On Thin Ice: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market mood remains somber, with bearish analyst projections circulating amid price weakness. Bitcoin’s BTC$87.336,49 bounce from Monday’s dip below $84,000 stalled near $87,000, while major altcoins including XRP, ETH, SOL and DOGE continue to press near their Monday lows.

The CoinDesk 20 and CoinDesk 80 Indices have added less than 1% in the past 24 hours.

“This is a dangerous lull following downward momentum, with the risk of reverting to a sell-off at any moment,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, the chief market analyst at FXPro, who noted that the market cap is just below $3 trillion. “All attention is now focused on whether the bulls in the crypto market will be able to defend the late November lows near $2.83 trillion,” he said in an email to CoinDesk.

One bright spot: The ETF dumping has paused. The 11 U.S.-listed spot ETFs saw inflows of $8.48 million on Monday, extending a three-day streak, according to SoSoValue. However, the combined four-day figure of $229 million is still a far cry from the billions in outflows since early October and will need to grow significantly to lift valuations.

Meanwhile, some observers called for reassessment of panic over prospects of higher interest rates in Japan and their destabilizing impact on cryptocurrencies and the wider financial market.

“If the Japanese government allows interest costs as a percentage of GDP to rise, widening the budget deficit while potential GDP growth is near zero, it will be forced to give up on the welfare state,” Blokland Smart Multi-Asset Fund founder Jeroen Blokland said on X. “In a society that is among the oldest in the world. That just isn’t going to happen. Yield Curve Control will become part of the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy again.”

In other key news, KAS, the native token of the layer-1, proof-of-work Kaspa blockchain, which employs the blockDAG structure and GHOSTDAG protocol to achieve high throughput, showed weakness.

The token rose 8% last month, bucking the broader market weakness, as investors cheered verified programmability (vProgs), which brings native, lightweight programmability directly on Kaspa’s layer 1 without compromising speed, security or decentralization.

In traditional markets, Treasury yields remain elevated, putting a floor under the dollar index. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

Crypto
- Dec. 2: Grayscale Chainlink Trust ETF (GLNK) is expected to begin trading on NYSE Arca, converting the existing chainlink LINK$12,25 trust into a spot chainlink ETF.
- Dec. 2, 12 p.m.: MultiversX (EGLD) “Staking V5” mainnet upgrade activates at epoch 1,951.
- Dec. 2: VeChain (VET) Hayabusa hard fork upgrade activates on mainnet at block 23,414,400.
Macro
- Dec. 2, 10 a.m.: Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman speech. Watch live.
- Dec. 2, 10 a.m.: U.S. SEC Chair Paul Atkins delivers a speech titled “Revitalizing America’s Markets at 250” at the New York Stock Exchange after ringing the opening bell at 9:15 a.m.
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- Dec. 2: Forward Industries (FWDI), post-market, N/A.

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

Governance votes and calls
- Decentraland DAO is voting on a proposal to commission an independent audit of Regenesis Labs by community member Maryana to address concerns over fund usage and transparency. Voting ends Dec. 2.
Unlocks
- ENA$0.2385 to unlock $50.4 million worth of tokens, representing 2.8% of supply.
Token Launches
- Dec. 2: Aster’s S4 buybacks begin.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”

Market Movements

BTC is up 0.4% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $86,801.55 (24hrs: +0.27%)
ETH is up 0.27% at $2,799.42 (24hrs: -1.27%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 0.15% at 2,727.64 (24hrs: -0.47%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 7 bps at 2.87%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0069% (7.5829% annualized) on Binance

DXY is unchanged at 99.49
Gold futures are down 1.29% at $4,219.70
Silver futures are down 2.89% at $57.44
Nikkei 225 closed unchanged at 49,303.45
Hang Seng closed up 0.24% at 26,095.05
FTSE is unchanged at 9,709.62
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.5% at 5,695.65
DJIA closed on Monday down 0.9% at 47,289.33
S&P 500 closed down 0.53% at 6,812.63
Nasdaq Composite closed down 0.38% at 23,275.92
S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.9% at 31,101.78
S&P 40 Latin America closed down 0.27% at 3,163.56
U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is unchanged at 4.09%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,831.75
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.14% at 25,428.00
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 47,366.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 59.55% (+0.24%)
Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03228 (-0.5%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,075 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $36.95
Total fees: 4.1 BTC / $352,115
CME Futures Open Interest: 121,220 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 20.7 oz.
BTC vs gold market cap: 5.81%

Technical Analysis

Weekly chart of BTC/USD Longs on Bitfinex in candlestick format. (TradingView)

The number of long positions in the Bitfinex-listed BTC/USD pair has risen to 71,809, the highest since February 2024.
It’s a sign that traders are increasingly taking bullish exposure.
Historical data shows that a sharp increase in the number of bullish bets typically occurs during a downtrend.