Morning‌‌ ‌‌Update—August 24th—Macro and Crypto Markets

The enthusiasm I talked about yesterday seems to remain for now. In traditional markets, after US regulators granted full approval for the Pfizer vaccine, investors continued the risk buying spree they were on. The S&P, the Nasdaq, the Dow all printed bold green candles. Even gold rallied and closed above the $1,800 mark, after it had dropped, in the past weeks, below the $1,700 mark.

BTC, weirdly, feels as strong but on the session didn’t move much. We’ve closed the previous session almost completely flat, just a tad below 50K. We’re now just a few hundred bucks lower, at $49,500.

Alts, on the other hand, are being sneaky now. While BTC dozes off, they’ve massively ramped up and pushed the BTC Dominance down to 43. It’s been lower this year, at the extreme, but historically this is still a very good place to be for alts holders.

Among top alts performers, LUNA is not stopping and rising another 12%. We’re also seeing XTZ, THETA or SOL making advances between 5% and 10%. 

On XTZ, it’s interesting to note that several financial institutions in Europe are looking at it to enable smart-contracts. This isn’t a new idea as Tezos always positioned itself to do just that, but, it’s very supportive to see it confirmed and highlighted by credible players.

I think it’s worth paying attention to ETH, at this point. On the session, a bit like BTC, it’s not moving much but we’re essentially consolidating at a local top, above $3,300. With a flurry of ETH coins out of centralised exchanges and positive development in everything using smart-contracts, I feel like the impetus is higher.

Actually, even broadly, we can see miners holding onto coins. As the natural sellers of the industry, this behaviour is incredibly supportive as it means the supply and accompanying selling pressure isn’t being passed on to investors, for now at least.

Away from onchain data, it feels like the PayPal announcement that they’ll offer crypto services to users in the UK is still the main talk amongst crypto investors. Especially after the BINANCE debacle, a player like PayPal and the intention to cater to those users says a lot.

Lastly, while El Salvador had already passed the BTC legal tender bill, it is only being rolled out now, with ATM to convert into and from USD but also national services for online transactions. Currently the usage is low but it’ll be fascinating to watch ramp up… or down.

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