Bitcoin remains above $23,000 while crypto stocks stay in the red

Both bitcoin and ether have remained steady heading into the weekend. The two cryptocurrencies declined on Friday as a result of a stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report.

Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading around $23,424, remaining relatively unchanged over last 24 hours, while ether (ETH) is trading at $1,680, up 0.8% over the last 24 hours. Over the course of the week, bitcoin gained 1.5% and ether surged 5%, according to data from CoinGecko.

Altcoins Optimism (OP), Fantom (FTM), ImmutableX (IMX) and Dydx (DYDX) were among the biggest gainers this week surging 33%, 34%, 40% and 31% respectively. Aptos (APT), which was one of the biggest gainers last week, dropped 6% over the last seven days. Toncoin (TON) also fell 8%.

Crypto coins weekly gains/losses from TradingView

Crypto stocks and structured products

Crypto-related companies stayed in the red as the market closed on Friday with Coinbase (CI) down 8.38% and Block Inc (SQ) having dropped 4.19%.

Silvergate’s (SI) stock, which is down 10%, seesawed earlier in the week. It surged following a disclosure that fund manager State Street had taken a stake in the company, then dropped about 20% following a report that the company was facing a fraud probe.

Silvergate stock chart from TradingView

This week MicroStrategy reported its fourth-quarter earnings, disclosing  a net loss of $249.7 million, compared with a loss of $90 million from the same period the prior year. The net loss was inflated by a digital asset impairment charge of $197.6 million. Analysts had actually been expecting a net income of $10.7 million, which would have been the firm’s first quarterly profit since the fourth quarter of 2020.  MicroStrategy (MSTR) is currently down 2.52%.

In structured products, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) stayed steady over the week, moving downward by only 0.16%. Its discount to NAV was 42% on Friday. Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) fell 3% over the week.

Macro matters

The week in markets ended dramatically on Friday following the release of the U.S. January nonfarm payrolls, which grew by 517,000. This was more than twice the forecast estimate of 185,000. The positive jobs report signals to the market that the Federal Reserve is likely to keep hiking interest rates to control inflation.

Speaking of the Federal Reserve, earlier in the week the Fed decided to hike interest rates by 25 basis points. This was the smallest interest rate increase since it began the current hiking spree. Traders responded with bullish sentiment on Thursday as a result of the decision.

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