Digital Asset Weekly, July 6

Digital Assets finished the week ~ +14% to end at a total sector market cap of US$270B. Gains were broad based with ~90% of the top 200 coins/tokens ending the week higher. Investor risk appetite looked much improved with Bitcoin Dominance falling slightly and outperformance led by small/mid caps.

News flow this week was positive with signs of maturation continuing across the infrastructure, regulatory and technical fronts. Key themeatics this week included:

Positive regulatory/governmental news
– New Thai ICO rules
– Zug’s first blockchain based election
– Positive comments from Taiwanese policy makers
Further growth in the exchange space
– Line getting closer to exchange launch
– Bittrex expanding overseas
– Circle reporting strong institutional interest
Continued progress on Bitcoin’s technical front
– Blockstream launching ‘Sidechain Elements’

Major token data sites had updated June ICO data out this week. The total June raise came out to US$1.53B, -17%MoM and -9% vs the 2018 median. ICO investment in June was heavily concentrated with TaTaTu (US$575M) accounting for 37% of the total June raise. The total project count was also weaker, falling to a 4 month low of 83 projects.

Looking into the coming weeks, we are cautiously optimistic though continue to favor a backfoot strategy. Given the steep declines in May -18% and June -16%, odds seem supportive of an up month in July. Sentiment also looks tentatively better (Chart 7) with Bitcoin outperformance starting to decelerate and a big bounce this week in smaller coins/tokens pointing to improved risk appetite across the space.

Read the whole report here: Digital Asset Weekly July 6 2018