STX is bright spot while bitcoin, ether stagnate with market

Both bitcoin and ether declined on Saturday, continuing downward momentum after another week of macroeconomic uncertainty and ongoing jitters on the regulatory front. Both cryptocurrencies fell 6.4% over the past week.

Bitcoin was trading at $23,001 on Saturday afternoon, down 0.8% over the past 24 hours. Ether was down 1.4% over the period at $1,586, according to TradingView.

TradingView chart of Bitcoin price over past week.

Altcoins also had a tough week, with XRP falling 4.7%, Cardano declining 11.3% and Solana falling 6.2%. Memecoins didn’t fare any better, with Dogecoin declining 9.1% and Shiba Inu down 7.2%.

There was one bright spot, and the biggest winner of the week was Stacks’ STX token, which rose 101% over the past seven days. The move has been linked to the rising popularity of Ordinals that are bringing NFTs onto Bitcoin. 

Macro matters

Data released on Friday continued to place macroeconomic themes and stubborn inflation at the forefront of traders’ minds, with the price index for personal consumer expenditures rising 0.6% last month compared to an estimate of 0.4%.

The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, took a hardened stance toward growing crypto adaptation with a set of recommendations for member countries and a call for a “coordinated response.” It said crypto posed a threat to the effectiveness of global monetary policy.

Crypto stocks

Crypto stocks also had a tough week. 

Coinbase shares were down 10% over the week, while Microstrategy declined 9.7%. Silvergate had yet another hard week, with shares falling 21%. Block fared better, rising 0.5% over the week.

The declines came amid continued regulatory concerns, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Department of Financial Services and the Attorney General of the State of New York objecting to Binance.US’s amended plan to acquire crypto lender Voyager. New York’s Attorney General is also suing cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx for allegedly failing to register with the state.  

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has continued to buy the dip, however, adding 181,972 Coinbase shares to its Ark Innovation ETF and 31,547 shares to Ark Next Generation Internet on Wednesday. Additional shares were added throughout the week.