What happened
The crypto market has come to life again, at least during trading on Tuesday. Strong earnings reports and a slowing inflation rate are giving investors hope that the Federal Reserve won’t keep raising interest rates into 2023. For now, this has caused what’s known as a “risk-on” trade in financial markets.
Some of the biggest movers were second-tier cryptocurrencies. Solana (SOL 8.66%) is up 10.2% in the last 24 hours as of 4:15 p.m. ET, Polkadot (DOT 8.06%) is up 10.9%, and Dogecoin (DOGE 4.39%) is up 6.3%.
So what
Interest rates are dropping in reaction to another set of strong earnings reports. U.S. 10-year Treasury bonds are down 17 basis points to 4.08%, Canada’s 10-year yield is down 10 basis points to 3.47%, and Mexico is even down six basis points to 9.86%. This is because investors are anticipating that short-term yields may not go as high as previously feared.
In less speculative news, U.K. lawmakers voted to recognize cryptocurrencies as a regulated financial instrument. This would put more rules on the crypto industry but is generally seen as a positive sign because much of crypto is operating in such a legal gray area at the moment.
The proposed bill still needs to be approved by the upper house of Parliament, but it’s a positive step forward for developed countries looking at crypto regulation.
Reddit’s adoption of NFTs has also taken the crypto world by storm in the last few days. Avatars can be purchased on Reddit using fiat currency and then sold on a crypto marketplace.
Now what
The current crypto winter has battered cryptocurrency values, and many users have left the market. But there continue to be valuable products being built, and from time to time there’s a green shoot like the Reddit NFT story this week.
It will take time for more people to be onboarded and companies to develop use cases on the blockchain, but there’s still a lot of opportunity ahead, and blockchains like Polkadot and Solana are already leading the way.
What’s not clear is what the rise in usage means for the value of cryptocurrencies that have low costs. If financial activity moves to the blockchain, it would be easy to see values rise, but there’s also the potential that fiat purchases like Reddit’s don’t have the same impact as the NFT bull run of 2021. No matter how you look at it, I think more usage of the blockchain is a good thing, but the next bull run may not look the same as the last.
Today’s move may not last, either, given the fact that it’s built on speculation about interest rates. I’m hopeful that rates will not go up as much as expected, but it’ll take a few months to learn the Federal Reserve’s real plans.
