Let's get to the big story breakdown in New York morning trade on this Thursday, we are looking at crypto major Bitcoin holding right below 111,000.
Now the crypto major recapturing a key technical level in the previous session above 112 and reigniting some bullish sentiment across the market.
Meanwhile, gold hitting new all-time highs, and Bitcoin continues to gain traction as a macro hedge, with setting a new record last month.
Bitcoin holdingsteady who will leave the next leg of the crypto rally.
Joining me on this Thursday morning is Andy Beer, head of product and research at Coin Desk Indicees.
Andy, good morning.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Good morning.
So we had a nice quiet week, time to sort of think about what's going to come ahead.
We have non-farm payrolls tomorrow and a lot of macroeconomic news.
We're kind of again in this washing machine where there are a lot of different currents pushing us this way and that way.
And the question I've Asking is like what's going to be the leadership in digital assets going into the fall.
The biggest story of the year has been the rotation from Bitcoin into ether as that narrative has picked up, you know, fueled by digital assets treasury companies buying ether and stablecoins and blockchain activity.
But where are we now with both big majors?
10% off their mid-August lows?
Yeah.
And Andy, I'm glad you brought that up because although it's a holiday shortened.
We have a lot packed into these four days, and as you mentioned, the jobs report is coming tomorrow morning.
That's something all of us are watching, especially ahead of the Fed September meeting.
And at last check we are looking at Fed fund futures right now at 97.4%, so that is significant.
But already we're looking at the back half back end of 2025.
So give us your take on the catalyst you're watching.
Yeah.
For Bitcoin, certainly macro catalyst should matter.
Interest rates should matter. tariffs, Bitcoin as a store of value and as an alternative to the US dollar should react to changes in perception of the US dollar.
That being said, in the Jackson Hole comments, ether popped just as much on interest rate interest rate relief news.
So the narrative there seems to be able to be transportable between Bitcoin and ether, although they, you know, they have very different reasons for being.
Again, leadership, where is it going to come from?
We do need a little bit of momentum right now.
Our Bitcoin trend indicator is putting Bitcoin in a down trend or a moderate down trend where while ether is in a moderate up trend.
Um, the other name Solana has been performed really well in August, and there have been some reports that Solana may kind of rubber band behind Ethereum on the blockchain activity theme.
And then we have XRP and Cardona, which are the last two in the Coin desk 5 index, which have had spurts of performance.
It's interesting this year if I look at coin desk 5, which is up about 20% on the year, around the same as Bitcoin and a little a few percentage points shy of coins 20.
There's been very wide dispersion, right?
The best performers up 35%, 36% on the year, and the worst performers about flat to down 1%.
So this is great for index investors who don't have to really follow things minute to minute and stay on top of flows and momentum.
They can just go with the flow.
Allocate to the asset class.
It's been very, very hard to pick names and it's been very, very hard to pick timing.
So regardless of the leadership, we feel positive medium to long term about the space and think that investing in an index is going to be the way that investors can take best advantage of that.
And of course we're keeping an eye on the nation's capital in addition to flows as well as volume as we return from the holiday weekend.
So there's a lot of eyes on regulatory clarity when it comes to crypto, but we've been seeing a lot of headlines about tokenized assets.
So what are some crypto specific catalysts you're watching for?
On the regulatory side, we saw an announcement yesterday with the CFTC and the SEC are really starting to work together to think about how to enable people to trade digital assets, which is fantastic news and really excited to see what's going on with the crypto task force at the at the SEC and the leadership at the at the CFTC.
Um, and so a lot of businesses want that trading momentum to continue, they want access and they want the people to be able to trade.
On the other side, right, you have people who want to trade equities in a tokenized form.
And a lot of new announcements are coming out about new ways just earlier on the program today about letting people trade stocks in tokenized forms.
So there's this crossover with with digital assets being more available and available in more ETF forms and then stocks being more available in tokenized form.
This is great.
We love when people trade to get involved with the markets.
It's the best way to educate is to have some.
In the game, of course every time any one of those tokenized equities trades, it's a blockchain event and that will have an impact on Ethereum, on Solana, on other layer one blockchains.
So that's more activity on blockchain on layer one blockchains, and so that's fantastic.
So on the on the investment theme, we continue to push people towards thinking about digital assets the way the way they would other assets.
Classes, diversification, risk adjusted returns on the trading side.
Let's let everybody trade as many things as they can do as they can in a protected environment, and that's the best way for them to be educated about these things.
Well, Andy, always great having you on the show.
I look forward to having you on next week when we see the jobs data as well as inflation figures.
So thank you so much for joining me, Andy.
Thanks.
