Price predictions proliferate after volatile week

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Welcome to the On the Margin Newsletter, brought to you by Ben Strack and Casey Wagner. Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Where crypto markets could be headed after last week’s volatility, and the key drivers to watch.
• A bitcoin mining giant takes another step to boost its BTC pile.
• Investors are looking for positive signs. Casey details what they should keep an eye on.

After a volatile week, what’s changed? 

After a highly volatile week for the crypto (and broader) market, some longer-term price predictions have changed…well…barely at all. Others are less optimistic.

Data from Fineqia International shows BTC actually ended last week up 0.9% from seven days prior. But, it dipped below $50,000 at one point, fluctuating by as much as 23.6% — a volatility level not seen since February.

Bitcoin’s price was $59,160 at 2:30 pm ET Monday — nearly 2% up from a week ago and less than 1% in the past 24 hours. ETH’s price of roughly $2,670 is slightly down week over week, but up 4.5% on the day.

All things considered, LMAX Group market strategist Joel Kruger said his crypto market outlook remains “constructive and unchanged.”

“Technically speaking, there has been nothing in recent price action to suggest anything more than choppy trade within clear medium- and longer-term uptrends for both bitcoin and ETH,” he told Blockworks.

Kruger’s main concern in the coming weeks revolves around global market disruption via rising geopolitical tensions.

Beyond the yen carry trade unwind and geopolitical concerns, bigger-picture forces at play still include US monetary policy and the November election. 

The market is roughly split between expecting a 50 basis point rate cut and a 25 bps cut during the Fed’s Sept. 18 meeting, CME Group data shows. Polymarket odds currently show a tight race (51% in favor of Kamala Harris, 46% betting on Donald Trump) in the Nov. 5 election.

Segment observers have said clarity around these themes are likely to be key drivers, one way or another, of crypto prices leaving the current range.

In the meantime, Transform Ventures founder Michael Terpin said upward price movement is “unlikely” during the slower, vacation-laden August month — and noted pullbacks in the six months after a halving are not atypical. 

Regardless of the next 60 days, Terpin expects the bull market to continue along four-year cycle lines, with solid October and November gains. 

He added that a Trump victory in November would bring in a rush of new buyers that could take BTC’s price over $100,000 — a year-end price target floated by a number of industry watchers in recent months. 

But there are risks, notes YouHodler risk manager Sergei Gorev.

While crypto price dynamics have factored in a rate cut this year, this “positive fact” will not necessarily help crypto assets move up in price, he argued. 

Further, the market predicts significant risks if Trump loses the election. On the flip side, a new president taking over points to risks stemming from structural economic changes, for example.

There’s also the latest emergence of a bitcoin “death cross,” where the 50-day moving average has crossed from above to below the 200-day moving average.

“This fact is a highly negative indicator for traders, and many of them start looking for an entry point to short positions instead of buying the market,” Gorev told Blockworks. “In the current configuration, it is tough to say what prices will be in the near future.”

Death crosses have not always been super deadly, economist Timothy Peterson said in an X post last week.

Ultimately though, Gorev expects the onset of a global economic crisis that will have a long-term impact on asset prices. 

“Under an optimistic scenario, we expect BTC to update its historical maximum price, and a significant price decrease will follow as part of the correction and the global crisis,” he said. “In a pessimistic scenario, the historical maximum in price will not be reached, and perhaps a large downward price correction has already begun.”

Chances are, someone will be right. 

— Ben Strack 

$650 million 

The value of the crypto assets that Cynthia and Eddy Petion — along with their company, NovaTech — fraudulently raised, according to new allegations from the SEC. 

The US securities regulator charged the Petions and NovaTech promoters Monday, alleging the group ran a multi-level marketing scheme and crypto asset investment program from 2019 to 2023.  

“NovaTech used the majority of investor funds to make payments to existing investors and to pay commissions to promoters, using only a fraction of investor funds for trading,” the SEC said Monday. 

Marathon Digital takes step to buy more BTC

After Marathon Digital last month said it would adopt “a full HODL approach,” the bitcoin miner seems to be following in the footsteps of the biggest bitcoin HODLer of all.

The company said Monday it intends to offer $250 million of convertible senior notes due in 2031 as part of a private offering to qualified institutional buyers. 

Marathon expects to use proceeds of the note sales “to acquire additional bitcoin and for general corporate purposes.” Included in the latter category are possible strategic acquisitions, expansion of existing assets and debt repayment, it notes.

You’ve seen this type of move before, right? If you follow MicroStrategy, then yes.

MicroStrategy in June completed a convertible senior notes offering (due in 2032) with a principal amount reaching $800 million. This came after the business intelligence firm completed a similar offering in March. 

The sales have preceded MicroStrategy buying more BTC.

MicroStrategy owned 226,500 BTC, as of Aug. 1 — making it the largest corporate holder of the asset by far. 

Marathon’s BTC holdings surpassed the 20,000 mark after the miner bought $100 million worth of bitcoin last month. CEO Fred Thiel called bitcoin “the world’s best treasury reserve asset” at the time — noting it encourages sovereign wealth funds, governments and corporations to hold BTC.

I doubt Marathon has a specific aspiration to one day have as much, or more, BTC as MicroStrategy. But if so, it has plenty of catching up to do.

— Ben Strack

On Our Radar

After last week’s market turmoil, investors will be looking for signs the trouble is behind them and the Fed is committed to a September interest rate cut. Here’s what we’re watching: 

• The headline data point this week will be the July CPI report, slated to drop on Wednesday. While it’s not the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, it will be telling nonetheless. Analysts are calling for Core CPI to increase by 0.2% month over month, which would show an annual inflation rate of 3.2% in July. That would be down just slightly from June’s year-over-year reading of 3.3%. If you’ll remember, we had a bit of a bump in inflation at the start of the year, with annual inflation rates of 4%+. In recent months, though, we’ve seen a reversal to disinflation, showing the labor market may be hurting and economic growth could be slowing. All in all, Wednesday’s print could bode well for a fall interest rate cut. 
• Thursday’s jobless claims report will once again be interesting this week. After last week’s figure showed the highest number of initial unemployment filings in almost a year, the market (and the Fed) will want to see that figure tick down this week. A further increase would indicate further softening of the labor market. But it’s worth noting that summer is historically a volatile time for employment data, so take any bad news on Thursday with a grain of salt. 

— Casey Wagner

Bulletin Board 

• Crypto advocacy group the DeFi Education Fund said on Monday it purchased a patent from True Return Systems, ending its years-long legal battle against MakerDAO and Compound Protocol. 
• Bitcoin investors are increasingly executing trades on weekdays (as opposed to over the weekend), according to a new Kaiko Research report. The trend of the ratio between weekday and weekend trades for bitcoin has been steadily declining since 2022, the report shows.  
• Nearly two years after being banned, former President Donald Trump has returned to X (formerly Twitter) — for the evening, at least. The Republican nominee will join X owner Elon Musk for an interview on the platform at 8 pm ET Monday. 

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