Cryptocurrency Market Overview 09/27/2023
News block
1. US Lawmakers urge SEC to Approve Bitcoin ETF
In a letter to Gary Gensler dated September 26, US representatives Mike Flood, Wiley Nickel, Tom Emmer and Richie Torres stated that the SEC "discriminates against BTC-based products", referring to the legal precedent created by Grayscale Investments, which won the court against the SEC.
Four lawmakers told Gensler that "there is no reason to continue to refuse" spot applications for cryptocurrency ETFs after the Grayscale court ruling that the SEC's arguments were "arbitrary and capricious" in connection with already approved futures products.
The letter to the SEC came on the eve of Gensler's scheduled appearance before the House Financial Services Committee on SEC Oversight. All four legislators are members of this Committee.
2. Ripple hires former White House official
Lauren Belive, who previously worked in the White House under President Barack Obama, joined the Ripple team.
Lauren Beliv will be responsible for the interaction with US regulators: "My role will be to lead our interaction in Washington and at the national level, ensuring that we not only participate in the conversation, but also move it forward clearly and purposefully."
Until recently, Beliv was the Director of Government Relations at SoftBank Group International, and before that she headed the U.S. Government Relations department at Zoom. She began her career on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
3. MoneyGram Plans to Launch a crypto wallet
MoneyGram, a company known for its money transfer services, plans to launch a cryptocurrency wallet in the first quarter of 2024.
The wallet will be built on the basis of the Stellar blockchain (XLM), which is not surprising, given MoneyGram's long-standing partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF).
Cheesecake Labs, a software development company, has developed a wallet that will be offered as a service with zero commission until June 2024. The wallet will also benefit from an extensive network of physical ATMs and payment centers.
Recall that Circle launched a euro-linked stablecoin on the Stellar (XLM) blockchain this month.
Overview of the crypto market
🔸 The current capitalization of the crypto market is $1.087 trillion
🔸 Trading volume for the last day is $27.71 billion
🔸 BTC dominance 47.1%
🔸 Fear and greed index:
- today 44, yesterday 46 a week ago 47
where 0 is extreme fear (may be a sign that investors are too scared - often it's a good time to buy), and 100 is extreme greed (the market needs correction).
The BTC price holds the level of $26,200. However, the pressure on risky assets continues to be exerted by the growth in the yield of 10-year US Treasury bonds, which rose to 4.55%, reaching the highest level in the last 16 years. At the beginning of September, this indicator was only 4.18%.
Bitcoin: highest consumer demand since April
CryptoQuant agency data shows that the delta between the BTC replenishment and withdrawal addresses exceeded 1.7 million the other day:
This means that 1.7 million more BTC addresses were used to withdraw funds from exchanges than for input. This is the highest consumer demand since April of this year.
Ethereum exchange balances
Exchange balances of ETH coins on centralized exchanges (CEX) have been declining since 2022 and as of September 26 reached a new historical low of 8.9 million coins:
