Bitcoin, Ethereum Drop After SEC Delays ETF Decision

Bitcoin briefly dropped below $26,000 early this morning as optimism around the approval of a Bitcoin ETF application was again delayed.

Yesterday, the SEC extended the deadline to approve or deny six ETF decisions by 45 days, citing the need for additional time to evaluate the applications.

The negative price movement over the past day reversed the bullish gains in BTC following the Grayscale court decision earlier this week.

On August 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the SEC’s decision to block Grayscale from converting its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) to a spot Bitcoin ETF, ordering the Commission to review the application again.

The ruling raised hopes of imminent approval, pushing Bitcoin’s price surged to a peak near $28,000, per CoinGecko, on Wednesday after the court’s verdict came out.

Another delay from the securities regulator crushed the market’s optimism, however, sending Bitcoin prices back towards $26,000.

Ethereum (ETH) followed the top cryptocurrency with a 3.5% dip since yesterday.

The crypto market cap declined by 3.5%, losing $11.2 billion overnight.

Notably, Maker (MKR) and Toncoin (TON) resisted the bearish move, standing above the rest of the market with positive gains. MKR was up 5% and TON 3% over the last 24 hours.

Maker’s governance token has likely benefited from accumulation by wealthy investors.

On-chain analysis outlet Santiment reported that addresses holding between 100 and 10,000 MKR coins bought around 61,500 MKR tokens since mid-July, worth $70.9 million at current prices, per CoinGecko.

Toncoin’s bullish momentum can be attributed to ecosystem development by the TON Foundation, the team managing and developing atop the Ton blockchain.

The Foundation released a Telegram-centric Web3 app store and also launched a community-driven initiative, Believers.ton, for promoting ecosystem development.

Macro signals mean uncertainty for crypto

The global macroeconomic landscape also sent mixed signals yesterday, jarring all financial markets, including crypto.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released key economic data that reduced the market’s expectations regarding a potential interest rate hike.

A higher benchmark interest rate eats into corporate profits while making low-risk instruments such as government bonds more lucrative, diminishing the future values of stocks and other risk assets.

The U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index for July stood at 3.3%, 0.3% higher from June.

The PCE index is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, tracking the prices of goods and services that consumers purchase.

While the inflation levels were higher than the previous month, PCE readings for July aligned with the market’s expectations raising hopes that the Fed might pause on interest rate hikes.

The S&P 500 index traded slightly lower on Thursday, closing 0.16% lower at 4,507.67 points. While the dollar index (DXY) against other global reserve currencies gained 0.44% Thursday, last trading at 103.56 points.

Investors are now eagerly awaiting the August U.S. employment data scheduled for release today, which will provide more clarity about the potential rate hike decision.