"RBC-Crypto" does not provide investment advice; the material is published for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrency is a volatile asset that can lead to financial losses.
On the morning of August 24, Bitcoin ($BTC) is trading above $77K, and Ethereum ($ETH) — above $2.45K. The past week became one of the most significant in terms of growth rates for Bitcoin in several years — the price increased by 23%. Prior to this, such growth was observed only in March 2023. $ETH appreciated by about 31% — similar dynamics were observed last year as well.
Cryptocurrency Prices
In the catalogs of major online exchange aggregators, offers to sell the Tether stablecoin ($USDT) on the TRC20 standard for cash rubles or via SBP transfers start from 85.4 rubles per 1 $USDT.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose above $2.61 trillion, with a weekly increase of over 22%. Such growth rates have not been observed since 2021.
Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, the strongest gain over the past 24 hours was shown by the token of the lending protocol Morpho (MORPHO), which rose by 25%. The token of the decentralized finance project — JUST (JST) fell the most during this time, its price dropping by 4%.
The cryptocurrency market's fear and greed index stood at 73 points (the "greed" zone) out of 100 possible — this indicates that investors have become inclined to buy cryptocurrencies. At the beginning of last week, the indicator was only 31 points.
Regarding capital inflows into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on $BTC, for the trading week ending August 23, capital inflow amounted to over $1.9 billion. $ETH funds recorded an inflow of almost $700 million. Both figures became the highest weekly values since the fall of last year.
Bitcoin News
The growth of the crypto market last week led to numerous positive forecasts regarding the Bitcoin price. Forecasts are primarily based on the growth of the US national debt and, as a consequence, the flow of liquidity into scarce assets like gold. For example, the head of the financial company Strive, Matt Cole, predicts the beginning of the "most powerful growth cycle" for Bitcoin due to the weakening of national currencies and the development of AI.
The founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio, suggests investors hold "a little Bitcoin" in the face of rising risks associated with the US national debt. However, he indicates that the share of gold in portfolios should remain dominant compared to the leading cryptocurrency.
In addition, many key players in the crypto market forecast a multiple increase in the price of the leading cryptocurrency. Growth over several years up to $500K per coin is expected by the head of the largest US crypto exchange, Coinbase, and the major capital management company VanEck.
Cryptocurrency News
The past weekend was marked by a series of hacks and new vulnerabilities in cryptocurrency projects.
Vulnerabilities were found and fixed in the protocols of an Ethereum app from the hardware crypto wallet manufacturer Ledger. Although no damage to users was publicly reported, it is noteworthy that the code errors were once again found using AI tools.
In one of the largest gaming NFT projects of past years, Sandbox, "a vulnerability related to the cross-chain bridge for the project's tokens $SAND on the Base and BNB Chain networks was identified and fully contained. As the team stated, the attacker was able to create unbacked $SAND tokens. But the impact of the exploit turned out to be minimal, amounting to less than 0.01% of the total asset supply.
A rare attack in the crypto market — a governance attack — occurred targeting the Term Labs protocol. The attacker managed to purchase enough of the project's tokens and influence the governance vote, resulting in $8.5 million being withdrawn.
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