News Flash - Updates from my Crypto Broker - 23 August 2018

News Flash! News Flash!

Another update from my crypto-broker just in an hour ago.

Here goes:

23 Aug 2018
Asia Desk

BTC and ETH took us on a rollercoaster ride from Asia morning yesterday. Both BTC and ETH spiked up 10.7% and 10.0% respectively to 6900 and 295.5 (from lows of 6232 and 268.88). However, the spike was quickly met with selling pressure, gradually seeing BTC and ETH trickle lower to 6251 and 259.20 lows (intraday dip of 9.3% and 13.4% from the 24 hour highs).

The volatility on the upside didn’t come as a huge surprise. With the BFX short-to-long ratio at all-time highs of close to 1.5, some unwinding was to be expected. A forward indicator of this was perhaps a flip in the BitMex funding 2 days before to shorts getting paid (i.e. increase in margin long interest).

The curious thing about this particular episode was a movement of about 100 million USD worth of tether into BFX accounts and also the fact that the spike occurred right after BitMex was closed for maintenance. Clearly an unpleasant Asia morning for margin shorts who got stopped-out.

Even with the spike, both BFX and BitMex are still seeing large skews to the short side. We expect more short squeezes in the coming weeks, especially as we are trading close to the lower bound of recent ranges.

In other news, the SEC has yet again rejected attempts to list exchange-traded funds backed by Bitcoin. This time blocking ETFs from ProShares, GraniteShares and Direxion on concern prices could be vulnerable to manipulation. However, the market had priced the bad news in so reaction was rather muted.

Indic: BTC 6390/6445 ETH 271/275

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This year of crypto has been an interesting one - who knows what else might happen towards the last trimester of the year.

Stay tuned for more info!

Cheers!

@watch-chronolog