First Mover Americas: Bitcoin, Ether Slip as UK Inflation Hits 40-Year High

This article originally appeared in First Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.

Price Point

Bitcoin (BTC) lost ground on Wednesday, trading down 2%, as U.S. stock futures inched up ahead of earnings reports from major companies. The British pound fell after the release of a report that showed U.K. inflation in September rose faster than what economists had expected and hit a new 40-year high.

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was also down on the day by around 1.6%. Altcoins Aave’s AAVE and Uniswap’s UNI each rose about 5%, while the rest of the market was weaker.

After launching on mainnet on Monday, Aptos’ cryptocurrency has plunged in value. The highly anticipated layer 1 token was listed in the $9 range and is trading down 40% on the day, according to data from CoinGecko.

CoinDesk Market Index

Biggest Gainers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector
Balancer BAL +3.99% DeFi
IDEX IDEX +3.38% DeFi
XYO XYO +2.69% Computing

Biggest Losers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector
Ankr ANKR -9.88% Computing
Celsius CEL -6.84% Currency
Polymath POLY -6.59% DeFi

Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) is a broad-based index designed to measure the market capitalization weighted performance of the digital asset market subject to minimum trading and exchange eligibility requirements.

Chart of the Day

Coinbase Registers Biggest Daily BTC Outflow Since June

By Omkar Godbole

More than 37,000 BTC worth $710 million left Coinbase on Tuesday, the biggest single-day outflow since June 17. (Source: Glassnode)
  • A pickup in exchange outflows is often taken to represent renewed accumulation.
  • In the past, Coinbase has brokered institutional bitcoin investments.
  • That said, on-chain data has its limitations and drawing definite conclusions is difficult. The bitcoin net exchange flows metric doesn't adjust for internal reshuffling of coins into new wallets by an exchange.