Bitcoin falls after crossing $20,000 in hectic trading

Prices: Bitcoin got off to a promising start before sinking along with other cryptos on a hectic day.

Insight: Chinese universities continue to teach blockchain technology, but employers, teachers and students are also looking outside educational institutions to advance their interests.

Prices

• Bitcoin (BTC): $19,103 −1.3%
• Ether (ETH): $1,334 −0.6%
• CoinDesk Market Index (CMI): $953 −0.8%
• S&P 500 daily close: 3,647.29 −0.2%
• Gold: $1,634 per troy ounce +0.6%
• Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 3.96% +0.09

Bitcoin, Ether and Gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the spot price for COMEX. Information on CoinDesk indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices.

Bitcoin and other cryptos rise and fall

By James Rubin

In erratic trading on Tuesday, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rose early before collapsing.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization recently traded at just over $19,100, down about a percentage point for the previous 24 hours. BTC had risen above the psychologically important $20,000 threshold during the morning hours (UTC) for the first time in nine days before climbing downwards to more recently known levels.

Bitcoin’s rise and fall came as investors may have initially tried to anticipate the crypto’s historically bullish October by increasing their holdings. And two unexpectedly strong economic indicators may have also buoyed spirits before. But investors later pulled back over inflation and recession fears that have plagued asset markets of all stripes for months.

Ether recently changed hands at about $1,330, also flat from the previous day and the highest perch in more than a week. Most other major cryptos spent the day in red territory with UST recently of approx. 7% and XRP down more than 5%. Celsius’ native token CEL rallied late Tuesday following reports that FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried could bid for the bankrupt cryptobank’s assets. The token had reversed course earlier on Tuesday following the surprise departure of Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky.

The CoinDesk Market Index (CDI), an index that measures crypto’s performance, recently fell slightly and roughly where it has been for much of the past week. The Fear & Greed index, a measure of market sentiment about crypto, remains in extreme fear territory.

Stock

The crypto price patterns matched the stock markets which jumped earlier in the day before falling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), which entered bear market territory a day earlier, meaning it fell at least 20% from its previous high, closed a few fractions of a percentage point lower. The S&P 500 also fell slightly, although the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.2%.

Investors remain concerned about inflation and continued hawkishness from central banks, which increasingly look set to plunge the global economy into recession. Unexpectedly strong reports on durable goods orders, which fell less than forecast, and housing starts are likely to encourage the Federal Reserve to continue its recent policy of aggressive rate hikes.

Cool comments

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, reiterated the bank’s commitment to restoring “price stability.”

Earlier in the day, at an event hosted by the French central bank on Tuesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that regulation of decentralized finance (DeFi) must be done “carefully and thoughtfully”, given its limited impact on the real economy. “The DeFi winter … did not have significant effects on the banking system and broader financial stability” because of the lack of links between them, Powell told a panel.

As bitcoin climbed above $20,000 on Tuesday, Oanda senior market analyst Edward Moya called its resilience “impressive.” But Moya was less than happy about any significant price increases in the near future. “Bitcoin doesn’t have a catalyst to extend much higher, but a stabilization is a welcome sign for long-term bulls. ​

Biggest winners

Biggest losers

Insight

How Chinese universities are teaching blockchain

Of Xinyi Luo

October 24, 2019 marked the beginning of a tectonic shift for blockchain education in China.

Speaking to the Politburo of the Communist Party of China in Beijing that day, President Xi Jinping said the country must “seize the opportunity” offered by blockchain technology. These words would set forth China’s ambitious agenda to take a leading role in the global development of this new technology.

Universities in China received the message loud and clear. In 2020, 14 Chinese colleges established blockchain technology undergraduate programs, following Chengdu University of Information Technology, which had established the country’s first College of Blockchain Technology months before Xi’s speech.

But Xi’s ambition had and still has an inherent contradiction. While blockchain technology is admired by the Chinese, its most popular application, cryptocurrency, is now illegal. Over the past decade, China has banned crypto transactions (2013), initial coin offerings (2017), crypto mining (incremental from 2019-2021) and – the latest blow – cryptocurrency trading, in 2021. As a result, the very idea of ​​blockchain is different in China than anywhere else in the world.

“When we discuss blockchain, we cannot see it from a cryptocurrency perspective,” said Jianhai Chen, an associate professor in the College of Computer Science at Zhejiang University. It is ranked 24th in CoinDesk’s 2022 Best Universities for Blockchain. Instead, he threads a needle to teach blockchain only for legally approved uses. “What we want to do is use blockchain technology to strengthen the industry and solve existing problems,” Chen said.

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