“There is going to be a media frenzy about Elon and how his aggressively backing Trump and the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ narrative could have been a deciding factor for a Trump win,” one trader said.

Dogecoin (DOGE) continued its winning weekly run, buoyed by a renewed Elon Musk endorsement, jumping over 25% in the past 24 hours and extending its 30-day gains to over 65% to making it the best-performing crypto major.

Musk, who has publicly supported and promoted dogecoin since 2021, has been proposing a Department of Government Efficiency — abbreviated as D.O.G.E; a clear nod to the token — as an agency that will make government spending and monetary planning more effective as part of the Republican campaign.

And that proposal could be close to reality as Republican Donald Trump won his second term as U.S. president in early European hours Wednesday, according to Fox News. Late Tuesday, bitcoin (BTC), dogecoin and other tokens moved higher as Trump’s odds surged higher on betting marketplaces.

Futures tracking DOGE recorded over $30 million in short liquidations over the past 24 hours, an unusually high figure, suggesting part of its move was driven by covering losing bets.

Open interest, or the number of unsettled futures bets, on DOGE is up to 8.30 billion tokens as of Wednesday compared to 7 billion tokens on Monday — showing brisk demand and expectations of further market movements.

A parody D.O.G.E token on Ethereum is up 77% in the past 24 hours, and is up 500% since a CoinDesk analysis first flagged demand for the memecoin among some traders.

Bullish sentiment for DOGE is also showing signs of spilling over to dog-themed tokens, with shiba inu (SHIB), floki (FLOKI) and bonk (BONK) up over 10%. Sector tokens have gained 16% on average, beating a 7.2% rise in the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) majors index.

And there could still be room to grow.

Well-known trader ‘unipcs,’ who has been publicly bullish on DOGE and D.O.G.E since earlier this year on Musk’s endorsement, told CoinDesk in an X message today that he expects the two tokens, and bitcoin, to move even higher.

“I especially think the ‘Elon factor’ is not yet priced in for DOGE,” unipcs said. “There is going to be a media frenzy about Elon and how his aggressively backing Trump and the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ narrative could have been a deciding factor for a Trump win, and that’s going to end up being a key catalyst that fuels both Dogecoin and the D.O.G.E ETH memecoin much higher.”

“I do believe many are greatly underestimating just how much higher these assets are going to go from here,” unipcs added.

Traders have long perceived Trump’s victory as a bullish catalyst for the industry for his pro-crypto stance and promises to make the U.S. a bitcoin powerhouse. Democrat Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has not made similar promises but said he would introduce regulations to protect certain groups.

The post Dogecoin Rockets 25% as Trump Nears Victory, Top Trader Signals More Gains Ahead appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Shiba Inu is the first layer 2 blockchain to join the media and entertainment association to develop blockchain technology for content security and distribution.

SHIB, an interconnected family of digital assets and solutions built on the Ethereum blockchain that includes the popular meme coin Shiba Inu, today said it is partnering with the Content Distribution and Security Association (CDSA) in a release to CoinDesk.

Shiba Inu developers will propose and develop blockchain technology specific to media and entertainment, such as security and content distribution. CDSA is an international nonprofit organization that was founded in 1998 to provide best practices for the delivery and storage of entertainment, software and information technology.

“We look forward to providing a unique and blockchain-first perspective to CDSA’s work in helping media and entertainment executives better utilize these innovative technologies, especially as blockchain and artificial intelligence converge,” Shiba Inu lead developer Shytoshi Kusama said in a message.

Blockchains could help alleviate concerns around deepfakes and plagiarism within the emergent artificial intelligence (AI) sector, Shiba Inu developers said in the release Most AI models are trained on publicly available content, creating a cause of concern among researchers.

SHIB tokens are up 0.69% in the past 24 hours, underperforming the broad-based CoinDesk 20’s 1.7% rise.

The post Shiba Inu Joins CDSA to Battle AI-Driven Concerns Using Shibarium appeared first on Crypto Insider.

U.S. Federal Reserve speakers were out in force one day ahead of Chairman Powell’s keynote address at the Jackson Hole conference.

St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said markets aren’t properly pricing in the idea that inflation, and thus interest rates, will remain elevated well into the future.

Inflation is likely to be “more persistent than what many on Wall Street expect,” he said during an interview with CNBC from the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. His comments suggest that current pricing showing an end to Fed rate hikes in early 2023 and possibly a rate cut by the end of that year will prove to be optimistic.

Tighter monetary policy for longer than anticipated might mean renewed risk-off sentiment in markets, including crypto. Indeed, bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto assets have bounced alongside stocks over the past few weeks in hopes the Fed might begin to slow or even end its aggressive string of rate hikes.

Bullard also said he prefers to “front load” hikes and that raising rates aggressively in the beginning shows the Fed is taking inflation seriously. His expectation of a year-end Fed funds rate of 3.75%-4% (versus the current 2.25%-2.5%) is about 25-50 basis points higher than short-term rate markets have priced in.

As for any hints on exactly what central bankers plan to do at the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in September, neither Bullard nor any of the other Fed presidents who spoke from Jackson Hole on Thursday provided much of an answer.

Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told CNBC that the decision on whether to tighten 50 or 75 basis points depends on the next inflation reading on Sept. 13. “I think we have to recognize that a 50 basis point move is still a substantial move, so whether it’s 50 or 75 I can’t say right now, but let’s not think that 50 isn’t a substantial move,” Harker said.

While Harker would like to see the Fed Funds rate get to about 3.5%,and then pause and re-assess, Kansas City Fed President Esther George told Bloomberg she believes the benchmark rate may have to rise above 4%.

The main event comes on Friday morning, when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will make his keynote address. Given the hawkish tilt to the Fed chatter ahead of his talk, it seems more likely than not that Powell will take the opportunity Friday to reiterate his intention to bring the inflation rate sharply lower.

The post Markets Should Prepare for Persistent Inflation and Continued Rate Hikes appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Risk assets recently rallied in hopes that inflation has peaked and the Fed would cut interest rates next year. The central bank’s monetary tightening has roiled cryptocurrencies.

It’s a risk-off day in financial markets. While bitcoin, ether, and futures tied to the S&P 500 are trading weak, the safe-haven U.S. dollar is gaining against other global currencies.

Investors trimming bullish exposure to assets perceived as risky, amid expectations that the Federal Reserve might use the minutes of its July meeting to push back against hopes of slower rate hikes and eventual liquidity easing.

Early this year, the Fed embarked on its most aggressive liquidity tightening cycle in over two decades, roiling bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. The Fed will release the minutes of its July policy meeting on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET (18:00 UTC).

“The question is whether the Fed wants to use these minutes as a communication tool to push back against the view of a 2023 easing cycle,” ING analysts noted in a market update published Tuesday. “Post-meeting rhetoric from the Fed suggests that this is more likely to be the case – especially since the Fed funds futures price the policy rate being cut from 3.60% to 3.20% in the second half of next year.”

While the minutes are a raw record of what transpired at the last meeting, some observers argue they could be tailored to anchor market expectations.

“Fed looks at market reaction post meeting and uses minutes to correct misunderstandings. There is a lot to correct today,” Joseph Wang, former Fed trader, tweeted.

The Fed raised rates by 75 basis points to the 2.25%-2.5% range and ditched forward guidance, saying the next moves will be data-dependent. Since then, markets have been pricing slower rate hikes and eventual liquidity easing in 2023, tracking the decline in commodity prices. The dovish expectations strengthened last week after the U.S. reported softer-than-expected consumer price inflation for July.

However, markets appear to have run ahead of themselves, as the central bank’s inflation fight is far from over, several Fed officials said following last week’s CPI release. Policymakers added that interest rate hikes could continue into 2023.

Risk assets may see renewed volatility if the minutes further push back against the dovish expectations. “A further rejection of this market pricing should help the dollar,” ING analysts said. “Favor DXY pushing up the 107.00 area.” The DXY, short for the U.S. Dollar Index, is currently around 106.70.

Bitcoin tends to move in the opposite direction of the dollar index. At press time, bitcoin traded at $23,640, representing a 1% drop on the day.

The post Bitcoin, Ether Drop as Analysts Fear Fed Minutes Will Dash Hopes for 2023 Easing appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Some observers of digital asset markets criticized the move but others said that Celsius could be protecting user funds; ether plummets 17%.

Investors had their choice of comparatives for describing bitcoin’s deep dive on Monday. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fell to less than a third of its all-time high of nearly $70,000 just eight months ago and less than half of where it perched at the start of 2022.

It was down 16% over the past 24 hours, a rare single-day, double-digit dip, and off over 30% from a month ago when it settled around $30,000 following the collapse of the TerraUSD token. It fell for the seventh consecutive day.

So did cryptos in general, whose combined market cap tumbled below $1 trillion for the first time since early 2021 amid ongoing inflation fears and a torrent of bad news from various protocols, including crypto lending platform Celsius’ announcement that it was pausing withdrawals amid “extreme market conditions.”

Bitcoin was recently trading at about $22,500, down more than 16% over the past day. As for major altcoins, the question wasn’t whether they were in the red but by how much. Ether, the second largest crypto by market cap, was changing hands at roughly $1,200, off over 17% during the same period and its lowest level since January 2021. CRO was off more than 20% at one point amid news that the crypto exchange would pare about 5% of its workforce, roughly 260 jobs. Wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) and TRX were down nearly the same at that time.

Market analysts had a lot to say about the plunge. Little of it offered immediate comfort. “It’s a storm,” 3iQ Digital Asset’s Head of Research Mark Connors told CoinDesk in a phone interview. “Bitcoin bears certainly are in ruckus mode, berating the largest crypto the way a schoolyard bully seeks out for tormenting the same easy mark,” Uphold Financial Consultant Rich Blake wrote.

“Sentiment for cryptos is terrible as the global crypto market cap has fallen below $1 trillion dollars,” Oanda Senior Analyst Edward Moya wrote. “Bitcoin is attempting to form a base, but if price action falls below the $20,000 level, it could get even uglier.

‘’As inflation proves to be an even trickier opponent to beat than expected, Bitcoin and Ether are continuing to get a severe bruising in the ring,” Hargreaves Lansdown Senior Investment and Markets Analyst Susannah Streeter wrote. “They are prime victims of the flight away from risky assets as investors fret about spiralling consumer prices around the world.”

Cryptos’ suffering tracked the hammering of major equity indexes with technology stocks at the forefront of the carnage. The S&P 500 fell 3.8%, re-entering bear market territory – meaning that it has lost 20% of its value from its previous high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, which hit bear market ground weeks ago, was down a whopping 4.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 2.7%.

Even gold, a traditional safe-haven asset, declined nearly 3%. Investors will be anxiously watching the U.S. central bank’s two-day meeting, which begins Tuesday and is widely expected to culminate with a 50-basis point interest rate hike as part of an ongoing effort to stem stubbornly high inflation. The latest U.S. Consumer Price Index report showed inflation rising 8.6%, a four-decade peek.

3iQ’s Connors noted optimistically that the current crypto spiral was “within the band of growth” relative to other steep drops in crypto’s 13-plus-year history. “I wasn’t around in 2018 for that $20,000 to $3,000 move, but the playing field is much different now as far as the number of people in it (and) the Presidential mandate,” he said. “If you take the band of volatility over the past five years, we’re still within it.”

Connors also said: “The adoption rate the last time we checked both general wallets as well as institutions and mentions in 10Qs are all at elevated levels. The fundamentals are intact.”

Still, the crypto industry has found itself struggling anew Monday with a now less certain future. Lending platform BlockFi said it would slice about 20% of its workforce. Crypto.com and BlockFi’s cuts followed closely after similar announcements by the Winklevoss twins-led exchange Gemini and Middle Eastern crypto-exchange Rain Financial, among others. On Monday, Binance, the world’s largest major crypto exchange by trading volume, paused withdrawals for a brief period.

“As far as support levels, the next few days surely will test digital assets if a faster pace of tightening and more aggressive rate hikes are announced,” Uphold’s Blake wrote. “For the moment, extreme market conditions and fed policy updates are exacerbating the consequences for crypto assets.”

The post What Analysts Are Saying After Crypto Lender Celsius Paused Withdrawals; BTC Drops Below $23K appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Futures tracking the two tokens racked up nearly $18 million in liquidations over the past day in a higher-than-usual move.

Tokens related to the Terra ecosystem saw volatile trading in the past 24 hours amid legal developments against issuing company Terraform Labs, data shows.

Prices of Luna (LUNA) gained as much as 30% – from $2.65 on Thursday to $3.44 on Friday morning – then fell steeply even as the broader crypto market remained flat. Luna Classic (LUNC) gained as much as 34% before sliding this morning, data from CoinGecko shows.

Such volatility arose amid reports of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigating whether Terraform Labs violated U.S. laws regarding how it marketed its ecosystem tokens.

Futures tracking the two tokens saw nearly $18 million in liquidations while losses on futures of other major cryptos, apart from bitcoin and ether, remained under the $3 million mark.

The LUNA was issued to holders in late May following the depeg of algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD (UST) in early May – a move that saw the value of old Luna (now rebranded as LUNC) to fall as much as 99.7%. Value locked on decentralized finance (DeFi) apps in the Terra ecosystem fell by $28 billion in addition, as reported.

The liquidations marked the highest losses for traders of the new LUNA tokens so far, data shows, with nearly $5 million in losses. However, LUNC futures saw higher losses at over $12 million, suggesting retail traders are continuing to prefer LUNC trading over LUNA.

Crypto firms Bybit and Binance are currently the only exchanges to offer LUNA futures to traders, while OKEx and Huobi offer LUNC futures. OKEx, popular in Asia, saw over $9 million in liquidations alone, the highest among its counterparts.

LUNA trades over $3.06 at writing time. LUNC trades just over $0.00007647 with gains falling to 7% for traders in the past 24 hours.

The post Terra’s Luna, Luna Classic Tokens See Volatile Trading Amid New Developments appeared first on Crypto Insider.

A memo by the city’s securities and futures regulator reminds investors of the risks of NFTs; altcoins surge and then drop.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading at about $30,300, up about 0.5% over the past 24 hours. Ether, the second largest crypto by market caps, was changing hands at roughly $1,730, down about 3% over the same period.

Other major altcoins that had risen significantly earlier in the day, including SOL and ADA were more recently about flat, as investors wrestled with a few positive economic signs and the months-long flow of more troubling news.

Still, a number of analysts said that Bitcoin was unlikely to take any deep dives for the time being.

“I think we may be putting in a bottom here with Bitcoin,” Greg King, CEO and founder of crypto asset manager Osprey Funds, told CoinDesk’s First Mover program.

King noted that the presence of institutional investors has differentiated the latest price slump from previous crypto winters in 2013 and 2018 when bitcoin lost over 80% of its value. Bitcoin has currently dropped about 60% since hitting its all-time peak just short of $70,000 in November.

“Institutional buyers are buying this dip and then don’t forget the macro environment,” King said, noting the four-decade high inflation rate in the U.S. “Zero yield assets such as gold and Bitcoin do very well” at these times, he added.

Stocks rose slightly on Monday with the tech-focused Nasdaq and S&P 500 increasing about a half percentage point, as was the case for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Gold, a traditional safe-haven asset, fell about a half-percentage point. Investors were buoyed by last week’s job report that suggested the economy might not plunge into recession any time soon. Some analysts also believe that inflation has peaked, although markets will be nervously eyeing this Friday’s consumer price index report, which is expected to show inflation remaining stubbornly above 8%, a four-decade high.

Volatility continued to fade in crypto markets, while the fear and greed index ticked higher, although it is still registering squarely in extreme fear territory. Bitcoin has been trading in a tight range between $28,000 and $31,500 for the past month as investors wait for clearer signals about whether the economy will sink into recession or power through its current headwinds.

King believes the increasing correlation between cryptos and stocks will reverse to some degree, calling it a “reflection of this kind of wild situation in macro markets where we have awful conditions and so it’s more of a risk-on, risk-off type of mindset.”

“I personally think that crypto will emerge as – certainly things like Bitcoin – as a relative safe haven as we continue to chop through an uncertain macro environment and especially if rates continue to rise and equities continue to tank, but I don’t think that a long term correlation makes a lot of sense,” he said.

The post When It Comes to Crypto, Hong Kong Isn’t the World’s ‘Freest Economy’; Bitcoin Has a Late Fall appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Cryptos were largely in the green, although trading was choppy; India crypto investors receive some upbeat news.

A late afternoon surge on Thursday carried bitcoin past $30,000, but the mood among cryptocurrency investors remained pessimistic.

The largest crypto by market capitalization was recently trading at about $30,600, a more than 2% gain over the previous 24 hours. Ether was changing hands at just above $1,800, up slightly for the same period. Most other major cryptos rose late with ADA recently rising nearly 6%, and APE up over 4%. Trading was choppy as investors continued to shy away from riskier assets – their behavior a product of inflationary and recessionary fears that have mushroomed steadily this year.

“Bitcoin will get its groove back once bearish sentiment on Wall Street improves, but that will likely take several more weeks,” Oanda Senior Markets Analyst Edward Moya wrote in an email.

Stocks rose as the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped 2.6%, the S&P 500 climbed 1.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.2%. Gold, a traditional safe haven in down markets, increased by more than a percentage point, underscoring the current uncertainty among investors.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied countries said that they would boost the supply of oil by an unexpectedly large amount. The U.S. and other countries had been pressing the organization to loosen its current limits to help lower energy prices. The price of Brent crude oil, which is a widely watched measure of energy markets, rose to $118 per barrel, a more than 53% spike since the start of the year.

The looming prospect of recession continued to ripple through the technology sector on Thursday with Microsoft (MSFT) ratcheting back its earnings and sales projections for the current quarter. Amazon (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX), among others, reported weak first-quarter financial results last month, noting the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and unsettling macroeconomic conditions.

The crypto industry has also felt the impact of the current, dour economic mood with crypto exchange Coinbase announcing in a blog post by Chief People Officer L.J. Brock, that it would “extend our hiring pause for both new and backfill roles for the foreseeable future and rescind a number of accepted offers.” The move came a just hours after crypto exchange and custodian Gemini, the brainchild of billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, said it would lay off 10% of its workforce, approximately 100 employees.

The crypto industry is currently in a “contraction phase that is settling into a period of stasis,” also known as a “crypto winter,” the twins wrote in a blog post.

Oanda’s Moya noted that investors’ “risk appetite” will depend on “expectations” of what the U.S. central bank “will do beyond the summer.”

“Bitcoin is forming a base but most traders are still licking their wounds,” he wrote. “If bitcoin can recapture the $33,500 level, that is what is needed for technical buying to get triggered.”

The post Bitcoin Climbs Past $30K, but Bearish Sentiment Remains appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Given the increasing risks of crypto, it is important to bring it into the regulatory perimeter as a matter of urgency, the European Central Bank said in a report.

More financial institutions engaging with crypto or digital assets being used as a form of payment could increase “spillover to the wider economy” the European Central Bank wrote in a report on Tuesday.

Regulators have been turning their heads toward the devastating collapse of the Terra blockchain coins, which put into question the stability of algorithmic stablecoins like UST, which are not backed by a fiat currency.

“Given the speed of crypto developments and the increasing risks, it is important to bring crypto-assets into the regulatory perimeter and under supervision as a matter of urgency,” the ECB said.

The European Union is currently putting together legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies called the Markets in Crypto Assets package.

European Central Bank officials have highlighted the risks of crypto before. The bank’s President Christine Lagarde said recently that crypto had been a threat in the past and still is.

The post ECB Warns That Crypto Risks Could Spill Over Into Wider Economy appeared first on Crypto Insider.

The first-quarter earnings per share of $0.79 was also an increase of over 40% compared to the $0.55 figure of a year ago.

Crypto-focused Silvergate Bank recorded net income available to common shareholders of $24.7 million in Q1 2022, almost doubling the figure from $12.7 million for the corresponding quarter last year.

The first-quarter earnings per share of $0.79 was also an increase of over 40% compared to the $0.55 figure of a year ago, the firm announced on Tuesday.

The bank’s digital currency customers also saw growth, increasing to 1,503 in the quarter, compared to 1,104 in Q1 2021.

Silvergate handled $142.3 billion worth of U.S. dollar transfers in Q1, a 14.5% decrease compared to $166.5 billion in Q1 2021.

Shares in Silvergate Capital Corp (SI), the bank’s NYSE-listed parent company, were up by 1.26% in pre-market trading.

The post Silvergate Bank’s Q1 Net Income Nearly Doubles to $24.7M appeared first on Crypto Insider.