First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Declines After Reaching a Record High; Ether Also Drops

The dip in bitcoin occurred after news that China Evergrande Group had failed to pay at least some of its international investors interest payments on bonds the real estate giant had issued.

AccessTimeIconNov 10, 2021 at 11:30 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 4:26 p.m. UTC
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Good morning, Here’s what’s happening this morning:

  • Market moves: Bitcoin soared past $69K before dropping below $65K.
  • Technician’s take: Intraday charts are showing initial signs of upside exhaustion.

Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis.

Prices

  • Bitcoin (BTC): $64,626
  • Ether (ETH): $4,613

Market moves

Bitcoin faced a pullback below $65,000 in the past 24 hours, a more than 4% decline, after it surpassed $69,000 for the first time in its history during U.S. trading hours on Wednesday. Ether fell to about $4,600, a roughly 3% drop.

The sharp dip came after news that China Evergrande Group failed to pay at least some of its international investors interest payments on bonds the real estate giant issued, raising more concerns about a potential default of the company.

The market perceived the new record price above $69,000 as a reaction to the newly published U.S. Consumer Price Index, which jumped to its highest level in three decades.

Data collected by CoinDesk also shows Wednesday’s rally was not supported by strong trading volume. It was lower on Wednesday than it was on Monday and Tuesday across major centralized exchanges.

Credit: CoinDesk/CryptoCompare
Credit: CoinDesk/CryptoCompare

As CoinDesk’s David Morris wrote, the deeply indebted Chinese real estate developer has been an important factor to the much broader financial market, crypto included. With its roots in China and worries about Tether’s holdings of Chinese debt, investors may want to watch how Asia’s crypto markets react on Thursday.

Technician’s take

Bitcoin four-hour price chart (Damanick Dantes/CoinDesk, TradingView)

Bitcoin was slightly lower, trading around $65,000 at the time of publication, although buyers could hold support above $63,000-$65,000 into Asian trading hours.

Intraday charts are showing initial signs of upside exhaustion, which typically lead to a brief pullback in BTC’s price. For example, the relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart continues to hover near short-term overbought levels.

Still, upside momentum signals are improving on the daily price chart for the first time since Oct. 1, which preceded a price rally from $44,000. This suggests that buyers could remain active on pullbacks.

Two consecutive daily closes above an all-time price high would yield further upside targets, initially toward $86,000.

Important events

Australian Housing Industry Association new home sales (October)

8:30 a.m. Hong Kong/Singapore (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australian unemployment rate (October)

3:00 p.m. Hong Kong/Singapore (7 a.m. UTC): UK manufacturing production

On CoinDesk TV

In case you missed it, here are the most recent episodes of “First Mover” on CoinDesk TV:

“First Mover” hosts spoke with crypto OG and the founder of MakerDAO – a decentralized credit platform on Ethereum that supports the Dai stablecoin – Rune Christensen. He shared his thoughts on the Biden administration’s stablecoin report and the latest decentralization within his organization. Oanda Senior Market Analyst Edward Moya provided markets analysis as bitcoin retreated from an all-time high. Plus, Foundry announced a digital assets staking business and range of services for Institutions supporting 20 blockchains and counting. Foundry CEO Mike Colyer shared details of this launch.

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CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.

Muyao Shen

Muyao was a markets reporter at CoinDesk.

Damanick Dantes

Damanick was a crypto market analyst at CoinDesk where he wrote the daily Market Wrap and provided technical analysis. He is a Chartered Market Technician designation holder and member of the CMT Association. Damanick is also a portfolio strategist and does not invest in digital assets.


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