First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Falls to $60K as Mt. Gox Overhang Looms

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Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $60,000 during the European morning on Wednesday, a drop of 4% in the last 24 hours. BTC was the worst affected amidst a decline across crypto majors. The broader digital asset market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), has fallen nearly 3.3%. The declines came after U.S. spot BTC ETFs snapped a five-day streak of inflows, recording $13 million of outflows on Tuesday. There are also concerns of further selling pressure from distributions by defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox. “The Mt Gox release is also slated to happen this week,” QCP Capital said. “This overhang of up to 140,000 BTC should continue to weigh on markets, especially since the exact release schedule is unknown right now.”

U.S. election-themed meme tokens are taking a hit, with several down nearly 95% from peak prices. Solana-based Jeo Boden (BODEN), a play on Joe Biden, has dropped 70% in the past week, CoinGecko data shows. BODEN is now down 80% in the last 30 days, and back to levels last seen in early March, when it was just issued. Even Donald Trump-themed tokens have dropped, despite Trump’s electoral chances surging post-debate. The political finance (PoliFi) sector has contracted by 11% in the last 24 hours, contrary to expectations of a rally following the June 27 debate. Austin Freimuth, a research analyst at Messari, has said that the significant event could be Trump’s selection of his running mate, should it trigger the creation of new meme coins.

The crypto industry is beginning a major growth phase and is in a far better place than it was two years ago, investment bank Architect Partners said in a quarterly report published last week. The value of the crypto industry climbed more than $750 billion in the first half, the company said. The report described crypto as “the stepchild of the internet” and said it “exceeds the internet’s value at the same portion of their respective life cycles.” Crypto and the internet, both of which are disruptive technologies, have very similar characteristics, the report said, noting that the cryptocurrency market is recovering from the so-called crypto winter much faster than the internet rebounded after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000.

– Omkar Godbole