After a brutal month for Bitcoin, crypto industry insiders share what might come next

By Anushree Dave

Hi all, welcome back to the Distributed Ledger newsletter. This is Anushree Dave, a reporter at MarketWatch.

Last week, Bitcoin prices saw a sudden drop, falling as low as $25,392 on Thursday. Some attributed the fall to "large liquidations of perpetual futures on options exchanges Deribit and OKX," according to analysts at QCP Capital. Others attributed the sudden price change to an article by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that reported that SpaceX had sold the cryptocurrency.

As of Thursday morning this week, the cryptocurrency is trading at $26,036, a decline of 1.25% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. This is still far from its peak of over $65,000 back in November 2021. What are industry insiders predicting will come next for Bitcoin? Read below for some answers.

Can bitcoin stay above the June low?

Michael Dunn, president of Binomial Exchange, a Bitcoin futures and options exchange, says that even with the recent drop in price, bitcoin's volatility is still near all-time lows.

"Market participants are still pricing in central bank risk and regulatory uncertainty," he said to MarketWatch. "As we see more unfold from the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve, we can expect to see an uptick in volatility."

The approval of a BTC spot ETF has captured attention in the industry, and David Wells, CEO of Enclave Markets, a crypto exchange, says that "if any of the outstanding applications are approved, we could see demand inflows anywhere from hundreds of millions of dollars to single-digit billions of BTC spot ETF volume. A BTC spot ETF makes bitcoin more accessible for a broad range of investors who are currently sidelined."

In June, several asset managers, including BlackRock (BLK), Fidelity, VanEck and WisdomTree (WT) filed for applications for spot bitcoin ETFs.

But not every crypto industry insider is optimistic that spot bitcoin ETFs will trigger a crypto rally. Stuart Barton, co-founder and chief investment officer at Volatility Shares, an issuer of the 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF, a leveraged bitcoin futures ETF, said in a Distributed Ledger newsletter last month that a spot bitcoin ETF is not the "holy grail" for the industry. Instead, he said, bitcoin future ETFs are the way forward.

Coinbase invests in Circle

Earlier this week, crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) announced that it would invest in Circle, a USDC stablecoin issuer. The new agreement with Circle could deliver financial benefits, according to some analysts. The investment could drive low-single-digit percentage upside to Coinbase interest revenue and give it a high-single-digit boost to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to Barclays analysts.

MarketWatch's Emily Bary covered the story here.

Crypto in a snap

Bitcoin BTCUSD, -2.07% fell 2.25% in the past seven days and was trading at around $26,036 on Thursday, according to CoinDesk data.

Ether ETHUSD, -2.18% had a 0% price change during the same period at around $1,648, according to CoinDesk data.

Must-reads

Worldcoin's Eyeball-Scanning Crypto Dream Is Under Threat (Bloomberg)

Binance, the Biggest Player in Crypto, Is Facing Legal Risks Over Russia (The Wall Street Journal)

-Anushree Dave

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08-24-23 1359ET

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