Bitcoin and Ethereum were trading nearly flat on Thursday evening, ahead of the holiday weekend, as the global cryptocurrency market cap rose 0.2% to $811.2 billion at 7:16 p.m. EST.
| Coin | 24-hour | 7-day | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin BTC/USD | -0.6% | -3.15% | $16,817.27 |
| Ethereum ETH/USD | 0.3% | -3.9% | $1,217.56 |
| Dogecoin DOGE/USD | 4% | -9.45% | $0.08 |
| Cryptocurrency | 24-Hour % Change (+/-) | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Neutrino USD (USDN) | +7.4% | $0.56 |
| Terra Classic (LUNC) | +5.7% | $0.00014 |
| Dogecoin (DOGE) | +4% | $0.08 |
See Also: A Guide To Automated Crypto Trading For Beginners
Why It Matters: While the two largest cryptocurrencies were largely lackluster in terms of price action, the bellwether meme coin, Dogecoin, was included in the list of top intraday gainers.
Hopes for a “Santa Claus” rally faded on Thursday as a sell-off in risky assets returned. Tech stocks took a beating after a major chipmaker’s numbers brought demand concerns to the fore.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed 1.45% and 2.2% lower, respectively. U.S. stock futures were seen largely flat at the time of writing.
“Bitcoin and Ethereum are lower today as risk aversion runs wild across Wall Street. Tech stocks are getting hit the hardest, thank you Micron, and that seems like it keeps pressure on all the interest-rate sensitive sectors,” said Edward Moya, a senior market analyst with OANDA.
Michaël van de Poppe described the price action of Bitcoin as “Beautiful” on Thursday. The cryptocurrency trader said that the apex coin “hit support,” had a “strong bounce since,” and now was into a zone of “resistance.”
He said that with this response of Bitcoin — $17,400 seems to be a likely level and it was long beyond the $16,800 – $16,900 level.
Trader Justin Bennett said that it was difficult to “expect” much downside from the dollar index — the measure of the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies. He expects a DXY bounce from 102.103. At the time of writing the dollar index was at 104.39.
This year, cryptocurrencies have had a strong inverse correlation with the dollar index. Major coins have usually followed the opposite direction to the index.
Market intelligence platform Santiment noted that the amount of coins in self-custody continues to create a new all-time high and is currently at 18.2 million BTC. Coins on exchanges are just 1.2 million BTC, a four-year low.
Santiment took a decade-long view in its tweeted data.
The trend towards self-custody has accelerated recently after the bankruptcy of Sam Bankman-Fried-led FTX.
Bankman-Fried was taken to court in New York on Thursday. He faces allegations of fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations. His bail was set at $250 million.
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