Crypto Update: Turning the corner?

Cryptocurrencies 5 minutes to read

Jacob Pouncey

Cryptocurrency analyst, Saxo Bank

Summary: Confidence is creeping back to crypto as evidenced by a sharp uptick in market cap, a lull in volatility and promises of new mining tech releases.

This week the entire crypto market cap rose by 9% to around $220 billion. Similarly, Ethereum rose 11% after hovering around the $200 level at the start of November. Bitcoin rose only 3%, continuing its trend as the new “relatively” stable coin with record low volatility. So far, this month has been positive for Bitcoin. Although global crypto market volumes are near yearly lows, the volume over the last 24 hours (to 15:00 GMT, Nov. 7) was 50 % more than a month ago.

Shorts are decreasing

The period of low volatility for Bitcoin has brought Bitcoin shorts on Bitfinex, one of the largest crypto exchanges, to a local low not seen since the beginning of August. Additionally, longs are starting to make a comeback after bottoming in the third week of October. The longs now outnumber the shorts at a spread not seen since August. This could reflect the changing sentiment of the market as it anticipates the launch of the Bakkt Futures as a possible catalyst for the market, which has been range trading for quite some time.

Tokens beginning decoupling from ETH

Santiment, a crypto data provider, explains that the recent decoupling of prominent tokens from the price of Ethereum could be the start of a new positive run for the market. They also cite the increase on chain activity from individual projects such as 0x, Maker Dao, and Basic Attention Token, as reasons why the market may be making a turn for the better. However, the crypto insights provider cites a peak in social sentiment data as reason for a local top in the market, meaning that the promised bull run may still be farther into the future than anticipated.

Bitmain is launching new mining machines

Bitmain is slated to release its new 7nm (nanometer) bitcoin miners on November 8. These miners come after its previous attempts at releasing smaller and more efficient miners were deemed failures. When these new products start shipping, those interested in the company's announced IPO will be watching to see if Bitmain can still design quality chips. Additionally, if these miners turn out to be hot sellers this could help boost confidence in the IPO.

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