Bitcoin made some gains on Friday, but Ether hit another brand new price before CME’s Ether futures launched on Monday.
- Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $ 37,751 as of 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM ET). Gain of 0.32% in the last 24 hours.
- Bitcoin 24-hour range: $ 36,637 to $ 38,332 (CoinDesk 20)
- BTC below the 10-hour average but above the 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin trading on Bitstamp since February 2nd.
Source: TradingView
Bitcoin price is now on the fourth day of an uptrend, rising to $ 38,332 at 2:00 p.m. UTC (9:00 a.m. CET) before losing some of its steam over the weekend. At press time, it was $ 37,751.
“Similar to the last bull run, we see that Bitcoin first draws attention when the general attention picks up retail adoption,” said Michael Gord, CEO of trading company Global Digital Asset.
However, Gord said CoinDesk traders are switching from Bitcoin to high-flying digital assets. “Bitcoin then cools down and the profits made with Bitcoin are first in the airwaves, then in other high-cap digital assets,” Gord said.
Continue reading: Dalio Offers Alt-Cash Funds, Says “Bitcoin Will Not Escape Our Exam”
Nonetheless, a new interest like that of Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, which manages $ 150 billion in investor funds, has some including quantitative trading firm QCP Capital, which is very bullish on Bitcoin.
“Bridgewater’s article last week had a sensitivity analysis showing their estimates of the price of BTC should private gold owners switch to BTC,” QCP’s weekly investor announcement said Friday. “They predicted that 50% of the gold capital would flow into BTC, resulting in a price of $ 85,000 per 1 BTC.”
Comparison of Bitcoin with traditional asset classes (Shuai Hao / CoinDesk)
Source: CoinDesk Research, Fed St. Louis, Yahoo Finance
Investors are certainly looking for crypto as an asset class, but Bitcoin is still quite volatile. The 30-day volatility from Thursday’s close is 102.9% on an annual basis, while gold is 16%.
However, crypto advocates see Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) as similar to different asset classes, according to Joel Edgerton, chief operating officer of cryptocurrency exchange BitFlyer USA. “I suspect that BTC is like gold and based on the value it stores, a scarce resource in pricing,” Edgerton said. “The ETH is more of a share and is valued according to the value it delivers (ETH 2.0, network effects, basis for DeFi).” He sees Ether as an exchange traded fund (ETF) for decentralized financing.
While Bitcoin has done well so far in 2021 – it’s up 29% – returns on Ether have more than quadrupled, up 129%.
Bitcoin (orange) against ether (blue) on Bitstamp.
Source: TradingView
“Ether is growing primarily due to the growth of decentralized financial projects whose operation is based on ERC-20 tokens,” said Guy Hirsch, Managing Director of the USA at eToro. “Since ETH has not traded that high so far, it is difficult to say what kind of support there is. However, if the DeFi project continues to grow as fast as it is, it would be difficult for ETH not to continue setting new records. “
One thing to watch in a heated ether market is the ETH / BTC trading pair. A surge in this market signals that traders are selling their bitcoin for airwaves. it appreciated over 75% in 2021.
The trading pair ETH / BTC on Coinbase in 2021.
Source: TradingView
“While Bitcoin is consolidating and trending back to all-time highs, much of the price movement has been concentrated in the ETH and DeFi space,” said Jason Lau, chief operating officer of the San Francisco-based crypto exchange OKCoin. “ETH / BTC almost doubled in the last month.”
Aether dominance before the CME launch
Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, rose on Friday, trading at $ 1,714 and rising 3.3% in the space of 24 hours at 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM ET). It hit a brand new price of $ 1,761 on Friday, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
Continue reading: Ether tops $ 1.7,000, setting new record as CME futures get close
Aether’s dominance, a measure of the asset value of the larger market cap of cryptocurrencies totaling $ 1.1 trillion, is now over 17%. This is an increase of more than 50% since the beginning of 2021, according to key figures calculated by the chart software TradingView.
Previous dominance of the aether in 2021.
Source: TradingView
Chad Steinglass, trading director at CrossTower Capital, told CoinDesk that crypto traders picked up ETH ahead of the institutional CME launch of Ether Futures on February 8th. “I think a lot of traders build positions before the start,” he said.
“The availability of CME-listed ETH futures could be a significant positive catalyst,” said Steinglass. “The addition of CME futures will open the door to many potential investors who want exposure but who do not need to take positions due to logistical hurdles.”
“With decentralized exchange trading picking up again and high-yield farming showing no signs of easing, the growing interest in leveraged agricultural products is driving demand for ETH even higher and showing that the market will only continue to grow,” said Denis Vinokourov, Head of Research at Crypto Brokerage Bequant.
Other markets
The digital assets of CoinDesk 20 are all on Green Friday. Notable Winners as of 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM ET):
Continue reading: DeFi season? LINK, AAVE, ZRX and COMP reach record heights
- Oil rose 0.86%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate Crude: $ 56.94.
- Gold was in the green at 0.92% and at $ 1,810 at press time.
- Silver gains 1.8% and changes hands at $ 26.82.
- The US 10-year Treasury yield rose to 1.170 on Friday and is still 3.2% in the green.
The CoinDesk 20: The assets that matter most to the market
