Bitcoin back down to US$26,000 as investors await US Fed chair speech

Bitcoin dropped to around the US$26,000 level Friday morning in Asia, giving up much of the previous day’s gains. Ahead of the U.S Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s Friday speech at Jackson Hole, investors are looking for signs of an end to the rate hike cycle, with repercussions for the crypto market. Ether moved lower to near the US$1,600 support level, while most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies logged losses. Solana led the losers after its own day of gains Thursday. The Forkast 500 NFT index fell, although the Solana blockchain’s new partnership with e-commerce platform Shopify could mean better times ahead for NFTs. U.S. stock futures posted marginal gains after Wall Street closed lower on Thursday, with all three major U.S. indexes logging losses of over 1%.

Bitcoin gives up gains as cautionary mood prevails

Bitcoin dropped 1.40% in the last 24 hours to US$26,081.21 as of 07:20 a.m. in Hong Kong and traded 2.90% lower for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s leading cryptocurrency reached a low of US$25,914.93 on early Friday, a 2.9% decline from its high daily high of US$26,688.48 on Thursday.

According to Samer Hasn, market analyst at Australia-based global multi-asset broker XS.com, the current caution in the crypto market is due to increased regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has brought lawsuits against a number of digital asset firms, including Ripple Labs, Binance.US and Coinbase. Luxembourg-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp said Thursday it will stop Ether staking services for U.S. customers from Sep. 25 in light of recent regulatory developments.

Hasn said the “negative sentiment may continue to put pressure on the cryptocurrency market in the coming weeks or months until a regulatory and legislative environment that regulates the cryptocurrency market becomes clear.”

He pointed to data from blockchain intelligence firm Santiment that shows Bitcoin whales moving large amounts of the token to their wallets as a further sign of a decline in market sentiment.

“The relatively huge movements in cryptocurrency wallets, led by Bitcoin, may continue to weaken the confidence of participants and fuel a state of caution about what may happen in the future in the market and lead to collapses or wide fluctuations,” Hasn added.

Greta Yuan, head of research at Hong Kong-based digital asset exchange VDX, said that investors have to recognize that “the bear market is not over yet.” With trading volume across the market still weak, Bitcoin’s price could remain in the range of US$25,000-27,000 for some time, she added.

Alongside Bitcoin’s losses, Ether also dipped 1.40% to US$1,652.77 and was down 3.27% over the past seven days.

Most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded lower over the past 24 hours. The exception was Binance’s BNB token, which edged up 0.58% to US$217.48 but still logged a weekly loss of 1.87%. 

Mastercard said it will end four crypto card programs in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Bahrain by September 22. The global payment giant was partnered with Binance on the four programs. No reason was provided for the cancellations, first reported by Reuters on Thursday.

Solana’s SOL token led the losers, falling 3.09% to US$20.90 for a weekly loss of 4.98%.

SOL reached a four-day high of US$21.99 on Thursday as it announced that Solana Pay — a free-to-use payment protocol built on the Solana blockchain — has partnered with Canada-based e-commerce platform Shopify to allow USDC stablecoin payments for online shopping without intermediary fees.

The total crypto market capitalization dropped 1.23% to US$1.05 trillion. Trading volume fell 22.52% to US$27.41 billion.