Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rebounds to $11,400 After Flash Crash as Ether Closes In on $400
Bitcoin is gaining back what it lost and ether’s upward run seems undeterred as the crypto market recovers from a flash crash on Sunday.
Aug 3, 2020 at 8:31 p.m. UTC
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Cryptocurrencies are working their way back Monday after Sunday’s big flash crash.
- Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $11,417 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), gaining 2.1% over the previous 24 hours.
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,913-$11,485
- BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
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A bullish run for bitcoin past $12,131 was interrupted Sunday, as bitcoin endured a sudden drop, losing over $1,400 within a brief period of time.
“The market had rallied strongly from $9,000 to over $12,000,” said Rupert Douglas, head of institutional sales for crypto brokerage Koine. “The reaction down was purely to shake out the weak longs who had got in at the higher levels,” Douglas added.
Indeed, hourly liquidations spiked to over $147 million on derivatives platform BitMEX on Sunday. As the price began trending downward, derivatives traders going long saw their positions automatically sold, the crypto equivalent of a margin call, on the Seychelles-based exchange.
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The highest BitMEX liquidation during the session was a $10 million long position. “There were a lot of high-levered long day traders who were liquidated and are licking their wounds as a result,” said John Willock, CEO of digital asset liquidity provider Tritum.
The amount of spot bitcoin trading on Coinbase Sunday was higher than normal, at $318 million. In fact, Sunday was the second-highest volume day in the past month, following a $446 million day on July 27.
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“The rest of the market seems to have had a big appetite to accumulate bitcoin at $1,000 off, now working its way back to $12,000 and beyond,” Willock added. “I see it as a stumble and we're back on track.”
Bitcoin is still 5.8% off of its Sunday high, while ether is down 5%.
Ether closing in on $400
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Monday trading around $394 and climbing 4.4% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Ether was not spared Sunday’s flash crash, falling as low as $325 before recovering. Some traders claim they took advantage of the dip. “We had expected ETH to fall back to the low $300s and accumulated there,” said Jack Tan, managing partner of Taiwan-based quantitative trading firm Kronos Research.
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Karl Samsen, vice president of capital markets for trading firm Global Digital Assets, told CoinDesk ether is separating itself from bitcoin and is actually helping push the alternative cryptocurrency, or altcoin, market. “Bitcoin is rebalancing itself, as it was the previous leader,” Samsen said. “Ether is tearing up the market, and it's bringing alts up with it. We’re still very bullish on mid- to low-market-cap alts.”
Other markets
Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are all in the green Monday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
- xrp (XRP) + 10%
- qtum (QTUM)+ 8.3%
- bitcoin sv (BSV) + 7.1%
Read More: July Was a Runaway Month for Crypto Returns
Equities:
- Asia’s Nikkei 225 ended the day in the green 2.2%, boosted by Yahoo Japan Corp. stock up a mouth-watering 17.9%.
- Europe’s FTSE 100 closed up 2.2% as manufacturing activity on the continent shows signs of positive growth.
- The United States’ S&P 500 gained 0.90% led by tech stocks, including Microsoft, up 5% on possible social video app TikTok acquisition news.
Commodities:
- Gold is flat, in the green 0.07% and at $1,976 as of press time.
- Oil is up 0.90%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.81
Treasurys:
- U.S. Treasury bonds are mixed Monday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the two-year, in the red 5%.
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