Bitcoin gains on StanChart price predictions, fund inflows; Ether gains, Matic leads winners
Bitcoin rose in Tuesday morning trading in Asia to hold above US$30,000, helped by U.K. bank Standard Chartered Plc predicting the token will reach US$120,000 by the end of 2024. Ether and most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies also moved higher, with Polygon’s Matic token spearheading the rally. U.S. equity futures also gained in the Asia time zone on Tuesday after Federal Reserve officials said the bank’s monetary tightening cycle is drawing to a close.
Crypto
Bitcoin gained 0.79% over the last 24 hours to US$30,392 as of 07:40 a.m. in Hong Kong. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has recently fluctuated around the US$30,000 line but prices turned softer late last week on mixed signals about the likelihood of approval for Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds. The token is still sitting on a weekly loss of 2.35%, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
However, some optimism returned to Bitcoin’s pricing outlook after Standard Chartered bank predicted in a Monday report the token would reach US$50,000 by the end of 2023 and US$120,000 at the end of the following year, according to Reuters on Tuesday.
With Bitcoin’s next halving event to take place next April, scarcer Bitcoin supply could drive up prices and in turn prompt miners to hoard the token, the Standard Chartered report said. “Increased miner profitability per BTC (bitcoin) mined means they can sell less while maintaining cash inflows, reducing net BTC supply and pushing BTC prices higher,” according to the report.
Another plus for prices: cryptocurrency-linked investment products saw net inflows of US$136 million in the week ending July 7, marking the third consecutive week of inflows and fully correcting the prior nine weeks of outflows, according to European cryptocurrency investment firm CoinShares on Monday.
“Bitcoin remains the focus amongst investors, with inflows totalling US$133m last week, while short-bitcoin saw outflows of US$1.8m, its 11th consecutive week, further demonstrating investors favour the asset over altcoins at present,” wrote CoinShares in the report.
Ether rose 1.00% to US$1,880, but like Bitcoin it’s coming off softer prices and is still down 3.80% for the week.
Most other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies logged gains in the past 24 hours with the exception of Dogecoin and Solana’s SOL, which both dipped but the declines were within 0.5%.
Polygon’s Matic led the winners, jumping 6.97% to US$0.7356 and adding 3.33% for the week. “Some positive on-chain signs for the 12th ranked market cap asset include rebounding network growth, decreasing supply on exchanges, and low profit taking,” said crypto data tracker Santiment in a tweet on early Tuesday, adding the token is on a “mini-run.”
Matic’s recent run up comes as Polygon Labs unveiled its Polygon 2.0 roadmap on June 30, vowing to become the “Value Layer of the Internet” and on Friday appointed the firm’s former chief legal officer Marc Boiron as its new Chief Executive Officer.
However, the token has had a rough ride in 2023, down about 2%, and has plenty of ground to make up on peers such as Solana, which has jumped 115% so far this year. Polkadot has gained 18% in the same period
The total crypto market capitalization moved up 0.81% in the past 24 hours to US$1.18 trillion, while trading volume surged 70.03% to US$33.54 billion.
