Cryptocurrency values took a sharp dip last week when market prices fell significantly after a large sell order on Binance. Over $650 million of long positions were liquidated across derivatives exchanges. Bitcoin dropped by 9.2%, ether slipped by 12.9%, Ripple's XRP was 11.7% lower, and Polygon's MATIC was even suffering more with a 17% downfall. Pressure on the market was recorded due to waning exuberance among crypto traders.

Noelle Acheson, the former head of market insights at Genesis Trading, is linked to the large sell order on Binance. She now writes the Crypto is Macro Now newsletter on the Substack platform.

The correlation between Bitcoin and ether returns decreased since mid-to-late March, which could be a crucial factor for strategies that rely on hedging. The decline follows the Ethereum upgrade to become a proof-of-stake blockchain. The falling correlation could continue for another two weeks due to ongoing ETH withdrawals.

The analysts from Bernstein don't consider Bitcoin's price action this year as a genuine endorsement of its fundamentals. Each crypto cycle needs to be driven by some sort of fundamental innovation, and according to Bernstein, the upcoming cycle from 2023 is going to be about creating scalable decentralized financial infrastructure and providing tools for the mainstream to participate in the blockchain.

The skeptics have expressed the market's performance to be "all a giant circular loop driven by retail speculation". Nevertheless, the bank's note has suggested that speculation is actually bootstrapping real and crucial infrastructure creation.



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