Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making waves in the markets:
Welcome to the Asia Morning Briefing, your daily roundup of the top stories during U.S. hours, along with an overview of market trends and analysis. For a comprehensive look at U.S. markets, refer to CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.
There’s ongoing speculation about whether bitcoin is falling behind gold. Darius Sit, co-founder and Managing Partner at QCP Capital, suggests that the discussion often focuses on price, while liquidity factors may be more significant.
Singapore’s QCP, one of the largest trading desks in Asia, handles over $60 billion in volume each year. Sit remarked, “Comparing Bitcoin to gold is like equating a mouse to an elephant… Different market forces impact their prices in the short term, but their long-term narratives are quite aligned.”
Gold’s supremacy is driven by sovereign demand and a robust market framework, whereas bitcoin’s struggles are linked to unwound positions rather than fundamental failures. Since gold’s market cap is so vast, its daily price fluctuations can overshadow bitcoin’s entire market value, making short-term discrepancies more of a physical reality than a narrative judgment.
According to Sit, a pivotal moment wasn’t gold’s rally, but the crypto market’s deleveraging event on October 10, known as 10/10. This incident clearly differentiated bitcoin from other digital assets, revealing the disparate liquidity and credit dynamics in the market.
“October 10 showed that liquidity varies significantly between crypto, altcoins, and bitcoin,” Sit explained. The takeaway is that crypto hasn’t lost its appeal; rather, the market only truly understood its depth after forced liquidations. This resulted in a thinner market landscape where prices can fluctuate dramatically.
Unlike traditional markets, which have broker layers that cushion against losses, crypto exchanges often function as single points of failure, relying on shareholder equity and insurance funds, sometimes leading to socialized losses. “Once socialized losses occur, trust in your platform diminishes,” Sit cautioned, highlighting the industry’s main institutional barrier. While volatility is common, the unpredictability of liquidation processes during crisis events can be more concerning.
Market Movement
BTC: Bitcoin experienced significant fluctuations but rose approximately 5% in the last hour, following a volatile selloff that brought it close to $60,000. The RSI nearing 17 indicates historically oversold conditions, often preceding substantial rebounds.
ETH: Ether traded around $1,895, recovering roughly 7% in the past hour after a liquidation-led decline, with volatility spiking due to deep oversold conditions prompting a short-term rebound, despite substantial losses over the last 24 hours.
Gold: Gold price dipped about 3.7% to around $4,740 per ounce, affected by a broad pullback in risk assets, but analysts maintain that the longer-term uptrend is supported by consistent central-bank purchases and concerns over debt and currency confidence, with projections suggesting potential prices may reach $7,000 by 2026.
Nikkei 225: The Nikkei 225 fell about 1%, extending its three-day losing streak as a decline in U.S. tech stocks impacted Asian markets, dragging South Korea’s Kospi down 5% and putting pressure on equities in Hong Kong and Australia, contributing to a broader risk-off sentiment affecting silver and other volatile assets.
