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Mooners & Shakers: Gensler reacts, Bitcoin dips, Chainlink pumps … and NAB is latest crypto roadblock

NAB will block ‘some cryptocurrency platforms’ to protect customers from scams, but has not nominated which local exchanges will be cut off.

Rob Badman
5 min read
12:24PMJuly 18, 2023
Stockhead
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Nobody's sure yet what will be held up by the NAB crypto roadblock. Picture: Getty Images
Nobody's sure yet what will be held up by the NAB crypto roadblock. Picture: Getty Images

NAB has announced blocks on ‘some cryptocurrency platforms’ to help protect customers from scams, but has not nominated which local exchanges will be cut off.

More of that later.

Bitcoin dipped a bit below $US30,000 for a time overnight, withs the market seemingly weighing up a tossed salad of concerns – macro and crypto micro – still swirling about.

Well, it’s either that or technical analysis patterns really do mean something and a bit of a dip was/is inevitable and written in the stars and charts.

In any case, let’s get on to some bits and pieces of relevance.

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Such as, unfortunately, the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Gazza Gensler, who dished up something of a word salad himself overnight.

Gensler was speaking about AI at the US National National Press Club and was queried about the SEC v Ripple court decision that cleared XRP of being a security.

The SEC boss was asked if the ruling affected his stance on crypto broadly and if it injected “urgency into the need for federal legislation to clarify regulatory oversight of this industry”.

Gensler replied with a bunch of words in his shaky, rambling style. Here are some of them: “Look … Our mission … Exactly what I spoke about … Pleased … Importance of protecting investors … Institutional … Fair notice … Disappointed by what they said about retail investors … We are still looking at it and assessing that opinion.”

That pretty much captures the essence, but here it is in full if you want to listen …

Coinhead’s take: yep, the court ruling on Friday was a sweet battle won for Ripple and XRP and the crypto rebel alliance broadly, but the war will continue as powerful Darth Gensler and Emperor (or to be more precise, senator, Elizabeth) Warren retreat for now to plot their next move.

As for the macro concerns, it’s the old “mild recession” chestnut that seems likely to grip the H2 narrative in the States and Europe and therefore everywhere else.

There was something of a small rally overnight on Wall Street, reported Eddy Sunarto this morning, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq closing 0.93% to the good.

“Tesla’s share price rallied over 3% last night after announcing that it has built the first Cybertruck at its gigafactory in Texas after two years of delays,” Stockhead’s markets guru noted.

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That mild rallying aside, the consensus in the US seems to be that the S&P 500 will endure a 9% earnings results downturn for the second quarter of this year and then, as noted market analyst Chelsea Johnson, er, noted, “hit their lowest point in Q3 before a revival comes in 2024.

What’s the biggest factor for an H2 market downturn? It could well be China’s economic slowdown, says Mr Sunarto.

NAB – the latest Aussie bank to roadblock crypto

Wait, is this headline as bad as it sounds? Possibly, but also possibly not.

We don’t quite know yet, because it’s not been revealed which local crypto exchanges the National Australia Bank is choosing to block.

The news, in a nutshell is this, though.

Late yesterday, NAB announced a set of measures to protect customers from fraud as part of its “bank-wide scam strategy”.

These measures include blocks on “some cryptocurrency platforms” to help limit exposure to scams.

NAB executive for group investigations and fraud Chris Sheehan noted that the new blocks will affect “high-risk” platforms where “scams are more prevalent”.

“These scammers are part of organised, transnational crime groups. Increasingly, we’re seeing them use cryptocurrency platforms to send stolen funds quickly and often overseas,” said Sheehan.

It has been reported that Binance could be one of those blocked. Binance Australia’s financial services licence was cancelled by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in April.

“Our approach is going to be consistent with the rest of the industry,” Sheehan reportedly commented.

In this regard, NAB joins Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank in recent crypto exchange curbing of enthusiasm. Those two big banks have also reportedly set up roadblocks around payments to the Binance exchange.

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at $US1.25 trillion at noon Tuesday (AEST), down about 0.2% since the same time Monday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

We did say Bitcoin dipped, didn’t we? And it did, teetering around and just below $US30k earlier. But at noon it’s recovered to pretty much where it lay this time Tuesday (down just 0.3%).

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It won’t surprise at all to see Bitcoin take the odd stumble and crab and recover and simply range for quite some time this year.

It might take a confluence of catalytic events to really push a bullish run in the shorter term. Otherwise, it’s waiting things out for ye olde BTC halving event narrative in 2024 and pushing through an official, rubber-stamped “mild recession”.

At least one crypto Twittering analyst we follow seems to think the recession is in the rear-view mirror, though …

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. Stats based on CoinGecko.com data.

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

  • Sui (SUI), (market cap: $US507 million) +13.9%
  • GALA (GALA), (market cap: $US6935 million) +12%
  • Chainlink (LINK), (market cap: $US3.74 billion) +8.5%
  • Aptos (APT), (market cap: $US1.75 billion) +6.6%
  • Flow (INJ), (market cap: $US669 million) +5.8%

PUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

  • Paribus (PBX), (market cap: $US14 million) +38.1%
  • Jim (JIM), (market cap: $US19 million) +36.6%
  • Rollbit Coin (RLB), (market cap: $US392 million) +23.7%
  • Open Exchange Token (OX), (market cap: $US120 million) +22.6%
  • Muraski (GMT), (market cap: $US94 million) +20.5%

SLUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

  • BitDAO (BIT), (market cap: $US742 million) -6%
  • Maker (MKR), (market cap: $US839 million) -5.8%
  • Lido DAO (LDO), (market cap: $US1.81 billion) -5%
  • Kaspa (KAS), (market cap: $US640 million) -4.7%
  • Bitcoin Cash (BCH), (market cap: $US4.731billion) -4.4%

SLUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

  • ChainX (PCX), (market cap: $US48 million) -25.9
  • Trac (Ordinals) (TRAC) (market cap: $US12 million) – 21.2%
  • Pepe 2.0 (PEPE2.0), (market cap: $US18 million) -19.7%
  • Blox (CDT), (market cap: $US83 million) – 19.9%
  • Aleph.im (ALEPH), (market cap: $US16 million) -19.5%

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

Regarding the BTC dip overnight (AEST), Dutch crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe is of the opinion that a “sweep of the lows” is under way, before a higher move.

In non technical analytical terms we equate that to sweeping some dirt from your shoes under the rug, then sitting back to watch Australia beat England in the Ashes.

This content first appeared on stockhead.com.au

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/stockhead/mooners-shakers-gensler-reacts-bitcoin-dips-chainlink-pumps-and-nab-is-latest-crypto-roadblock/news-story/6c834f70ab7a5ff2a06ff5bc4dacae1b