Who knew Tuesday could bring so much relief from the Monday moanings of Bitcoin traders? After recovering from a 24-hour low of USD 8,040, price has not looked back in any of the global markets.
North America first ensured the recovery remained above USD 8,200 before early European trading pushed prices up to the high of USD 8,495. Some selling pressure took prices down, but now as European markets wind down, price is at a healthy USD 8,360 at 1:21 pm London (CoinDesk).
There is not much else happening with altcoin markets, except that they are now also resuming the arduous climb back up on recovery.
As crypto still picks up the pieces from a grievous week of losses, Binance Research, the research arm of leading crypto exchange Binance, has revealed startling data that puts the crypto crash solely on the shoulders of Bakkt.
We have covered Bakkt a bit in recent times, but we always felt that the advocates of institutional investment into Bitcoin had been overestimating two things: the demand for a financial instrument like Bakkt’s Bitcoin-settled futures, and the inability of big money to enter into Bitcoin investment without the facilitation of a central entity.
When Bakkt launched last week, to a spectacularly underwhelming response from the public, it was, therefore, of little surprise. Indeed, only the experts in public predictions and influencers were flabbergasted by the weak demand for Bakkt products.
And now Binance Research is condemning Bakkt for also causing a massive drop in public sentiment for Bitcoin. In its Global Markets Overview for September 2019, Bakkt’s death on arrival is fingered as the principal event triggering last week’s price tragedy. It summarized:
“Bakkt was touted by many ‘crypto-observers’ as an additional primary channel to bring large institutional flows into cryptocurrency and digital asset markets. It may certainly still do so in the future, as illustrated by the CME futures sluggish start and subsequent pick-up in volumes. Short-term wise though, Bakkt’s disappointing start seems to have been a contributing factor to the recent price decline.”
They now join the likes of JPMorgan and Bloomberg in dismissing Bakkt’s performance, with the latter saying: “It may be that the listing of physically settled futures contracts (that enables some holders of physical Bitcoin e.g. miners to hedge exposures) has contributed to recent price declines, rather than the low initial volumes.”
Stranger still, Bakkt itself seems to agree with all these damning assessments! They do appear a little more aloof about it, though, simply saying that this was merely “price discovery unfolding before our eyes”.
Crypto analyst 100TrillionUSD refuses to blame Bakkt or the other futures products like CME that constantly are said to be at fault every time Bitcoin goes Bearish. Instead, he believes that it is altcoins who are responsible.
