The world’s largest cryptocurrency was nursing steep losses over the past two weeks, having hit an over four-month low last week amid concerns over token distributions by defunct crypto exchange Mt Gox. But losses in the token appeared to have paused, at least for now.
Bitcoin rose 0.4% in the past 24 hours to $57,386.4 by 08:32 ET (12:32 GMT). World no.2 token Ether outpaced Bitcoin, rising 0.7% to $3,074.46
Bitcoin slid as low as $53,000 last week after the trustees of Mt Gox said they had begun distributing tokens stolen during a 2014 hack, although they did not specify what the overall value of the distribution would be.
But the news saw traders further dump Bitcoin on concerns that receivers of the token will also be inclined to sell, given Bitcoin’s massive price jump over the past 10 years.
Several major Bitcoin “whale” wallets were seen dumping the token, while sales of Bitcoin confiscated by the German government from a piracy website also added to the selling pressure.
Still, Bitcoin now appeared to have stabilized, as recent data showing strong capital inflows into crypto investment products helped improve sentiment.
Data from digital assets manager Coinshares showed on Monday that crypto investment products saw inflows totaling $441 million in the week to July 8, attributing the trend to bargain hunting as concerns of a token dump battered crypto prices.
Bitcoin continued to control a bulk of the inflows, but other major altcoins also saw inflows. Ether products saw about $10 million in inflows.
Broader crypto prices saw mixed performance on Tuesday, despite Bitcoin and Ether’s rebound.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is widely expected to approve form S-1 filings from several major issuers for the listing of spot ETFs later in July, with the reduction of a price discount on Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) to Binance reflecting some improved confidence in the token.
But Ether, like the broader crypto industry, was grappling with decreased retail interest this year. Sluggish trading volumes in spot Bitcoin ETFs also reflected this trend.
Meanwhile, XRP and Cardano fell 1.5% and 1.2%, respectively, while Solana added 0.4% as exchange operator CBOE filed for approval to list spot Solana ETFs.
Among meme tokens, DOGE and SHIB dropped 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively.
After a series of bitcoin transfers on Monday, the German government has moved an additional $339.2 million worth of bitcoin to addresses linked to centralized crypto exchanges and market makers as of Tuesday.
According to data from the on-chain analytics platform Arkham, the German government sent 800 bitcoins ($45.9 million) to the crypto exchange Kraken, 5,000 bitcoins ($287.1 million) to an address associated with the market maker B2C2 Group, and nearly 107 bitcoins ($6.2 million) to market maker Cumberland DRW. An additional 400 bitcoins ($23 million) were sent to an unlabeled address.
Moreover, the government received 1,692 bitcoins ($96.9 million) back from the crypto exchange Bitstamp on Tuesday.
These movements follow the German government’s seizure of 50,000 bitcoins from the film piracy site Movie2k in January and the subsequent transfer of bitcoin to exchanges, which began last month.
Government-labeled addresses on Monday transferred more than 15,000 bitcoins ($866 million) to addresses identified by Arkham as belonging to market makers and exchanges. Later in the day, 3,623 bitcoins ($203.7 million) were transferred back to the German government from Bitstamp, Coinbase, and Kraken.
Source: Cryptocurrency - investing.com
