1. Market Wrap: Bitcoin Steady Near $59K; Gains in Altcoins Push Crypto Market Cap to $2T
As altcoins rise, bitcoin’s market dominance is down to around 57% from near 73% at the beginning of the year.
Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $59,002.29 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Climbing 1.75% over the previous 24 hours.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $56,846.97-$59,243.04
BTC trades above its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin opened the week with another failed attempt to break through a key psychological level at $60,000, and has been trading steadily near $59,000.
Bitcoin’s spot trading volume on eight major crypto exchanges tracked by CoinDesk was around $2 billion on Monday, mostly unchanged from the prior day.
Meanwhile, bitcoin’s 30-day volatility has also dropped, to near 56%, a level not seen since the beginning of the year.
The oldest cryptocurrency is now trading in “a consolidation phase,” as CoinDesk’s Damanick Dantes wrote earlier Monday, with initial support around $56,000.
Ether (ETH) trading around $2,105.07 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Climbing 2.05% over the previous 24 hours.
Ether’s 24-hour range: $2,005.46-$2,124.70
Ether trades above its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
The market chatter Monday was on neither bitcoin nor ether, but on multiple alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), where price rallies helped pushed the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies to $2 trillion.
2. Coinbase and Bakkt Are Behind Paul Tudor Jones’ Bitcoin Bets, SEC Documents Show
The macro king’s $44 billion hedge fund has quietly brokered crypto custody ties with some of the industry’s biggest names.
When Paul Tudor Jones bet 1% to 2% of his assets on bitcoin in May 2020 it was unclear where the billionaire had bought his crypto, or how. The industry remained uncertain if his investment was direct. After all, his hedge fund had started flirting with bitcoin futures only days before.
But in the year since, his firm, the $44.5 billion Tudor Investment Corporation, has indeed established rails for direct crypto ownership. It secured custodial ties with institutional powerhouses Coinbase and Bakkt, according to new filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Coinbase Custody Trust Company, Bakkt Trust Company and Tagomi Trading LLC (the institutional brokerage firm Coinbase bought in May 2020) all provide custodial services to Tudor Jones’ family-only hedge fund, the documents state.
The filings provide a rare glimpse into the hush-hush world of institutional crypto dealmaking, where well-heeled clients pile into an asset class bankers once deemed absurd. Many, like Tudor Jones, see bitcoin as an inflation hedge, and their ranks are swelling in the pandemic economy.
They’re also playing a key role in the 2020–21 bull market. On-chain data shows whales bought over 500,000 BTC in the final months of 2020, according to Chainalysis.
3. Bitcoin’s Lightning Network Now Has 10K Active Nodes and $69M in Locked Value
The network has quietly grown by a factor of two over the past year, with everyday users and major exchanges embracing the scaling technology.
The number of nodes on Bitcoin’s Lightning network has nearly doubled year over year, according to public data.
The Lightning Network — a layer atop the Bitcoin blockchain that uses its own special rules to facilitate cheaper, faster transactions — had about 5,335 public nodes in April 2020. Now that number sits at 10,348, a roughly 94% increase. This figure only includes nodes with public connections, however, and the real number is likely higher when factoring nodes with private connections.
As Bitcoin’s on-chain fees grow alongside bitcoin’s price, scaling technologies like Lightning offer users a cheaper and faster way to transact. If bitcoin will ever be used as a day-to-day currency, a scaling solution like Lightning is paramount, and avid bitcoiners even use the network today to purchase goods and services.
Consider this Iranian Lightning user who used bitcoin to buy a PlayStation Now pass that is otherwise restricted by sanctions:
With Bitcoin’s Lightning network seeing more activity than ever, the total number of payment channels on the network (the two-way payment avenues that power Lightning’s plumbing) is now over 45,000. The Lightning Network currently holds 1,185 BTC, worth some $69 million.
4. Grayscale ETF Announcement May Shore Up GBTC Discount, Analysts Say
With redemptions in sight, GBTC shareholders now know they won’t be paying a 2% annual fee forever.
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust shareholders now know they’re not going to be left behind in the bitcoin (BTC, +2.58%) exchange-traded fund (ETF) race, and that may help alleviate the discount at which GBTC has been trading for over a month, some analysts say.
On Monday, Grayscale, which is owned by CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group, announced it would convert GBTC into an exchange-traded fund when the U.S. regulatory environment warms to bitcoin ETFs.
The conversion would mean GBTC shareholders would no longer have to put up with a six-month lockup or 2% annual management fee. The news could bring GBTC more in line with the net asset value (NAV) of bitcoin, or at the very least put a limit on how steep the discount might go, said James Seyffart, ETF research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
5. Bitcoin, Fiat Currencies Unnerved Even as Goldman Ditches Short USD Trade
Bitcoin has rallied by over 400% since Goldman Sachs issued a short dollar recommendation on Oct. 9.
Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs’ latest decision to retract from its bearish view on the U.S. dollar is receiving a thumbs down from financial markets.
While bitcoin is trading nearly 1.5% higher on the day at $59,000 at press time, the dollar index, which measures the greenback’s value against fiat currencies such as the euro, pound and yen, is 0.5% lower at 92.56.
Goldman Sachs on Friday recommended closing U.S. dollar short trades against a basket of currencies, including the commodity-sensitive Aussie and New Zealand dollars.
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April 6, 2021
