Markets
Cryptocurrency markets volatile ahead of imminent spot ETF approval
Bitcoin Absorbs Heavy Sales From German Government While Golem Appears To Have Dumped Nine Figures Of ETH
Cryptocurrency markets rebounded on Monday after a sharp decline late Sunday.
Bitcoin (Bitcoin) recovered its losses from Sunday after losing 7% on July 7. The bounce suggested a double bottom formation near the $54,000 support, with BTC jumping 3.7% from $55,640 to $57,850 in less than an hour as $65 million of short positions were liquidated.
BTC/USD hourly chart. Source: TradingView.
Ethereum (ETH) also bounced back above $3,040 after testing $2,800 in the early hours of Monday. Solana And Peas each recorded gains of 0.5%.
Celestia (TIA), Starknet (STRK) and Notcoin (NOT) were the best performers among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap over the past 24 hours, with gains of 14.8%, 9.8% and 7%, respectively.
NOT is also the best performing asset over the past seven days with a 21.2% gain. Only five digital assets are currently posting a weekly gain.
Cryptocurrency shorts notably saw larger liquidations than longs over the past 12 hours, generating $159.4 million of $202.1 million in margin calls. Short positions also accounted for $184 million of the $350.4 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass.
About 88,240 traders faced margin calls over the past day.
Spot Ether ETFs are on the horizon
The market volatility comes as analysts continue to delay their forecasts for spot Ether ETFs receiving final approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While the SEC has approved the funds Forms 19b-4 In May, the regulator still has to give the green light to the S-1 Registration Statements from potential issuers.
Nate Geraci, co-founder of the ETF Institute, predicted that the funds would launch within 15 days of the SEC requiring issuers to submit revised filings before July 8.
“I would be shocked if I spotted ETH ETFs [are] no trading in the next 2 weeks”, Geraci tweeted.
“Later next week [is] a possibility, but think about the week of July 15th [is] more likely.”
Despite analysts predicting that the launch of an Ether spot ETF is imminent, Golem, an Ethereum-based decentralized computing protocol that conducted an initial coin offering in November 2016, has been spotted moving over $115 million worth of ETH on centralized exchanges in the past 37 days, according to data from Arkham Intelligence.
With Golem moving assets to Binance, Coinbase, and Bitfinex over the past 37 days, the transfers have likely contributed to the recent selling pressure hitting Ethereum markets.
German Government Dropped 17,500 BTC in 20 Days
Bitcoin appears to be absorbing even greater sales, with the wallet It is reportedly controlled by German authorities and has been unloading large sums of BTC every day since early July, according to Arkham Intelligence.
In January, German police announcement They had seized 50,000 BTC from an individual who worked for Movie2k, a popular website that distributed pirated movies between 2008 and 2013. The individual had agreed to transfer his Bitcoins to authorities after being taken into custody since his arrest in 2019 on suspicion of money laundering.
Last month, BTC began flowing out of the wallet, and the outflows have accelerated in recent days. On Monday, the wallet transferred 2,206 Bitcoin ($123 million). The wallet now holds just 32,488 BTC worth $1.86 billion, down from $3.2 billion when it began unloading funds on June 19.
Traditional markets show minor losses
Meanwhile, in traditional markets, U.S. stock futures edged lower Monday morning as investors awaited key inflation data. S&P futures fell more than 0.1%, while futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.19%. Nasdaq 100 futures fell about 0.14%.
However, the release of the June consumer price index on Thursday and producer price index data on Friday could influence market expectations if the figures show slight improvements.