Bitcoin (BTC)’s Tuesday rally following Grayscale Investments' potentially influential court win appears to be a flash in the pan, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency losing 1.5% on the spot markets yesterday.
BTC/USDT surged as high as $28,150 after the US courts determined that the securities regulator was unfairly blocking Grayscale’s application to turn its $11 billion GBTC bitcoin trust into an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
At the time of writing, the pair was swapping hands closer to $27,250, following an inactive Asia trading session this Thursday.
BTC/USDT sent lower following Grayscale bounce -- Source: tradingview.com
The post-Grayscale hype was evidently not enough to sustain momentum in what continues to be a period of historically low trading volumes and risk-off sentiment in the broader cryptocurrency market.
Where to from here? In the short term, Binance’s order book suggests strong buying support at the $27k and $26,800 price points.
In the longer term, bitcoin bulls are pinning their breakout hopes on actual approval of a spot-bitcoin ETF.
For what it’s worth, Bloomberg analysts have upped their odds of approval by the end of the year from 65% to 75%.
“While we factored Grayscale win into our prev 65% odds, the unanimity & decisiveness of ruling was beyond expectations and leaves SEC w(ith) 'very little wiggle room'," tweeted Eric Balchunas.
NEW: @JSeyff & I are upping our odds to 75% of spot bitcoin ETFs launching this yr (95% by end of '24). While we factored Grayscale win into our prev 65% odds, the unanimity & decisiveness of ruling was beyond expectations and leaves SEC w "very little wiggle room" via @NYCStein pic.twitter.com/IyEGmWjuHa
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) August 30, 2023
Elsewhere in the crypto markets, Ethereum (ETH) fell 1.4% by yesterday’s close and is currently trading slightly above the $1,700 price point.
Week on week, ETH/USDT is up 1.8% compared to 3% for BTC/USDT.
In the wider altcoin space, Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX) and Ripple (XRP) are trading at a week-on-week discount, while Dogecoin (DOGE) and Binance’s BNB token are up in the low single digits.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalisation currently stands at $1.09 trillion after dipping 0.7% overnight.