Noelle Acheson News

Ether, the second-largest token, paced a drop in digital assets following a slump in equities that spread unease in global markets.

The difficulty of trying to crack $100,000 for the first time «could convince traders that the top is in, and profits should be locked in now,» wrote Noelle Acheson, author of the Crypto Is Macro Now newsletter. However, any such episode should be «fleeting,» she added.

Circle stablecoin, USDC, had achieved an important milestone in the stablecoin market, surpassing Tether’s USDT in transaction volume, according to data released by Visa on April 29 through a partnership with Allium Labs.

Bitcoin swings are becoming more intense following the digital asset’s run to a record high, and a key question now is how investors in US exchange-traded funds holding the cryptocurrency will react.

bitcoin-tracking companies rose on Friday as the world's largest cryptocurrency extended a recent rally to touch a near 19-month high on improving risk appetite. Bitcoin, up 1.6% at $38,337, has been gaining since October on optimism that a potential approval of a spot exchange-traded fund is likely to unleash more capital investments in the digital asset sector. «Tailwinds have been gathering strength all year, especially in recent months, as spot ETF expectations build, the Binance uncertainty is resolved, and 2024's accelerated money printing becomes more inevitable,» crypto-focused economist Noelle Acheson said, referring to the bitcoin rally. Shares of bitcoin miners — whose profitability improves as bitcoin climbs — including Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital and TeraWulf rose between 1.7% and 4%.

crypto enthusiasts love more than the digital assets themselves, it's memes. A frenzy of crypto-based memes have gained fresh momentum last week as Bitcoin rallied. Growing expectations that the US Securities and Exchange Commission will authorize exchange-traded funds that invest directly in Bitcoin pushed the largest crypto by market value up by more than 25% over the past two weeks to around $35,000 on Wednesday — its highest level in about 18 months. The breakout gives bulls some hope even as reminders of the industry's recent woes linger. Just last week, Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand in his own defense of criminal charges stemming from the collapse of his crypto exchange FTX. He has pleaded not guilty. Memecoins like Pepe Coin (PEPE) surged along with Bitcoin. The coin based on the internet meme of a green anthropomorphic frog that has been around since the early 2000s increased 77% on Friday from the week before, according to data from crypto market tracker CoinGecko. Pepe Coin, which was issued this year, soared to a market value of more than $1 billion in May before reversing course and plummeting more than 60% in the following days, according to data tracker CoinMarketCap.

A brief 10% surge in Bitcoin gave traders a glimpse into the possible impact of a looming US Securities & Exchange Commission decision on whether to allow exchange-traded funds that invest directly in the token.

That lull snapped Thursday, when Bitcoin plunged more than 8% in the space of a few hours to a two-month low of $25,314 late in the New York day. The slump sparked a broad decline across all of crypto, leading to more than $1 billion in liquidations and putting Bitcoin on pace for its worst week since November and crypto exchange FTX’s collapse. The carnage — fueled by the prospect of prolonged high interest rates and exacerbated by thin crypto trading — was a reminder of the various threats that continue to stalk digital assets, from hostile regulators to a broader rout in risk assets. And even as Bitcoin has recovered smartly from last year’s lows, many investors are still sitting out, depriving the market of the breadth and depth that are key ingredients for a sustained bull run. “There are still significant amounts of macro uncertainty keeping investors away, and liquidity is still thin,” said Noelle Acheson, author of the “Crypto Is Macro Now” newsletter and former head of market insights at Genesis Trading. “Bottom line, there’s not yet enough conviction.”

lowest point since 2016. That lull snapped Thursday, when Bitcoin plunged more than 8% in the space of a few hours to a two-month low of $25,314 late in the New York day. The slump sparked a broad decline across all of crypto, leading to more than $1 billion in liquidations and putting Bitcoin on pace for its worst week since November and crypto exchange FTX’s collapse.

BlackRock has recently filed an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

bitcoin investors. Watch. Wait. Don't make the first move. The capricious cryptocurrency's been uncommonly quiet over the past four weeks, bound in the range of $28,452 and $25,800. Even the end of the U.S. debt ceiling saga did little to whet risk appetite. Bitcoin's volatility index is near 64, well below the 2023 peak of 116.5 touched in January, according to CryptoCompare. Overall daily cryptocurrency spot trading volumes — above $20 billion for most of the year — have languished at around $10.6-$12 billion in the last two weeks, data from The Block shows. The data signals a reluctance of investors and traders to take positions in either spot or derivatives, said Noelle Acheson, an economist who has tracked the crypto sector for seven years.

The US debt ceiling has been one of the hottest topics in crypto over the past few weeks. 

Bitcoin's surprising fast exit from its «crypto winter» has once again put the notoriously volatile digital currency atop the leader-board in the first quarter for being the best-performing asset class by a wide margin. With a roughly 70% gain, Bitcoin is closing out its best quarter since the three months ended March 2021, when it surged some 103%, Bloomberg data show. That vastly outstrips the S&P 500's 5.5% year-to-date advance, the Nasdaq 100's 19% uptick and the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF's 5.3% jump. Long-time participants note that volatility is expected — and is even part of the attraction to investors in the relatively embryonic asset class. Bitcoin burst onto the mainstream consciousness with a more-than 1,000% annual gain in 2017, only to post a 74% drop the following year in what became known as a crypto winter. Then after three consecutive annual increases, it tumbled 64% last year amid a series of industry scandals and bankruptcies. «For many crypto market observers, it's not at all a surprise,» said Noelle Acheson, author of the «Crypto Is Macro Now» newsletter, of this year's rally. «All the signs were pointing to a strong price floor starting last November, and it was just a matter of time before either the liquidity narrative changed (which it did in early January) or longer-term investors saw a store-of-value opportunity (which seems to have also happened).»

Bitcoin, the largest token, rose as much as 4.9% and was trading at about $25,610 as of 10:45 a.m. in Singapore on Friday. Second-ranked Ether added roughly 3%, while smaller tokens like Solana and Polkadot also jumped. “Any sign of interest-rate cuts should push funds to riskier assets, which is likely to be enough to bring more institutional funds into the crypto market, regardless of whether macro traders understand or believe in the longer-term Bitcoin investment thesis,” wrote Noelle Acheson, author of the “Crypto Is Macro Now” newsletter. Bitcoin has climbed about 55% so far this year and is in touching distance of the highest level since June 2022. But the token remains a long way off its record of almost $69,000 from November 2021.

Bitcoin's subsiding two-month rally contains a warning for investors if history is any guide. The February jump in the largest digital token has withered to about 2% and pales compared to January's 39% surge, data compiled by Bloomberg show. There have been five similar instances since the pandemic low in 2020 when Bitcoin climbed over two straight months but with a smaller gain in the second stanza. It retreated in the third month in four of those cases, posting an average loss of 5.8%. The only exception was a period through February 2021, when the token was in the midst of a powerful bull run. Bitcoin ended in the red Sunday for the third week in four, hurt by the prospect of higher-for-longer interest rates to damp inflation. A regulatory clampdown in the US after the collapse of the FTX exchange is also squeezing the sector.

Bitcoin is set for its best January since 2013 on bets that monetary tightening and the crypto-sector crisis are both ebbing. The largest token is up 40% since the turn of the year, a first-month gain bettered only twice before when crypto was in its infancy. Smaller coins like Solana, Axie Infinity and Decentraland have doubled in value, part of a $280 billion January climb in digital assets overall, CoinGecko figures show. Bitcoin retreated 2.5% to $23,200 as of 11:37 a.m. in London on Monday amid broad declines in risk assets. The rebound from last year's deep rout is part of a wider revival in risk appetite on expectations that central banks will slow interest-rate hikes and perhaps even cut borrowing costs later this year as high inflation moderates. The rally in virtual coins has weathered ongoing fallout from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange — such as the bankruptcy of crypto lender Genesis Global Holdco LLC and a spate of layoffs across the industry.

Bitcoin has resumed one of its old habits: it’s back to posting big moves on weekends, a phenomenon that’s become an intriguing characteristic of the cryptocurrency market. Take last Sunday, when it gained 3.4%, a similar amount to what it notched the Saturday on the weekend prior. And the Saturday before that, the coin advanced 5.5%. That Bitcoin posts large moves is nothing new. But the token, like all other cryptocurrencies, trades around the clock, every day of the week, counter to most other assets, which tend to trade Monday through Friday on regulated exchanges. And it’s been seen in crypto markets in the past, with Bitcoin shooting higher — or posting big down days — while other assets are taking a rest from work. The most compelling theory on the strong weekend moves might be that liquidity is thinner, meaning that price swings on large orders can be more pronounced, says Noelle Acheson, author of the “Crypto Is Macro Now” newsletter. Liquidity has been thinner for Bitcoin recently, with traders and investors staying on the sidelines and hodlers hodling, she says. “Since the beginning of the year, volatility has picked up — still not at ‘normal’ levels, but getting there,” Acheson said. “This should herald the return of the weekend phenomenon, with lower weekend liquidity leading to stronger moves as traders and investors tentatively come back into the market.”

Bitcoin becoming less volatile than stocks might appear like a positive development. But crypto traders are warning that in a low-volume environment, that might not be a great thing. The coin’s 30-day realized volatility has “dropped sharply” in recent days, according to Noelle Acheson, author of the “Crypto is Macro Now” newsletter. It’s currently at around 52% after spending the past month above 64% on an annualized basis, according to Coin Metrics data compiled by Acheson. Meanwhile, Jake Gordon at Bespoke Investment Group points to a volatility gauge called BitVol, which has “begun to break down,” falling to near its lowest levels since the spring. The index currently clocks in at a little above 69, down from more than 111 in May. Yet trading volume has also slumped. Daily readings are hovering around $47 billion right now, down from more than $100 billion at the start of the year, according to data tracker CoinMarketCap.com. And even though lower volatility is typically welcomed in the stock market, for instance, the combo could spell trouble for Bitcoin, where there tend to be plenty of speculators who enter the space purely for the thrill of the swings.

Disclaimer: The datasets shared in the following article have been compiled from a set of online resources and do not reflect AMBCrypto’s own research on the subject

The U.S. Federal Reserve has announced its final guideline that might allow crypto banks to enter the banking system. The central bank will set up a three-tiered system for determining whether financial institutions have access.

Ether rose 2% to $2,030.50, topping $2,000 for the first time since May 31, as investors fretted about its upcoming software upgrade from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in September (called Merge) with a positive sentiment.