Main Takeaway: Low Confidence, High Interest Rates
The two headlines from the traditional economy that contributed to bringing down both the financial and crypto markets were lower US consumer confidence and ECB President Christine Lagarde announcing plans to hike interest rates by 25 bps in July.
On the crypto side, more breaking news just came out about the CoinFLEX situation (that we reported on in yesterday’s update). CoinFLEX CEO Mark Lamb is now claiming that the high-value investor indebted to CoinFLEX is Roger Ver, one of the earliest Bitcoin investors and who’s commonly referred to as ‘Bitcoin Jesus’. Roger has denied the claim.
More clarity on this situation will likely continue to unfold over the following days and weeks. The takeaway is many third-tier exchanges and crypto lenders are most likely having solvency issues.
Key Stories: Bitcoin Miners Affected Too
Of course, there’s no stone left unturned in this market crash, even including the miners. In particular, Bitcoin mining company Mawson Infrastructure Group yesterday announced that it was suspending major capital expenditures until the market stabilizes.
The takeaway is the mining industry has taken hits to its revenue, which will likely impact smaller rigs and pools if the market downturn continues.
(Source: YCharts)
On the flip side, to give some positive market balance, Bank of America stated that concerns over the current Crypto Winter have not frozen investor interest. This goes to show that blockchain technology and digital assets, whether cryptocurrency coins or other forms of tokens are here to stay. Bank of America remains optimistic about mainstream digital asset adoption.
This also comes off the back of Goldman Sachs signaling its interest in taking over Celsius’s assets, which shows that traditional banks and large investment institutions may employ their ‘dry powder’ and take advantage of current low market prices for many cryptocurrencies. Nonetheless, the fruits of these investments will not show until later 2022, 2023, and 2024. This is bullish short, medium, and long-term.
Investor Insights: The Bottom May Not Be In
With rising interest rates and more companies becoming insolvent, the bottoms for many cryptos may still not be in. However, after last week’s lows, we did get a nice bounce, but the market will have to see what comes out of July’s US inflation data and what additional tightening policies the Fed may impose to see what direction the market will take.
Today’s Top Gainers
The total cryptocurrency market is down over 1% on the day, thus signaling some unease and uncertainty about which direction the market wants to take.
The top trading pairs on Phemex as of this writing are:
- Terra Luna Classic (LUNC/USDT)
- Unifi Protocol (UNFI/USDT)
- Terra Luna (LUNA/USDT)
- Adventure Gold (AGLD/USDT)
- 1inch (1INCH/USDT)
