In a promising sign of stability, the global cryptocurrency markets continued to hold above US$1tn heading into Thursday, encouraged by a strong showing in US equities.
Bitcoin (BTC) added 1.8% to US$23,060, hitting a high last seen in mid-August of last year.
There was some bearish resistance this morning which brought the benchmark cryptocurrency back down to the 23,000 mark. Any further draw down could see BTC revert to the US$22,400 support.
Bitcoin (BTC) stabilises around US$23,000, but can it hold the line? – Source: currency.com
Ethereum closed 3.6% higher at US$1,610 last night and has held onto these gains today.
The second-largest cryptocurrency is struggling to break above US$1,650, which was the price point seen on the ETH/USDT pair just prior to the FTX implosion that crashed the crypto markets.
This is despite ETH officially becoming a deflationary currency as rising gas fees are leading to higher burn rates, effectively putting a throttle on circulating supply.
Underscoring Bitcoin’s relative strength of recovery against Ether is the ETH/BTC pair, which has dipped 10% in the past two weeks.
Binance’s BUSD stablecoin’s circulating supply hit 12-month lows of US$15.3bn in the past 24 hours, resulting in a US$2bn reduction in the trailing month alone. BUSD traders appear to still be spooked following concerns about its proof of reserves first flagged last month.
In the altcoin space
Threshold Network’s T token entered the top-100 club following a 170% rally in the past week on news that Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) intends to list the token. Threshold Network is a suite of tools designed to enhance on-chain security and privacy on the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks.
Aptos (APT), the blockchain launched by ex-Facebook alumni, is up over 130% week on week, significantly outperforming large-cap Layer-1 blockchains such as Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX).
Although most altcoins have remained in the green, Casper (CSPR), Kava (KAVA) and Helium (HNT) have bucked the trend by posting single-digit weekly losses.
Total value locked in the decentralised finance (DeFi) space surged 2.5% to US$47.7bn overnight.
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