Cryptocurrency Market Overview 24.10.2023
News block
1. Bitcoin soared to 35 thousand
The BTC price briefly broke the $35,000 mark for the first time since May 2022. Now the first cryptocurrency is trading at $34,500, noting an impressive increase over the past 24 hours (+12%).
According to TradingView, less than two hours after overcoming the $34,000 mark, bitcoin reached the $35,300 mark:
The sudden rise in the price of BTC occurred against the background of a new wave of interest in the upcoming approvals of spot ETFs and a significant increase in total trading volumes on spot markets.
It became known that iShares Bitcoin Trust (from BlackRock) was included in the listing of DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation engaged in clearing transactions on NASDAQ), ticker: IBTC.
All this is part of the process of bringing an ETF to market. This does not mean that the ETF is approved, but the fact that BlackRock has gone so far in its preparatory work certainly indicates optimism.
"All this is part of the process of bringing ETFs to market," wrote Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas.
2. The growth of Bitcoin dimination
According to The Block, BTC's dominance in the cryptocurrency market continues to grow and has reached its highest level in the last two years:
At the same time, the dominance of the first cryptocurrency has been steadily growing throughout 2023 (at the beginning of the year, this figure was 38%).
This surge in dominance can be explained by the ongoing BTC rally — since the beginning of this year, the price has increased by more than 80%.
As Rebecca Stevens of The Block Research noted: "Today, bitcoin is closer than ever to receiving the approval of a spot ETF and in a certain sense serves as an ideological defense against uncertainty on the world stage, which helps it to increase its influence in the crypto space."
3. Quantum Leap in Scaling BTC
Paolo Ardoino, who now holds the post of technical director of Tether (the issuing company of the USDT stablecoin), during an extensive interview with The Block said that he expects a "quantum leap" in bitcoin scaling over the next few years.
Tether is closely linked to the Bitfinex exchange, and the latter was one of the first pioneers of the introduction of Lightning Network technology, which is focused on fast and cheap payments in BTC.
The integration of Lightning led to a significant reduction in transaction costs and processing time for users, which gave Bitfinex a certain competitive advantage.
"Today Bitfinex manages the two largest and most liquid nodes of the Lightning network," Ardoino said.
As Ardoino explained, Bitfinex's commitment to this cause is multifaceted and is aimed at partnerships that promote the introduction of the Lightning network; educational initiatives that improve public understanding; technical achievements that increase the benefits of Lightning.
Ardoino also said that he considers RGB — a smart contract system and an off-network protocol for the first cryptocurrency — the best opportunity to issue USDT stablecoins on the Bitcoin blockchain. He also noted that he is a fan of Taproot Assets technology, whose goal is to turn Bitcoin into a scalable network with many assets without compromising its basic principles, calling it "the future we deserve."
As the adoption of BTC accelerates and potentially challenges existing payment methods, Tether's CTO is confident that there will be a shift towards alternatives such as the Lightning Network. "The more we cooperate with various exchanges and platforms on Lightning integration, the faster we will be able to change the global payment environment," he said.
"I hope that in five years, the adoption of the Lightning Network will continue to grow to the point that we will see significant inter—network use of bitcoin through Web3," Ardoino said. "Bitcoin is a $500 billion asset that is almost not used in DeFi and I see this as a very real missed opportunity for a large number of existing blockchains and networks."
"As more and more participants in the crypto industry use bitcoin to increase their liquidity, I believe that in the next few years we will see how bitcoin scaling solutions will make a quantum leap forward in their implementation," he added.
Overview of the crypto market
🔸 The current capitalization of the crypto market is $1.310 trillion
🔸 Trading volume for the last day is $111.35 billion
🔸 BTC dominance 51.2%
🔸 Fear and greed index:
- 66 today, 53 yesterday, 50 a week ago
where, 0 is extreme fear (may be a sign that investors are too scared - often this is a good time to buy), and 100 is extreme greed (the market needs correction).
The current value of the Fear and Greed Index is 66 (a fairly high mark). The last time the value of this indicator was at such high levels was in July 2023.
A significant price impulse of bitcoin has raised a wave of growth in other crypto assets. So ETH has been adding 7%, ADA +5%, DOT +7%, ATOM +5%, FIL +10%, ICP +7% over the past day.
At the same time, Coinshares data show that a favorable environment for the growth of prices for cryptocurrencies has already been gradually formed: investment products in digital assets show growth for the fourth week in a row:
According to the UTXO Realized Price Model (URPD), bitcoin has created a serious support barrier between $25,000 and $30,000, the following two critical resistance areas for BTC are $38,440 and $47,360:
