Morning Update — January 21st — Macro and Crypto Markets
We’re the 21st in Asia but, in the US, they’re just finishing an important day where President Biden is sworn in and officially replaces Trump in the White House. Markets felt undeniably risk-on.
The S&P rose 1.4% and the Nasdaq jumped 2%. Treasuries, yields and the dollar stayed in place but it was great to see gold, up about 1.7%, back just under $1,900.
In crypto, the bullishness just isn’t there. BTC which has boldly outperformed traditional markets throughout the past few months is taking a breather, after testing intraday lows down 7% and touching $33,400, BTC bounced back to closing the session down 2.8%.
ETH fell as well (-2%) but still outperforming BTC and remaining within range of its -recent- all-time high. The OI for ETH on derivatives exchanges is hitting new records, by the way.
For any altcoin holder the BTC Dominance Index is looking great, down at 65, suggesting that the stagnation is giving a chance for alts to play catch-up. To confirm, some alts are not only in the green relative to BTC but actually even seeing gains in USD terms (so even while BTC is down). LINK shows moderate gains along with ADA, DOT or XTZ.
It’s worth noting that the BTC Dominance, just like any graph, historically sees retracements and so we can expect some volatility along the way, in the fight between Bitcoin and Alts.
Away from pure price action, there’s very positive news, which should be supportive of higher prices, notably:
- BlackRock is engaging certain funds in futures contracts based in Bitcoin -this huge, by the way !
- Xapo, a bitcoin custodian, received a banking license in Gibraltar
- Coinbase acquired the leading blockchain infrastructure platform, Bison Trails.
All this suggests a very bright future for the space or, at the very least, very interesting dynamics to watch.
