Navigating the Crypto Landscape: Insights on Altcoins and Market Trends

Let's get to the big story breakdown.

One thing about the markets whether Defi or Trad5, things can change fast.

Now July price action has caused many traders to envision a potential out season, but the past 24 hours are dampening some of those hopes.

Now XRP seeing a double digit fall in the past day, while Slana experienced an 8% drop.

Joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange this morning is Andy Beer, head of product and research at Coin Desk Industries.

Andy, good morning.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Well, first and foremost, let's start out by looking at what we're seeing across the crypto landscape and of course the divergence that we're seeing between the majors as well as out coins.

What's happening here?

It's sort of like you're in a car and coming up to a red light and you sort of feel, you feel the deceleration.

So over the last couple of days we felt the deceleration of a really powerful and broad rally, sort of like last November.

You had similar expectations for better.

Regulatory and government support for the digital asset class and that really powered the coins 20 index to an all-time high.

It actually made a couple of new all-time highs and as you said, all coins, at least the majors that we care about Ether and XRP and so on, all were doing super well.

So we really liked the fact that that breadth joined Bitcoin in the rally.

We also like the fact that even as Bitcoin found its new range of 118 or 117,000 to 120.

Um, the alternatives kept moving.

So over the last 24 hours, I think we've felt a pullback and there are a couple of interesting things to talk about there.

But in general, looking back right now, Coin desk 20 over the last year and year to date have pretty much matched Bitcoin in terms of performance, and that's pretty rare.

We love the breadth.

Yeah, and speaking of which, I think it's important for retail investors to be able to differentiate from some of the top tier tokens and what's happening in some of the small cap altcoins.

So what is your process and how are you looking at this?

For sure we see a lot of news stories and you know, I I think people who are covering crypto but don't do it all the time look at these the rallies and see some old coins accelerating and they think, OK, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's a little scary.

Be very careful.

We sort of agree that as you go way, way deep into the digital asset class, investors have to apply more and more caution.

The Coinsk 20 index, which has been alive now, ticking for about a year and a half, and gets back tested all the way to the teens, looks at top 20 tokens.

Each of which have a defined use case, each of which has very good liquidity.

So if you stay in there and think about index performance, you get to take advantage of breadth, but at the same time you get to avoid spelunking into the depths of crypto.

So we like the fact that vaults are being covered a little bit better.

We kind of take the other side of the argument that all alts are, you know, deserving of extra caution.

We think that there are different tiers.

Yeah, and speaking of indexes.

Why is index index tracking so important as a framework when it comes to this?

For sure, I think Bitcoin is a very specific and understandable use case as a store of value.

The stablecoin craze basically in the 2nd quarter has reminded folks that blockchain technology is going to be used in a lot of different ways, and that reawakens people's energy about thinking about Ethereum and so on, other layer one blockchains, but other digital assets that have use cases.

You know, for many investors applying the investment techniques and standards of prudence that they apply to other asset classes like equities is starting to get more and more translated into digital assets.

And for those who don't want to think about timing, timing's been very, very hard to do this year and for those who don't want to pick individual names.

Index investing not only gives you a benchmark for your own performance, but gives you a way to access the asset class without having to think about that, having the index rebalance and in our case every quarterly basis and maintain focus on those top 20 assets.

So just like for other asset classes like equities for set it and forget it, the passive choice is the index choice.

And finally, before I let you go, usually we start out with a conversation on Bitcoin or EP, and this morning we are seeing interesting price action given some of the recent gains.

So what is happening with both of these majors?

So Ether has had this really incredible rally that we think started.

A bit of a short squeeze in the hedge fund community back in the beginning of the 2nd quarter.

That momentum caught on and ETF inflows actually exceeded Bitcoin on many days.

Right now again, like that red light and the traffic light, we're seeing a bit of a pause there while we see what happens next.

One interesting fact is that if many, many people who are holding on to E but may want to sell it who are staking it, who are providing validator services, right.

They want to invalidate.

They want to withdraw from that validator service to potentially sell their E.

So right now there's a there's a line, there's a queue forming that's longer than usual to unstake your eth.

Some are seeing that as a barer signal that people want to unstick so that they can sell.

We're not so sure, so it's an interesting time.

We'll have to watch carefully.

I guess the hope is that we keep this range consolidate and then look to go higher from there.

OK, Andy, as always great to have you here.

Thank you so much for weighing in on all the headlines and what's happening underneath the surface.

Thanks.

Thank you.