(Kitco News) – With U.S. markets closed in honor of the Juneteenth holiday, digital assets took center stage, but Bitcoin was unable to rally off of supportive comments from Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent rally. Meanwhile, altcoins benefited from a rare instance of good news from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Bitcoin slogs sideways
King Crypto has spent the last little while in digital purgatory as its price has trended stubbornly sideways. Data provided by TradingView shows that after opening the session just above $65,000 overnight, BTC managed a run-up to the $65,700 level shortly after midnight EDT. But the bulls failed to break through, and Bitcoin has trended lower since, falling as low as $64,838.34 shortly after 10:30 am EDT, less than $20 off the session low of $64,821.10 set 12 hours earlier.
Bitcoin did manage a run up to $65,221.78 around 1 pm EDT, but it broke down soon afterward and spent the afternoon sliding back toward the session low.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin last traded at $64,829.10 for a loss of 0.53% on the 24-hour chart.
Trump pumps crypto again
King Crypto’s recent struggles continue despite some of the strongest words from Donald Trump in support of the asset class thus far in the campaign.
“To further secure America's future and create opportunity for young people, I will end Joe Biden's war on crypto,” the Republican presidential candidate told supporters at a rally in Racine, Wisconsin on Tuesday afternoon. “We will ensure that the future of crypto and the future of Bitcoin will be made in America, otherwise other countries are going to have it.”
JUST IN: ?? Donald Trump says "to further secure America's future and create opportunity for young people, I will end Joe Biden's war on crypto."
"We will ensure that the future of crypto and the future of #Bitcoin will be made in America, otherwise other countries are going to… pic.twitter.com/NmmM2J3kIq— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) June 18, 2024
But the present has been difficult for Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market as post-ETF momentum has stalled and BTC has found itself adrift in the post-halving doldrums.
Bearish news for Bitcoin, ETH gets relief
Analysts at Secure Digital Markets (SDM) noted that Bitcoin was continuing to decline as it approached “the high-volume range between $60,000 and $63,000” while the stock market “has shown resilience despite the Federal Reserve's recent hawkish stance.”
“Any pressure on equities could exacerbate the decline in the crypto market,” they warned.
The analysts cited data from CryptoQuant which showed that Bitcoin whales have sold over $1.2 billion worth of BTC over the past two weeks. “The persistent lack of demand from these long-term holders signals a continued bearish outlook,” they said. “Additionally, some miners are pivoting towards the burgeoning AI sector, driven by reduced mining rewards post-halving, which may be contributing to increased selling pressure.”
SDM also highlighted another day of significant outflows from U.S. Bitcoin ETFs, with $152.4 million withdrawn on Tuesday, “marking the fourth consecutive day of outflows, predominantly from Fidelity.”
Ethereum, on the other hand, received the positive news that the SEC informed ConsenSys, the company behind MetaMask, that the regulator had concluded its investigation and had declined to pursue enforcement action against them. “This development has widened the spread between ETH and BTC implied volatility indexes, reflecting anticipation for the potential launch of spot ETH ETFs,” the analysts wrote. “Traders might consider shorting this spread, expecting ETH's volatility to converge with BTC’s once the ETFs begin trading.”
But analyst Rekt Capital provided some context to hearten Bitcoin bulls, sharing a chart on X which compares the top crypto’s 2016 post-halving trajectory to the present one.
“Bitcoin is following the blue path well,” he wrote.
Altcoins get high on Ether
The majority of the top 100 altcoins rose in value on Wednesday as Ether’s good news mitigated the relative weakness of Bitcoin.
Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360
Fetch.AI (FET) led the gainers with an increase of 21.11% on the 24-hour chart, followed by Akash Network (AKT) which rose 19.98%, and SingularityNET (AGIX), which gained 19.93%.
JasmyCoin (JASMY) led the losers with a decline of -4.46%, followed by a -1.52% drop for Toncoin (TON) and a fall of -1.15% for Monero (XMR).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.36 trillion, and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 54.11%.
