First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Little Changed in Face of PBOC Rate Cut
2024-09-24

CoinDesk 20 Index: 2,014.90 +1%
Bitcoin BTCUSD: $63,558.29 +0.07%
Ether ETHUSD: $2,642.62 -0.1% 
S&P 500: 5,718.57 +0.28%
Gold: $2,632.34 +0.23%
Nikkei 225: 37,940.59 +0.57%
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Bitcoin is little changed in the past 24 hours after recovering from a dip to $62,750 during the Asian morning to hold above $63,500. Ether was similarly unmoved at $2,645. Other leading altcoins showed a bit more life, with SOL and DOGE higher by 1.8% and 1.2%, respectively. The crypto market at large has risen by 0.9%, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index. Muted activity following a rally is quite common in the cryptocurrency market, as traders take profits and prices consolidate at new footholds.
The People's Bank of China took steps to stimulate the economy, including cutting the reserve requirement ratio for mainland banks by 50 basis points. The move drew little response from crypto prices. Asian stocks, on the other hand, rallied, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index climbing 3.2% and the Shanghai Composite index adding 2.3%. "Bitcoin's lack of response to this news, juxtaposed against rallying Chinese indices, highlights that its current beta appears more tightly linked to Fed policy and U.S. markets, as evidenced by near two-year high correlations with US stocks, particularly following last week's FOMC meeting," Rick Maeda, a Singapore-based research analyst at Presto Research, wrote to CoinDesk in a note.
Ether ETFs recorded their highest outflows since July on Monday, with over $79 million exiting the funds. The figures are the highest since July 29, when ETH ETHs recorded a cumulative $98 million, and the fourth-highest since they first went live on July 23. The outflows were almost entirely concentrated in Grayscale's ETHE, which lost $80 million. Bitwise's ETHW recorded around $1.3 million in inflows while all the others showed no activity either way. This suggests a distinct lack of institutional demand for ETH, especially as the world's second-largest cryptocurrency has enjoyed a rally of over 10% in the last week.
- Omkar Godbole