Cryptos, stocks resilient after drama-filled weekend

Equities and cryptos kicked off the abbreviated US trading week in the green, despite a swirl of market-moving headlines and macroeconomic narratives that kept traders on their toes.

Bitcoin managed to hold above $37,000, even after falling as much as 1.7% Monday afternoon following reports that crypto exchange Binance is working with the US Department of Justice to settle criminal charges for as much as $5 billion.

Bitcoin had stabilized to around $37,500 at time of publication. Ether similarly had recovered after nearly dipping below $2,000 midday Monday after news of Binance’s potential bill dropped.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was also in the green Monday as traders evidently put more weight into a successful earnings season than the weekend’s drama in the artificial intelligence space. Monday’s 1.3% rally extended a weeks-long run that has seen the Nasdaq gain close to 10% this month.

Microsoft and AI-focused Nvidia posted their highest-ever stock prices Monday.

OpenAI, in which Microsoft holds a 49% stake, announced the departure of CEO Sam Altman late Friday. After speculation over the weekend that OpenAI would reinstate Altman, the board ultimately decided to name its third CEO in as many days.

As of publication, Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon’s Twitch, was leading the company as interim CEO.

Altman, who also heads up eye-scanning cryptocurrency project Worldcoin, took a position at Microsoft hours after the OpenAI board voted to not reinstate him as CEO.

The moves come as bitcoin’s correlation with equities drops, according to the crypto’s 60-day rolling correlation to the Nasdaq 100, which data from Kaiko shows is down from a high of more than 70% in September 2022 to 12.8% in November 2023.

“Crypto and equities responded differently to the softer US inflation print [last] week,” senior Kaiko analyst Dessislava Aubert said.

The move, according to Dessislava, shows that crypto traders are starting to care more about industry-specific narratives and headwinds.

“One reason for this divergence is that [bitcoin] (BTC) is now mostly driven by crypto specific factors — namely the ETF approval process and this week is/was the deadline for Hashdex, Franklin Templeton and Global X,” she said. “Hashdex was delayed on Nov. 15, two days ahead of schedule, which could have impacted sentiment.”

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