Institutional investors keep crypto steady

Hello, and welcome to your weekly update from the world of crypto and finance. The past week has been quiet on the crypto front. The euphoria around institutional interest in Bitcoin is helping the market hold steady amidst negative macroeconomic news. Investors are hopeful, as showcased by the Fear and Greed Index, which stayed anchored in greed territory.

On the personal finance front, as we cross the halfway mark in 2023, it’s time to think about those yet-to-be-achieved financial goals. And if you’re thinking about gearing up for them, we’re here to get you started.

Having more than one income stream is a great way to find financial growth. That’s why, in this week’s Money Moves YouTube series, host Jayadevan PK talks to entrepreneur Amit Bhawani, founder of PhoneRadar, about ways to create additional sources of income and diversify your earnings. Watch the episode on our CoinSwitch Money channel (or below).

We promise to keep bringing you many more such stories, so make sure you check in here next week—same time, same place. For now, let’s take a quick look at the market’s fortunes.

Despite fears of upcoming rate hikes by the US Fed, the crypto market stayed range-bound—thanks to institutional interest. The overall market cap thus stayed above the $1.2 trillion level.

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) continue to trade above $30K and $1.9K, respectively. Interest in Bitcoin remains particularly high, and Bitcoin dominance reached a two-year high of around 50%! The investor interest was endorsed by Fidelity’s revised spot Bitcoin ETF filing. Also worth highlighting is Microstrategy’s $345 million BTC purchase. (The firm can now boast of a $4.5 billion-plus holding!)

While most cryptos remained range-bound, some developments created outsized returns for a few. After weeks (if not months) of selling pressure, Solana (SOL), for example, outperformed the broader market. Its positive double-digit returns last week were due to NFT activity on the protocol spiking.

Another crypto that boomed last week was Compound (COMP). The token jumped over 50% after news of its founder launching a new platform to create a short-term government bond fund began to circulate. The platform called SuperState will use the Ethereum blockchain as a secondary record-keeping tool.

Cryptos that witnessed some interesting price action over the last week were:

• BTC: 1.42% ⏫ $30,730

• ETH: 4.19% ⏫ $1967

• COMP: 80.8% ⏫$65.76

• SOL: 15.49% ⏫$19.15

(All data here is as of 1.45 pm, 3 July 2023.)

As an investor, you should understand what’s causing all the price action. So here’s some news to help you digest the market’s ups and downs.

• The UK passed a bill on 29 June that facilitates the regulation of crypto as a financial activity. Read more here.

• Cboe’s BZX Exchange named crypto exchange Coinbase as its partner for its surveillance-sharing agreement while refiling its spot BTC ETF applications. Read more here.

• The Monetary Authority of Singapore has chosen Standard Chartered, HSBC, Citi, UBS, and JP Morgan to participate in its latest public blockchain tokenization trials under Project Guardian. Read more here.

• Mastercard will be launching the test version of its Multi-Token Network (MTN) in the UK soon. MTN will act as a testbed to develop live pilot applications and use cases with financial institutions, fintech organizations, and central banks. Read more here.

• MicroStrategy now holds over $4.6 billion worth of Bitcoin. It bought over 12K BTC for $347 million in the last two months. The firm now holds 152,333 BTC. Read more here.

• As many as 37% of Indians consider crypto as the future of money, an online survey by YouGov revealed. YouGov is an online research data and analytics technology group. Read more here.

Before we conclude, consider taking a break and catching your breath with our crypto crossword.

That’s it for now. Thanks for sticking around.

See you later, folks!

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