3.30pm: Bitcoin holds firm in afternoon trades
Bitcoin has managed to stay near the US$30,300 price point in Monday afternoon trades.
Day on day, the benchmark cryptocurrency is less than 0.1% in the green.
The big mover of the moment, Ripple (XRP), has flipped into the red, dipping 1% day on day to US$0.74p, while Ethereum (ETH) has also lost around half a percentage point of ground.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at US$2.21tn, while bitcoin dominance remains above 50%.
12.40pm: Bitcoin and crypto funds see fourth straight week of major inflows
Digit asset investment products continue to see substantial inflows, with the week ending July 14 seeing another US$137mln (£105mln) into products managed by CoinShares, 21Shares, ProShares and other major cryptocurrency fund providers.
Inflows into these crypto funds over the past four week has hit US$742mln, marking the largest run of inflows since late-2021, according to CoinShares’ statistics.
Crypto funds see four straight weeks of strong inflows – Source: CoinShares
Bitcoin products comprise the vast majority of these inflows at 99% of the entire market.
In comparison, Ethereum (the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency) products say US$31.1mln in inflows, less than 2% of bitcoin volumes.
Year to date, Ethereum has the largest volume of net outflows of any cryptocurrency investment product, totalling -US$74mln.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, has seen year-to-date net inflow of US$571mln, while Solana (SOL) and seen US$14mln and Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA) and Polygon (MATIC) have seen single-digit inflows.
The surge in bitcoin digital asset inflows comes off the back on bullish bitcoin spot prices over the past month.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, officially filed for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund with the US regulators, sending sentiment over the benchmark cryptocurrency soaring.
Though BlackRock’s application was initially rejected by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, hopes are still high the negotiations will lead to BlackRock securing an approval.
10am: Ripple leads the altcoin pack
Ripple (XRP) remains top of the crypto trending chart in a rare instance of bitcoin not being front and centre of the conversation during this prolonged, possibly perpetual altcoin off-season.
An OG of the altcoin space, XRP remains around 60% higher week on week since developer Ripple Labs claimed a win late last week in its long-running securities dispute in the US.
As discussed in Proactive on Friday, the actual ruling is more nuanced than that. Plus the three-year lawsuit of far from over and is expected to go to trial.
Nonetheless, XRP remains by far the top performer in the altcoin space right now, having flipped Binance’s BNB token for the top-four cryptocurrency by market capitalisation.
At the time of the writing, XRP was swapping for US$0.75 with a market cap of US$39.4bn.
Though this represents a 20% retraction from Friday’s 21-month high, it puts Ripple (XRP)’s performance well above the nest strongest blue-chip altcoin Solana (SOL).
XRP’s rally is even more exceptional when compared to the world’s benchmark cryptocurrency bitcoin.
Bitcoin stumbles, but recovers market dominance
Bitcoin trended downwards over the weekend following a highly volatile end to the week which saw the BTC/USDT pair surge to a year-on-year high on Thursday, only for a bearish engulfing candlestick pattern to slash these gains from the spot price.
Bitcoin saw low-single-digit losses both Saturday and Sunday before knocking half a percentage point higher in this morning’s Asia trading window.
At the time of writing, the BTC/UDST pair was changing hands at US$30,300. A strong support line is marked at US$30,100 per Binance’s order book.
Friday’s bearish engulfing pattern keeps BTC on the backfoot – Source: currency.com
However, bitcoin dominance, a measure of bitcoin’s share of the entire crypto market, has recovered the 50% mark after slipping below the threshold on Saturday.
This suggests that Ripple (XRP)’s performance has not managed to support a wider altcoin rally.
Over to Ethereum (ETH), the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency also saw low-single-digit losses over the weekend before adding nearly a whole percentage point this morning.
ETH/USDT is currently trading at US$1,926, roughly 4% higher week on week.