On Tuesday, bitcoin led a downturn in the cryptocurrency market as ether ETFs made their debut. Concurrently, Mt. Gox transferred more bitcoin to creditors, while investors capitalized on profits following bitcoin’s strongest week since March.
Bitcoin fell 3% to $65,891.50, as reported by Coin Metrics, while ether saw a modest decline of less than 1% to $3,476.04. Analysts and investors attributed the market movement to profit-taking, given bitcoin’s 22.85% surge and ether’s 12.75% gain just the week before.
Additionally, Bitcoin network data reveals that Mt. Gox has moved around 5,000 bitcoins away from its platform, likely as part of its ongoing efforts to repay creditors, which commenced earlier this month. Users on Reddit confirmed receiving their reimbursements from Kraken on Tuesday. Mt. Gox, which declared bankruptcy following a significant hack a decade ago, has until October to return more than 140,000 bitcoins to victims of the breach.
Despite these developments, the market is expected to absorb the negative impact, buoyed by long-term optimism surrounding the success of ether ETFs and anticipation related to the U.S. presidential election.
We anticipate that the initial adoption of ether ETFs will be relatively slow and modest compared to the enthusiasm seen for bitcoin ETFs,” noted Devin Ryan, an analyst at JMP Securities. He explained, “The bitcoin ETF market is still in its early stages, with many major investors yet to fully participate.
In contrast, Antoni Trenchev, co-founder of Nexo, cautioned about potential volatility in ether. He drew parallels to the launch of bitcoin ETFs in January, highlighting how bitcoin initially hit a record high, then dropped 20%, before rallying to new peaks.
Like the bitcoin ETF, it will take time for investments in the ETH ETF to have a significant impact on the markets,” said Ben Kurland, CEO of crypto research platform DYOR.
He also mentioned that President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race has made investors uncertain. “They’re waiting to see what Vice President Kamala Harris thinks about crypto and whether she could gain ground in the polls,” he added.
Antoni Trenchev agreed, saying, “Bitcoin’s recent drop is due to Kamala Harris entering the presidential race unexpectedly, adding uncertainty to a contest that seemed to favor Donald Trump’s pro-crypto stance.
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