If crypto is an alternative to stock market volatility, it didn’t show it this week. This week stocks wrestled with a rise in Treasury yields to their highest levels since 2007 , which initially pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average into negative territory for the year. Crypto, which is sometimes seen by investors as a safe haven amid uncertainty in the broader financial market, didn’t exactly live up to that narrative. Bitcoin is on pace to post a 3% gain for the week, according to Coin Metrics, but has failed to hold onto its breakouts. Meanwhile, ether is heading for a losing week even after ether futures ETFs began trading, which was expected to be a positive catalyst for the cryptocurrency and digital assets broadly. The weekly performance of both coins give yet another glimpse into the crypto market’s struggle this year, where potential catalysts take price action only so far before the low volume and liquidity regain control. For that investors have the ongoing regulatory uncertainty to thank. “Crypto markets seem to be particularly quick and optimistic when pricing in potentially positive news, and often this year those predictions have proven too optimistic and too premature,” said Conor Ryder, head of research at stablecoin company Ethena Labs. “Prices have really struggled to hold after a move up this year. … There’s weak liquidity on both sides of orderbooks so it’s easy to move markets up on speculation, but there’s also a lack of support to the downside as well so prices often retreat quickly.” This week, the big story for crypto markets was the first week of trading for several ether futures ETFs, which was underwhelming with less than $2 million in trading volume on the first day across six different ETH ETFs, according to Ryder. That represents about 0.2% of the trading volume of bitcoin futures ETFs on their first day of trading, he added. “The consensus was that the better performing spot ETF’s would bring a wave of new capital to crypto as the next catalyst to lift markets,” Ryder said. “After an obvious lack of demand for the ETH futures ETFs, that consensus forecast could be too ambitious, and perhaps there is still too much regulatory uncertainty in crypto to attract a new wave of institutional capital.” Early in the week bitcoin climbed back to the $28,000 level for the first time since August but gave up those gains in the same day. The flagship cryptocurrency remains in its tight range of between $25,000 and $30,000, which it has struggled to break out of on both the upside and downside this year. Bitcoin and ether, the “blue chip” coins in the crypto market, are widely seen as high-risk and notoriously volatile assets that sometimes move in tandem with the broader market. Many crypto investors take a longer view on them, however, and may still see them as safe havens. While one group may be concerned that their prices have been stuck this year, the other sees them as resilient in the face of U.S. regulatory uncertainty and rising rates. “If you have a longer time horizon and believe in the store of value argument and utility of the underlying technology, it’s a good place to have an allocation,” said David Wells, CEO of Enclave Markets. “But if you’re focused on short term price movements, it won’t look like a safe haven asset, primarily because this is still a relatively new and smaller asset class compared to traditional assets.” “As in previous cycles, sentiment could shift quickly with any positive developments such as U.S. ETF approvals or regulatory developments in other jurisdictions,” he added. “Low liqudity and lower volumes, particularly from retail investors, has generally led to more retracements or reversion to mean after any idiosyncratic catalysts” this year.
