Markets
Cryptocurrency Markets Volatile Ahead of Impending Spot ETF Approval
Bitcoin is soaking up huge sales from the German government, while Golem appears to have sold nine figures worth of ETH.
Cryptocurrency markets recovered on Monday after a sharp sell-off late Sunday.
Bitcoin (BTC) has recovered its losses from Sunday after falling 7% on July 7. The bounce suggests a double bottom formation near support at $54,000, with BTC jumping 3.7% from $55,640 to $57,850 in less than an hour, with $65 million worth of short positions being liquidated.
BTC/USD hourly chart. Source: TradingView.
Ethereum (ETH) also recovered above $3,040 after testing $2,800 in the early hours of Monday. Solana It is Polka dot each recorded gains of 0.5%.
Celestia (TIA), Starknet (STRK) and Notcoin (NOT) were the best performers among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap over the past 24 hours, with gains of $14.8%, 9.8% and 7%, respectively.
NOT is also the best-performing asset of the past seven days, with a 21.2% rally. Only five digital assets are currently on a weekly gain.
Notably, crypto short positions suffered heavier liquidations than long positions over the past 12 hours, generating $159.4 million of $202.1 million in margin calls. Short positions were also responsible for $184 million of the $350.4 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass.
Approximately 88,240 traders suffered margin calls in the last day.
Spot Ether ETFs Approach
The market volatility comes as analysts continue to delay their predictions for Ether spot ETFs receiving final approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). While the SEC has approved the funds Forms 19b-4 in May, the regulator still needs to give the green light to S-1 Registration Statements of potential emitters.
Nate Geraci, co-founder of the ETF Institute, predicted that the funds will launch within a fortnight after the SEC asks issuers to submit revised filings by July 8th.
“I will be shocked if spot ETH ETFs [are] we will not negotiate in the next 2 weeks”, Geraci tweeted.
“Later next week [is] a possibility, but think about the week of July 15th [is] more probable.”
Despite analysts suggesting that the launch of spot Ether ETFs is imminent, Golem, an Ethereum-based decentralized computing protocol that conducted an initial coin offering in November 2016, has been discovered in motion more than $115 million worth of ETH has been traded on centralized exchanges in the past 37 days, according to data from Arkham Intelligence.
With Golem moving assets to Binance, Coinbase, and Bitfinex over the past 37 days, the transfers have likely contributed to the recent selling pressure plaguing Ethereum markets.
German government dumps 17,500 BTC in 20 days
Bitcoin appears to be absorbing even heavier selling, with the portfolio believed to be controlled by German authorities, offloading significant amounts of BTC every day since early July, according to Arkham Intelligence.
In January, German police announced they seized 50,000 BTC from an individual who worked for Movie2k, a popular website that distributed pirated movies between 2008 and 2013. The individual agreed to transfer his Bitcoins to authorities after being detained since being arrested in 2019 on suspicion of money laundering.
Last month, BTC began flowing out of the wallet, with outflows accelerating in recent days. On Monday, the wallet transferred 2,206 Bitcoin ($123 million). The wallet now holds just 32,488 BTC worth $1.86 billion, down from $3.2 billion when it began unloading funds on June 19.
Traditional markets record small losses
Meanwhile, in traditional markets, U.S. stock futures fell Monday morning as investors awaited key inflation data. S&P futures fell more than 0.1%, while futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.19%. Nasdaq 100 futures fell about 0.14%.
However, the release of June’s consumer price index on Thursday and producer price index data on Friday could influence market expectations if the numbers show slight improvements.