Coindesk

Bitcoin's (BTC) much-anticipated breakout above $100,000 remains out of reach, with prices retreating to $94,500 overnight. Key indicators point to further declines, potentially to levels below $90,000.The first indicator is the 25-delta risk reversal, which measures the volatility premium of out-of-the-money calls used to bet on price rallies relative to OTM put options offering downside protection.On Deribit, calls expiring this Friday now trade at a cheaper valuation to puts, resulting in a negative risk reversal, according to data source Amberdata. The first negative reading in at least a month indicates a bias for protective puts.Perhaps sophisticated traders are prepping for an extension of Monday's price slide. On Monday, traders sold call spreads and bought put options tied to BTC on...

A bitcoin (BTC)-led crypto market correction continued into its third day as the asset lost a further 3.5% in the past 24 hours, nearing $94,000 a week after it came within touching distance of the landmark $100,000 level for the first time.BTC has pared weekly gains from over 10% to just 3% amid profit-taking on the expected pullback. Major tokens have followed the tumble, data shows, with Solana’s SOL, BNB, Cardano’s ADA and dogecoin (DOGE) falling as much as 7% in the past 24 hours.The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index tracking the biggest tokens by market capitalization, minus stablecoins, is down nearly 3%.As such, a short-term target of $100,000 per BTC remains unchanged, with analysts viewing a correction...

The U.K.'s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, said it wants to implement a crypto regime by 2026 in anticipation of growing crypto ownership in the country.A road map released by the FCA, which oversees the industry, said the agency plans to publish discussion papers on market abuse and disclosures by the end of this year. It intends to have papers on stablecoins, trading platforms, staking, prudential crypto exposure and lending by early next year. The regime is scheduled to go live after the final policy statements are published in 2026.An FCA-commissioned study shows ownership of crypto assets grew by 4% in the past two years, to include some 7 million adults out of the country's roughly 68 million population.The...

Memecoins are the most divisive topic in crypto.By memecoins, I mean tokens that represent an idea and fluctuate in price based on the attention that idea receives. The best meme investors tend to be young people who are very online and attuned to internet culture. Memecoins are commonly juxtaposed with tokens that possess actual utility within protocols, or so-called utility tokens.Even with market caps surging and retail interest growing, most people tend to describe them as “stupid,” “degenerate,” or a “casino.” This includes the vast majority of crypto VCs, perhaps because their investment mandates tend to exclude memecoins (which can be lucrative) from their list of eligible investments. And just this week, many were calling for the complete government ban...

After a prolonged downtrend relative to bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum's ether (ETH) is showing signs of a resurgence.ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency on the market, gained over 4% in the past 24 hours, while BTC lost 1.5% during the same time, dipping below $95,000 during the Monday session. ETH even outperformed the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index, which was up 0.5%.The outperformance happened as investors started to rotate capital to smaller, riskier cryptocurrencies over the weekend following the stall of bitcoin's near-vertical surge since Donald Trump's election victory. The ETH/BTC ratio, which measures ether's strength vs. bitcoin, plummeted to as low as 0.0318 on Thursday, its weakest reading since March 2021, but the gague has gained 15% since to 0.3660 at press time."The...