Bitget Hot Takes (August 22 - August 28)
Bitget Hot Takes is the exclusive weekly newsletter series by Bitget Academy, the 360-degree onboarding guide for all crypto enthusiasts.
Bitget Hot Takes last week can be found here.
Central Themes
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BGB is the only token to end the week with a positive return of 7.03%, while major cryptocurrencies and exchange tokens locked in at least 2% in losses.
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U.S. equities lost US$1.25T in one single session; the global crypto market cap fell below US$1T subsequently.
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Date for the September Merge officially confirmed by the Ethereum Foundation.
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Art auction house Sotheby’s hired an NFT specialist.
The Only Token To Stay Bullish
Over and over again BGB has proved its resilience in tough times; this week with a 7.03% growth for the last seven days. Looking at the chart below, it’s clear that Bitcoin and Ethereum suffered equivalent losses, and BNB was the least affected in the exchange token categories. Well, the second least affected will be more accurate since BGB is the only one to have been thriving the whole week regardless.
Volatility and red have caused many traders to back down and/or adjust their trading strategies, resulting in a drop in spot volume. It’s interesting how BGB can still claim the first place in terms of immunity; BGB volume saw only a 6.06% decrease in its 7-day volume only. As shown in the chart, OKB is another one hit with a one-digit volume drop; all others more than 15%.
Need more proof on BGB’s self-sustained growth? Here are our BGB Report for the last three months:
Don’t forget to check out BGB Earn to make sure that you are generating even more BGB!
The (Rather Murky) Bigger Picture
As the emerging integral part of the global economy, crypto markets are also subject to changes caused by monetary and fiscal policies. On Friday (August 26), the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED)’s Jerome Powell delivered his annual policy speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, warning of higher interest rates in the next months to come, which will ‘also bring some pain to households and businesses’. The EuroZone has experienced a similar sense of doom in the last few weeks as the European Central Bank (ECB) has to raise interest rates for the first time since 2011 and is expecting another raise in September. Nevertheless, the Euro once again lost parity with the U.S. Dollar on August 23 and has been trading below the US$1 mark for the rest of the week.
Euro-Dollar Exchange Rate from August 15 to August 28, 2022.
Source: TradingEconomics.com
Higher interest rates can simply translate to a decrease in money supply, which of course might bring about substantial impact on investors as well as traders’ behaviour. More on the topic is available on Bitget Academy here.
Therefore, the U.S. stock market realised a loss of US$1.25 trillion on Friday, which was, by the way, even higher than the market capitalisation of the whole crypto industry at the time. Amazon (AMZN)’s Jeff Bezos’ net worth consequentially declined by US$6.6 billion and Tesla (TSLA)’s Elon Musk by US$5.5 billion. Crypto stocks were affected as well, and so were crypto markets.
The global crypto market cap could no longer flirt with the US$1 trillion. In anticipation of Powell’s speech, Bitcoin and Ethereum did experience a short-lived bull market, but quickly had to face the sell-off together with U.S. stocks. The global market cap has stayed below US$975 billion ever since.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitcoin lost its US$21,000 mark on Friday and continued to slide under US$20,000 the next day, while the two marks for Ethereum were US$1,700 and US$1,500. Hence the red we see above.
Bitcoin and Ethereum chart over the week, Bitcoin on the upper chart.
Source: TradingView
Meanwhile, data (as of August 27) shows that NFT market volume further decreased in August, showing a contract of approximately 54.9%. August is also the fourth consecutive month of activities’ slowdown for this particular sector. Earlier this week, blockchain analysis firm Elliptic released their report on NFTs and Financial Crime, saying that over US$100 million in NFTs was stolen from July 2021 to July 2022, with most falling prey to compromised Discord and phishing messages.
Source: TheBlock
And a new decentralised NFT exchange, SudoRare, was reported to have gone offline within six hours after launch, whereas the US$800,000 fund in the platform’s wallet address was sent to three separate wallet addresses. Its Twitter account was deleted.
Source: Twitter
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has yet to decide on VanEck's spot bitcoin ETF application, which means an influx of institutional investors could really be delayed. Three Grayscale crypto trusts (Stellar, ZCash and Horizen) are being analysed by the SEC as well. One more stirring concern for investors is the Discord hack of Sui’s creator Mysten Labs. The team tweeted a warning on August 27, but no further update until now.
Expansion Is Albeit Unstoppable
Despite the global shaky grounds, nearly US$100 million has flowed to crypto projects, including Ready Player Me (US$56 million), Mural (US$5.6 million), Thirdweb (US$24 million) and SolanaFM (US$4.5 million). That’s only the direct injection; there was more capital allocated for new and existing crypto funds as follows:
- Invesco announced their new Invesco Metaverse Fund, value not yet revealed;
- Polygon and Cere Network founders partnered on their new US$50 million fund for Web3;
- Animoca Brands Japan raised US$45 million for expansion of the domestic NFT market.
And we are waiting for the listing of the crypto ATM operator Bitcoin Depot, whose value is estimated at US$885 million.
In addition, digital assets have found their way into traditional companies such as the top investment bankCowen, who is expanding their digital division with experts from leading crypto businesses, and the giant fine arts seller Sotheby’s, who has recently appointed an in-house NFT specialist. And TradFi veterans are leaving for crypto, to Citibank’s head of forex was known to have taken a job in crypto, while the former South Korean vice finance minister is now leading Hashed’s research institute.
The Latest Bitget News
Don’t forget your plan of the week with the exclusive Live Trader AMA in our community group! This AMA takes place on a weekly basis and can be of great help for you, especially in these volatile conditions.
Regarding The Ethereum Merge, which is scheduled to commence on September 15/16, Bitget’s take on the event is as follows:
- ETH transactions will not be affected during The Merge
- After The Merge, all ETH assets, perpetual swaps, futures and relevant products on Bitget will denote the PoS ETH token
- The listing of potential newly forked tokens of ETH will be announced publicly on our website and other social media channels. Stay tuned!
More details can be found here.
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