Bitcoin, Ether dip but more bullish times ahead?

Bitcoin dipped on Thursday morning in Asia after briefly breaching the US$30,000 resistance level. Ether also dipped, while other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed. Cardano’s ADA token led the winners. Meanwhile, the Forkast 500 NFT index moved higher. However, trading volume dropped after a surge earlier in the week. U.S. stock futures logged losses Wednesday but were trading higher on Thursday morning in Asia. Investors now await key U.S. inflation data with an eye on how that will affect the Fed’s decision making on interest rates.

Bitcoin dips but set for bullish trend

Bitcoin dropped 0.72% in the last 24 hours to US$29,592.49 as of 07:30 a.m. in Hong Kong, but rose 1.59% for the week, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world’s leading cryptocurrency reached a high of US$30,093.44 on Wednesday evening, but struggled to stay above the US$30,000 threshold.

Although Bitcoin prices remain range bound, the token is set for a bullish trend, said Samer Hasn, market analyst at Australia-based global multi-asset broker XS.com.

“We witnessed the number of open interest positions (in Bitcoin) rise to the highest level since October of 2022 with more than 10.4 billion positions on August 8,” Hasn said. 

He added that a high number of open interests, which includes long and short positions, generally precedes a rise in momentum and increased volatility.

“The increase in the number of open positions reflects more positive sentiment among investors with more recognition,” Hasn said, adding that the new offering of the PYUSD stablecoin from PayPal — one of the world’s largest payment companies — will increase access to cryptocurrency networks.

Similarly, spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund applications from major investment firms like BlackRock and Wisdom Tree will, if approved by U.S. regulators, provide “more access by individual investors, institutional investors, and large companies that may not be able to invest in cryptocurrencies directly,” Hasn said.

Along with Bitcoin, Ether dipped 0.21% to US$1,856.01 but held a weekly gain of 0.94%. Other top 10 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies traded mixed, with Cardano’s ADA leading the winners, while Binance’s BNB, Tron’s TRX and Litecoin logged losses.

Cardano’s ADA rose 1.03% to US$0.3016 for a weekly gain of 0.75% after the Cardano mainnet launched the Bitcoin token cBTC on Wednesday. The launch will allow Bitcoin holders to tokenize their Bitcoin on the Cardano network as cBTC and use it in Cardano’s decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

The total crypto market capitalization dipped 0.31% in the past 24 hours to US$1.18 trillion, while trading volume remained flat, inching down 1.11% to US$35.54 billion.