Last week in the news
Due to Thanksgiving holiday in the US, the markets were relatively calm but in a positive mood during the previous week. Bets on Fed`s pausing were supporting the price of Gold and, at the same time, weakening of the US Dollar. Regardless of the negative news for Binance, the crypto market was traded mostly in green where Bitcoin managed for one more time to test the $38K resistance line.
One of the most striking news during the previous week was that Changpeng Zhao stepped down from his position as a CEO of the Binance exchange. The decision was made after he officially pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program in his company. At the same time, agreement has been made with the US Department of Justice for Binance to pay $4.3 billion in penalties. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen comments shortly on the case noting that this is the largest settlement in the history of her department. As part of the settlement, Binance will completely exit from the US. Also, during the period of next five years the US Treasury Department will have complete and full access to both Binance`s records and systems. CZ is still waiting for the final sentence, one of which might be 18 months in prison, as news is reporting. Binance`s token BNB strongly reacted to negative news, with a strong sell side, dropping the price of BNB by 20%, however, the crypto market did not make any significant move on the news. As analysts are commenting, this case, along with recent court decision regarding a failed FTX exchanger, is actually positive for the crypto market and might even lead to the approval of the first crypto ETF. As JPMorgan analysts are noting, the court decision will decrease a systemic risk originating from a potential collapse of the Binance exchanger and shift the whole crypto industry toward the better regulated one.
FOMC November meeting minutes were released during the previous week, revealing that for the moment, Fed officials do not have any appetite for rate cuts anytime soon. Their concerns are still related to a possibility for inflation to move to higher grounds in the coming period, hence, they are of the opinion that rates should be kept at higher levels, until they are confident that inflation is under control. Market expectations are that the Fed is done with hiking rates, while potential for its cut is set for May next year.
World`s most popular retail discount day, better known as the Black Friday, came with a dose of skepticism among retailers this year. The majority of large retailers in the US came with a bit pessimistic expected sales figures for the fourth quarter of this year. Few of them cited challenges like uncertain consumer spending behavior considering persistent inflation or simply dry-up in the consumer spending. Economists and analysts are closely watching forecasts of the largest retailers in the US, considering that it might provide a clue of an actual state of the US economy, and guidance on expectations on the final economic output for this year.
Crypto market cap
The news regarding Binance`s settlement with US officials, which will cost Binance $4.3B in penalties, was perceived positively by the crypto market. Although this does not seem quite logical at first sight, still, a broader perspective needs to be taken into account in order to understand why such action actually has a positive impact on the crypto industry. Since last year there have been a lot of negative developments related to some big names within the crypto field, including a huge scandal with the FTX exchange. Cases like this represent an actual threat to further development and wider acceptance of the crypto by the mainstream, as investors were strongly losing confidence, and in some cases, even money due to inappropriate behavior of unregulated crypto market participants. During previous years, Binance became quite a large exchanger, which collapse might impose a systemic risk, with high impact on other market participants and investors with business connections with this exchanger. A court decision means that such a scenario will not happen, but also implies that some level of order and compliance with the US laws will be in force with the crypto industry increasing safety of this business for investors. As per some analysts, this will also imply higher probability that the SEC will approve the first BTC ETF. Having all that in mind, total crypto market capitalization increased by 3.2%, during the previous week, adding $ 43B to its total cap. Daily trading volumes modestly dropped to $ 81B on a daily basis from $92B traded two weeks ago. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 86%, where it has added total $647B to the market cap.
Total weekly gain in cap of $ 43B was mainly driven by two major coins, Bitcoin and Ether. Bitcoin added 3% during the week, increasing its market cap by almost $22B. Ether gained higher in relative terms, of 5.8%, adding almost $ 14B to its cap. Tether was another coins with a gain above $ 1B, which represents weekly increase of 1.2% for this coin. Among coins with relatively good weekly performance in a relative terms were Uniswap, with an increase in value of 21.4%, Maker was up by 6.7%, LINK surged by more than 8%, while Theta increased its market cap by 12%. There were only few coins which finished the week in a negative territory, like Doge which was down by 2.3%, Polygon lost 5.6%, EOS decreased its cap by 2.5%. Of course, due to negative news Binance Coin finished the week down by 4.3%, losing total $1.6B in value.
Several coins increased the total number of their circulating coins, where Polkadot added 4.6% of new coins on the market, Filecoin 0.4% and Polygon 0.2%. Several other coins added around 0.1% more coins on a weekly basis.
Crypto futures market
In line with the spot market, the crypto futures market also reacted positively on news regarding Binance exchanger. Short term BTC futures ended the week by more than 3% higher from the week before, with December this year closing week at price $38.290. Longer term BTC futures were up by around 5%. Futures maturing in December 2024 ended the week at price $40.940, while those maturing in March 2025 reached the price of $41.690. This is the sign that investors are perceiving positively future price developments of BTC expecting its increase to the levels above $ 40K.
Similar developments were also with ETH futures, where short term futures closed higher by more than 7%, while longer ones were up by more than 6% on a weekly basis. ETH futures maturing in December this year ended the week at price $2.128, while those maturing a year later closed the week at the level of $2.213. This is the first time after many months that all maturities of ETH are finishing the week above the $2K psychological level.
Due to Thanksgiving holiday in the US, the markets were relatively calm but in a positive mood during the previous week. Bets on Fed`s pausing were supporting the price of Gold and, at the same time, weakening of the US Dollar. Regardless of the negative news for Binance, the crypto market was traded mostly in green where Bitcoin managed for one more time to test the $38K resistance line.
One of the most striking news during the previous week was that Changpeng Zhao stepped down from his position as a CEO of the Binance exchange. The decision was made after he officially pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program in his company. At the same time, agreement has been made with the US Department of Justice for Binance to pay $4.3 billion in penalties. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen comments shortly on the case noting that this is the largest settlement in the history of her department. As part of the settlement, Binance will completely exit from the US. Also, during the period of next five years the US Treasury Department will have complete and full access to both Binance`s records and systems. CZ is still waiting for the final sentence, one of which might be 18 months in prison, as news is reporting. Binance`s token BNB strongly reacted to negative news, with a strong sell side, dropping the price of BNB by 20%, however, the crypto market did not make any significant move on the news. As analysts are commenting, this case, along with recent court decision regarding a failed FTX exchanger, is actually positive for the crypto market and might even lead to the approval of the first crypto ETF. As JPMorgan analysts are noting, the court decision will decrease a systemic risk originating from a potential collapse of the Binance exchanger and shift the whole crypto industry toward the better regulated one.
FOMC November meeting minutes were released during the previous week, revealing that for the moment, Fed officials do not have any appetite for rate cuts anytime soon. Their concerns are still related to a possibility for inflation to move to higher grounds in the coming period, hence, they are of the opinion that rates should be kept at higher levels, until they are confident that inflation is under control. Market expectations are that the Fed is done with hiking rates, while potential for its cut is set for May next year.
World`s most popular retail discount day, better known as the Black Friday, came with a dose of skepticism among retailers this year. The majority of large retailers in the US came with a bit pessimistic expected sales figures for the fourth quarter of this year. Few of them cited challenges like uncertain consumer spending behavior considering persistent inflation or simply dry-up in the consumer spending. Economists and analysts are closely watching forecasts of the largest retailers in the US, considering that it might provide a clue of an actual state of the US economy, and guidance on expectations on the final economic output for this year.
Crypto market cap
The news regarding Binance`s settlement with US officials, which will cost Binance $4.3B in penalties, was perceived positively by the crypto market. Although this does not seem quite logical at first sight, still, a broader perspective needs to be taken into account in order to understand why such action actually has a positive impact on the crypto industry. Since last year there have been a lot of negative developments related to some big names within the crypto field, including a huge scandal with the FTX exchange. Cases like this represent an actual threat to further development and wider acceptance of the crypto by the mainstream, as investors were strongly losing confidence, and in some cases, even money due to inappropriate behavior of unregulated crypto market participants. During previous years, Binance became quite a large exchanger, which collapse might impose a systemic risk, with high impact on other market participants and investors with business connections with this exchanger. A court decision means that such a scenario will not happen, but also implies that some level of order and compliance with the US laws will be in force with the crypto industry increasing safety of this business for investors. As per some analysts, this will also imply higher probability that the SEC will approve the first BTC ETF. Having all that in mind, total crypto market capitalization increased by 3.2%, during the previous week, adding $ 43B to its total cap. Daily trading volumes modestly dropped to $ 81B on a daily basis from $92B traded two weeks ago. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 86%, where it has added total $647B to the market cap.
Total weekly gain in cap of $ 43B was mainly driven by two major coins, Bitcoin and Ether. Bitcoin added 3% during the week, increasing its market cap by almost $22B. Ether gained higher in relative terms, of 5.8%, adding almost $ 14B to its cap. Tether was another coins with a gain above $ 1B, which represents weekly increase of 1.2% for this coin. Among coins with relatively good weekly performance in a relative terms were Uniswap, with an increase in value of 21.4%, Maker was up by 6.7%, LINK surged by more than 8%, while Theta increased its market cap by 12%. There were only few coins which finished the week in a negative territory, like Doge which was down by 2.3%, Polygon lost 5.6%, EOS decreased its cap by 2.5%. Of course, due to negative news Binance Coin finished the week down by 4.3%, losing total $1.6B in value.
Several coins increased the total number of their circulating coins, where Polkadot added 4.6% of new coins on the market, Filecoin 0.4% and Polygon 0.2%. Several other coins added around 0.1% more coins on a weekly basis.
Crypto futures market
In line with the spot market, the crypto futures market also reacted positively on news regarding Binance exchanger. Short term BTC futures ended the week by more than 3% higher from the week before, with December this year closing week at price $38.290. Longer term BTC futures were up by around 5%. Futures maturing in December 2024 ended the week at price $40.940, while those maturing in March 2025 reached the price of $41.690. This is the sign that investors are perceiving positively future price developments of BTC expecting its increase to the levels above $ 40K.
Similar developments were also with ETH futures, where short term futures closed higher by more than 7%, while longer ones were up by more than 6% on a weekly basis. ETH futures maturing in December this year ended the week at price $2.128, while those maturing a year later closed the week at the level of $2.213. This is the first time after many months that all maturities of ETH are finishing the week above the $2K psychological level.
