Market Update: Q2 Extended
Bitcoin Rising, Amazon Hearsay, and Fundamentals
After reaching a bottom of just above $29,000, Bitcoin rose 35% to over $40,000 in one week to end the month. Let's dive in.
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Amazon hearsay?
Bitcoin rode a wave from $30k up to $40k last week.
Amazon posted a job for "Digital Currency and Blockchain Product Lead." Also, London business news source City A.M. broke a story claiming Amazon "definitely" lining up Bitcoin payments by "end of year." While the job posting is accurate, the payments news was taken from a fraudulent source and discredited by Amazon. On Amazon's official denouncement, Bitcoin dropped by single digit percentage.
Many on Twitter and in the news have correlated the Amazon news with Bitcoin's price swings, but there are more fundamental strengths behind crypto's current rise.
What's going on behind the curtain?
Fundamentals and Developments
On July 21, 2021 Jack Dorsey hosted The B Word Conference, where personalities like Elon Musk, crypto market-mover that he is, revealed that he owns three tokens: Bitcoin, Ether, and Dogecoin. He also confirmed Tesla and SpaceX own Bitcoin. This started a busy week of crypto news.
Cathie Wood's Ark Invest announced it put an additional $10.8 million into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
The second quarter of 2021 saw a record amount of capital raised by blockchain startups: $4.4 billion. This came during Bitcoin's slump in May. Most institutions may not hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets, but they are exploring how to gain exposure to the burgeoning industry. CNBC interviewed the Ledger CEO, who said “every major financial institution in the world either has a plan or is working on a plan” to invest in crypto.
Another milestone this month comes from Visa: over $1 billion of digital currency was spent using Visa's crypto-linked cards in the first half of 2021. The infrastructure is being put in place by existing financial institutions to support retail integrations with crypto.
More legacy banking news came from Goldman Sachs just days ago, when the bank filed with the SEC to create a fund that "seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Soractive Decentralized Finance and Blockchain Index." This fund will focus on blockchain companies and the DeFi space.
In our opinion, the outlook right now is Neutral/Positive. Performance has picked up dramatically in the last few weeks, if you were thinking about investing, it may be a good time to get your feet wet, as we are coming off of yearly lows, followed by a lot of positive momentum.
Performance Comparison: May 30 vs. July 30
Stats & Takeaways:
$1 billion of digital currency spent on Visa's cards in 6 months.
$4.4 billion raised by blockchain startups in Q2 of 2021.
July has been a great rebound for Crypto, following its worst two months of the year.
The 52-week range of bitcoin has been $9,891 - 64,788$, and the price is currently hovering around $39,000
Bitcoin is up 31% YTD and 243% TTM.
The Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index has switched from Extreme Fear to Neutral in the past three months.
Resources:
Six newsworthy things that happened in crypto last week.
Last week's on-chain analytics from Will Clemente III.
Bitcoin stalling near the $40k mark after the recent jump.
A concise summary of Amazon's crypto news.
Former hedge fund billionaire Mike Novogratz gets "riled up" by Senator Warren on Twitter and calls out legacy finance industry.
➡️ About FirstWatch Crypto ⬅️
FirstWatch Crypto was started by Dan McGlinn (@DigitalDanMcG)and John "Blaize" Hrabrick (@blaizebitcoin) who have been investing in the space for a combined 8 years. FirstWatch Crypto is on a mission to simplify the crypto investment landscape.
Disclaimer: None of the above is investment advice. This blog is published for entertainment and informational purposes only. The ideas expressed are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. Nothing on this blog constitutes investment advice, performance data, or any recommendation that any security, portfolio of securities, investment product, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. You should not use this blog to make financial decisions. We highly recommended you seek professional advice from someone who is authorized to provide investment advice. You should always do your own research before investing in cryptocurrencies. It is a volatile market.