Bitcoin and Other Altcoins Soar to New Heights

In today's market update, we'll be reviewing the top cryptocurrency stories and market movements. Hi, I'm Jimmy He.

Cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether, rebounded from their losses during the U.S. trading session on Tuesday and finished in the green by the end of equity trading.

As of writing, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $20,600. It had gained around 4% in the past 24 hours. The leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization has been struggling to stay above the $20,000 mark for the past month and fell almost 60% during this year's second quarter, its worst since 2011.

Most altcoins rose on Tuesday. Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, was trading at $1,160, up over 3% in the last 24 hours. Among other altcoins' biggest winners was Polygon's MATIC token, which increased by 8.4%.

The cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index rose by 5 points to 19 on Tuesday, reaching its highest level since May 7, but remained in "extreme fear" territory.

FxPro senior market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich said that the rise in the cryptocurrency market was caused by retail investors who “buy when there is blood on the streets”. He also said that it is too early to expect a recovery.

"At this point, when we see only tentative attempts at growth it would be premature to talk about confirmation of a broken downtrend," Kuptsikevich said.

Recent industry calamities, such as the collapse of the terraUSD stablecoin (UST), Celsius's decision to halt withdrawals and the bankruptcy filing of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, have fueled pessimism in the market. Bitcoin miners are now liquidating their holdings, which may lead to margin calls.

Glassnode claims that the total bitcoin balance held by miners has dropped to December 2021 levels. Core Scientific (CORZ), a provider of IT service management, announced on Tuesday that it sold over 7,000 bitcoin in June to finance payments and investments. The tokens were sold for an average price of $23,000 and raised about $167 million.

Regulatory bodies could soon increase their oversight of miners.

The latest prices

CoinShares Report: Short-Bitcoin, Major Crypto Inflows

A CoinShares report says that crypto funds had inflows of $64 million in the week through July 1. Short bitcoin investment products led the way, with $51 million in inflows, while bitcoin only saw about $600,000 in inflows.

ProShares Short Bitcoin Strategy’s (BITI) bitcoin exchange-traded fund, which was designed to profit from bitcoin price declines, launched shortly before the short occurred in the market following its launch. The fund quickly became the second largest bitcoin focused ETF in the U.S., after trading for just a few days.

Ethereum saw its second week of inflows totaling $5 million, breaking the second-largest cryptocurrency’s 11-week streak of outflows. Other altcoins also experienced small inflows including SOL ($1 million), ADA ($600,000) and DOT ($700,000).

In Brazil, Canada, Germany and Switzerland, investors put in $20 million into long-term investment vehicles.

The report said that it's likely that the reason why new investors are entering the market is because of easier access to short-bitcoin in the U.S., not due to renewed negative sentiment.

Here are some of the most popular alternative cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin

• $8.78 Million in Crypto Stolen: In a weekend attack, the Solana-based liquidity protocol lost more than $8.78 million worth of cryptocurrencies from its platform. Crema Finance developers said that they are working with "relevant organizations" to get more information. For further details, click here
• European Parliament members suggest NFT platform regulation: EU anti-money laundering (AML) laws should be imposed on non-fungible token (NFT) trading platforms, members of the European Parliament said on Monday. The proposed amendments would cover self-hosted wallets and decentralized finance apps. Read more here.
• Parity Technologies Hires 3 Execs: The firm creating the Polkadot and Kusama blockchain ecosystems has hired three senior executives to complete its leadership team. Eran Barak (chief operating officer), Peter Ruchatz (chief marketing officer) and Fahmi Syed (chief financial officer) joined founder and CEO Gavin Wood at the firm. Click here to read more.

As a.n.a explained, b.t. is a vital part

• In today's CoinDesk Markets Daily podcast, we discuss the latest market movements and why there has been no crypto contagion.
• Core Scientific Sold Over 7K Bitcoins for About $167M in June, Plans More Sales: The crypto company plans to cash in on more self-mined bitcoins to cover expenses, growth and debt payments.
• TeraWulf Takes on $50M in Debt to Build Data Center Infrastructure: The miner seeks to take advantage of the market downturn.
• Matthew Long, a former police officer, has been appointed as head of the new crypto unit at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). His duties will include overseeing payments and digital money.
• FinTech Acquisition Corp. V and EToro announced that they have mutually agreed to cancel the SPAC deal for public listing, as it became 'impracticable'.
• Bank of England Panel Urges Stronger Crypto Regulation to Reduce Spread: The drop in crypto market cap of $2 trillion over several months "highlighted the necessity for enhanced regulation," the Financial Policy Committee said.
• Nexo Signs Term Sheet With Vauld for Potential Acquisition: Nexo said it has a 60-day exclusive period in which to decide whether it will purchase up to 100% of Singapore-based Vauld.
• Samir Shah, a former JPMorgan banker, has joined Pantera Capital as COO. In his 12 years at the Wall Street firm, he held roles in sales, strategy and digital.
• UK Government Asks for Views on DeFi Taxation: The deadline for submitting comments is Aug. 31.

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The Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices, is a reliable, comprehensive and standardized system for classifying digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.