Market Wrap: Cryptos Recover, With Altcoins in the Lead

Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies stabilized on Thursday as some buyers returned from the sidelines.

Alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) took the lead, especially WAVES, which bounced back with a 6% return over the past 24 hours. BTC and ether (ETH) were roughly flat on Thursday, compared with a 4% rise in Pancake Swap's CAKE token and a 3% rise in AAVE over the same period.

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On the regulatory front, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that a digital dollar could become a "trusted money comparable to physical cash," in her first speech on digital assets on Thursday. Yellen did not give a personal take on the crypto industry, although she acknowledged viewpoints from both proponents and skeptics of digital asset technology, and stressed the importance of assessing risks to the financial system.

Elsewhere, the S&P 500 traded higher on Thursday along with gold and the U.S. dollar.

Latest prices

●Bitcoin (BTC): $43,410, −0.93%

●Ether ETH$3,533.57: $3,220, −0.24%

●S&P 500 daily close: $4,500, +0.43%

●Gold: $1,935 per troy ounce, +0.86%

●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 2.65%

Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices.

Bitcoin's spot trading volume across exchanges declined on Thursday, according to CoinDesk data, which could indicate low conviction among traders despite the current stabilization in price.

In the bitcoin futures market, however, there was a slight uptick in short liquidations and a rise in buy volume versus sell volume over the past 24 hours, suggesting moderate bullish sentiment among short-term traders.

Miners ready to accumulate?

The chart below plots moving averages based on bitcoin's mining difficulty, which is the estimated number of hashes (computational power) required to mine and process transactions on the blockchain.

As new coins are mined into existence, miners sell some of their coins to pay for production costs, which results in bearish pricing pressure, according to Glassnode, a crypto data provider. By contrast, after miners capitulate and price stabilizes, an accumulation phase begins based on the expectation of higher prices.

In theory, other market participants would step in to achieve a "fair price" or an equilibrium following extreme peaks and troughs in a given cycle.

By averaging mining difficulty, traders can determine when miner selling and buying pressure aligns with turning points in BTC's price. Bearish signals occur when short-term moving averages compress and cross below a long-term moving average, and the opposite is true for bullish signals. Still, at times signals can lag price action by a few months.

For a deeper look at fundamental factors that influence price, see here for an analysis by David Duong, head of research at Coinbase Institutional.

Altcoin roundup

• TitanSwap’s token soared after listing on Bithumb and KuCoin: The decentralized exchange (DEX) TitanSwap’s native token TITAN surged by 101.79% in the past 24 hours after South Korea’s Bithumb digital marketplace announced its listing. The announcement of its listing on KuCoin on April 5 also boosted the value of the coin by 300%, but TITAN sank drastically to the negative realm in the past two days. The token is now trading around its average price in the past month, but way below its record high value of $0.029 in August.
• Metis Andromeda welcomes The Graph: Metis, a decentralized economy platform that starts, runs and grows decentralized apps on the blockchain, announced its integration with The Graph, an indexing protocol for querying networks such as Ethereum and IPFS. Read more here.
• Terra backers buy $200M in AVAX Tokens: The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) and Terraform Labs (TFL), both organizations supporting the Terra blockchain, announced they had collectively acquired $200 million worth of Avalanche’s AVAX tokens from the Avalanche Foundation. Read more here.

Relevant reads

• Michael Saylor: Biden’s Executive Order Akin to POTUS Giving ‘Green Light to Bitcoin’: The longtime bitcoin maximalist was as optimistic as ever about the cryptocurrency in a conversation with Ark CEO Cathie Wood at Bitcoin 2022 in Miami.
• Robinhood Releases Crypto Wallet to 2M Users, Plans Integration With Bitcoin Lightning Network: In a pair of announcements from the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, the trading app flexed its crypto chops. But check the fine print.
• Sweden Casts Around for Potential E-Krona Suppliers: The country's central bank says it wants to understand the technical options before taking a decision on issuing a CBDC.
• FCA to Add 80 People in Crackdown on 'Problem Firms': The extra staff will help the U.K. regulator strengthen its efforts to clamp down on companies that fail to meet standards.
• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Calls Crypto 'Transformative' in Wide-Ranging Speech: The U.S. official addressed CBDCs, stablecoins and regulations.

Other markets

Most digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day lower.

Largest winners:

Asset Ticker Returns Sector Ethereum Classic ETC +5.3% Smart Contract Platform Stellar XLM +1.1% Smart Contract Platform XRP XRP +0.8% Currency

Largest losers:

Asset Ticker Returns Sector Dogecoin DOGE −1.4% Currency Bitcoin Cash BCH −1.4% Currency Filecoin FIL −1.3% Computing

Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive, and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.