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News recap: Grayscale won a lawsuit against the SEC

On 29th August, Grayscale Investments finally won a lawsuit and challenged the SEC refusal to convert the Bitcoin Trust (CBTC) into a bitcoin ETF which led to an immediate but short-lived market surge. Read the News recap to learn about the most important events in the crypto world between 25th August and 6th September.

Crypto market in numbers

Between 25th-28th August, the cryptocurrency market capitalisation was in consolidation, according to CoinMarketCap data. On 29th August, the indicator sharply rose by 5.9% to $1.108 trillion due to fundamental factors, but the capitalisation could not sustain this level and corrected by 7.2% to $1.02 trillion. In the following days, the indicator settled in the range of $1.03 to $1.04 trillion, returning to levels seen in early summer 2023.

Trading activity remained largely unchanged. Between 25th-28th August, average daily volumes stayed around $25 billion. Between 29th August and 3rd September, the indicator sharply increased by 159%, from $22 billion to $57 billion, but then it fell back into the range of $20 to $25 billion.

The cryptocurrency fear and greed index remained in the “Fear” zone. Between 25th-29th August, the indicator did not rise above 40 points, briefly entered the neutral zone with 52 points on 29th August, and then returned to the level around 40 points a few days later.

Cryptocurrency volatility increased slightly but remained at low levels. Since 25th August, the 30-day volatility index for BTC increased by 15.8%, from 1.51% to 1.75%. A similar metric for ETH increased by 15.7%, from 1.21% to 1.4%.

The high intraday volatility between 29th-31st August was due to Grayscale Investment’s victory in a lawsuit against the SEC. Cryptocurrencies reacted to this positive news with growth, but just a few days later, the SEC announced that it was delaying its decision on launching spot bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, VanEck, WisdomTree, Invesco and Valkyrie until at least mid-October.

As a result, cryptocurrency market capitalisation fell by 11% in August and the 30, 60 and 90-day cryptocurrency volatility remains at low levels. Major changes are still expected ahead. It is recommended that investors are careful with short-term long positions, and long-term holders should wait for optimal discounts. It’s worth noting that in 80% of cases throughout the history of the cryptocurrency market, it has fallen in September.

Gainers (24th August – 6th September)

Coin Opening
price
24.08, $
Opening
price
06.09, $
Change
TON 1.56 1.93 24.2%
MKR 1,180.00 1,246.84 5.7%
NEO 7.81 8.16 4.5%
ZRX 0.1869 0.1946 4.1%
TRX 0.0837 0.0860 2.8%

Losers (24th August – 6th September)

Coin Opening price 21.07, $ Opening price 02.08, $ Change
VLX 0.0092 0.0065 -29.7%
SUI 0.6695 0.5378 -19.7%
GMT 0.1091 0.0946 -13.2%
ONE 0.0115 0.0104 -9.4%
ATOM 8.05 7.45 -7.5%

Easily track gainers and losers within the Simple trade section on EXMO. Check real-time updates in the last 24 hours, week and month.

Most traded coins (24th August – 6th September)

Coin Trading volumes, $
USDT 21,609,511
BTC 12,862,272
ETH 5,682,457
LYO 2,333,852
XRP 2,170,697
YFI 1,608,299
GMT 935,725
LINK 875,618
BCH 738,229
LTC 722,645

Top crypto market driving factors

Overall crypto market

▲ 25.08.2023 – The total assets of Tether exceeded $86.1 billion, with liabilities of $82.8 billion. USDT is backed by the company’s reserves by more than 100%.

▼ 25.08.2023 – JPMorgan analysts warned that in the short term, the prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may fall, although the decline will be limited in time.

▼ 25.08.2023 – Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, confirmed the system’s readiness to continue raising the base interest rate, if necessary.

▲ 28.08.2023 – According to BBG data, despite the challenging market conditions, cryptocurrencies have surpassed Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal in the total volume of USD transactions in 2023.

▼ 29.08.2023 – The profit of public miners decreased by $4.4 billion over the past year.

▲ 29.08.2023 – Grayscale won a lawsuit against the SEC.

▲ 30.08.2023 – Short positions worth $130 million were liquidated in the crypto market.

▲ 30.08.2023 – Twitter obtained a licence for cryptocurrency payments.

▼ 31.08.2023 – The SEC postponed the decision on applications for the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, VanEck, WisdomTree, Invesco and Valkyrie until at least mid-October.

▼ 05.09.2023 – Daily trading volumes on CEX dropped to the level of late 2020.

▲ 05.09.2023 – Tether became the 22nd largest buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds with reserves of $72.5 billion.

▲ 06.09.2023 – According to Santiment metrics, most altcoins are currently in a zone where a rebound is possible.

Bitcoin (BTC)

▲ 25.08.2023 – Key bitcoin whales are increasing their holdings. Since 17th August, they have accumulated $308.6 million.

▼ 25.08.2023 – Glassnode noted that in this cycle, bitcoin has experienced the highest number of days with negative price changes.

▼ 28.08.2023 – Bloomberg macro strategist, M. McGlone, believes that the upcoming economic reset will lead to a decline in the price of bitcoin.

▲ 29.08.2023 – According to CNBC, bitcoin balances on exchanges have decreased to the lowest level since 2019.

▼ 29.08.2023 – Bitcoin trading volumes have dropped to a level not seen in over 4 years.

▼ 29.08.2023 – The on-chain transaction volume of bitcoin has fallen to a three-year low.

▼ 30.08.2023 – Santiment notes that 30,000 BTC were sent to exchanges ahead of Grayscale’s victory over the SEC.

▲ 30.08.2023 – Iris Energy invested $10 million in Nvidia graphics processors for the study of generative AI and bitcoin mining.

▲ 31.08.2023 – According to Bloomberg, the likelihood of a spot bitcoin ETF appearing this year has increased to 75%.

▲ 01.09.2023 – In August, bitcoin network users conducted 14.41 million transactions, the second-highest number in history.

▲ 04.09.2023 – The number of bitcoin addresses with a non-zero balance has exceeded 48.5 million for the first time.

▲ 04.09.2023 – Owners of at least 0.1% of all Bitcoins (more than $500 million) increased their holdings by $1.5 billion in the last two weeks of August.

▲ 04.09.2023 – JPMorgan stated that Grayscale’s victory increased the chances of approval for a bitcoin ETF.

▼ 06.09.2023 – As a result of the bitcoin mining difficulty recalculation, it decreased by 2.65%, reaching 54.15 T.

Ethereum (ETH)

▲ 25.08.2023 – ARK Invest and 21Shares have filed applications for ethereum futures ETFs.

▲ 25.08.2023 – The number of ETH addresses holding between 10 and 10,000 ETH has increased by 1,788 units since June.

▲ 31.08.2023 – The supply of ETH continues to shrink since the Merge upgrade.

▼ 05.09.2023 – The percentage of Ethereum holders incurring losses has increased from 27% in early July to 44.2% in early September.

▼ 06.09.2023 – Over the past 24 hours, whales acquired approximately 260,000 ETH worth nearly $425 million.

Ripple (XRP)

▲ 28.08.2023 – Western Union is considering integrating Ripple solutions for cross-border payments and transfers.

▲ 28.08.2023 – Ripple already holds payment licences in 31 U.S. states.

▲ 06.09.2023 – XRP led in average daily trading volumes among the top 10 altcoins in August with nearly a fourfold lead.

Cardano (ADA)

▲ 31.08.2023 – The number of wallets in the Cardano network has grown from 4.02 million to 4.26 million since April.

▲ 04.09.2023 – The on-chain transaction volume on the Cardano network continues to grow despite the token’s price decline.

Solana (SOL)

▲ 24.08.2023 – Shopify will add support for the decentralised payment protocol, Solana Pay. Users of millions of stores will be able to pay with stablecoins.

▲ 05.09.2023 – Visa has launched a pilot project allowing merchants to use the USDC stablecoin on the Solana network.

Toncoin (TON)

▲ 01.09.2023 – In August, the number of registered addresses in the project’s network exceeded 3.2 million.

▲ 01.09.2023 – The official bridge between TON and Ethereum has supported transfers of all ERC-20 standard tokens.

Shiba Inu (SHIB)

▲ 28.08.2023 – The second-level solution Shibarium has resumed fund withdrawals via the Ethereum bridge after extended issues during its launch.

▲ 31.08.2023 – Shibarium blockchain metrics for the first 2 weeks of operation:
Average block formation time: 5 seconds. Total number of transactions: 552,239. Peak number of daily transactions: 78,578. Number of wallets: 337,412.

Litecoin (LTC)

▲ 29.08.2023 – Nearly 5 million addresses have been holding LTC for over a year, nearly double the number from the previous year (2.55 million).

Pepe (PEPE)

▲ 26.08.2023 – According to Lookonchain data, a PEPE whale has been accumulating for a long time. They purchased 640 billion tokens for 320 ETH ($529,000). The average purchase price was $0.000001163.

▼ 28.08.2023 – Approximately 16 trillion PEPE tokens were illegally withdrawn and sold on various cryptocurrency exchanges, as reported by the meme coin’s development team.

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