Bitcoin (BTC), which seemed incredibly listless for most of this wild week, suddenly gained energy after Elon Musk, the entrepreneur for electric vehicles and private jets, who is also believed to be the richest man in the world, changed his Twitter bio to name the cryptocurrency. (See the screenshot below in the Bitcoin Watch column by Omkar Godbole.)
The price of bitcoin, the oldest and largest cryptocurrency, rose 12% to about $ 37,400, about the highest in two weeks. According to Decrypt, the sudden increase of $ 420 million in trader positions liquidated – a bit of irony given Musk’s very public aversion to short sellers, or traders betting on price declines.
Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, was also higher and pushed back to a new high price of over $ 1400.
Dogecoin (DOGE), a digital sign with little use beyond the memory of its doggie face image, has climbed eightfold in the past two days. (Read more about it here and here and in the Market Moves column below.)
In traditional markets, the European stock index has slipped and US futures have shown lower openness amid ongoing concerns about a cash squeeze in China and the volatile retailer speculation highlighted by this week’s GameStop saga.
Market movements
A new narrative runs through digital markets that may soon move to the marketing divisions of the crypto industry: that many individual investors, enraged at Wall Street and put off by stock markets after the GameStop episode, may find redemption through them to cryptocurrencies to wend.
Crypto twitterati including Alex Kruger, Balaji Srinivasan, Erik Vorhees and the Winklevoss twins jumped on the bandwagon on Thursday, hammering out the message that Wall Street is serving its own interests before customers. And the crypto makes it right.
The opportunistic spirit of the industry is already appearing in the form of pitches and new products. FTX, which is not based in the US, was known for last year’s TRUMP tokens and rushed to list GameStop’s shares for futuristic futures and spot trading, as reported by Sebastian Sinclair of CoinDesk. The Bermre-based Bittrex Global listed GameStop (GME) shares are listed, along with other shares delisted by the Robinhood retail platform, including AMC Entertainment.
Here is a quick example of the comment:
- Mati Greenspan, founder of foreign exchange and cryptocurrency analysis firm Quantum Economics, told its subscribers on the newsletter on Thursday: “For many people involved in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, the answer is very clear. Fortunately, there is for the last time.” an alternative market under construction. a few years is the decentralized market. it is a place where transparency is enforced by code and not by men. “
- Paulo Ardoino, CTO of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and a spokesperson for the stablecoin-tether: “As advocates for retail investors trace the current structure and practices of the financial markets, it is important to note that much of the work done in the blockchain space is done, is done.inspired by these barriers.The removal of barriers for normal, everyday working people building and looking for growing opportunities has always been part of the ethos of crypto.
- Nicholas Pelecanos, Head of Commerce at NEM, a blockchain firm: “The case for cryptocurrencies is only getting stronger. I believe we will see a new wave of investors come to bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies as a result of this debacle.”
- Camila Russo, founder of The Defiant Newsletter: “Decentralized funding will win. It’s simply better. Freer.”
One big question, of course, is what all this could mean for cryptocurrency prices. The prices for the digital token dogecoin (DOGE), which is basically just a girl-face-girl, rose in value when rumors swirled that it might be the next thing to draw the system’s attention (or even just fun). . seeking) retailers.
As reported by Kevin Reynolds and Zack Voell of CoinDesk, the price of dogecoin rose eightfold on Thursday. The sign now has a market capitalization of about $ 6 billion – for something that is basically an extensive joke. Dogecoin has overtaken bitcoin, which has a market value of almost $ 700 billion, to become the most named cryptocurrency on Twitter.
(For the DOGE curious readers out there, the breed commonly associated with dogecoin is shina inu, which according to the American Kennel Club website usually weighs only 20 pounds but is a ‘well-muscled’, ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘good’ -of course. ”Quite cute too!)
As discussed by First Mover on Thursday, there are already many similarities between loosely regulated crypto markets, whose international reach places large sections of players and activities outside the scope of normally-coordinated authorities, and the kind of everything that goes, let- roll spirit that penetrated Wall Street this week.
But it is the mere existence of an alternative to the traditional financial system that could ultimately be the biggest selling point for the crypto industry, which in broad terms can also accurately claim to have the latest technology.
Former Pimco and Harvard chief financial officer Mohamed El-Erian, who now serves as chief financial adviser to German financial conglomerate Allianz, wrote in a column for Bloomberg Opinion this week that the GameStop-inspired masses could represent a ‘new investor power’ . “Raise several interesting questions about the market structure and future financial stability.”
“The dual possibility of large-scale financial volatility and market dysfunction would present another challenge to an economic recovery,” El-Erian wrote.
The new investor power can represent the new, latest edge of the crypto industry – for motivated customers.
Bitcoin Watch
Bitcoin saw a sudden double-digit increase to 10-day highs on Friday.
The top crypto currency picked up a bid near $ 32,000 and jumped to $ 37,050 at around 08:30 coordinated universal time (03:30 in New York), according to CoinDesk 20 data the highest since January 19. The 15.7% increase occurred in less than 15 minutes and the early decline more than reversed from $ 34,400 to $ 32,000.
Although the exact reason for the bullish move is difficult to define, prices rose after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk changed. Twitter bio to name the crypto-currency. Although the bitcoin community is eager for Musk to come out as a supporter, he apparently likes to drop crypto mentions as a tease.
Around the time he changed the bio, Musk also changed cryptically tweeted: “In retrospect, it was inevitable.”
Whether bitcoin’s rise will continue is uncertain. Blockchain analysis firm CryptoQuant’s Block Whale Ratio, calculated by dividing the top 10 bitcoin inflow transactions by the total currency flow in one hour, jumped to an eight-month high of 0.88 early Friday. warning of a possible price drop.
“However, Elon’s tweet dominates all other clumsy signals,” said Ki-Young Ju, chief executive of blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant. tweeted.
Read more: Bitcoin rises to $ 37,000 after Elon Musk added Crypto to Twitter Bio
Token Watch
Algorand (ALGO): Evidence of the Algorand ink interest network in partnership with Curv, a digital storage technology provider, for ‘reliable DeFi’ (CoinDesk)
Dogecoin (DOGE): Meme currency nearly triples, with market capitalization now $ 2.5 billion, after social media attention (CoinDesk)
Cosmos (ATOM): Cosmos to take the lead in blockchain interoperability with the February Stargate release (CoinDesk)
Bitcoin (BTC): that’s the question, stupid. Advocates of Bitcoin confuse ‘barely’ with ‘ends’, writes Frances Coppola in the column (CoinDesk Opinion)
What’s hot?
Coinbase says in the webmail he plans to become a listed company via a direct listing (CoinDesk)
Iran strengthens grip on crypto-miners as they look to them as a potential source of revenue as international sanctions shrink economy (CoinDesk)
Cathie Wood’s ARK estimates that bitcoin could climb to $ 400K if the cryptocurrency were to replace 10% of the cash on corporate balance sheets:
Analog
The latest on economics and traditional finance
Silver rises as GameStop day traders move to other assets (WSJ)
Retailers sue Robinhood over restrictions on memo shares GameStop, AMC Theaters and Blackberry (CoinDesk)
Robinhood said he should draw credit lines on the bank amid a commotion (Bloomberg)
Private equity firm Silver Lake converts $ 600 million AMC convertible notes into equity to the retail-driven stock pump (WSJ).
US Congress Schedules GameStop Market Pump Hearings (CoinDesk)
American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, posted record losses for 2020 after the coronavirus (WSJ) slump
Emerging market loans – $ 847 billion in 2020, with another $ 100 billion in bonds sold so far in January – raise concerns about debt tax (WSJ)
The European Central Bank’s chief banking supervisor is concerned that lenders in the region may not set aside enough money for loan loss reserves
‘Investors are constantly conditioned to buy the dip, regardless of the cause. FOMO (fear of missing out) and TINA (there is no alternative to risk assets) have turbocharged this behavior, “writes Allianz’s chief economic adviser Mohamed el-Erian in a column (Bloomberg opinion)
Although the U.S. economy has shrunk the most since 1946 last year, consumers increased their spending on goods faster than before the coronavirus, as ‘resilient wages, live stocks, low interest rates and stimulus gave most households ample spending power’ while the pandemic limited payments for services, the US Department of Commerce reported Thursday (WSJ):
Tweet of the day
