Daily News | Crypto Poised to Rise For a Second Day As US Futures Point to Green Opening in Asian Equities

TL; DR

🥂 Good morning, today is Wednesday, Dec. 21 2022.

Macro: US equities were moderately up and futures are pointing to a green opening for Asian equities. Among markets, the Japanese Yen soared more than 4% against the dollar after BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda shocked markets by doubling a cap on 10-year yields. Meanwhile, Gold continued to rise.

Crypto: Nearly everything is green. BTC and Ether were up 2.8% and 4.4% over the past 24 hours. Notable gainers include Uniswap, Avalanche, and Dogecoin with each rising above the 5% threshold.

Topic of the Day: Uniswap Accepts Credit Cards

Notable Headlines: Visa taps Starknet for payment collab; Central African Republic delays CBDC launch; Elon Musk to step down as CEO of Twitter…

Macro at a Glance

US stocks experienced a volatile session, with technology shares under pressure and the S&P 500 ending with a modest gain after a four-day losing streak. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell for the fifth day in a row, its longest stretch of declines since October. Economic data showed declining new US home construction and plummeting permits in November, indicating that Federal Reserve tightening is having its desired effect. However, if housing remains costly, the Fed may continue to raise rates, which could be detrimental for risk assets in the long term.

Treasuries broadly held losses, with the 10-year rate climbing to around 3.69%. Yields rose after the Bank of Japan (BoJ) allowed its 10-year borrowing costs to rise to around 0.5%, up from the previous 0.25% upper limit, causing the yen to soar more than 4% against the dollar. This move has led analysts to predict more losses ahead as Japanese investors, major players in US and European debt, now have more incentive to bring money home. Many economists expect the BoJ to raise interest rates next year, joining the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank after a decade of stimulus.

In commodity markets, the weaker dollar boosted gold prices, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures rose above $75 a barrel. Investors are also awaiting earnings reports from FedEx and Nike after the markets close. With few macro catalysts before the end of the year, swings in stocks are expected to pick up.

💡 Today's Markets at Dec. 20 21:51 UTC

BTC +1.78% at $16,888; Ether +3.33% at $1,215.

Asia: Japan -2.46%; Hong Kong -1.33%; China -1.07%; India -0.19%.

Europe: London +0.23%; Paris +0.35%; Frankfurt -0.42%.

US Spot Indices: Dow +0.28%; S&P +0.10%; Nasdaq +0.01%.

US Index Futures: Dow +0.37%; S&P +0.16%; Nasdaq -0.06%.

US Two-year Treasury unchanged at 4.262%.

US Ten-year Treasury up 10bps at 3.692%.

UK Ten-year Government up 12bps at 3.595%.

US Dollar Index -0.69% at 103.53.

FX in 24hrs: GBP: +0.34%; EUR: +0.20%; JPY: +3.8%; CNY: +0.25%.

Gold +1.82% at 1,817; Brent Crude unchanged at 79.8.

🧠 Catalysts this week
- Wednesday: Germany GfK Consumer Confidence, Canada Inflation Rate
- Friday: Japan Inflation Rate, US Personal Income & Personal Spending, US Durable Goods Orders

Crypto Daily Digest

At 21:00 UTC, Bitcoin was trading at around $16,845, up 1.26% over the past 24 hours. Ether had risen more than 2.79% to move back above $1,200. Binance's BNB token added 2.27%, Ripple's XRP gained 2.55%, and Polygon's MATIC was up 1.64%. Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, two dog-themed memecoins, were also trading higher, with DOGE rising 1.89% and SHIB up 1.79%.

U.S. stock indices rose marginally with the S&P 500 topping 0.1% and the Nasdaq 100 nearly unchanged at 0.01%. Coinbase was down about 0.57%, while shares of Silvergate fell by 1.57%. MicroStrategy shares were down by 0.8%, and Block traded up by around 1.6%.

Per IntoTheBlock data, Bitcoin’s correlation coefficient with the S&P stood at 0.03, down from 0.18 a week ago. With Ether, the correlation was at 0.29, up from 0.18 over a week. With the US Dollar Index (DXY), their correlations were at -0.86 and -0.74, nearly unchanged from -0.88 and -0.84 a week ago.

Grayscale's GBTC fund's discount to net asset value (NAV) narrowed to 46.4% from 48%, according to data from The Block. Grayscale revealed that it will explore returning up to 20% of GBTC's capital to shareholders if it cannot turn the product into an exchange-traded fund (ETF).

🌐 Top 20 Coins Performance

BTC +1.78% at 16,888; ETH +3.33% at 1,215.

BNB +3.54% at 251; XRP +3.14% at 0.351; DOGE +3.35% at 0.0745.

ADA +1.28% at 0.258; MATIC +2.47% at 0.798; DOT +1.66% at 4.60.

TRX +2.12% at 0.0546; SHIB +1.89% at 0.00000840; LTC +3.82% at 65.33.

SOL +2.56% at 12.27; UNI +5.29% at 5.32; AVAX +4.23% at 11.93.

TONCOIN +1.00% at 2.43; GT +1.59% at 3.42.

Topic of the Day: Uniswap Accepts Credit Cards

Uniswap, the decentralized exchange, has teamed up with fintech firm Moonpay to enable users to buy cryptocurrency using credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers. The bank transfer option is available in most US states, the UK, Brazil, and the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

Uniswap users can now convert fiat to cryptocurrency on the Ethereum mainnet, Polygon, Optimism, and Artibrum in just a few minutes. Initially, Uniswap will support a range of cryptocurrencies, including Dai, Ether, USD Coin, Tether, Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), and Wrapped Ether (wETH), depending on the user's location.

Uniswap hopes its latest rollout will make the onboarding process for decentralized finance (DeFi) users smoother and more convenient, as centralized exchanges (CEX) are often seen as more user-friendly, but carry associated risks. In November, Uniswap faced backlash for updating its privacy policy to include the collection and storage of user data, which goes against the core values of cryptocurrency.

🔼 Uniswap (UNI): $5.32 (+5.46%)
To put into perspectives, UNI was trading at a discount of 68.6% since the start of the year ($17.00). Over the past three months, UNI has been down by 17.8%. Over the course of four weeks, the price of UNI was essentially unchanged. Since its initial offering ($2.95) back in Sep. 2020, UNI has been trading up by 81.1% though it was still down by 87.8% from its Apr. 2021 height of $43.90.

Going forward, the macro climate will inevitably limit the growth of UNI despite its astounding fundamentals via recent partnerships. In terms of price action behavior, UNI has been rebounding from its 23.6% ($4.94) weekly Fibonacci Retracement level as far back as Jul. 2022, and the last rebound was only yesterday.

Naturally, after the rebound, the target for UNI becomes the 61.8% ($6.01) monthly Fibonacci Retracement level (measured from Nov. 2020 - Apr. 2021), and if we’re able to see the bulls push through, the next target will be the 50% ($6.74) weekly Fibonacci Retracement level (measured from Apr. 04, 2022 - May. 09, 2022). Keep in mind, as mentioned previously, UNI’s growth is capped in the medium term due to macro factors and all coins will inevitably follow the bigger trend.

On the contrary, if the bears manage to drag down UNI below the 23.6% weekly Fibonacci Retracement level of $4.94, then our target becomes $4.34, and then the $3.29. [Click here to see for yourself.](https://www.tradingview.com/chart/UNIUSDT/BPYigMhy-Uniswap-Outlook/)

UNI Daily Timeframe:
- Closest support zone: 5.15 - 4.94
- Closest resistance zone: 5.29 - 5.50
- Key Level: 5.289 (Monthly High of Dec. 2020)


UNI Resistance zones
1. 5.29 - 5.50
2. 5.87 - 6.01
3. 6.80 - 7.25

UNI Support zones
1. 5.15 - 4.94
2. 4.86 - 4.79
3. 4.51 - 4.34


Further Reading
[DCG Sells off Tokens Crazily, Is Grayscale Crash Coming Soon?] | The tokens such as FIL, ZEN, ETC, NEAR were sold off on a large scale, and the selling pressure may come from DCG. Genesis has been trying to raise funds in the past few days, but so far, it has not been able to do so.

[Market Trend]｜Crypto Market Revealed a Mixed Bag, SBF Arrested In The Bahamas, ETH Gas Fees Has a Moderate Increase

[Gate US Obtained Licenses for Digital Asset Trading, Bringing World-Leading Crypto Exchange Services to the US] | Gate US will prioritize security and transparency to bolster America's trust and confidence in cryptocurrency.

Notable headlines

🔹 CME Group and CF Benchmark launched reference rates and real-time indices for Aave, Synthetix, and Curve. The data can be used to more accurately mark crypto portfolios and build structured products.

🔹 Elon Musk’s poll on whether he should step down as CEO of Twitter ended with 57.5% favoring the change. New Twitter leadership would mark the end of a tumultuous few weeks, defined by product changes and mass layoffs at the business.

🔹 The price of Donald Trump’s newly released NFT collection has fluctuated over the weekend. Its floor price hit a peak of 0.839 ETH on Saturday and fell back down to 0.295 ETH.

🔹 Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has launched Beacon, a web3 startup accelerator. Beacon aims to create the next 100 web3 unicorns.

🔹 The listing of Sango, the Central African Republic’s national currency, will be delayed to the first quarter of next year, according to the project’s Telegram feed.

🔹 Visa said that StarkNet, a layer 2 blockchain built on top of Ethereum, may help bridge the gap between crypto and the real world by letting people who use self-custodial wallets pay their bills more easily. “We see auto payments as a core functionality that existing blockchain infrastructure lacks,” the authors of a Visa crypto proposal wrote.




Author: Gate.io Researcher Peter L.
This article represents only the researcher's views and does not constitute any investment advice.
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