Crypto market rebound; Sotheby’s next NFT auction eyes millennials | The Daily Forkast

Transcript

Welcome to The Daily Forkast, May 21st, 2021, I’m Angie Lau. Editor-in-chief of Forkast.News. Let’s get you up to speed. From Asia to the world.

Total market cap of the global cryptocurrency industry today around US$1.8 trillion dollars as of the end of Asia trading hours. Certainly not taking long for the market to rebound after losing almost a trillion dollars of market cap at one point over this past week. But Bitcoin is still gasping for air. Its market dominance has recovered to just over 40% after dipping below this margin for the first time since the post ICO era in 2018.

TechFX Traders director Tony Sycamore says many still regard Bitcoin as a safe haven.

“It’s almost like when we’re trading stock indices. We’re looking for “hey, where do we take our lead from?” Inevitably we take our lead from the U.S. equity market, whether it be the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq. And I think that still remains the case for Bitcoin.”

But nipping at the heels Ethereum — its percentage of the total crypto market inching closer to 20%. The last time this happened, also post ICO of 2018.

“Ethereum in the very short term doesn’t look that great. It looks like Bitcoin might be the preferred safe haven. Long-term speaking, though, I’m much more bullish. I think there’s a lot more upside potential with Ethereum. Simply because the activity on Ethereum is just magnificent and that the price is still actually okay relative to the activity, the transactions on it.”

We also spoke to FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried today, who says the trigger wasn’t the interesting part of the Bitcoin crash story, but the cascade effect that followed. It’s a dynamic that’s unique to crypto markets.

“What you have in the end, I don’t think there is anything really fundamental that changed from three days ago today. I don’t think is caused by the world changing its mind on crypto. I don’t think it’s really caused by economic fundamentals. I think it was 10% of it was that, 90% was just liquidations. And so it’s sort of an accident. But it was a huge accident.”

The preferred crypto haven for now, Bitcoin down half a percent as of 4:00 pm local Hong Kong time. And in the top ten for cryptocurrencies, Internet Computer ICP getting the nod across the board, according to aggregators. That combines all crypto data from all the biggest exchanges, down 11.7% and is the ninth-largest crypto by market cap.

And now for a bit of crypto meets real world. Art Basel — one of the most prominent art shows in the world — is back in Hong Kong after a year-long pause because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the 2021 UBS Global Art Market Report, millennial high net worth collectors were the highest spenders of art in 2020, with 30% having spent over US$1 million. But how many of those collectors are now considering adding an NFT to their portfolio? Well, Sotheby’s auction house seems to think a lot, especially in Asia. Their second NFT auction kicks off next month, and that’s after their first NFT auction brought in nearly US$17 million. sales.

“In Hong Kong and Asia, I think too that there will be a lot of interest from our current and traditional collectors because it’s very young the current pool of collectors acting in our contemporary art sales in Hong Kong, they are like between 20 to 35 years old. And this is the kind of generation actually that I think will be very keen to look at the different artists and works that stand out in this new medium.”

Millions of dollars entering the world of NFTs and art at the forefront of its adoption.

And I’ll leave you with this — did you know that the trading volume of Tether USDT stablecoin outpaced the top three crypto Bitcoin, Ether and BNB in the last 24 hours? I’m talking about the top three combined.

Tether has received some backlash, as you know, since it released its reserves. Yesterday, CTO Paolo Ardoino told me that despite the backlash, investors are still flocking to Tether when things get difficult. Hate is just part of the game, he says.

Full interview coming next week on Forkast.News.

And that’s The Daily Forkast from our vantage point right here in Asia. For more, visit Forkast.News. I’m Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau. Until the next time.