Market Wrap: Bitcoin, ETH Jump as Equities Turn Positive Thursday

Major cryptocurrency assets traded up Thursday. Bitcoin (BTC) jumped 7.62% to over $21,800 while ether (ETH) gained 8.27% in the past 24 hours up to $1,284 as of 4:00 pm ET. 

In the wake of the release of the Federal Reserve’s minutes Wednesday, the US dollar continued to strengthen, closing in on parity with the euro for the first time since the early 2000s. 

US equities also climbed Thursday, emphasizing the current strong correlation between BTC and the US stock market. Nasdaq jumped 2.3%, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones rose 1.49% and 1.12%, respectively.

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Concerns over crypto lenders continue. “There will be no price recovery until the dust has settled and every company at risk has either gone bankrupt, been acquired, or stabilized,” Michael Rosmer, CEO and co-founder of data provider DeFiYield, told Blockworks in an email, referring to the recent spate of failures among crypto lenders.

“I think there’s concern about consolidation in the industry, in large part because the industry prides itself as promoting decentralization. So a lot of the actual DeFi [decentralized finance] protocols might see this as a call to action, of sorts, to double down and build out their superior borrow-lend services. After all, DeFi — as opposed to the centralized [centralized finance] lenders — has held up pretty darn well in this mess,” he said. 

DeFi protocol Aave today introduced a proposal to launch a decentralized, collateral-backed stablecoin named GHO. 

If approved, Aave said GHO would “make stablecoin borrowing on the Aave Protocol more competitive, provide more optionality for stablecoin users and generate additional revenue for the Aave DAO by sending 100% of interest payments on GHO borrows to the DAO,” the proposal read. Aave’s token has climbed 13.82% over the past 4 hours to $71.44.

Online gaming firm Roblox’s stock jumped 16.2% to $39.52 in the past five days. Analysts expected its continuous growth in 2023, Yahoo Finance reported. 

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Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA, said in a note Thursday that gold appears to be wobbling after its price broke under $1,740 per ounce, hitting the lowest of the year. 

Meanwhile, the euro’s further slide still puts a volatility warning for both crypto and equities, according to Rosmer. “Germany, the industrial powerhouse of Europe, is facing a dramatic drop-off in production thanks to the Russian threat to cut off natural gas, and France just nationalized its national utility company to keep energy costs down,” he said. 

“Even more investors will flee to safe-haven assets, meaning that without positive news to counterbalance Europe’s economic struggles, investors could be due for further pain,” he added. 

Top Stories

Regulators Turn Up the Volume on Crypto Messaging

• A new report shows regulators around the world have increasingly issued crypto-related regulatory issuances, with over 4,666 in the first four months of 2022. Such messaging have increased by 7,436% since 2018. 
• Countries in North America account for 51% of all crypto-related regulatory issuances, followed by 32% in European countries. 

Cosmos-based Umee Lines Up First IBC Price Oracle

• Cosmos-based borrowing and lending platform Umee will soon launch the first price oracle service for Cosmos’ inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol, the company announced Thursday. 
• Known as “Orion,” the oracle will be provided by Umee blockchain’s validators which run software that will automatically pull pricing data from a set of centralized exchanges, plus the decentralized exchange Osmosis. 

Solana Investor Sues Project Insiders, Claims Network ‘Highly Centralized’

• A Solana investor filed a class-action lawsuit against key parties in the Solana ecosystem, allegedly making misleading statements and profiting from selling unregistered securities to retail customers.
• “These promotional efforts took SOL securities from a relatively obscure crypto-asset to one of the top crypto-assets in the world,” the plaintiff Mark Young wrote.

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