July 24, 2024

Bitcoin regained $66,000 following Tuesday's dip below $65,500, but ongoing Mt. Gox-related selling pressure has tempered chances of a sustained rally. Mt. Gox moved over $3 billion worth of BTC between different wallets, according to Arkham data. It ultimately sent $130 million to crypto exchange Bitstamp. There's an expectation that creditors will immediately sell their BTC on receipt, which is why the coin movements tend to weigh on bitcoin's price. BTC sits at around $66,500 at the time of writing, little changed from 24 hours ago. The wider crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) was also little changed. 

Ether ETFs in the U.S. saw net inflows of around $107 million on their first day of trading, with volumes surpassing $1 billion. The BlackRock iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) led with inflows of $266.5 million, followed by Bitwise's Ethereum ETF (ETHW) at $204 million. Total trading volume was around one-fifth the bitcoin equivalents experienced on their debut in January. Many market observers had speculated that volume and flow for the ETH ETFs would be underwhelming due to a lack of staking mechanism. Ether traded just below $3,500 during the Asian and European mornings, around 1.3% lower than 24 hours ago.

There are few bitcoin miners with the same power at their disposal as Iris Energy, Canaccord said in a report on Tuesday. “The company is building 510 MW of data centers in 2024, secured 2,160 MW of power capacity, and has a 1 GW plus development pipeline,” analysts wrote. The broker raised its target for the company to $15 from $12 while maintaining its buy rating. Iris Energy was trading 3% higher at $11.23 in pre-market trading on Nasdaq. Earlier this month, Iris shares slumped 14% after a short seller said its Childress, Texas site was not suitable for hosting AI or high-performance computing. "We think management will be opportunistic in expanding the use case for its data centers beyond bitcoin mining and is well-prepared from a power, cooling, and network perspective,” Canaccord wrote.

The copper-to-gold ratio has tanked to its lowest since November 2020 after dropping 8% in the last month, offering bearish cues to risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.

Demand for copper, a metal deeply embedded in the manufacturing sector, is closely tied to industrial activity. Hence, the metal is widely called "Doctor Copper," a proxy for economic health and investor risk appetite. Gold, in contrast, is considered a haven.

As such, their relative valuation reflects investors' appetite for risk and growth-sensitive assets like technology stocks and bitcoin compared with havens like gold and Treasury notes. In a nutshell, bitcoin could see downside volatility if the falling copper-to-gold ratio is a guide.

However, BTC could find its footing once the initial shock from potential economic weakness signaled by the copper-gold ratio is priced in, as the slide has also been a signal of lower interest rates being imminent historically.

- Omkar Godbole