Bitcoin holds $83,000 as ZEC drops 12% and oil climbs again
Bitcoin traded just above $83,100 during Tuesday Asian morning hours, down less than 1%, testing the floor of last week's range after the 10-year Treasury yield touched its highest level since 2007. The world's largest cryptocurrency had pulled back from above $87,000, with higher guaranteed returns on government debt raising the bar for holding assets that pay no income, bitcoin among them.
ZEC fell 12% to about $1,380, the steepest decline among major tokens, according to CoinDesk data. SOL and HYPE each lost between 3% and 4%, DOGE fell 3% and BNB 2%, while XRP dropped nearly 2%. Ether and TRX were flat. Among smaller tokens, The Graph's GRT jumped 18% and Immutable's IMX nearly 10%, FxPro said, while UNI and BCH each fell about 10% and DASH lost 7%. Total crypto market value sat near $2.86 trillion.
A widely watched crypto sentiment index stood at 74 out of 100 on Monday, just short of the "extreme greed" zone — a reading that brokerage FxPro contrasted with the fear that has gripped the stock market for the past 20 days. "Bitcoin has pulled back to $83K, testing the lower boundary of last week's consolidation range," Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro, said in an email to CoinDesk. "As with the market as a whole, a retest of the $82K region, where peaks were formed in May and early September, is entirely to be expected under current conditions." He added that a sustained return to prices below $80K would be an important signal that the market is not ready to move higher for some time yet, while a consolidation soon followed by new bullish momentum could send the leading cryptocurrency well above $90K.
Treasuries steadied in Asia after tumbling during US trading, with the 10-year yield up one basis point to 5.25% after reaching its highest since 2007 on Monday. Brent rose more than 1% to nearly $107 a barrel, its second straight gain, as hopes for an imminent diplomatic breakthrough with Iran faded. Pricier oil feeds into inflation, and traders have been adding to bets that the Fed will raise rates again. MSCI's All Country World Index fell to its lowest since 18 September, and Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.3% after Monday's tech-led selloff on Wall Street.
The next read on inflation comes on Wednesday, when the Commerce Department publishes August's personal consumption expenditures price index, the gauge the Fed watches most closely. A hotter-than-expected reading would add to rate-hike bets and push Treasury yields higher still, the pressure behind bitcoin's pullback from above $87,000.
