The latest moves in crypto markets, in context Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. | | | Good morning, and welcome to First Mover. I'm Lyllah Ledesma here to take you through the latest in crypto markets, news and insights. In today's newsletter: - Price Point: Bitcoin reached above $24,000 over the weekend but has dipped since. Levels reached this weekend were the highest since mid-June.
- Market Moves: Ether continues to be the hot topic amongst investors ahead of the Merge, with ETH open interest on Deribit surpassing bitcoin's open interest for the first time.
| Want to receive our next market update at the end of the day? Subscribe to the Market Wrap newsletter below! | | | Bitcoin (BTC) was down 2% on the day after a weekend that saw the world's largest cryptocurrency hit its highest levels since mid-June. BTC reached $24,593 on Sunday, according to CoinDesk data. | Bitcoin price chart over the weekend. (CoinDesk) | Ether (ETH), the world's second largest cryptocurrency by market value, was down 3% at $1,649 on Monday. In traditional markets, U.S. futures dipped alongside the dollar and oil. Contracts on the NASDAQ and S&P 500 were lower Monday, after major indexes finished July with their best month since 2020. The rest of the crypto market was also down, apart from decentralized data storage network Filecoin (FIL), which was up 12% on the day. In the news, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority said in a policy document that investment in crypto assets should be capped, with consumers warned that they could lose all their money. Bank of America said in a report that Ethereum needs to make scalability improvements in order to hold its market position. The report said that Binance Smart Chain, Tron, Avalanche and Solana have taken market share from Ethereum due to their PoS consensus mechanisms and greater scalability. The decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Aave's proposal to launch a native crypto-based stablecoin GHO was passed over the weekend with 99% votes in favor of the proposal, its governance page shows. An interest piece I read over the weekend was Andres Angler's piece on two football teams transferring a South American player using USDC. The exchange was carried out by Latin America's Bitso, with a player from Argentina's team Banfield to São Paulo, one of Brazil's teams. Read the full story here. CoinDesk research analyst George Kaloudis wrote an in-depth article on the hot topic of cryptos being securities and whether it matters. You can read it here. | | | ETH Open Interest Surpasses BTC Open Interest on Deribit For First Time According to data from Glassnode, via Colin Wu, the open interest of Deribit Ether options with a notional value of $5.6 billion exceeded the open interest of BTC options (about $4.3 billion) for the first time in history. | BTC Options OI, ETH Options OI (Glassnode) | Currently, Ethereum options are mainly call options, with a Put/Call ratio of 0.26. The call options period is mainly concentrated on September 30 and December 30, with 1.2 billion and 1.8 billion respectively. "The upcoming Merge is a massive driver of price right now," said Charles Storry, head of growth at Phuture, a crypto index platform. He said that about 40% of Ether's price movement today is because of the Merge. The Merge is set to take place on September 19. Head of Europe at Hashdex, Laurent Kssis, said that he suspects many investors have already taken decent positions at cheaper ETH levels to account for the potential rally. "All will be down to the Eth Merge in September," said Kssis. "This is an example of position building." | | | With nearly a decade-long track record of being the world's largest digital currency asset manager, Grayscale is an industry leader for secure and regulated exposure to crypto. Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (Symbol: GDLC) is designed to capture the market capitalization weighted performance of some of the largest and most liquid digital assets. As with all of Grayscale's publicly-traded funds, investors can access the fund directly through brokerage or retirement accounts they already have - the same way they would for other asset classes like stocks and bonds. Simply type GDLC into an investment account, such as in Fidelity or Robinhood, to get started today. Learn more about Grayscale's publicly-traded products here. Investing involves risks and the possible loss of principal. | | | The following are the biggest movers in the CoinDesk 20 digital assets over the past 24 hours: | | | Biggest Gainers Biggest Losers | | | Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive, and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges. | | | Join 2,000+ attendees from the NEAR and Web3 ecosystem along with hundreds of hackers in the stunning coastal city of Lisbon for NEARCON, "Building Beyond the Hype," September 11-14. Part conference, part festival, and part IRL hackathon, for 3.5 days NEARCON will bring together authors, economists, artists, politicians, builders, multi-chain collaborators, and makers across many industries. NEARCON will be a welcoming, collaborative atmosphere for all. Promocode COINDESK for 35% off tickets! | | | Check out the CoinDesk TV show "First Mover," hosted by Christine Lee, Emily Parker and Lawrence Lewitinn at 9:00 a.m. U.S. Eastern time. - Bruno Ramos de Sousa, head of global expansion, Hashdex
- John Crain, CEO, SuperRare
- Poppy Simpson, head of Meural, NETGEAR
| | | Where innovators, changemakers, investors and leaders present their best ideas for investing in the future of the Web 3, digital assets, blockchain and crypto ecosystems. Register now. | | | Today's newsletter was edited and produced by Bradley Keoun. | Disclaimer: The information presented in this message is intended as a news item that provides a brief summary of various events and developments that affect, or that might in the future affect, the value of one or more of the cryptocurrencies described above. The information contained in this message, and any information liked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. The information presented herein is accurate only as of its date, and it was not prepared by a research analyst or other investment professional. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency before deciding to purchase or sell any such instruments. | | | |
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