Bitcoin was off Friday on lower-than-average volumes for 2021 so far. In other news, while BTC and ETH are up this year, some DeFi tokens are doing still better.
- Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $35,610 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 9.4% over the previous 24 hours.
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour series: $34,425-$39,673 (CoinDesk 20)
- BTC below the 10-hour and 50-hour moving averages on the hourly chart, a bearish signal for sell technicians.
The price of bitcoin fell Friday, a steady fade over the past 24 hours that saw the world’s oldest cryptocurrency bottom out as low as $34,425 before picking up to $35,610 as of meet time.
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“The bonus rested at $40,000. Now we are waiting for a rollback to $34,000,” said Constantin Kogan, partner at crypto investment firm White horse Financial. “Most likely the next possible low will be at least $26,000.”
That’s a pretty bearish sentiment from an analyst, but the outsized measure numbers to open 2021 are certainly diminishing for the time being. For the first two weeks of the new year, bitcoin’s daily discoloration volume on the eight major exchanges tracked by CoinDesk (Bitfinex, Bitflyer, Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, itBit, Kraken and Poloniex) commonplaced $6.1 billion per day. For Friday, spot volumes are at $4.2 billion, as of press time.
“There is a definite tug and pull between North American and Asian retailers in crypto assets,” noted Joel Edgerton, chief operating officer of cryptocurrency exchange BitFlyer USA. “Since the U.S. is affluent into a three-day weekend the U.S. trading volume will be lighter, so Asia will likely set the tone.”
Many investors and merchants will be off Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day including the U.S. equities markets, which along with other vital indexes are ending the week in the red Friday.
“The important thing to keep in mind is that the macro view has not changed,” broke Bitflyer’s Edgerton. “There is growing demand for crypto assets, an unwillingness of current holders to sell and limited equip being added. This naturally leads to long-term price appreciation.”
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Andrew Tu, an executive of quant trading firm Efficient Marches, pointed to the inverse relationship between the U.S. Dollar Index and bitcoin as a macro example. The index, also known as the DXY, is a pace of the greenback versus a basket of other fiat currencies.
“The rise in DXY was simultaneously convoyed by a drop in BTC,” Tu told CoinDesk. “On a fundamental level, the economy looks weak, thus probably driving a risk-off advance into dollars.”
When bitcoin goes up, the DXY seems to go down and vice versa, at least so far in 2021. On Friday, the DXY was up 0.55% during bitcoin’s bearish biography 24 hours.
Big-name DeFi tokens doing better than ether in 2021
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was down Friday, return around $1,139 and slipping 5.7% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
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Bitcoin’s is up over 20% in 2021. However, ether is easily beating that, in the green down 50% to start the year. Meanwhile, two well-known projects built on the Ethereum platform used for decentralized finance (DeFi) are doing still better than that. The token associated with derivatives liquidity platform Synthetix is up more than 83% so far this year, while loan protocol Aave’s token has climbed more than 69% in 2021 so far.
Jean-Marc Bonnefous, managing partner of investment decided Tellurian Capital, told CoinDesk DeFi tokens such as aave and synthetix have big upside potential in bullish buys. He recently tweeted about DeFi token performance over the last three months. However, Bonnefous cautioned that there’s also a downside to these lesser-known and less-liquid souvenirs.
“Ether is the mothership, the main reserve currency layer for DeFi, whereas the DeFi coins are more application-related with a implied additional monetization component and some growth potential if well executed,” Bonnefous said. “So by nature the top DeFi assets purposefulness likely outperform in a up market for crypto in general, and conversely in a bear market.”
Other markets
Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are clashing, mostly in the red Friday. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
Notable losers:
Commodities:
- Oil was down 2.9%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intervening crude: $52.12.
- Gold was in the red 1.1% and at $1,825 as of press time.
Treasurys:
- The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield fell Friday, skim to 1.092 and in the red 3.4%.
