Topics Daily BitsCurrent Page

Traditional Assets Outperform BTC; Founders of a16z and Solana to Back New Crypto Fund

Intermediate
Daily Bits

Chart of the Day

After a promising start to the week, the broader crypto market took a beating on Wednesday as investors started to adopt increasingly risk-off and defensive strategies to navigate the growing macroeconomic uncertainties. As a result, BTC took a plunge to the $38k handle, wiping out all the gains it made on the back of the bullish news that BTC is now included as a viable investment option in retirement plans. As of the time of writing, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap is consolidating its losses above the $38k level (its lowest mark since early March of this year) after plunging by 5.3% in the last 24 hours. Currently, BTC's upside gains are likely capped at the $39.2k level, while there is also a chance that it may further correct to the $36.2k to $37.5k region. 

On a broader scale, most traditional asset groups like tech equities and gold have been outperforming BTC since the start of the year. Within this timeframe, Nasdaq has declined by 19% (as of the time of writing), and has managed to maintain a marginal edge over BTC. Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index and gold have both thrived in this prevailing risk-off environment, and are living up to their reputations of being safe haven assets amid increasing geopolitical uncertainties. 

In a similar vein to BTC, ETH has once again failed to defend the $3,000 mark. It is currently stabilizing above the $2,800 level after shedding 5.5% of its market value in a single day. Most major altcoins are also deep in the red. DOGE, the top-gainer on Monday, is now leading the altcoin downside correction wave after suffering a double-digit percentage loss from 24 hours ago. 

Talk of the Town

In some better news, capital has been flowing into the crypto space at an unprecedented rate. Asymmetric, a new investment firm founded by Joe McCann (former strategist at Microsoft), has announced that they are aiming to raise $1 billion to leverage Wall Street tools in order to fund crypto token deals. McCann sees the new investment firm as a company that "takes a very technological view on crypto", and describes it as a tech company with "the mandate of a fund". He has managed to convince some of the biggest names within the crypto industry to back him up. These include the likes of a16z's Marc Andreessen and Solana's Anatoly Yakovenko.