The latest moves in crypto markets, in context By Jamie Crawley, CoinDesk news reporter Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. |
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Happy Friday! Here’s what you need to know today in crypto: |
- Bitcoin has held the $43,000 level while LINK is leading altcoin gains.
- AI crypto tokens rallied after Meta's earnings beat expectations.
- Binance froze $4.2 million worth of XRP tied to the recent $120 million exploit.
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CoinDesk 20 Index: 1,671 +3.6%
Bitcoin (BTC): $43,185 +2.6%
Ether (ETC): $2,322 +2.4%
S&P 500: 4,906.19 +1.2%
Gold: $2,073 +1.0%
Nikkei 225: $2,073 +1.0% |
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Bitcoin stood its ground above $43,000 during the European morning on Friday, maintaining gains of around 2% in the last 24 hours. The CoinDesk 20 Index, which provides a weighted performance of the top digital assets, is up over 3.2%, with Chainlink's LINK leading the charge. LINK reached a 22-month high above $18 having gained nearly 30% in the last week, comfortably beating major cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH. The rally marks a bullish breakout from the three-month range that's seen it stuck between $13 and $17, and signals a continuation of a comeback from June 2023 lows near $5. |
AI crypto tokens enjoyed a rally in the last 24 hours after Meta's quarterly earnings beat analyst expectations. The technology giant formerly known as Facebook announced a significant revenue increase and an additional $50 billion stock buyback on Thursday, sending artificial intelligence tokens up in its wake. CoinDesk Indices’ Computing Select Index (CPUS), which holds AI tokens like Render (RNDR) and Fetch.ai (FET), is up nearly 10% over the last 24 hours, compared to the major crypto assets which have gained nearly 3%, as per the CoinDesk 20 Index. Since CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta would be pivoting to AI around a year ago, its stock has more than doubled. Binance froze $4.2 million worth of XRP tied to this week's $120 million exploit. CEO Richard Teng said in an X post that XRP Ledger developers had flagged the exploit to exchanges and asked them to look out for deposits related to exploiter wallets. The tokens were apparently stolen from a wallet earlier this week. The wallet was later confirmed to belong to Ripple Labs Executive Chairman Chris Larsen. Larsen said that there had been a breach to his "personal XRP accounts," but not of Ripple itself. In a Wednesday post, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT claimed that 213 million XRP tokens had been siphoned out of a large wallet on the XRP Leger blockchain. The funds were subsequently laundered through multiple exchanges including Binance, Kraken and OKX. |
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Grayscale is the world’s largest crypto asset manager*. We enable investors to access the digital economy through a family of regulated and future-forward investment products. Our decade-long track record and deep expertise as a crypto-specialist means that investors, advisors, and allocators turn to us for both investment insights and innovative products. Crypto investing begins with Grayscale. *By AUM as of 1/16/24. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal. |
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Market Insight: Traders Still Prefer Bitcoin to Ether Despite ETF Hopes |
Despite hopes of spot ether ETFs going live this year, traders continue to prefer BTC over ETH, anticipating continued weakness in the ether-bitcoin (ETH/BTC) ratio in the months ahead, futures data show. The ETH/BTC forward term structure, calculated as the ratio between prices for ether futures and bitcoin futures over different maturities, has been sloping downwards, according to data tracked by crypto asset management firm Blofin. The ratio surged 17% to 0.059 days after the SEC greenlighted the spot bitcoin ETFs. Ether’s outperformance primarily stemmed from hopes that the regulator would soon approve ether spot ETFs. While those hopes remain alive, the ETH/BTC ratio has since retreated to $0.053. “The downward sloping structure is backward, which means that traders expect ETH to perform weaker than BTC as time goes by,” Griffin Ardern, a volatility trader from crypto asset management firm Blofin, said. “This shows investors are relatively more bullish on BTC’s performance.” |
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- The chart shows the number of bitcoin held in wallets associated with miners.
- The tally has dropped to 1,814,691 BTC, the lowest since July 2021.
- Miners seem to be running down their inventory ahead of Bitcoin's fourth reward halving, due in April.
- Source: Glassnode
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Disclaimer: The information presented in this message is intended as a news item that provides a brief summary of various events and developments that affect, or that might in the future affect, the value of one or more of the cryptocurrencies described above. The information contained in this message, and any information liked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. The information presented herein is accurate only as of its date, and it was not prepared by a research analyst or other investment professional. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency before deciding to purchase or sell any such instruments. |
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