After a brief cooldown after the price increase driven by the approval of ETFs, bitcoin markets (BTC) and digital assets are heating up again.
the biggest and oldest cryptocurrency of the world ended last week with an increase of 2%, trading at US$ 63,000.
The second and third biggest assets on the Brave New Coin chart, ethereum (ETHe binance coin (BNB), ended the week with a growth of 12% and 1%, respectively.
On October 20, bitcoin set a new all-time high of $67,250. The reason the market moved towards new highs was the launch of the first bitcoin futures ETF in the United States.
The event was celebrated as a regulatory milestone for the cryptocurrency industry, with the green light for bitcoin trading after years of denial and resubmission of applications.
O first bitcoin ETF to be approved was ProShares’ Bitcoin Strategy ETF ($BITO). The fund trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and follows the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) bitcoin futures price. The ETF was listed on Tuesday (19) and immediately broke records.
$BITO’s assets under management reached $1.1 billion after its second day of listing, making it the fastest ETF to hit the $1 billion mark, dethroning the previous 18-year record set by gold.
Demand to gain exposure to bitcoin in the US was very strong and ETF approval created a positive price momentum for the spot bitcoin markets.
After the frenzy over the cryptocurrency ETF, a fall seemed inevitable. In the days following the new record, the price of BTC dropped to the US$ 59.9 thousand mark on Sunday (24), representing a drop of 11% in five days.
For the past 24 hours, however, the bitcoin and asset markets seem stable and ready to start a bullish cycle again. Since the beginning of this week, the price of bitcoin has increased by 3%.
One reason for the increase could be comments made by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. On Oct. 24, Yellen said she expected inflation to remain high through the first half of 2022.
She said she expects price increases to ease as problems – ranging from supply bottlenecks, a tight US labor market to other economic factors linked to the pandemic – improve.
Bitcoin has now established itself as a viable way of curbing inflation, thanks to its verifiable digital scarcity and approvals from institutions in different areas. Markets may be waiting to perform well in the next period of inflation and dollar devaluation.
Another potential reason for last week’s strong performance could be news that the Mastercard should advertise that any of the thousands of banks and millions of merchants in its payment network will soon be able to integrate crypto into their products.
CNBC news channel said the payments giant’s program will include bitcoin wallets as well as debit and credit cards that will have crypto rewards.
Mastercard will make it possible for merchants to accept digital assets and for loyalty programs, such as at airlines or hotels, to convert those points into bitcoin. This is another sign of growing retailer take-up and demand for cryptocurrencies.
What’s next this week?
October 26: ICON blockchain nodes update
O blockchain of the ICON platform will move to the next phase of its upgrade to ICON 2.0. Today (26), node operators will receive technical guidance on how to prepare their ICON 2.0 nodes, and the ICON foundation will collect feedback on the subject.
ICON 2.0 is a major reworking of the ICON blockchain and includes several new tools for the platform. The blockchain’s native token – ICX – had an 8% increase in the last week.
Oct 27: Ethereum implements Altair update
Altair, the first main network update for Ethereum’s Beacon Chain, is expected to be implemented tomorrow (27).
Beacon Chain is Ethereum’s foundation for the future in proof-of-stake (PoS) and has been running parallel to Ethereum in proof-of-work (PoW) since December of last year.
This update brings the “light-client” support to the central consensus, solves some problems with incentives to validators and intensifies the punishment parameters, as per EIP-2982. Ether had a high period before the update and an 11% increase in the last seven days.
Top 10 cryptoactives of the week
Last week was strong for most large cap assets, according to the Brave New Coin table above, with tier-one tokens performing well overall. Solana (SOL) was the asset with the best result among the top ten assets.
Together with BTC, SOL set a new historic high, reaching $219 in major brokerages, on October 25th.
The total amount blocked from decentralized finance protocols (DeFi) in Solana exploded in the second half of this month and continues to set new all-time highs, above $13.5 billion. Currently, the most popular DeFi application on Solana is the Saber decentralized broker.
Bitcoin price graph
Glassnode reported that interest in open CME futures positions increased by $3.95 billion during the month of October, before ETF approval and shortly after its listing. Open positions on the CME have increased 295% since the beginning of September.
It appears that large institutional buyers were leading the launch of the ETF. As concerns about US inflation have not yet eased in the US, institutions may increase their exposure to bitcoin.
I am an author at Global happenings and I mostly cover automobile news. In my time working in the automotive industry, I have developed a keen interest in the latest developments and trends. My writing skills have also allowed me to share my knowledge with others through articles and blog posts.
