Welcome back to Distributed Ledger. This is Frances Yue, crypto and markets reporter at MarketWatch.
Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
has gained almost 150% so far this year, despite a slight pullback this week. The crypto is still about 40% lower from its all-time high reached in 2021.
The crypto’s recent rally has prompted some investors to ask if it has more room to climb higher. The answer is yes, according to Jeff Lewis, product manager of hedge funds at Pantera Capital. The majority of gains for bitocoin’s current cycle have yet to come, if a historic pattern repeats, Lewis said.
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Further rally to come?
The so-called 1-year HODL Wave, an on-chain metric which tracks the percentage of bitcoins that have not moved between wallets for at least a year, is important to watch to gauge bitcoin’s future performance, said Lewis.
Historically, as bitcoin price climbs to a cycle peak, there’s a reduction in the percentage of coins held for longer than a year, as some holders choose to capture their profits through selling, Lewis wrote in a Tuesday note.
As shown in the chart below, the 1-year HODL Wave often declines as bitcoin price rises.
Historically, bitcoin’s price slowly rises into the indicator’s peak and climbs faster after the indicator moves past its peak. Bitcoin’s rally lasts an average of 1.3 years from the peak of the indicator to the peak in price.
“For this cycle, we haven’t seen any clear indication that the indicator has topped out,” Lewis wrote.
If bitcoin continues to follow its historical pattern, it means the crypto has a lot more room to rise in the current market cycle, noted Lewis.
Coinbase’s international spot markets
Coinbase is soon offering spot trading on its international exchange targeting non-U.S. users, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Institutions can start trading bitcoin and ether on Coinbase’s international exchange starting Thursday, the company said. The international exchange was first launched in May focusing on derivatives.
In June, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Coinbase with operating an unregistered national securities exchange, brokerage and clearing agency. The exchange refuted such claims, saying the SEC’s reliance on an enforcement-only approach for the crypto industry hurts America’s economic competitiveness.
KuCoin exits New York, pays fine
KuCoin, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, has agreed to ban New York users from its platform and pay a total of $22 million to settle a lawsuit filed by New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who alleged Kucoin failed to register as a securities and commodities broker-dealer and falsely represented itself as a crypto exchange.
KuCoin will refund about $16.7 million to over 150,000 New York investors and pay a $5.3 million fine to the state, according to a statement. James.
Crypto in a snap
Bitcoin fell 6.4% in the past seven days and traded slightly above $42,000 on Wednesday, according to CoinDesk data. Ether
ETHUSD,
lost 4% during the same period, to about $2,200.
Must-reads
- First US Crypto Accounting Rules Capture Token Highs, Lows (Bloomberg Tax)
- The Power Vacuum at the Top of the Crypto Industry (The New York Times)
Read the full article here
