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Market Wrap: Bitcoin Dips to $11.1K; Ether Mining Difficulty at Year High
Bitcoin’s price plunged Tuesday while DeFi is giving Ethereum miners more fee revenue, causing difficulty to hit a 2020 record.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 9:47 a.m. Published Aug 25, 2020, 8:33 p.m.
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Bitcoin is looking bearish while Ethereum miners are reaping more fee revenue than ever before.
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- Bitcoin trading around $11,298 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 3.8% over the previous 24 hours.
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $11,102-$11,786.
- BTC below its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bearish signal for market technicians.
Read More: ‘Bitcoin Rich List’ Reaches All-Time High
Bitcoin’s price declined to as low as $11,102 on spot exchanges such as Coinbase Tuesday, wiping out long derivatives traders on BitMEX. In just one hour, up to $5.6 million in leveraged positions were automatically liquidated, the crypto analog to a margin call.
Daniel Ladinsky, trader at quantitative trading firm Efficient Frontier, worries that if price stays beneath $12,000 per one BTC for too long it may signal a larger downward trend. “BTC has been hovering below $12,000 for quite some time, which is a crucial zone,” Ladinsky told CoinDesk.
Read More: Istanbul or ‘Coinstantinople’? Inside Turkey’s Bitcoin Bull Market
Michael Gord, CEO of cryptocurrency brokerage firm Global Digital Assets, sees Tuesday’s price dip as temporary profit-taking by some investors. ”Institutional traders take profits the whole way up to hedge their risk,” he said. ”We are now seeing more institutional traders take some of that profit and reallocate it into ‘riskier’ low- to medium-cap altcoins.”
One interesting development: Bitcoin locked in decentralized finance, or DeFi, is down a little bit after it had previously doubled in August, according to data aggregator DeFi Pulse.
Efficient Frontier’s Ladinsky says traders continue to see more alluring profit opportunities in DeFi, which might help explain the decline. “Recently, the market has been quiet for BTC and most of the attention and hype is on the DeFi front, where coins are surging very hard,“ he said.
Read More: Aave Second DeFi Project to Overtake MakerDAO for Most Crypto Deposited
Ether mining difficulty at 2020 high
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether , was down Tuesday, trading around $379 and slipping 5.9% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Read More: Ether Price Swings Make Bitcoin Look Tame as DeFi Speculation Spreads
Ethereum’s mining difficulty has hit a 2020 high, at 2,820 terahashes, its highest level since Dec. 13, 2019.
The amount of gas, or the fee required to successfully conduct a transaction or execute a contract on the Ethereum blockchain, is at an all-time high, meaning the resources used per block are increasing. This means more miner revenue coming from fees and, as a result, more machines being turned on, causing mining difficulty to increase.
Smart contract developers in the ecosystem like Jun Dam, who is working on a DeFi project based on the competing EOS platform, tell CoinDesk the Ethereum fee situation may be helping miners, but it isn’t benefiting anyone else. “ETH gas fees are not user- or developer-friendly,” Dam said.
Read More: Ethereum Tokens Worth $1B Vulnerable to ‘Fake Deposit Attack’
Other markets
Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly in the red Tuesday. One notable winner as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
- nem (XEM) + 1.5%
Read More: Bitcoin Miner Overstated Industry Vet’s Involvement in $50M Series A Pitch
Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
- cardano - 10.9%
- 0x (ZRX) - 10.5%
- basic attention token (BAT) - 10.5%
Read More: Hacker Stole 1,000 Traders’ Data From Crypto Tax Reporting Service
Equities:
- Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed in the green 1.3% as positive news about a coronavirus vaccine boosted stocks in airlines, textiles and banking.
- Europe’s FTSE 100 ended the day in the red 1.1% as the pound rose, affecting overseas earnings for U.K. companies.
- The United States’ S&P 500 gained 0.40% despite mixed economic data, as tech stocks led the index to a record close over 3,400.
Read More: ConsenSys Acquires JPMorgan’s Quorum Blockchain
Commodities:
- Oil is up 2.2%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $43.35.
- Gold was flat, in the red 0.05% and at $1,927 as of press time.
Read More: Crypto Derivatives Exchange BitMEX to Block Ontario Traders
Treasurys:
- U.S. Treasury bonds all climbed Tuesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the 10-year, in the green 3.4%.
Read More: Powell’s Coming Inflation Speech May Weigh on Dollar and Boost Bitcoin
More For You
KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Gold tops $5,000 as bitcoin stalls near $87,000 in widening macro-crypto split: Asia Morning Briefing
Bitcoin’s onchain data points to supply overhang and weak participation, while gold’s breakout is priced by markets as a durable macro regime shift.
What to know:
- Gold’s surge above $5,000 an ounce is increasingly seen as a durable regime shift, with investors treating the metal as a persistent hedge against geopolitical risk, central bank demand and a weaker dollar.
- Bitcoin is stuck near $87,000 in a low-conviction market, as on-chain data show older holders selling into rallies, newer buyers absorbing losses and a heavy supply overhang capping moves toward $100,000.
- Derivatives and prediction markets point to continued consolidation in bitcoin and sustained strength in gold, with thin futures volumes, subdued leverage and weak demand for higher-beta crypto assets like ether reinforcing the cautious tone.
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