First Mover Americas: Crypto Winter Brings More Layoffs as BofA Sees Deep Freeze Avoided

Good morning, and welcome to First Mover. I’m Lyllah Ledesma, here to take you through the latest in crypto markets, news and insights.

• Price point: Bitcoin drops 2%, tezos trades 8% upwards. Bank of America said in a report that concerns about a "crypto winter" have not frozen investor interest.
• Market Moves: A look at how and which meme coins are outperforming the broader market.

Price point

Bitcoin (BTC) is down 2% on the day and has flitted between the $20,000 - $21,000 range over the last 24 hours.

“BTC is oscillating prudently around the $19K-$21K range,” said Laurent Kssis, head of Europe at Hashdex. He's watching for any announcements related to Goldman Sachs's (GS) reported efforts to raise money from investors to buy Celsius assets. Those could be positive for the market, he said.

Kssis noted that the market could equally break lower if more companies announce halting of operations where client assets are at risk: “The market is treading very uncomfortably and many investors are waiting for further unpleasant news.”

Bitcoin is down 29% over the last month and has lost 70% of its value from an all-time high reached in November 2021.

Tezos (XTZ) traded 8% up on the day, one of the only assets in the green on Tuesday. XTZ is the currency of Tezos, a multi-purpose blockchain that runs smart contracts.

In traditional markets, U.S. stock futures gained after the news of China’s loosening COVID-19 restrictions, easing concerns over global growth.

Market moves

By Shaurya Malwa

SHIB$0.0₅8814 and DOGE$0.1509 led seven-day returns as bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies broke above resistance levels and stabilized over the weekend.

Crypto and equity markets have rallied over the past week after U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled a softened stance on rate increases. Powell said the agency’s commitment to reining in inflation, which is now at a 40-year high, was “unconditional,” adding that he expected economic growth to pick up in the second half after a sluggish start to the year, as previously reported.

Meme coins outperformed the broader market, with SHIB posting returns of over 40% and Dogecoin’s DOGE tokens climbing more than 30% over the period. The tokens fell in the past 24 hours on profit-taking. SHIB lost 6% and DOGE fell 7.4%.

SHIB rose to as high as $0.000011 on Sunday from last week’s low of $0.000008, while DOGE spiked to over 7 cents from last week’s 5-cent low. Such price action caused futures tracking the two tokens to rack up millions of dollars in liquidation losses, Coinglass data show.

Some analysts explained last week’s rally as showcasing speculative behavior from investors making risky bets on the duo’s upside. Others said reasons for caution remain.

Read the full story here:Speculation Fuels Shiba Inu, Dogecoin to Biggest Seven-Day Gains as Bitcoin Steadies

Latest headlines

• Bank of America Says Crypto Winter Concerns Haven't Frozen Investor Interest Blockchain technology is the most significant evolution of software since the internet, the report said.
• Blockchain Analytics Firm Kaiko Raises $53M Series B Led by Eight Roads Amid Bear Market The investment will enable Kaiko to further strengthen its institutional data products and infrastructure, it said.
• Harmony Attacker Moves Over $44M Worth of Stolen Ether, Authorities Alerted Harmony is working with two blockchain tracing and analysis firms and collaborating with the FBI, developers said.
• Huobi Global Could Cut Over 30% Workforce as China Crackdown Leads to Fall in Revenue China's decision to ban crypto trading last year caused Huobi a sharp drop in revenue.
• Final Toncoin Mined Ahead of Transition to Proof-of-Stake From now on, new toncoins will only enter circulation by PoS validation, resulting in a decrease of new TON entering the network by about 75% to 200,000 daily.

Today’s newsletter was edited by Parikshit Mishra and produced by Stephen Alpher.