Market Wrap: Stocks Tick Downward and so Does Bitcoin, to $9,200

Bitcoin is back at $9,200 Thursday as crypto derivatives helped push its price down and equities closed lower.

When stocks overall trend lower, it often leads to bitcoin prices dropping, said Karl Samsen of Global Digital Assets. He added that as public companies continue to release their dismal quarterly business results, equities will drop even more. “We’re seeing a W-effect in terms of the COVID-19 reopening” of the economy, he told CoinDesk. Thus, the stock markets aren’t performing well Thursday.

As spot bitcoin headed lower Thursday, the cryptocurrency derivatives market saw its first excitement in a week as sell liquidations popped up on BitMEX. Traders who were long bitcoin saw over $20 million in BitMEX positions exited as price dropped on the spot exchanges such as Coinbase. 

Meanwhile, traders continue to place fewer bitcoin option bets, a sign they don’t expect crypto volatility to return – at least not yet, according to Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of exchange Alpha5.

“When volatility is much lower, as it is now, there is no natural game,” said Shah. “It’s not worth it to sell options down here, and hence activity comes to a standstill,” he added. Indeed, the volume on options market is much lower, and the amount of traders using the commodities exchange CME for bitcoin options have dried up in July.

“Honestly, it is frustrating for all of us – lower volatility and a narrower range,” said Christopher Thomas of cryptocurrency broker Swissquote. “We’ll likely explode out of it at some point. We need a trigger.” 

Nevertheless, things change, especially in uncertain times, said George Clayton, managing partner of New York-based Cryptanalysis Capital. “Crypto never stays in one place for long,” Clayton said. “I don’t like the technical picture, but a big move in either direction wouldn’t surprise me.”

Curve’s value on the rise

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was down Thursday, trading around $239 and slipping 3.6% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). 

The total value locked in Curve is $71 million, the second-highest for a decentralized exchange, or DEX. Curve is used to quickly trade between stablecoins and has $12 million in daily trading volume, just behind Uniswap for DEXs. 

Peter Chan, a trader at Hong Kong-based OneBit Quant, says Curve could see increased volume due to traders moving out of USDC and into other stablecoins amid recent news that CENTRE, the consortium behind USDC, froze $100,000 worth of the token in one account at the behest of an unspecified law enforcement agency. 

“I saw this news about USDC freezing assets of a few addresses,” Chan said. “Quite concerned about it. Might see flow on USDC switching to other stablecoins”.

Other markets

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mixed Thursday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): 

Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

Commodities:

Treasurys: