Futures tied to the major U.S. stock indexes rose after the report. S&P 500 futures were up 1.7%; Dow futures gained 1.3%.
Ether (ETH) also traded up after the data was released, up 4% at $1,780. Head of Europe at Hashdex, Laurent Kssis, thinks that this might be a key support level for the cryptocurrency for a $2,000 target by the end of August.
Altcoins performed well Wednesday with Fantom (FTM) up 8% and AAVE by 6%.
“We increasingly seem to be entering a transitional period. Until recently, it was clear that most investors considered the market to be in the throes of a crypto winter, but this narrative is no longer as clearly defined,” said Jason Deane, analyst at Quantum Economics.
Deane points to indicators in the market showing a possibility of a future recovery, “some soft indicators, such as the Fear & Greed Index as well as hard indicators such as volume transactions on exchanges, miner sell rates and even lightning network capacity data.”
“That said, bitcoin is still very much traded by markets as a commodity and its price is still closely aligned with external market data,” said Deane. “As a result, the influence of these factors can often offset asset specific data and that may well be what we're seeing here.”
Musk sells Tesla shares
In the news, Tesla chief Elon Musk sold 7.92 million shares of the company, according to regulatory filings.
Musk, who has been meme cryptocurrency dogecoin’s highest-profile supporter, confirmed the shares had been sold via a tweet. Responding to a tweet asking if the shares were sold, the billionaire replied “yes. In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock.”
This has left him with a 15% stake in the company. Tesla stock was down 2.5% on the day.
Coinbase
A new lawsuit alleges that crypto exchange Coinbase executives misled shareholders about its public listing. A Coinbase shareholder is seeking damages from nine company executives and board members, CoinDesk’s Sandali Handagama reports.
Shares of Coinbase Global (COIN) have fallen about 5% after the exchange said trading volume dropped substantially during the second quarter. According to a shareholder letter released Tuesday, customer trading activity amounted to $217 billion during the period, down from $309 billion in the first quarter of this year.
Despite this, Bank of America said in a research report on Tuesday that the exchange is well positioned to take market share during this crypto winter. It maintained a buy recommendation on the stock following the exchange’s second-quarter results.
JPMorgan is less optimistic than Bank of America about the company in the near term, saying the crypto exchange's near-term outlook is “still grim.”
Latin America
Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest e-commerce company by market value, plans to expand its crypto trading feature across the region after a successful start in Brazil.
In December, users of Mercado Pago, Mercado Libre’s digital wallet, were allowed to buy and sell bitcoin, ether and stablecoin Pax dollar (USDP) in Brazil after an integration with Paxos blockchain infrastructure.
Contacted by CoinDesk, Mercado Libre did not provide details on exactly which countries were next in line for the product or any tentative dates, Andres Engler reports.
