Bitcoin Below $56.5K

CoinDesk 20 Index: 1,791.61 −1.35%Bitcoin (BTC): $56,496.83 −1.1%Ether (ETH): $2,314.39 −1.45%S&P 500: 5,495.52 +0.45%Gold: $2,521.60 +0.11%
Nikkei 225: 35,619.77 −1.49%

Bitcoin fell to $56,000 after Kamala Harris stepped forward in the first presidential debate.

The CoinDesk 20 Index fell about 1% in the same period. The Japanese yen rose to 140.70 per U.S. dollar, its strongest level since January, and has moved away from risk assets and above 141.68 in early August.

The yen began to rise strongly in late July after the Bank of Japan raised interest rates for the first time in decades.

According to prediction bets on Polymarket, Vice President Kamala Harris seems to have won the first debate between presidential candidates yesterday.

Neither party’s crypto policy was mentioned during the program. Despite Harris’ performance, the Polymarket contract, which is about who will win the main election, remains tied. Harris’ campaign called for another debate to pit the two against each other after the event ends.

The vice president reported that Trump had forced the Biden administration to deal with a trade deficit that he described as “one of the largest in history.”

Investment bank Jefferies reported that mining was much less profitable in August than in July as BTC fell and the average network hash rate increased by about 2.7 percent.

The report noted that miners’ average daily revenue per exahash fell by 11.8% compared to the previous month. “September also looks set to be a challenging month as BTC remains below $60,000 and the network hashrate continues to rise,” the analysts wrote. The number of bitcoins mined by Marathon Digital last month translates to roughly 88% uptime, compared to 75% in August last year.

Implied uptime last month for the 10 largest bitcoin miners tracked by the bank was around 83%, compared with 76% a year ago and 79% in August 2022.

The chart shows the distribution of open interest in bitcoin options listed on Deribit. Most of the open interest is concentrated in call options at higher strikes, with the most popular bet being $100,000. This suggests that sentiment remains bullish despite the recent price decline. Source: Amberdata