Market Wrap: Bitcoin Jumps Past $9,400 Despite Weak July Volumes
A short rally popped bitcoin's price to $9.4K during what’s been a month of sluggish volumes.
![Source: CoinDesk 20 Bitcoin Price Index](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/ouKGIJAXJTUYp-59Nr331GurDAg=/567x259/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/FMYQ4WDGGJCZBK5MAFDAGO65RI.jpg)
Weaker bitcoin trading volumes aren’t stopping its price from going up.
- Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $9,444 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), gaining 2% over the previous 24 hours.
- Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $9,202-$9,474.
- BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving average, a bullish signal for market technicians, trading volumes on Wednesday are higher than Tuesday.
![Bitcoin trading on Coinbase since July 6.](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/UV9W9mVQgX-Y9U0co4im9SqLVJA=/560x266/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/YW2URH7Q6BDEHKI3RPAWPK7GTU.jpg)
“Bitcoin became oversold from a short-term perspective last week for the first time since mid-March,” said Katie Stockton, an analyst at Fairlead Strategies. “This seems to be giving way to an uptick in short-term momentum, which has been weak since late May,” she added.
The jump past $9,400 Wednesday came during a time of lower spot trading activity. Volumes have dipped since May on spot exchanges like Coinbase after a month of excitement due to bitcoin’s halving, its drop in programmed new supply. The average daily volume over the past three months on Coinbase, for example, is $133 million. In July so far, the daily average has been just $68 million, a 48% drop.
![Trading on spot exchange Coinbase the past three months.](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/bdoUGyFDj6TBMN6llaX9yB3sYa8=/560x313/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/EJ6GGVHXXRB7LDRHW3WJQGBWT4.png)
Lower volumes are affecting the over-the-counter market for larger trades as well, said Henrik Kugelberg, a Sweden-based block trader who focuses primarily on bitcoin. “It’s been a very stagnant market for a while now, both for me and my sources,” he said.
Bitcoin surpassing the $9,400 level Wednesday doesn’t have Josh Rager convinced a bull run is on the way. Rager, a trader and adviser for crypto brokerage app LVL, wants to see a price jump higher before changing his sentiment. “Until we close above $9,700, I'm not going to be overly bullish in the short term,” he told CoinDesk.
![Bitcoin’s price in 2020.](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/8WWClPl8-G88xaHcoEygFld6Y4Q=/560x268/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/C54SSISWMJE57NC4EMI7Q7NKVU.jpg)
Still, it’s important to put bitcoin’s weak volume and potential price uncertainty in perspective, as it has appreciated 30% in 2020, noted Karl Samsen, director of strategy for crypto merchant services firm Global Digital Assets. “I think we’ve seen glimmers of BTC’s macro use case as a hedge but we’re still waiting for the big moment,” he said.
Balancer making moves
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Wednesday, trading around $248 and climbing 4% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Singapore-based quantitative trading firm QCP Capital, in a note to investors Wednesday, said the crypto market’s “alt-season [is] heating up and the DeFi train [is] rolling on.” In 2019, total decentralized exchange, or DEX, volume was $1 billion. DEXs are already over $5 billion so far in 2020, according to data from aggregator Dune Analytics. The leading DEXs are Uniswap, Curve and Balancer, with total DEX volume at $58 million over the most recent 24 hours.
![Decentralized Exchange market share.](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/EBJLRiZ7_0Bh_egGEtXwpqAYpL4=/560x302/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/663VIV7Q7NEWXDY6BY5J7ODUQU.jpg)
Total value locked in Balancer is now at $159 million according to DeFi Pulse, making it the highest ranked for a DEX. Balancer’s system locks the crypto value in a smart contract as liquidity for traders to swap Ethereum-based tokens on the platform. It balances the types of tokens based on trader demand, hence the name Balancer.
![Dollar value of cryptocurrency locked in Balancer.](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/sKgNqWTh2f36kRRItROa67cX7Sk=/560x278/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/QGYGKXQJEBHOVN2FWD56CKCQIE.jpg)
The value locked generates a return based on Balancer’s DEX trading fees, and keeps growing despite a $500,000 exploit hack that occurred on the platform in June. “Balancer has really shot off, even with the hack,” said Andrew Tu of Efficient Frontier, a crypto quantitative trading firm.
Other markets
Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are flashing green Wednesday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
Equities:
- Asia's Nikkei 225 ended the day down 0.78% amid increasing coronavirus concerns.
- Europe's FTSE 100 index closed in the red 0.53% despite the U.K. chancellor announcing fresh £30 billion stimulus plans.
- The U.S. S&P 500 index gained 0.5% as tech stocks closed higher despite rising coronavirus cases nationwide.
Commodities:
- Oil is up 1%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.85
- Gold surpassed $1,800 Wednesday, up 0.79% at $1,809 per ounce
Treasurys:
- U.S. Treasury bonds were all in the green Wednesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the 10-year, in the green 2.6%.