First Mover Americas: Bitcoin’s Bear Cross Is Bullish and a Big June Jobs Beat

Good morning, and welcome to First Mover. I’m Lyllah Ledesma, here to take you through the latest in crypto markets, news and insights.

• Price Point: BTC is trading up on the day as short liquidations get washed out, triggering buy orders. Traditional markets react to the news of the death o former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
• Market Moves: Omkar Godble looks atthe bearish but historically contrarian "bear cross" indicator, which suggests an end to the market decline and a bullish revival ahead.
• JUST IN: The U.S. jobs report for June showed a gain of 372,000 in nonfarm payrolls, exceeding economists’ estimates for a 275,000 increase. The report might suggest that the Federal Reserve will have little choice but to raise the benchmark U.S. interest rate by an 0.75 percentage point at a meeting later this month to keep the economy from getting too hot. Bitcoin was trading about 1% lower in the minutes after the release of the report. (Check CoinDesk for updates.)

Price point

Bitcoin (BTC) traded above $21,500 for the first time in a week. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was up 4.5% on the day after dipping to a low of $19,300 earlier this week.

U.S. stock futures slid and European equities were lower as the news broke that Abe, Japan’s former longest serving prime minister known for his "Abenomics" policy, was shot while making a campaign speech in Nara, Japan.

Ether (ETH) was up 2.5% to about $1,211. ETH started the week off at lows of about $1,000 and has climbed since then.

The correlation between cryptocurrencies and other risky assets continues to strengthen as the global macro environment appears to be driving prices.

Fabio Ackeret, a sales trader at Crypto Finance AG, said he doesn't see a breakout in the crypto market anytime soon.

“To see crypto breaking out on the upside, the dust of all recent events needs to settle (UST, Celsius, 3AC),” Ackeret wrote in a note on Friday, referring to the collapse in the price of Terra's UST stablecoin and the woes at crypto lender Celsius Network and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

Meanwhile, as bitcoin's price goes up, the shares of publicly traded crypto miners rose 9.6% between Wednesday and Thursday, according to data from CoinDesk.

In other news, Celsius deposited $500 million in wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), a bitcoin derivative product of the Ethereum blockchain, to crypto exchange FTX just hours after Celsius repaid its debt to the decentralized lending protocol Maker and reclaimed $450 million of collateral in WBTC.

Moon Tech Spain, the Spanish subsidiary of trading platform Binance, has been granted registration as a virtual asset services provider by Spain's central bank.

In Latin America, Bitso, announced on Thursday it has launched a cryptocurrency remittance service in Colombia. The service – which will allow individuals and businesses to send and receive digital dollars – is the first crypto remittance product in Colombia to date, according to Bitso.

Remittances totaling $8.56 billion were sent to Colombia from abroad in 2021, an all-time record, El Tiempo newspaper reported.

Compass Mining has laid off 15% of its employees and cut executive compensation to ride out the crypto downturn. The bitcoin mining company said it's reassessing its priorities after growing too quickly.

Market moves

By Omkar Godbole

Bitcoin 'Bear Cross' Raises Outlook for Bull Revival

Yes, you read the title right. An impending bearish crossover, a technical pattern theoretically suggesting continued weakness in the bitcoin price, could be a trap for sellers and portend a bullish revival.

A three-day-candlestick chart shows the simple moving average (SMA) of the past 100 candlesticks is on the verge of crossing below the 200-candle SMA, confirming the first bearish crossover of the two averages since December 2018.

Historically, the crossover has marked an end of bear markets and paved the way for notable bull runs.

The averages crossed bearishly in December 2018, trapping sellers on the wrong side of the market. Bitcoin hit a bottom of about $3,200 and spent the following three months building a base for a rally. The cryptocurrency hit a high of $13,800 by the end of June 2019.

The bear cross of February 2015 coincided with peak selling, and bitcoin began a multiyear bull run seven months later. The first bear cross, dated June 2012, also trapped sellers on the wrong side of the market.

Crossovers between longer duration moving averages are known to be contrary indicators because they are based on past data and tend to lag prices. The market is often battered, oversold and overdue for a reversal higher by the time the crossover is confirmed.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. That said, history could repeat itself because the Fed's hawkishness, or anti-stimulus stance, appears to have peaked and traders are now pricing interest rate cuts for 2023.

Read the full story here: Bitcoin 'Bear Cross' Raises Outlook for Bull Revival

Latest headlines

• XRP Leads Recovery Among Major Cryptocurrencies; Fed Policymakers Back 75 Basis Point Hike: Major cryptocurrencies recovered over the past 24 hours and broader equity markets strengthened even as two U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers called for higher rate increases in the coming months.
• Binance Secures Registration in Spain Through Its Moon Tech Subsidiary: Binance can now offer crypto exchange and custody services in the country.
• GameStop CFO Departs Amid Cut-Costing Drive, Web3 Pivot: In a letter to employees, CEO Matt Furlong said the firm's focus has turned to "eliminating excess costs and operating with an intense owner's mentality."
• Why Ethereum Name Service Is Seeing a Spike in Domain Registrations: The registrations came on the back of a record-breaking ENS sale, a research firm pointed out.
• Swiss Cybersecurity Firm WISeKey Ends Share Buyback Program: The Zug-based firm repurchased 1,074,305 shares for about $1.5 million.
• Bitcoin Core Developer Pieter Wuille Scales Back His Maintenance Role: Wuille has surrendered his maintenance permissions but will continue contributing to various Bitcoin projects.
• Celsius Accused of Fraud in Lawsuit by Ex-Employee: The roughed-up crypto lender froze withdrawals last month and later said it was exploring restructuring options.
• Marathon Digital Continues to Hodl All Bitcoin, but Hints at Strategy Change: Dealing with a number of operational challenges, the company mined 707 bitcoins during the second quarter down sharply from the previous three months.

This web version of today's First Mover newsletter was produced by Sage D. Young.