It’s been another seven days of declines and choppy price action for the cryptocurrency market, which ended up losing around $50 billion of its total capitalization. Bitcoin closed its worst quarter in a decade, whereas altcoins bleed out. Let’s unpack.
To say that last week was disappointing in terms of price action would be an understatement. BTC was sitting around $21,000 at this time last year and was there most of the time until Tuesday, June 28. It was on that day that things started to escalate and by Friday the cryptocurrency had found itself below $19,000.
It’s also worth noting that this month’s candle close was important because it’s also the end of the quarter. As many expected, this propelled serious volatility and BTC’s price shot up towards $21K but failed to sustain and is once again found below the critical level of $20,000 – the previous all-time high from the bull cycle of 2017-2018. Ultimately, Bitcoin closed the quarter below $20K and charted its worst quarterly performance in a decade.
Altcoins also saw no relief. In fact, Bitcoin’s dominance — the metric that gauges its share relative to that of the broader market — has remained roughly the same. This means that altcoins failed to capitalize and also saw similar declines against BTC. ETH, for example, is down 8.5% in the past seven days – like BTC. Similar declines are evident in BNB, XRP, ADA, LTC, FTT and others.
All of the above happens on the back of the market’s deleveraging as major lenders experience turmoil. In this regard, multiple reports suggested that FTX is closing in on a deal to buy off BlockFi for $25 million. It’s worth noting that BlockFi was previously raising capital at a whopping $5 billion valuation, implying major discounts for FTX, if the deal is legitimate. Zac Prince – founder and CEO at BlockFi – declined the possibility of them selling for $25M, but speculations continue to run rampant and another bidder – Ledn – has also joined the acquisition race.
Amid all of this, the buyer with seemingly the most conviction – Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy – acquired BTC worth $10 million at an average price of $20.8,000. Nayib Bukele – the President of El Salvador – also revealed that he bought some 80 BTC at $19,000.
In any case, if one thing is certain it’s that we are in for quite the ride and it’s exciting to see what next week has in store.
Market data
Market cap: $902 billion | 24h volume: 99 billion dollars | BTC dominance: 40.9%
BTC: $19,417 (-8.5%) | ETH: $1,055 (-0.2%) | ADA: $0.44 (-7.3%)
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