First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Stabilizes Above $36K as Investors Await Next Fed Meeting

Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:

Market moves: Bitcoin retakes $36,000 as the crypto market stabilized after last week’s correction.

Technician's take: Extreme oversold readings preceded an uptick in BTC.

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

Bitcoin (BTC): $36,547 +0.1%

Ether (ETH): $2,426 -4.6%

Top gainers

Top losers

Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive, and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.

S&P 500: 4,410 +0.2%

DJIA: 34,364 +0.2%

Nasdaq: 13,855 +0.6%

Gold: $1,843 +0.4%

Bitcoin’s price rose by as much as $1,834 on a four-hour basis during U.S. trading hours on Monday, after it briefly touched the $34,000 level during Asia's late afternoon. The overall crypto market stabilized after the broad market correction downward in the past week.

Bitcoin is currently changing hands at around $36,400 and is up slightly in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. At the time of publication, ether was down slightly, trading at about $2,400. Most of the major alternative coins (altcoins) were in the red.

The U.S. equity market also rebounded in the late afternoon on Monday. Major stock indices tumbled earlier in the day as investors closely watch the Federal Reserve's first meeting this year, which will take place this week.

While bitcoin and the crypto market appeared to be following the performance of the stock market recently, as CoinDesk reported, the relationship between bitcoin and the Nasdaq 100 stock index, the favored proxy for the tech sector, remains weak – a reminder there are other more important factors that could affect bitcoin and the crypto market.

“For the time being at least, one could say bitcoin’s prices are a combination of some global risk appetite and a lot of the market dynamics in China (and the aftermath of restrictions there),” CoinDesk’s Lawrence Lewitinn wrote. “Those factors’ influences aren’t static, but they explain a lot more than watching the Fed’s every move.”

According to crypto trading data analytic firm Kaiko, despite a sharp sell-off last week, bitcoin’s daily spot trading volume last week was still lower than it was during December’s price plunge.

The average daily spot trading volume of bitcoin on major cryptocurrency exchanges has mostly remained below $5 billion in the past month, down significantly since early fall, Kaiko wrote in its weekly newsletter on Monday. This is partly because Chinese exchanges OKEx and Huobi have suffered volume loss due to the crypto trading ban in China last year.

Bitcoin Short-Term Bounce Faces Resistance at $40K

Bitcoin (BTC) returned above $35,000 after multiple oversold signals appeared on the charts. The cryptocurrency faces initial resistance at $40,000, which could limit upside over the short term.

Bitcoin is up 3% over the past 24 hours after rising from an intraday low near $33,000, while the broader crypto market has stabilized.

The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart registered the most extreme oversold reading since the March 2020 crash. The previous extreme low was on Nov. 20, 2018, which preceded a few months of rangebound price action before a rally took place.

For now, a downtrend of lower price highs since November remains intact, which means sellers could remain active at resistance levels.

8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): Australia consumer price index (Q4, MoM/YoY)

8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 a.m. UTC): National Australia Bank's business conditions (Dec)

8: 30 a.m. HKT/SGT (12:30 UTC): National Australia Bank's business confidence (Dec)

Happy Australia Day!

11 p.m. HKT/SGT (3 p.m. UTC): U.S. Consumer Confidence (Jan.)

In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of "First Mover" on CoinDesk TV:

Crypto Market Lost $1.3T in 2 Months; What’s Going On? White House Set to Release Government-Wide Strategy for Digital Assets

"First Mover" hosts were joined by Marc Lopresti, managing director at The Strategic Funds, for an in-depth analysis on the crypto markets as cryptocurrencies suffer yet another sell-off. Since November, about $1.3 trillion has been wiped out in the total market cap. Plus, what could we expect from the Biden administration's digital asset strategy that's reportedly set to release next month? Nyca Partners Executive-in-Residence Matt Homer and CoinDesk Managing Editor for Global Policy & Regulation Nikhilesh De provided their insights. Then CoinDesk Executive Editor Marc Hochstein explained Privacy Week at CoinDesk.

Singapore VC Blockchain Founders Raises $75M for New Fund: The company has been an early investor in blockchain, crypto, Web 3 and metaverse startups.

Chinese Government Rejects Metaverse Trademark Applications: Report: Those rejected include applications by NetEase, iQiyi and Xiaohongshu.

Investors Put $14M Into Crypto Funds Last Week as Bitcoin Market Cratered: Inflows into digital-asset funds last week – after five straight weeks of outflows – suggest investors were taking advantage of the price dip.

Bank of America Says US CBDC Would Preserve Dollar’s Status as World’s Reserve Currency: CBDC’s are an inevitable evolution of today’s electronic currencies, the bank’s analysts said.

Biden Administration to Release Executive Order on Crypto as Early as February: Report: The directive will ask federal agencies to determine the risks and opportunities posed by digital assets.

Who Writes the Story of the Metaverse?: How narratives and memes shape our online future.

Today's crypto explainer: Crypto Flash Crashes: What You Need to Know

Other voices: Blockchain beyond the hype: What is the strategic business value?

"Surveillance economies power our biggest tech companies. Facebook and Google track our every step to deliver surgical ad strikes that make us hungry to buy more stuff we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't even know. They track where we go, what we like, who we know and love, and with whom we're sleeping." (Author and speaker Daniel Jeffries writing for CoinDesk) ... "Well, here’s another take – it’s a bad time to be a day trader, but it’s also a bad time for NFT flippers, whose gains and losses are typically priced in ETH. Even as the price has fallen, the average amount of ETH exchanged for non-fungible tokens in top collections has stayed relatively consistent." (CoinDesk media and culture reporter Will Gottsegen) ... "That is the promise of a virtual world: that you get to be anybody you want, unhampered by flesh, gravity, environment, expectations and economics — or maybe just the record you have created." (Vanessa Friedman/The New York Times) ...