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Lyllah Ledesma
Lyllah Ledesma is a CoinDesk Markets reporter currently based in Europe. She holds bitcoin, ether and small amounts of other crypto assets.
Parikshit Mishra
Parikshit Mishra is the news editor for CoinDesk during the mid Asia and early European hours. He does not have any crypto holdings.
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: Bitcoin witnessed a small relief rally and is up 3.4% on the day. Analysts think that this is likely to be short-lived.
- Market Moves: Cardano's ADA spiked 25% over the last 24 hours. CoinDesk's Shaurya Malwa looks at this in more detail.
Price Point
Bitcoin (BTC) has finally seen relief and has soared above last week's low of $28,500. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was up 3.4% over the last 24 hours, trading at around $31,600. Bitcoin has tumbled roughly 16% over the course of May, at one point taking the price down to its lowest since late 2020.
BTC reached a high of $32,200 on Monday and performed significantly better than the S&P 500 futures while Americans took the Memorial Day holiday.
Bitcoin weekly chart performance (CoinDesk)
Laurent Kssis, head of Europe at Hashdex, said in an interview with CoinDesk that this is a short-term trend for BTC and the current signals are not substantial and could reverse very quickly.
“I still see a trading range in the $30K level which could break as downward pressure is still compromised,” said Kssis.
Pablo Jodar, financial products manager at Storm Partners, a systems provider for the cryptocurrency space in Europe, also said that despite the rebound for bitcoin, the fundamentals have not changed yet.
“We might see BTC going further upwards to $35,000 this week, as some short sellers will get liquidated and will need to buy back, but we still remain bearish for the short term,” said Jodar.
“The real question is can ether break above $2,000 again and continue its ascent as altcoins try to readjust after LUNA demise, but we are not confident short term,” said Kssis.
Ethereum (ETH) is up by 4% on the day and was trading around $1,900.
Last week, CoinShares data showed that Ethereum witnessed outflows of $11.6 million. Ethereum performed considerably worse than bitcoin did last week.
The total year-to-date inflows to all crypto backed funds currently amounts to $520 million, compared with inflows of $5.9 billion the same time last year, according to data from CoinShares.
Alternative cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, also saw positive increases over the last 24 hours, with Cardano’s ADA taking the lead, soaring by 27%, Aave by 16% and NEAR protocol by 12%.
AXS, the native token of play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, soared by 29% over the last 24 hours.
Market Moves
Crypto markets added some 4.4% to overall capitalization in the past 24 hours as bitcoin (BTC) saw signs of bottoming out, and traditional markets showed strength at the start of this week.
Cardano’s ADA token led gains among crypto majors with a 17% rise to trade over 64 cents on Tuesday. Fundamental catalysts include a rise in the issuance of native assets on the network – over 5 million assets have now been minted on Cardano, data shows – and the upcoming Vasil hard fork, a network upgrade expected in June that would increase scaling capabilities.
Price charts suggest ADA saw support at the 45 cents level. Readings on the Relative Strength Index (RSI) – a tool used by traders to calculate the magnitude of an asset’s price move – fell to nearly 33 earlier this week, which suggested early signs of ADA bottoming out. However, the token could see strong resistance at the 80 cents mark.
ADA bottomed out the past week, but resistance exists at the 80 cents mark. (TradingView)
Ether (ETH) added 5.8% even as gas fees fell to lows. A fall in fees usually implies falling demand for the network, suggesting the move may have been led by traders betting on a market-wide revival instead of being driven by fundamental growth.
Latest Headlines
- UK Government Proposes Stablecoin Safeguards After Terra Collapse A proposal from the U.K. Treasury would give the Bank of England more power over failed stablecoin issuers.
- Fidelity Digital Assets Plans to Double Headcount This Year: Report The firm is planning to add 110 employees in tech roles, recruiting engineers and developers with blockchain experience.
- Morgan Stanley Says Record Crypto Venture Capital Investment to Slow Deal activity peaked in December and could fall as much as 50% by year-end, the bank said.
- Terra's New Luna Token Surges 40% After Listing on Binance Terra's new luna token has attracted more than $850 million in trade volume over the past 24-hours as it begins to build momentum.
- Singapore to Look at Crypto Use Cases With DBS, JPMorgan and Marketnode The first stage of "Project Guardian", which is being led by DBS, JPMorgan and Marketnode, will see MAS explore DeFi applications in wholesale funding markets.
Today’s newsletter was edited by Lyllah Ledesma and produced by Parikshit Mishra and Stephen Alpher.
