Market Wrap: Do-Nothing Markets Stay Steady as Bitcoin Sticks to $9,200

Markets globally are mostly flat Tuesday, and bitcoin is trading sideways along with them.

The price of bitcoin is stuck in the $9,200 price range as low volumes continue to plague the markets, said Katie Stockton, an analyst for Fairlead Strategies. “Bitcoin has been tethered to its 50-day moving average recently after having suffered a loss of short-term momentum in June.” Bitcoin’s 50-day moving average is around $9,240 as of Tuesday. 

Stockton says anything above that level would be a sign of bullish sentiment. “We would view a decisive move above the 50-day MA as an incremental positive because it would help prevent intermediate-term momentum from turning negative,” she added. 

The summer doldrums for the bitcoin market likely started not long after the May 12 halving, said David Lifchitz, chief investment officer for Paris-based quantitative trading firm ExoAlpha. 

“Bitcoin has been trading very technical post-halving since mid-May, essentially bouncing into a $8,100-$10,400 band,” Lifchitz said. “Since mid-June, Bitcoin has gone nowhere moving in a very narrow range of $9,000-$9,400,” he added. 

Sasha Goldberg, senior trading specialist for crypto firm Efficient Frontier, said markets overall might not be pricing in the long-term economic impacts of the coronavirus yet. “Right now it seems that the markets are disconnected from what’s going globally. I think bitcoin will continue to stay in the range of $8,900-$9,400,” he said.

Still, bitcoin is up almost 30% this year. Sweden-based over-the-counter trader Henrik Kugelberg said economic uncertainty bodes well for bitcoin as investors look for places to sock away money. “People are anticipating a real bad global fall, with the actual toll of the first six months not seen until Q4,” he said. “I believe more and more asset managers are at least shifting some portfolio percentages into bitcoin.”

The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Tuesday, trading around $241 after climbing 1.3% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). For the year, ether is up 75%, and part of that story has been the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi). 

The decentralized exchange, or DEX, Uniswap, which has been deployed since late 2018, is seriously taking on early mover advantages. With over $33 million in daily volume, Uniswap is conquering almost 60% of the DeFi market. 

Efficient Frontier’s Goldberg said other DEXs rely on Uniswap because of the platform’s diversity of offerings, which helps its volume numbers. “Uniswap has other services like flash loans and they are powering some other DeFi projects,” Goldberg told CoinDesk. “I also believe that some DEX’s are hedging their positions in Uniswap.”

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly in the green Tuesday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): 

Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):