Beiträge

Veröffentlicht am

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.

The post Bitcoin price is going up because more people trust it, Ledger CEO says appeared first on Coin Journal.

Veröffentlicht am

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.

The post Bitcoin’s growing correlation with stocks raises risk of contagion across markets, says IMF appeared first on Coin Journal.

Veröffentlicht am

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.  

The post Market highlights January 12: Cryptos in the green, US stocks rise as investors await CPI data appeared first on Coin Journal.