Crypto Daybook Americas: Bitcoin Surpasses $106K as New Accounting Standard Comes Into Force

Your day-ahead look for Dec. 16, 2024

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Imagine you have a rare collectible. It’s aged like fine wine, but only shows the original price tag. That’s how U.S. companies have been told to value their bitcoin ... stuck in the past instead of reflecting its true worth. As of today, that changes.

Yes, today is when the FASB fair value accounting rule, which passed in 2023, takes effect, allowing companies to report their bitcoin holdings at fair market value instead of the purchase price. The change gives firms more control over how they classify these assets and may accelerate corporate adoption. Note, though, the new standard doesn’t apply to NFTs, wrapped tokens or internally generated digital assets.

Alex Kuptsikevich, an analyst at FXPro, quoted a JPMorgan report, stating that publicly traded companies have already begun a MicroStrategy-like strategy to add BTC to their balance sheets.

The rule change might also explain why BTC spiked above $106,000 in Asia, boosted further by President-elect Donald Trump’s assurance to create a strategic BTC reserve, compounded by a short squeeze on Deribit.

The price has now pulled back to around $104,500, likely due to concerns that the Fed’s highly anticipated rate cut this Wednesday will come with projections for fewer reductions next year. BTC is trading at a discount on Coinbase compared with Binance, indicating weakened demand in the U.S., per a CryptoQuant tracker.

More broadly, ETH failed to establish a foothold above $4,000 amid reports of large withdrawals of staked ether from Lido Finance. Payments-focused XRP traded more than 2% lower, weakening a bullish technical pattern.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz raised concerns about FOMO-driven volatility before the debut of the company’s RLUSD stablecoin, which it plans to use for cross-border payments alongside XRP. Early price fluctuations and high pre-launch bids don’t quite reflect the true market value, Schwartz said.

On a brighter note, Solana's industry-leading revenue generation has been capturing attention. Ryan Watkins, co-founder of Syncracy Capital, stated: "Solana generated a staggering $431 million in fees over the past 30 days – more than all other Layer 1s combined!" Solana now captures 53% of the global layer 1 fee pool, largely driven by a surge in AI activity.

Despite this, the token dipped by 3%, threatening to break below the 50-day SMA, a key indicator for near-term market trends.

Chainlink’s LINK defied the weakness in major tokens, rising 4% thanks to whale buying. Data from LookOnChain revealed that a whale withdrew 429,999 LINK, worth over $12 million, over the weekend.

Finally, in traditional markets, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note looks to break out of a prolonged downtrend as observers anticipate a hawkish Fed rate cut this week. This hardening of yields could inject volatility into risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. So, stay alert!

What to Watch

Crypto:
- Dec. 18: CleanSpark (CLSK) Q4 FY 2024 earnings. EPS Est. $-0.18 vs Prev. $-1.02.
Macro:
- Dec. 16, 9:45 a.m.: December's S&P Global Flash US PMI data will be released. Composite PMI Prev. 54.9.
- Dec. 17, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases November's Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
  - Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2%.
  - Core Inflation Rate Prev. 1.7%.
- Dec. 20, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will release November's Personal Income and Outlays report.
  - Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) Price Index YoY Prev. 2.3%.
  - Core PCE Price Index YoY 2.8%.
- Dec. 24, 1:00 p.m.: The Fed will release November's H.6 (Money Stock Measures) report. Money Supply M2 Prev. $23.31T.

Token Events

Governance votes & calls:
- Avalanche’s (AVAX) Etna upgrade is scheduled to go live on Dec. 16 at 12 p.m. The upgrade aims to make it cheaper to transact and run validators on the network.
- Arbitrum DAO is voting on allocating 22 million ARB ($22.8 million) to cover operating costs for OpCo.
Unlocks:
- Cardano (ADA) will unlock $19.75 million worth of tokens on Dec. 16.
Token Launches:
- Binance announced that data sovereignty platform Vana (VANA) will release a token on the launchpool. Trading starts Dec. 16.