Last week in the news
Another volatile week is behind financial markets, where volatility was induced by the Fed’s narrative. The Fed held interest rates unchanged, decreasing their estimate from initially three rate cuts to only one till the end of this year. The US Treasuries were the ones that reacted the most on Fed narrative ending the week around 4.20% level. The price of gold was trying to erase some losses from the week before, closing the week at the level of $2.330. The crypto market also had its breakthrough, however, to the downside, where BTC was testing the level of $ 65K as of the weekend.
The most important event during the previous week was the FOMC meeting. Although the slowdown in May inflation was acknowledged by the Fed officials, still, there is not enough data which would make them certain that the inflation would not move away from its 2% course. In this sense the rates were left unchanged at this meeting, as it was widely expected by markets. On the other hand, the most important information from this meeting is that the Fed changed its projection on the number of rate cuts during this year from initially three to only one. Market participants are now discussing when this one rate cut might occur? One of the first who came out with estimates was analysts from Citibank. They are currently estimating that the Fed, the ECB and BoE will all cut rates in September. Their forecast has been changed taking into account “resilient services sectors, persistent inflation above official targets, and ongoing geopolitical pressures”. They also anticipate that rates will be further decreased through the course of 2025.
Microsoft have announced on their blog that the company will no longer ship Recall. A Recall is a tool developed based on artificial intelligence technology whose purpose was to track user activity. The Recall will be replaced with Copilot+ PC. Microsoft made this move following the privacy and security concerns related to their product.
Artificial Intelligence was also a topic of the G-7 Group meeting held on Friday. It is interesting that this year Pope Francis was one of the participants, who spoke about positives and negatives of AI in ordinary life. For the rest of participants, China was the main topic, considering that in their joint statement it has been written that they will ” continue to take actions to protect our businesses from unfair practices”.
As Bitcoin plunged to $ 65K, Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy increased the latest unsecured convertible note offering from an initial $500 million to $700 million. Notes are coming with an offered yield of 2.25% per annum. It is estimated that the company is currently holding 214.400 BTCs, with an estimated worth of $14 billion.
In their most recent survey, the Bank for International Settlements, a global banking regulator, found that 94% of the central banks in the world are currently exploring the possibility of introducing a central bank digital currency. As per survey, the central bankers are first willing to issue a CBDC for institutions before they introduce it to retail users.
Crypto market cap
US interest rates are going to stay at current levels for some time in the future. The FOMC meeting brought some new insights into the Fed’s future moves when interest rates are in question, leaving only one rate cut, from previously estimated three during the year. In this sense markets adjusted their current trading and investment strategies. Some corrections were made on traditional markets, however, the crypto market also reacted to this news, bringing the crypto market to the red zone as of the weekend. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by 5% on a weekly level, losing a total $121B from its cap. Daily trading volumes were modestly increased to the level of $120B on a daily basis from $85B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase from the end of the previous year, currently stands at $722B, which represents a 44% surge from the beginning of this year.
A decline in the value of the crypto market relates to almost all coins during the week. Only a few finished the week in green. In nominal terms, BTC lost the most as it is the largest coin on the market. BTC decreased its market cap by $65B, which is 4.7% of its value. Second place took ETH, with a drop in value of $16B or 3.6%. Binance Coin had one of the highest weekly losses since the last year, where it has been wiped out around $ 11B from its value which decreased it by 11% w/w. Solana should also be mentioned as a significant weekly loser in nominal terms as the coin lost $7.4B in value or almost 10%. Significant losers in relative terms were Theta, with a drop in value of almost 14%, OMG Network was down by 12.7%, Filecoin lost 16%. Other coins were down in a range from 2% up to 10% or higher. There are only a few coins which managed to pass the week with a gain, some of which are Uniswap, with an incredible 17% surge in value, Monero was traded higher by 2.2%.
Tether was another coin which sustained its market cap, but through an increase of its coins in circulation by 0.1%. This week Miota had an increase in the number of coins on the market of 0.6%, while Solana’s number of coins was higher by 0.2% w/w.
Crypto futures market
Crypto futures also tumbled during the week, following generally negative sentiment from the spot market. BTC futures were traded lower by more than 5% for almost all maturities. However, it should be noted that long term futures are generally holding at higher levels. In this sense, futures maturing in December 2024 ended the week at level of $69.290, while those maturing a year later were last traded at price $74.480.
ETH’s futures were traded lower by more than 8% for all maturities. However, futures maturing in December 2024 were last traded at $3.532 which is 10.3% lower from the end of the previous week. At the same time, futures maturing in December 2025 reached the price of $3.770, which is 8.8% lower from the week before.