Bitcoin has dipped below the US$29k mark it’s been trading around for what seems like 10,000 lifetimes. That said, it is still basically changing hands within a tight-ish $28k-$30k range.

But why the $700, or thereabouts, dip?

Sigh… must there always be a reason? In this case, it’s likely ye olde macro factors are at play – China’s economy woes, da Fed, inflation, some bloke at the SEC who looks like Mr Burns… the Matildas losing the semi final to the Poms. That kinda stuff.

More specifically, though, as our very own non-fungible Eddy Sunarto noted in his Market Highlights roundup this morn, the US Federal Reserve has thrown us all another curve ball, although one that is hardly unexpected:

“Overnight, the S&P 500 tumbled by -0.76%, blue chip Dow Jones by -0.52%, and tech heavy Nasdaq by another -1.15%.

“Traders dumped equities after the release of the Fed minutes for July showed that officials still saw ‘upside risks’ to inflation, which could lead to more rate hikes.

“The yield on the US 10-year note rose to 4.3% after the release, as former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers cautioned that it could go to 4.75% over the next decade.”

In short, strap on the hiking boots, the Fed ain’t quite done yet.

 

But cheer up, at least Aussies are still buying… sorta

In new data released by local crypto exchange Swyftx (taken from its third annual Australian Digital Assets Survey, in collaboration with YouGov), it’s been revealed that about a quarter of Australians now own digital assets/crypto.

If you need to put a figure on that, it’s “an estimated 4.5 million Australians”, the report’s info shows.

However, the national rate of adoption has slowed somewhat over the past year – which, is to be entirely expected given the ongoing brutal (and brutally boring) bear market the industry is desperately hoping to get past by the end of 2023. 

The number of Aussie adults that reported owning cryptocurrency rose by 2% between July 2022 and July 2023 to reach 23%, according to the Swyftx survey. Last year’s survey found a four percentage point increase in ownership.

Source: Swyftx third annual Australian Digital Assets Survey.

Swyftx chief operating officer, Jason Titman, said: “Even at a slower than expected pace of growth, this data would suggest Australia still has the highest level of digital asset adoption among developed nations”. Then added: 

“We’ve seen no sign of millennials pulling back from the market. But concerns over a lack of regulation and cost of living pressures are clearly weighing on national adoption rates among Gen Z and X. We saw both generations unexpectedly reduce their exposure to cryptocurrencies last year.” 

For the survey, Swyftx polled more than 2,100 Aussies and, the exchange notes, it adheres to national polling standards.

 

Now… here’s a big Bitcoin prediction for your hopium pipe

Yes, the crypto market, on the whole, has taken a few rough and cynical slide tackles to the ankles overnight, as you’ll see further below, but here’s something – a particularly bullish prediction from Fundstrat Global Advisors’ Tom Lee.

He’s talking about a US$150k to $180k Bitcoin price by the end of next year.

Yes, he’s made crazy bullish short-ish-term predictions about Bitcoin in the past that haven’t come to fruition, but… well… er, but nothing. In fact, move on quickly from this section if you like.

For what it’s worth, though, we’ll give him his full context…

Speaking with America’s CNBC, who we think secretly loves crypto, Lee said that “if a spot Bitcoin gets approved, I think the demand will be greater than the daily supply of Bitcoin. So the clearing price […] is over $150,000, could even be $180,000.”

The spot Bitcoin ETF approval process is a saga and a half. As it stands, the SEC – currently reviewing a spate of  applications including from finance giant BlackRock – is in full delay, delay, delay mode.

Gary Gensler and pals (although not Hester “Crypto Mom” Peirce) essentially appear to be putting it all in the too-hard basket, kicking a bin full of cans as far down the road as it’s allowed to do so. For want, that is, of a more elegantly phrased analogy – although we do like the image of Gensler stubbing his toe on a very heavy bin full of cans. Or the road.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.18 trillion, down about 1.8% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Down, down. Prices are down.

But wait, where there’s “horizontal support”, there’s hope, reckons Roman Trading. “You shouldn’t short support,” he notes here…

 

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Rocket Pool (RPL), (market cap: US$537 million) +4%

Yep, and that’s all folks.

 

SLUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Rollbit Coin (RLB), (market cap: US$495 million) -11%

• FLEX Coin (FLEX), (market cap: US$609 million) -10%

• Shiba Inu (SHIB), (market cap: US$5.47 billion) -8%

• Bitcoin SV (BSV), (market cap: US$604 million) -8%

• Uniswap (UNI), (market cap: US$4.1 billion) -7%

 

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

Bitcoin isn’t the only digital asset getting the ETF-related interest…

Meanwhile, damn, we just tried this little fake engagement trick (see below)… think Musk got on the tools and fixed it.