday less than 3% lower from the week before. December 2023 was traded at a 0.98% lower price from the week before, at level of $27.355. Futures maturing in December next year were down by 1.34% w/w, and were closed at a price of $27.990.
ETH short term futures were traded down by some 3.6%, while futures maturing in December this year ended the week flat, with the latest price of $1.889. Longer term ETH futures were down by some 1.2%, with December 2024 ending the week at level of $1.919.
