Bitcoin price is going up because more people trust it, Ledger CEO says

The Ledger CEO says more retail buyers continue to look at Bitcoin, with non-zero addresses on the rise.

Pascal Gauthier, the CEO and chairman of hardware wallet firm Ledger, says it is people pushing the price of Bitcoin higher.

The crypto executive noted this during an interview with CNBC at the Crypto Finance Conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

On the issue of Bitcoin’s price growing exponentially over the past year, Gauthier said that all this is down to retail interest in the cryptocurrency. He believes more people want Bitcoin and as such, demand is pushing prices higher.

He noted that the trend over the past few weeks has been that more addresses have been created, with a growing number holding the minimum number of BTC. The Bitcoin network saw almost 1 million new addresses in November, with BTC price at the time having raced to its all-time high of $69,044 on 10 November.

The Ledger chief also added that the number of retail holders was increasing relative to whales, suggesting it’s the small buyers that continue to push the price of Bitcoin higher.

There is a profound retail trend everywhere in the world; they trust Bitcoin more and more. It’s the people that will push the price up,” he said. 

Bitcoin has rebounded from below $40,000 reached on Monday and currently trades around $43,700. The upward pressure comes at a time US inflation data shows a 7% jump year-on-year, the fastest rate since 1982.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin flows from exchanges have continued despite the recent sell-off. On-chain data analysis platform Santiment says this is a signal of less sell-off pressure. 

On a different note, Gauthier spoke about the broader crypto space and noted that the space witnessed an explosion of projects that outperformed Bitcoin.

Last year saw Ethereum, which notched more than 455% in yearly gains, outpace Bitcoin’s +75% upmove. While ETH is expected to reach a new peak as its network grows amid institutional inflows, the Ledger founder believes the crypto industry will also be looking at projects like Solana and other top ten projects.

For Solana, the Ledger CEO says it already has a great value proposition in relation to its non-fungible token (NFT) offering. This, he noted, could be expected from several of the protocols as they mature, driving adoption and prices.

Gauthier however says that last year’s massive rally could see several cryptocurrencies settle into a consolidation phase.

On blockchain networks, his main takeaway was that tokens are the “security” of the blockchain network. As such, he believes that a network is as secure as the price level of its native token.

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Bitcoin’s growing correlation with stocks raises risk of contagion across markets, says IMF

  • The IMF says Bitcoin’s high correlation with stocks means it’s more of a risk asset.

  • The financial institution calls for greater global regulation of the ecosystem to reduce potential risks to the rest of the market.

Bitcoin has outperformed the S&P 500 since 2017, with little to no correlation to the stock indexes before 2019 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Since then, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have largely moved in sync with the major stocks on Wall Street.

After plummeting in March 2020, crypto and equities began to surge as investors returned to risky assets, a scenario that now sees the International Monetary Fund (IMF) say could pose contagion risks to the broader financial markets.

The correlation coefficient of their daily moves was just 0.01[before 2020], but that measure jumped to 0.36 for 2020–21 as the assets moved more in lockstep, rising together or falling together,” the Washington DC-based financial institution said.

Chart showing a correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P 500. Source: IMF blog

 While the IMF report published on 11 January states that cryptocurrencies “are no longer on the fringe of the financial system,” it takes a negative view of the correlation with stocks.

The report claims that Bitcoin’s increased adoption and the rising correlation it’s showing with stocks limits the supposed “risk diversification benefits” that see many investors opting for it over traditional safe have assets such as gold.

The correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 is shown to be way higher than seen between stocks and gold and major global currencies.

And the IMF says the lockstep trading seen with the stock market suggests Bitcoin is more of a risky asset and not a hedge asset.

According to the IMF, this puts the markets at risk- specifically saying it threatens “contagion across financial markets.”

In its assessment, the institution says any sharp declines across the Bitcoin market threaten risk aversion among investors. This, it adds, might see investors aver from investing in stocks.

Spillovers in the reverse direction—that is, from the S&P 500 to Bitcoin—are on average of a similar magnitude, suggesting that sentiment in one market is transmitted to the other in a nontrivial way,“ the report added.

Pointing to systemic concerns, IMF suggests the adoption of a global regulatory framework targeted at oversight and potentially helping to stem risks to the financial system.

In December, CNBC’s “Fast Money” trader Brian Kelly said Bitcoin and Nasdaq were trading in lockstep. He pointed to the 30-day correlation as having been around 47% at the time, with Bitcoin usually a leading indicator for the stocks index.

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Market highlights January 12: Cryptos in the green, US stocks rise as investors await CPI data

The crypto market was higher over the past 24 hours, as the majority of top 10 cryptos were in the green at time of writing. US stocks marched higher yesterday after Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell reiterated his warning that rates will have to rise this year.

The confirmation that the Fed is serious about tackling inflation was well received by investors, with the NASDAQ100 (+1.47%), SPX500 (+0.92%) and DJ30 (+0.51%) all finishing higher yesterday.

Energy stocks dominated the SPX500’s risers table following a sharp increase in the price of oil.

Investors will be closely following the monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Core CPI data, set to be released today at 13:30 GMT.

Top cryptos

Bitcoin climbed around 1%, trading above $42,000 at time of writing. Ethereum was up around 4%, and Cardano and XRP registered gains of around 5% and 2%, respectively. Closing out the top 10 list was Polkadot, which registered gains of around 10%.

Avalanche, the 11th biggest coin in the ranking, has gained 11% today, trading for just over $90. It surpassed both Dogecoin and Shiba Inu by market cap and looks set to pass $100 soon.

NEAR Protocol’s native token NEAR is the biggest winner in the top 20 this week. The 19th ranking coin gained 7% in the last 7 days, more than every other coin in the top 20, and added 10% to its value just today.

Top movers

After correcting the recent pullback, Fantom has embarked on a relentless bullish trend thanks to a list of recent events. First, it was the news of Movr Network integrated Fantom into FundMovr and then the currently ongoing FantomLive IDO on DAOStarter. It has gained 20% in the last 24 h.

Oasis Network (ROSE), a privacy-focused layer 1 blockchain built for open finance and a responsible data economy using the Cosmos SDK, is up 19%.

Secret is the native coin of Secret Network, a blockchain with data privacy for smart contracts by default, allowing you to build and use applications that are both permissionless and privacy-preserving. 

This functionality protects users, secures applications, and unlocks hundreds of never-before-possible use cases for Web3. It has gained 18% in the last 24 h.

The Sandbox, Kadena, and Bora all gained 14% today. Bora is up to 96th. Yesterday, it was barely staying afloat at 100.

Harmony, the 42nd largest coin by market cap, is one of today’s big winners too. It has gained more than 13%. Celo gained just under 13%. OMG Network and Livepeer are also up 13%.

The price of metaverse token GALA gained 700% last November, after which it fell with a series of declining highs. Now, it’s starting to reverse some of its losses. It has gained 12% today. Arweave is also up by 12%.

Other strong performers include Enjin Coin with +11% and Stacks and THORChain, both with +10%. The live Kusama price today is $272 with a 24-hour trading volume of $114.4 million. It is up 9.71% in the last 24 hours.

Trending

Bombcrypto is a classic play-to-earn game where players can buy bomber heroes and participate in exciting game modes. The game has 3 game modes: Treasure Hunt – Autoplay, Story Mode, and PVP. It is trending as Bomber Coin. 

The price of its token, BCOIN, is $3.24 today. Bomber Coin is up 30% in the last 24 hours.  

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Crypto and Fed digital dollar can coexist, says Fed Chair Jerome Powell

  • Powell says nothing would prevent a well-regulated stablecoin from coexisting with a US CBDC.

  • He also revealed that a much-awaited report on cryptocurrencies was ready for release within weeks.

Cryptocurrencies and a US central bank digital currency can coexist, according to comments made by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

The Fed chair said this when answering a direct question on the topic from Sen. Pat Toomey during Powell’s re-nomination hearing on Capitol Hill.   

The lawmaker wanted to know if there was anything that would prevent the coexistence of a Fed digital dollar and stablecoins. 

According to Business Insider, Powell responded with a “no, not at all.

His response suggests that if Congress okayed a CBDC and Fed were able to launch one, nothing would “preclude a well regulated, privately issued stable coin from co-existing” within the same financial system as the digital dollar.

An example would be USD Coin (USDC), a US dollar-pegged stablecoin launched by Circle and Coinbase. 

Crypto report ready

Powell also said that the long-overdue report on digital currencies should be out soon, putting the timeline towards that within weeks.

He told Sen. Mike Crapo that the report on cryptocurrencies was ready and that the delay in releasing it was largely down to monetary policy adjustments.

He noted that coming up with the report was a tough task and that the agency “didn’t get it quite to where [it] needed to get it.” However, it’s now ready for publication.

The report really is ready to go and I would expect we will drop it, I hate to say it again, in the coming weeks, but it really is in a situation where it’s ready to go,” the Fed Chair reiterated.

According to Powell, the structure of the engagement with the report will mainly constitute “asking questions and seeking input from the public,” and not merely taking predetermined positions on issues.

But that doesn’t mean that the Fed wouldn’t be taking positions, he added.

Powell said in December that he didn’t think crypto posed any threats to the stability of the US financial system. He also earlier told Congress that the Fed was not looking to take China’s route and ban cryptocurrencies.

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What next for Crypto.com (CRO) after a 7-day blood bath? – Price prediction and analysis

Crypto.com (CRO) is simply in shambles. After a massive 7-day rout that saw the token lose nearly 25% in value, CRO is still in the eye of the storm. Any attempts to break the downtrend over the last few days have been met with massive downward pressure. So, what’s next for CRO? Well, here are some highlights.

  • CRO has shown some mild bullish signs in the last week but has largely been on a strong downtrend.

  • At the time of writing, the coin was trading at $0.4459, up about 1% in 24 hours but still down 22% for the week.

  • CRO is facing significant headwinds in the market albeit underlying fundamentals are outstanding.

Data source: Tradingview.com 

Crypto.com (CRO) – price action and prediction

CRO has shown some brief recovery over the last 24 hours, managing to post decent gains after a whole week in the red. But this is very mild and does not suggest anything. In fact, the token is firmly in decline. 

Any breakout can only come once we see a trend reversal around its $0.4224 support. Also, CRO must break past its overhead resistance of $0.4846. At the time of writing, the coin was trading at around $0.4459. 

With increasing bear pressure from the wider market, it is unlikely that CRO will surge past overhead resistance in the near term. In fact, if downside pressure continues, the token could sink to as low as $0.3151.

Should you buy Crypto.com (CRO)

Crypto.com, one of the leading crypto exchanges in the world, has expanded fast in recent years. In fact, the platform is putting more effort to bring institutional traders with deeper pockets into its exchange. 

It is therefore going places and as such, any investor should consider its native CRO token. Crpto.com (CRO) has always been a decent long-term asset to hold. Nothing has changed in underlying fundamentals, so you should definitely buy.

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