Bitcoin (BTC) is approaching a retest of the psychologically important $30,000 amid a fresh wave of optimism about the likelihood of near-term spot bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) application approvals, as well as optimism about crypto’s broader adoption.
The world’s first and largest digital asset by market capitalization was last up around 2.5% and on course for its best one-day performance since mid-July.
According to Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas, influential crypto billionaire and CEO of Galaxy Digital Mike Novogratz said in an earnings call that, according to his contacts, an approval of BlackRock and Invesco’s spot bitcoin ETF applications are a matter of “when, not if”, and likely in the next “four to six months”.
Ark Invest CEO was also bullish in her commentary on the prospect of SEC approval of spot bitcoin ETFs, saying in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday that, if the agency is going to approve a bitcoin ETF, it “will approve more than one at once”.
The approval of one or multiple spot bitcoin ETFs should open the door to substantial inflows of institutional funds into the world’s largest cryptocurrency, which could massively lift its price.
Bullish commentary on the prospect of near-term spot bitcoin ETF approvals comes after news broke on Monday that US digital payments and fintech giant PayPal is going to launch its own Ethereum network-based USD-pegged stablecoin, called PayPal USD (PYUSD).
The stablecoin will be always redeemable at a one-to-one basis for actual US dollars and will be fully backed actual US dollars and their liquid equivalents.
Swaps between dollars and PYUSD will be available initially just on PayPal, but then soon on PayPal’s popular payments platform Venmo, and should offer an easy crypto on-ramping solution.
Given PayPal has well over 400 million daily active users, this is potentially a massive boost for crypto adoption.
2023 Uptrend Confirmed?
Bitcoin’s latest ETF and adoption optimism-spurred rally is likely also getting a helping hand from technical buying, with the cryptocurrency seemingly in the process of confirming that the 2023 uptrend remains strongly intact.
BTC tested the 2023 uptrend earlier this week when it momentarily dropped back to the mid-$28,000s.
If it can now clear resistance in the form of the 50-Day Moving Average (DMA), which sits right at $30,000, this should open the door to a run higher towards yearly highs in the upper-$31,000s.
Traders should beware that major macro risks later this week could potentially derail the optimism.
July Consumer Price Index inflation data is out on Thursday.
The headline YoY number is expected to rise to 3.3% from 3.0% in June, though that’s just because of base effects, with the MoM reading expected to remain flat at 0.2%, which, by the way, is roughly consistent with inflation of around 2.0% YoY (that’s if you get a whole year of 0.2% MoM readings).
More importantly, the YoY Core CPI reading is expected to tick lower to 4.7% from 4.8% and remain at 0.2% MoM.
All said, the data is expected to suggest that the disinflation trend remains in place, which should support the argument being made by Fed doves that no more rate hikes are needed.
However, with core inflation still way above 2.0%, the data is unlikely to do much to spur bets of near-term rate cuts.
Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto markets has mostly been ignoring macro recently, but any upside or downside surprises to this report could trigger some short-term volatility, depending on how the US dollar and US bond yields react.
For now, things are looking up for bitcoin, with the crypto likely to trade with a short-term positive bias.
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