Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:
Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
As Asia begins a new trading week, bitcoin (BTC) is changing hands at $109K, up 0.8% in the last week or 4.5% in the last month, according to CoinDesk market data.
In an era of continued sizeable BTC buys from Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR), sustained BTC Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) inflows, and more companies adopting a BTC treasury strategy, one has to wonder why bitcoin’s price hasn’t shot past all-time highs.
A new report from CryptoQuant spells it out: all of this institutional action isn’t making up for a general decline in spot demand for BTC.
«The annual growth of bitcoin demand shows a similar picture: ETFs and MSTR purchases are a portion of bitcoin demand, overall demand contraction is more than offsetting these purchases, and the acceleration of overall demand growth is what drives price rallies,» CryptoQuant wrote in a recent report.
CryptoQuant points out that over the last 30 days, there’s been a contraction in demand for BTC to the tune of -895K.
To make things worse, compared to December, ETF and MSTR buys are slowing. In the last month of the year, ETFs bought 86,000 BTC and MSTR 171,000, while in the last month, those numbers are down significantly. ETFs only purchased 40K BTC, while MSTR bought 16 K.
BTC is stuck in a consolidation phase, and demand isn’t there to fuel a breakout, CryptoQuant writes.
One additional data point for proof of slowing demand is BTC’s nearly empty mempool, which demonstrates how little retail spot demand the market has.
The question is if institutional buys continue to slow, how much resistance will it put on BTC’s price?
SkyBridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci is on the record for saying that the BTC treasury trend — a reliable source of demand for bitcoin — will fade.
“Right now we’re having this replicative treasury company idea,” Scaramucci said during an interview with Bloomberg last week. “So, you know, it will fade.”
“Saylor’s case is different, because he’s got a couple different products going now,” Scaramucci continued in the interview. “I’m not negative on the others, because I’m too bullish on bitcoin, but I would just say as an investor, you have to look through the underlying costs associated with each one of these treasury companies.”
Meanwhile, Standard Chartered remains a BTC bull, with the bank maintaining its $200K price target for the world’s largest digital asset.
Market Movements:
- BTC: Bitcoin consolidated above $108,500 over the weekend, then surged from $108,327 to $108,620 in the last hour, with $108,200-$108,300 now supporting the uptrend.
- ETH: Ethereum rallied from $2,520.45 to $2,558.63 on July 6, with trading volume spiking to 272,352 ETH, finding support at $2,510 amid global economic tensions, while $1.1 billion in June ETH ETF inflows and record whale accumulation signal potential for a breakout despite resistance near $2,600.
- Gold: Gold surged 1.91% to $3,336.61 last week, driven by a weakening dollar, 91.5% odds of a Federal Reserve rate cut in September, looming tariff threats, and a 73% spike in China’s gold imports
- Nikkei 225: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.26% after the White House continued with its mixed messages on tariffs.