Market Wrap: Crypto Rally Continues, Smaller Altcoins Outperform Bitcoin in June

Crypto assets continued to rally on Tuesday, three days after market-wide selling caused the price of bitcoin (BTC) to drop to a 52-week low.

Bitcoin and ether (ETH) were both recently up about 5%, with bitcoin trading at $21,158.43 and ether at $1,146.41 on Tuesday afternoon.

Stocks also rose as part of a wider rebound in assets. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 2.88%, and the S&P 500, which had its worst week since 2020 last week, gained 2.74%.

Although the increases on Tuesday might cause some relief for traders after bitcoin saw its most volatile week since May 2021 last week, according to data from Arcane Research, many experts warn that the worst isn’t over.

“The bear market will not be over until recession arrives or the risk of one is extinguished,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to clients.

“This could be a short-term bounce. Longer term, I’d be concerned that there could be some more selling out there,” Tuttle Capital Management CEO and Chief Investment Officer Matthew Tuttle said on CoinDesk TV.

Smaller altcoins also rallied on Tuesday. Elrond (EGLD), Bitcoin SV (BSV) and Helium (HNT) were among the winners, surging by as much as 51%.

Smaller crypto assets by market cap have fared better than bitcoin this month, although they have also been deep in the red. One small-cap index, which tracks the performance of the 50 smallest crypto assets, fell 27%, according to a report by Arcane Research. Bitcoin, which dropped as much as 35%, underperformed all indexes in June.

“It's a long time since we saw such strong performances from the smaller coins,” the report stated. “It’s highly unusual to see small caps performing better than bitcoin in a falling market.”

By Krisztian Sandor

The world's largest bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund lost half of its assets under management last Friday, which might have exacerbated bitcoin’s crash on Saturday.

The Purpose Bitcoin ETF saw an outflow of 24,510 bitcoins on Friday, the most severe redemption in a single day since the fund made its debut on the Canadian Stock Exchange in April 2021, according to the Norway-based Arcane Research.

The outflows mean that the fund had to sell about $500 million in BTC at Friday’s price, adding to the selling pressure in an already shaky crypto market, Arcane wrote in a report.

“The enormous outflows are likely caused by a forced seller in a huge liquidation,” Arcane analyst Vetle Lunde wrote. “The forced selling of the 24,000 BTC could have triggered BTC’s move down towards $17,600 this weekend.”

Read the full story here.

All digital assets in the CoinDesk 20 ended the day higher.

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 20 is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges.