Good morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:
Welcome to the Asia Morning Briefing, a daily overview of top stories in US hours and an overview of market movements and analysis. For a detailed overview of US markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
Bitcoin’s drop below $90,000 looked like the start of a broad risk-off move, yet the market did not behave as it usually does in a deep BTC correction. Cross pairs remained firm and alt rankings barely moved.
In a note to CoinDesk, Enflux, a Singapore-based market maker, said the lack of price action that typically occurs during a deep BTC correction is the clearest sign that crypto is shifting from a liquidity-driven market to a fundamental-driven market.
“Majors without clear revenue, utility or institutional relevance are down 60 to 80 percent,” the firm wrote. “Traditional alt-seasons, 2017-style vertical rotations or 2021 reflexive leverage cycles depended on narratives, excess liquidity and retail mania. Most of that doesn’t exist at the scale of this bull market.”
Enflux also noted that tokens tied to staking, ETFs or real-world use are holding up.
Byzantine Capital’s March Zheng said he sees the same dynamic.
“We instead keep an eye on the relative positions of the top 20 coins and how they move in relation to bitcoin’s market cap,” he said. “So far, the range has been fairly balanced, as generally heavy Bitcoin corrections see significant price declines in the alters.”
Zheng believes that stability suggests that the market is not entering a classic all-season and is instead showing signs of a more orderly structure.
The signals point to a market that is gradually separating durable assets from speculative beta.
Tokens with identifiable users, revenue or institutional demand continue to hold firm while weak majors absorb most of the stress.
The question is, does this thesis of fundamentals over broad speculative rotations hold?
Market movement
BTC: Bitcoin is trading around $92,234 after recovering from its dip below $90,000 earlier this week.
ETH: Ether is holding close to $3,099 as it stabilizes along with the broader market.
Gold: Gold fell for a fourth straight day to $4,064.60/oz, holding off last month’s record high, as traders cut the odds of a US rate cut in December to about 50% from nearly 94% a month ago.
Nikkei 225: Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed on Wednesday, following Wall Street’s technology-led decline on AI valuation concerns, although Japan’s Nikkei 225 turned higher by 0.5%.
Elsewhere in Crypto
- Pump’s New ‘Mayhem Mode’ Fails to Increase Token Launches or Revenue in First Week (The Block)
- ‘Unauthorized Assets’: Robinhood’s 3-Phase Tokenization Plan to Disrupt TradFi (CoinDesk)
- Coinbase explains donation to Trump’s ballroom (Axios)
