Bitcoin BTC price stuck between Silvergate and China

Good morning Asia, here’s what’s driving the markets today.

Both bitcoin and ether start the week flat, with the world’s largest digital asset at $22,463, up 0.6% on the day, and ether at $1,569, up 0.1%.

Observers say the market is on something of a cliff right now. While no longer in the depths of crypto winter, the market must decide how much it will continue to price in Silvergate’s crypto failure, while accounting for positive economic data from China.

“It does not appear that the Silvergate problem is leading to widespread contagion. And we may have seen most of the decline associated with that news already,” Matt Weller, Forex.com’s global head of research, told CoinDesk TV on Friday. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see bitcoin go back to $20,000, maybe even $18,000, to retest those lows. But … it looks like the depths of winter are behind us.”

At the same time, economic data from a reopened China, which quickly dropped all Covid restrictions at the start of the year, could reinforce the “China narrative” that drove the mini-price rise at the end of February. The coming week is set to be a busy week with the release of economic data from the country, with expected trade balance, foreign exchange reserves and inflation rates.

“China’s opening is a positive factor for the world economy, suggesting that certain animal spirits are back in Asia,” March Zheng, co-founder and managing partner of Byzantine Capital, said in a note to CoinDesk.

These so-called animal spirits, Zheng said, could lead to an increase in appetite for assets such as crypto.

“We believe that will counter the continued, persistent fear in the US equity markets as well as rising rates,” he continued.

EthDenver shows that Ethereum has an actual community

This weekend marks the culmination of ETHDenver, probably the most important annual gathering for smart contract and decentralized finance (DeFi) developers right now, on Ethereum and beyond. I wish I could have been there this year, but I’m still recovering from four pretty intense months of making cool stuff and exposing bad guys.

Fortunately, there are many people sharing clips from the event, so I can enjoy it vicariously. Unfortunately, many of these posts express something between innocent confusion and mocking takedown of the supposedly lame ETHDenver incident.

This article is taken from The Node, CoinDesk’s daily roundup of the top stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the whole newsletter here.

But that attitude, to paraphrase the fugitive philosopher-thief Do Kwon, is a great formula for getting it right. It may look like silliness and disorganization to you, but ETHDenver’s rough edges are actually strong signals that a real community has been drawn together by shared interests to build something together from the ground up. That’s the kind of society that has and will endure slow periods of crypto growth like what we’re going through right now.

It’s true that compared to many crypto conferences, ETHDenver and certain related events can seem just the tiniest bit bottled up, and more than the tiniest bit bizarre. Take, for example, the annual contributions from Jonathan Mann, also known as “The Song a Day Guy.” He’s been making and performing goofy, slightly amateurish tunes for the event for a while now – and every year people on Twitter take the opportunity to slam him.

But let me tell you, a goofy song is hardly the only thing at ETHDenver that can make you uncomfortable!

When I attended last year, ETHDenver was held in a renovated parking garage, where the bathrooms were completely or partially destroyed for much of the event. You couldn’t see the main stage from about a third of the seats on the ground floor, and people talking at the back of the room drowned out half the speakers. Once in a while, someone would drop 500 pizzas on a table upstairs, resulting in huge queues that made it almost impossible to move.

And you know what? It was amazing.

You can find the entire article here:

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) fell as customers fled cryptobank Silvergate, whose stock closed 58% lower in US trading yesterday. Forex.com Global Research Head of Research Matt Weller shared his reaction. In addition, Sotheby’s is auctioning the original manuscript of “Snow Crash,” Neal Stephenson’s landmark 1992 science fiction book that coined the terms “metaverse” and “avatar.” Author Neal Stephenson and Sotheby’s head of sales Cassandra Hatton discussed. And Audius Co founder and CEO Roneil Rumburg explained how the web3 music streaming platform integrates with TikTok.