Continuing with recent patterns, even the most modest of crypto gains were met waves of selling on Thursday, sending bitcoin back to $88,000 after a rally above $93,000 just hours earlier.
The move higher had begun on Wednesday evening in the U.S. after Nvidia (NVDA) calmed jittery markets with an earnings beat and rosy outlook. In addition to boosting battered crypto, the NVDA results sent the Nasdaq higher by more than 2%.
Stocks are also rapidly reversing their gains, with the Nasdaq now higher by just 0.3%. Even mighty Nvidia is trading flat after being up more than 5%.
Hurting sentiment at the macro level are continued ideas that the Fed, for now, appears set not to trim interest rates at its December meeting. The September employment report (released today instead of weeks ago due to the government shutdown) showed a far stronger than expected 119,000 jobs added that month.
Also leading hawk, Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammach, was on the wires suggesting that not only was perky inflation not a reason to cut rates, but high stock prices were also a concern. Market veterans will hear echoes of Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” speech of 1996. Stocks went on to strongly rally for four more years.
Hit harder than bitcoin was Ethereum’s ether , now off nearly 4% over the past hour, perhaps weighed down by digital asset treasury FG Nexus selling a chunk of its holdings to buy back some of its battered stock (down more than 95% from its summer high).
A check of crypto-related stocks now finds large losses after opening gains. Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) is down by another 4.7% and off 62% year-over-year to a new 52-week low of $178. Exchanges Coinbase (COIN) and Gemini (GEMI) are down 4% and 5%, respectively, and stabecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) is lower by 3.5%.