AI Tokens Lead Crypto Market Ahead of Nvidia Earnings, Bitcoin Under $64K
2024-08-26

Bitcoin {{BTC}} slid under the $64,000 level in Asian trading hours Monday, after a 5% bump on Friday following favorable comments from Jackson Hole.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Friday that a monetary easing cycle will begin next month - easing headwinds around risk assets as the lure of cheap money helped buoy prices.
Major tokens jumped through Saturday, but registered slight losses in the past 24 hours. Ether {{ETH}} traded just over $2,700, while Solana’s SOL and xrp XRPUSD were changing hands at $158 and 58 cents, respectively. Meanwhile, while Tron’s TRX jumped 3% as an ongoing memecoin frenzy continues to add demand for the token.
The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index of the largest tokens by market capitalization, was lower by 0.44%.
Traders said they expect the current rally to continue in the next few months.
“As inflation is more or less under control now, the market focus will shift to the labor market and on whether Fed will successfully deliver a soft landing for US economy,” Lucy Hu, senior analyst at Metalpha, told CoinDesk in a Telegram message Monday. “We expect the market sentiment will continue to improve in the next few months as rate cuts are on the way while the economy stabilizes and potential crypto-friendly policies if Trump gets elected.”
AI tokens charge ahead of Nvidia earnings
Artificial Intelligence tokens led the market on Monday, as traders in Asia poured money into FET, the token of the 'Artificial Superintelligence Alliance', as well as Bittensor (TAO). The move in to AI tokens comes ahead of Nvidia's NNVDA widely anticipated earnings on August 28.
FET is up 8.8% as of early afternoon Hong Kong time while (TAO) is up 4.7%.
Historically, Nvidia has been a bellweather for the growing AI token space with tokens edging up in anticipation of its earnings.
Analysts polled by FactSet expect this quarter's earnings per share to be a blockbuster event with earnings of 65 cents per share, a 141% increase from the previous year, with revenue expected to reach $28.72 billion, up 113%.
This would be Nvidia's fifth consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth, with the tech sector expected to perform strongly throughout the rest of the year given that the Fed will likely cut rates in September.