Bitcoin and Ether were little changed on Tuesday morning in Asia, while other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed. Cardano’s ADA led the gains following bullish comments from founder Charles Hoskinson. He predicted a surge in price past both Ether and Bitcoin. Solana’s SOL posted more losses, despite last week’s news of Solana Pay’s tie-up with Shopify. Analysts expect the generally downbeat summer mood in the crypto market to pick up in fall. Elsewhere, the Forkast 500 NFT Index continued to decline, reflecting more bad news for the NFT industry. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Monday it has charged L.A.-based media company Impact Theory LLC with securities violations related to its offering of NFTs. Meanwhile, U.S. equity futures were trading flat after Monday’s gains.
Summer blues
Bitcoin edged down 0.12% for the last 24 hours to US$26,050.51 as of 07:00 a.m. in Hong Kong. The token is down 0.30% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s leading cryptocurrency reached a high of US$26,198.58 in the early hours of the morning before falling back.
Ether also dipped 0.40% to US$1,650.23 for a 0.99% weekly loss.
“There might be another selloff taking place, but currently we’ve experienced the standard August and September correction, through which it seems likely that we won’t be continuing that fall for long and rather have an upwards trend from here on out,” Michaël van de Poppe, CEO of Amsterdam-based crypto trading company MN Trading, said via email.
Van de Poppe’s comments were in line with a report by JPMorgan Chase & Co. that forecast “limited downside” for the crypto market as losses slow. The U.S. banking giant’s analysts found a drop in the number of Bitcoin-linked futures contracts on exchanges that are yet to be settled — a sign that downward price movement is losing its momentum.
“We’ll be having a potential run from here,” Van de Poppe said in a weekend tweet. “This rally should most likely occur in Q4 of 2023, during a good period for crypto markets (October-December tend to be this).”
Van de Poppe pointed to Bitcoin’s next halving event, which is expected to occur on April 16, 2024, as a cause for optimism from the fourth quarter of this year. The halving event will see the amount of new Bitcoin issued every 10 minutes cut in half, increasing its scarcity. This is widely anticipated to produce a surge in the token’s price. He also highlighted this week’s release in the U.S. of employment data and the purchasing managers’ index as further potential boosts for Bitcoin’s price.
The SEC’s decision on Bitcoin exchange-traded fund applications from investment heavyweights BlackRock, Fidelity and others will also play a role, Van de Poppe said. Some of those decisions could be made as early as Saturday.
Other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed. Cardano’s ADA led the winners, rising 1.46% to US$0.2669 for a weekly gain of 1.24%.
Cardano blockchain founder Charles Hoskinson, appearing at Denver-based conference Rare Evo on Saturday, predicted that ADA will overtake Bitcoin and Ethereum to become the world’s largest cryptocurrency. ADA is currently the world’s seventh largest crypto, with a market capitalization of US$9.36 billion.
Meanwhile, Solana’s SOL led the losers. It fell 1.35% to US$20.50 for a weekly loss of 3.61%. Those losses arrived despite the news that Solana Pay — a free-to-use payment protocol built on the Solana blockchain — has partnered with Canada-based e-commerce platform Shopify to allow USDC stablecoin payments for online shopping without intermediary fees.
The token gained briefly on Aug. 24, the day of the Solana Pay announcement. It added 7% to US$21.98 before falling back.
Benjamin Stani, director of business development at Hong Kong-based digital asset broker Matrixport, said that the integration of Solana with a mainstream shopping app was a minor victory for the industry and wouldn’t have much effect on markets.
“This is just another step towards stablecoins going mainstream in line with PayPal’s PYUSD,” he said. He added that, while good news for Solana, its “not really a major breakthrough.”
Prepare for an NFT bloodbath
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