According to Bloomberg News, a funny incident related to Bitcoin as the interest rates started rising: the trading volumes were found to drop. As such, the market watchers are now trying to assess the situation and conclude what it would mean for the digital assets if the world of monetary policy is less loose.
More on the matter
The aggregate 30-day moving average volume for the largest digital currency across Bitfinex, Coinbase, Bitstamp, and Kraken has been at its lowest level since August 2021, as Strahinja Savic’s data, FRNT Financial, has compiled. Over the past month, the aggregate daily volume on the venues above has shown an average of over just $1 billion. In May 2021, that reading was recorded as $2.57 billion, which shows the present reading as a decline of about 60%.
This has happened since the Federal Reserve and central banks have stepped up their measures to fight inflation, which has continued to remain much longer than what people have expected. The crypto process has flagged with rising rates, and the price of money is not hovering around 0 any longer. This has prompted many investors to rethink their desires for investment in the markets.
For instance, Bloomberg News reports that as per the head of market insights, Genesis Global Trading, Noelle Acheson, the withdrawal of liquidity adversely impacts the crypto volumes and other areas by reducing the funding available to invest. Secondly, higher rates cause investors to put their money in non-yielding assets like the largest digital token, Bitcoin. And the ones buying the coin by using leverage might feel the impact, and that is the cost of borrowing being higher, which changes the risk-reward scenario of these trades, which implies that with potential drops in returns, the prices go higher up.
Bloomberg News reports that Acheson has noted that the percentage of Bitcoin that has not been moving over the last year is now at an all-time high, with approximately 76% of the coin being held in those places that are said to be illiquid, which means that they display very minimal movement.
While this could also imply that it is a good idea to use Bitcoin as a wealth storing environment amidst unrest and intensifying uncertainty in the macroeconomic scenario for the present times, the movement of price is decided upon by the risk preferences of macro traders who remain concerned about the economic outlook and rates prevailing globally.
Data obtained from Glassnode suggest that investors’ interest in Bitcoin has been muted, which implies that there is less new demand and little growth in the coin’s user base. As with the other class of assets, new backers are needed by Bitcoin so that the prices can be stabilized. The fact that new crypto fans have emerged, comprising both retail and institutional, over the last two years has often coincided with the surge in prices in the previous two years.
