Business news from Ukraine

Business news from Ukraine

Panic on stock exchanges, cryptocurrencies also fall sharply

The bitcoin exchange rate is falling sharply on Monday amid a global sell-off in risky assets.

Bitcoin fell by 10.8% to $52,827 thousand by 12:25 Kyiv time, according to CoinDesk. Over the past five sessions, the cryptocurrency has lost more than 21% of its value, although it has added almost 26% since the beginning of the year.

The Ether exchange rate fell by 15.3% to $2,330. This is a record drop since 2021.

The Japanese stock index fell by 12.4% on Monday, the fastest pace since October 1987, and futures on the US stock index Nasdaq Composite are down 4.2%.

The collapse of risky assets is caused by growing fears of a recession in the United States after weak statistics released last week. Goldman Sachs analysts now believe that the probability of a recession in the US economy in the next year is 25% instead of the previously expected 15%, and markets see a 60% chance that the Federal Reserve will hold an extraordinary meeting this week and cut its key interest rate by 25 basis points.

“The market is in a panic mode,” said Grace Chen, head of the Bitget cryptocurrency exchange.

Bitcoin rate falls sharply on Friday

The bitcoin exchange rate is falling on Friday, trading near the lows since the end of February on fears that the Federal Reserve is not yet ready to start cutting interest rates, CNBC reports.

By 11:03 a.m., bitcoin is down 6.7% to $54,359 thousand, according to CoinDesk. Over the past month, the cryptocurrency has lost almost 23% of its value, although it has added about 30% since the beginning of the year.

Earlier, the minutes of the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) held on June 11-12 were published. The Fed’s executives need further evidence of slowing inflation to begin easing monetary policy, according to the document.

High interest rates are considered a negative factor for bitcoin, as they reduce demand for risky assets, CNBC notes.

In addition, the German authorities on Thursday sold about 3 thousand bitcoins worth about $175 million, according to the analytical company Arkham Intelligence. The authorities still own about 40 thousand bitcoins confiscated in various criminal cases.

The bitcoin rate has risen above $35 thousand

The bitcoin rate rose above $35 thousand on Tuesday for the first time since May last year.
As of 18:15, it gained 9% and amounted to $34.362 thousand. During the session, the rate reached $35.142 thousand.
The rise in the value of bitcoin is driven by growing investor expectations that the United States will soon approve the creation of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for direct investment in cryptocurrencies, Market Watch reports.
In the past, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has repeatedly rejected applications from investment companies to launch such ETFs, arguing that there are high risks of market price manipulation. However, cryptocurrency industry experts believe that the situation will soon change.
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that its August decision, which overturned the SEC’s earlier ban on the conversion of the Grayscale Investments cryptocurrency trust into a spot bitcoin ETF, should come into force.
Experts note that the emergence of such products on the market will facilitate the wider adoption of bitcoin.
If bitcoin ETFs are approved, we may see a “historic jump in the value of the cryptocurrency” and a market shift to a bullish trend, says Alex Adelman, CEO and co-founder of Lolli.
BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity Investments are among the companies ready to offer similar products.
This tool “will give institutional and retail investors new ways to grow their bitcoin investments within the current regulatory framework”, Adelman says.
The stock prices of cryptocurrency companies Coinbase Global Inc., MicroStrategy Inc., Riot Platforms Inc. and Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. are up 13%, 14.8%, 14.5% and 17.5%, respectively.

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Bitcoin loses more than 4% in trading on Friday

Bitcoin is losing more than 4% in trading on Friday amid a general investor withdrawal from risky assets amid traders’ concerns that global central bank rates will be held at higher-than-expected levels for longer than expected.

Bitcoin’s exchange rate fell 4.1 percent to $26474, according to Kraken data as of 12:55 p.m. Q4.

The cryptocurrency, which traded around $29,000 the day before, began to fall sharply in price amid rising US Treasuries yields, which reduced the attractiveness of investing in high-risk assets.

This triggered a massive liquidation of bitcoin positions on cryptocurrency exchanges. The bitcoin exchange rate fell by more than $2,000 within minutes during trading on Thursday, from $28400 to less than $26,000, Market Watch noted.

The volume of bitcoin positions closed in the past 24 hours exceeded $1 billion, according to Coinglass.

Experts note that the sharp drop in the cryptocurrency’s rate coincided with the release of an article in The Wall Street Journal about the sale of bitcoins by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. The article stated that SpaceX wrote down the value of the $373 million worth of bitcoins it owned in 2021 and 2022 and sold the cryptocurrency. WSJ did not specify exactly when SpaceX sold the bitcoins.

Bitcoin continues to rise in price and is worth more than $30 thousand

Bitcoin continues to rise in price on Tuesday and is worth more than $30 thousand, MarketWatch reports.
The bitcoin exchange rate is up 3.2% to $30,074 thousand during trading, according to CoinDesk. The day before, quotes reached $30.321 thousand, exceeding the $30 thousand mark for the first time since June 10, 2022. Since the beginning of the year, the cryptocurrency has soared by 81%.
Bitcoin is supported by the fact that some investors perceive cryptocurrency as a protective asset and invest in it amid the banking crisis, said David Tavil, president and co-founder of ProChain Capital.
“I believe there has also been an influx of liquidity from Asia, especially from Asian high-tech companies looking for a place to invest,” wrote Truflation founder Stefan Rast.
Bitcoin has reached $30 thousand, having overcome a serious level of resistance, Bloomberg reports. From the point of view of technical analysis, the next targets for the cryptocurrency may be $30,800 thousand and $31,200 thousand.

Bitcoin is down 60% in 2022

Bitcoin price collapsed by more than 60% in 2022: at the end of December, the cryptocurrency was around $16,500,000 compared to its historic high of almost $70,000 in November 2021.
Bitcoin in 2021 was supported by the inflow of capital to the markets and extremely low or zero interest rates, with Goldman Sachs experts at the time even comparing bitcoin to gold, writes Trading Economics.
Meanwhile, a jump in inflation in 2022 and tighter financial conditions triggered a collapse in the cryptocurrency market.
The sell-off intensified first as TerraUSD steiblocoin collapsed and then after the bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the world’s second-largest.
Bitcoin is down 0.8 percent Friday at $16,471,000, according to CoinDesk.