First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Opens Week Defending $30K Support Level

Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:

Prices: A bitcoin ETF might be a divisive idea for some in the industry, but it's all the market has on its mind.

Insights: The dYdX Foundation's Charles d'Haussy talks about the future of the platform post-Ethereum, and what he sees as developing regulatory trends.

Prices

CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) 1,231 −3.3 ▼ 0.3% Bitcoin (BTC) $30,171 −124.0 ▼ 0.4% Ethereum (ETH) $1,863 −2.5 ▼ 0.1% S&P 500 4,398.95 −12.6 ▼ 0.3% Gold $1,931 +4.4 ▲ 0.2% Nikkei 225 32,388.42 −384.6 ▼ 1.2% BTC/ETH prices per CoinDesk Indices, as of 7 a.m. ET (11 a.m. UTC)CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) 1,231 −3.3 ▼ 0.3% Bitcoin (BTC) $30,171 −124.0 ▼ 0.4% Ethereum (ETH) $1,863 −2.5 ▼ 0.1% S&P 500 4,398.95 −12.6 ▼ 0.3% Gold $1,931 +4.4 ▲ 0.2% Nikkei 225 32,388.42 −384.6 ▼ 1.2% BTC/ETH prices per CoinDesk Indices, as of 7 a.m. ET (11 a.m. UTC)

Bitcoin Opens Week Defending $30K Support Level

A bitcoin ETF is the only thing on the market’s mind.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s embrace of bitcoin – an about-face for the finance executive – is dividing analysts and the industry at large.

“So-called mainstream adoption will bring waves of new entrants to bitcoin, and the risk is that they won’t care, and won’t protect the decentralization properties that make it valuable over centralized alternatives in the first place,” Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, wrote last week in his report.

But the market, at large, doesn’t seem to mind, not caring about the nuances of decentralization.

The world’s largest digital asset continues to defend the $30,000 mark, opening Asia’s trading week at $30,171. Ether is also holding above $1,800, trading at $1,863.

“In a largely uneventful week, we saw bitcoin trending downward to test support levels near $30K,” BitBull Capital’s Joe DiPasquale said in a note to CoinDesk. “However, the market leader managed to defend the key level despite news of the SEC calling ETF filings inadequate.”

BlackRock has refiled its application, and DiPasquale says the market awaits more clarity around this development.

“We still maintain that continued trading above $30K will see more attempts to go higher. Meanwhile, $27K remains a strong support for now,” he said.

Looking ahead to later this week, the market will have its eye on inflation numbers and jobless claims, two figures that the Fed will consider when making its next moves on rates. Expect crypto to trade accordingly.

Biggest Gainers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Cosmos ATOM +2.5% Smart Contract Platform Polygon MATIC +1.2% Smart Contract Platform Shiba Inu SHIB +0.8% Currency

Biggest Losers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Solana SOL −2.4% Smart Contract Platform Cardano ADA −2.2% Smart Contract Platform Loopring LRC −2.0% Smart Contract Platform

Insights

DYdX Foundation CEO Calls Move to Own Blockchain From Ethereum a Prelude

DYdX announced last year that it was leaving Ethereum for its own proprietary blockchain, on Cosmos, over concerns about the scalability of the blockchain. In early April, the exchange announced it had launched a V4 of its private testnet, a pivotal step in its roadmap.

In a recent interview with CoinDesk at the IVS Crypto Conference in Japan, Charles d'Haussy, the CEO of the dYdX Foundation, explained the move by equating it to tech sovereignty. Having its own blockchain, he explained, allows dYdX to control its full tech stack and not depend on the speed and trade-offs of Ethereum's roadmap.

“When you sit on someone else’s blockchain, you have a dependency on their roadmap. It’s not yours,” he told CoinDesk. “By having our own chain, we are able to execute much faster by moving away from a general purpose blockchain.”

DYdX isn’t a new platform, but there’s renewed interest in it as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) goes after its centralized counterparts. The platform isn’t without its growing pains, and the question at the end of the day will be if its new technology stack is the cure. Its token is down roughly 6% in the last month as the price of ether is up 1.3%, meaning the market is taking a cautious look at this as the exchange prepares for its next chapter.

Part of Broader Trend

D'Haussy views dYdX owning its own blockchain as part of a broader trend where major crypto applications are optimizing for specific uses, thus making general-purpose blockchains less suitable.

“At the beginning, you start with a Swiss knife, doing everything, but eventually, you want to become a craftsman and have specialized tools,” he said. “So I think we’ll see a lot of application chains and more interconnectivity between blockchains.”

But this doesn’t mean that dYdX will be centralized around its own chain. D'Haussy also highlighted that dYdX is "blockchain agnostic," continually evolving and upgrading its technology. He believes this kind of adaptability is a key characteristic of successful decentralized finance applications.

DYdX’s new blockchain will be open for other platforms to build on, but D'Haussy pointed out that it's specifically designed for its own uses, and likened it to a "Formula 1 for decentralized finance."

Diversity of validators

To prevent centralized failure, dYdX aims for diversity among their validators in geographies, underlying service providers, and types of providers. D'Haussy foresees a rise in domestic validators due to certain regions lacking regulatory clarity.

“We work on this to make sure that we've got a diversity of geographies, diversity of underlying service providers, a mix of cloud providers, a mix of what we call bare metal providers,” he said.

D'Haussy predicts that in the coming years, regulations may require financial institutions to access public networks via domestic nodes, in order to ensure that activities on-chain fall under the purview of local regulators, which will significantly increase the demand for domestic validators.

Which means regulated crypto derivatives trading — if you’re in the right part of the world.

Important events.

9:30 a.m. HKT/SGT(1:30 a.m. UTC): China Consumer Price Index (June/YoY/MoM)

1 p.m. HKT/SGT(5 a.m. UTC): Japan Economic Watchers Survey (June/Current and Outlook)

3 p.m. HKT/SGT(7 a.m. UTC): China M2 Money Supply (June/YoY)

CoinDesk TV

In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of "First Mover" on CoinDesk TV:

Binance's CZ Brushes Off News of Execs Leaving; Bitwise CIO on Spot Bitcoin ETF Race

Fortune reports at least three executives left Binance as the company prepared to defend itself on multiple fronts. Fairlead Strategies Founder Katie Stockton shared her crypto markets analysis after the June U.S. jobs report was released. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan and Ether Capital CEO Brian Mosoff weighed in on the spot bitcoin ETF race. And, Horizen CEO Rob Viglione explained why the self-described layer 0 blockchain was shedding its privacy coin moniker.

Headlines

Coinbase Knew It May Have Been Violating the Law Prior to the SEC's Lawsuit, Regulator Claims: The SEC pushed back against a previous Coinbase filing which argued that the regulator did not have sufficient jurisdiction to bring a lawsuit.

BlackRock CEO’s Turnabout on Bitcoin Elicits Cheers, Skepticism of Crypto Cred: Larry Fink, CEO of the world’s biggest asset manager, says crypto could “revolutionize finance,” endorsing an industry he once viewed with skepticism. But the very nature of an ETF is at odds with the original ideals of Bitcoin.

Three Arrows Capital Liquidator May Try to Claw Back About $1.2B From DCG, BlockFi: A July 7 report from Teneo, the hedge fund’s liquidator, described the potential claims.

Binance Feels Strain of World’s Regulators Leaping Into Action: This week’s Australian probe, which sought out Binance employees outside the office, is only one of a growing list of legal entanglements facing the world’s biggest crypto exchange.

The Real Use Case for CBDCs: Dethroning the Dollar: Central bank digital currencies will revolutionize how companies settle international trade and reduce the need for greenbacks in the world economy, says Michael Casey.