Share this article
First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Regains $40K
The latest price moves in crypto markets in context for Jan. 24, 2024.
Updated Mar 9, 2024, 5:46 a.m. Published Jan 24, 2024, 1:00 p.m.
Make us preferred on Google
This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter, putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
Latest Prices
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Top Stories
The crypto market ticked tentatively upward this morning with bitcoin moving back above $40,000. Bitcoin settled back above the $40,000 mark having climbed as high as $40,370 during the European morning, having sunk below the $39,000 mark on Tuesday, down almost 20% on its peak following the listing of the first spot bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. two weeks ago. Solana's SOL and Avalanche's AVAX led the broader market higher, gaining around 8.5% and 11.5% respectively. The CoinDesk 20 Index, a liquid index that tracks the highest tokens by capitalization, is up around 3% in the last 24 hours.
Cryptocurrency lender Nexo has filed an arbitration claim against the Republic of Bulgaria, seeking $3 billion in damages, accusing the country of “wrongful and politically motivated actions...involving unjustified and oppressive criminal investigations." Nexo claims that the investigations damaged its brand and reputation and led it to lose certain business opportunities, such as a potential initial IPO in the U.S. The Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office closed its investigation into Nexo for alleged money laundering offenses in December because there was no evidence of criminal activity.
A Donald Trump-labeled crypto wallet holds over $1 million of a TRUMP meme coin, having been worth only $7,100 on receipt. Issuance of the token has nothing to do with Trump directly, but some are using the tokens as a speculative bet on his ongoing presidential campaign. The tokens have a market capitalization of over $85 million on Wednesday, data shows. Sending tokens to a popular entity’s wallet is sometimes used as a strategy for attracting eyeballs by meme coin makers. The value of Trump’s wallet has shot up to $2.5 million, holding over $750,000 each in ether and wrapped ether and tiny amounts of several other tokens, most of which were likely sent to the wallet unsolicited.
Chart of The Day
- The notional open interest, or the dollar value locked in the number of active bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, has dropped by nearly $1.5 billion since the launch of spot ETFs in the U.S.
- According to Reflexivity Research, the decline represents the unwinding of longs betting on ETF approvals and entities using BITO/CME futures as a liquidity bridging vehicle leading into the ETF launches.
- Authorized participants likely bought bitcoin before the launch while simultaneously selling CME futures or BITO to hedge their risks.
- Source: Velo Data
- Omkar Godbole
Trending Posts
More For You
Pudgy Penguins is building a multi-vertical consumer IP platform — combining phygital products, games, NFTs and PENGU to monetize culture at scale.
What to know:
Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.
The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.
More For You
Weaker dollar fails to spur bitcoin gains, but there's a reason for that, JPMorgan says
Gold and other hard assets are rallying on dollar weakness, but bitcoin is lagging as markets continue to treat it as a liquidity-sensitive risk asset.
What to know:
- Bitcoin has, unusually, not rallied alongside the slide in the U.S. dollar.
- JPMorgan strategists say the dollar’s weakness is being driven by short-term flows and sentiment, not changes in growth or monetary policy expectations, and they expect the currency to stabilize as the U.S. economy strengthens.
- Because markets do not view the current dollar decline as a lasting macro shift, bitcoin is trading more like a liquidity-sensitive risk asset than a reliable dollar hedge, leaving gold and emerging markets as the preferred beneficiaries of dollar diversification.
Top Stories
