Bitcoin continues to gain ground as miners scale back sales of mined cryptocurrencies. The token rose above $23,000 early Tuesday, amounting to a 30% rally in two weeks. On-chain flows tracked by analysts at cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex show the amount of bitcoin transferred from miner addresses to wallets owned by exchanges has declined to multiyear lows. “Miners are also in better shape. Selling is now at a three-year low,” Bitfinex analysts said in a note Tuesday. “It is a potential indication that miners are now either already transitioned or in the process of transitioning to a source of buying pressure.”
Crypto exchange Gemini is shedding another 10% of its staff, according to an internal message viewed by The Information. “It was our hope to avoid further reductions after this summer, however, persistent negative macroeconomic conditions and unprecedented fraud perpetuated by bad actors in our industry have left us with no other choice but to revise our outlook and further reduce headcount,” Gemini President and co-founder Cameron Winklevoss wrote in the internal message.
Shares of bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain (ARBK) rose as much as 14% on Monday after the company gained listing compliance with Nasdaq, thanks to a late December deal with Galaxy Digital to avoid bankruptcy and the recent rise in the price of bitcoin. Argo, whose shares are also listed on the London Stock Exchange, said it met the requirement to continue listing its shares on Nasdaq on Jan. 13, after bids for its shares remained above $1 for 10 consecutive days, according to a statement.
Market Insight: ETH’s Deflationary Again
ultrasound.money
Ether has become deflationary – again – as the market attempts to rebound in 2023.
Data from ultrasound.money shows ether’s net issuance, or the annualized inflation rate, has dropped to -0.07%, meaning the volume of ether being burnt is outpacing the amount that is being minted.
Marcus Sotiriou, market analyst at digital-asset broker GlobalBlock, attributed the recent surge in ether burnt to a spike in the non-fungible token (NFT) sales driven by the positive sentiment of the broader crypto market.
More than 14,700 ethers, worth around $24 million, have been burnt over the past seven days, according to ultrasound.money. Some 3,400 of those ETH were burned during NFT trades. NTF marketplace OpenSea is the top seven-day and 30-day gas guzzler among platforms, ultrasound.money found.
The chart compares bitcoin’s price with the ratio of spot market trading volume against futures market volume going back to January 2022.
The ratio has pulled back sharply in the past week, indicating a pickup in the derivatives market activity.
In other words, leveraged traders are at least partly responsible for bitcoin’s recent rise from $20,000 to $23,000, while the early move higher from $17,000 was mainly spot-driven.
– Omkar Godbole
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