Bitcoin rose 3.08% from September 8 to September 15 to US$26,625 on Friday in Hong Kong. Since August 9, the world's largest cryptocurrency has been trading below U.S.$30,000, according to CoinMarketCap data. The world's second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, has surged 0.21% to US$1.1628 in the past week.
Deutsche Bank, the world's biggest bank, will partner with Swiss crypto firm Taurus to provide Bitcoin and crypto custody services to institutional clients, the Swiss firm said on Thursday. For the first time, the US$1.3 trillion asset manager will be able to hold a small amount of crypto on behalf of clients and offer tokenized versions of traditional financial assets.
Bitcoin rose to a weekly high of US$26,750 on Friday, bolstered by the announcement from Germany's largest lender, Phillip Lord, the head of the crypto payment app Oobit.
''T make a clear projection that this will happen in the second half of September,'' Lord said.
Last Friday, the SEC appealed July's summary judgment that said Ripple's XRP sales to institutional investors violated securities laws, but sales on public exchanges to retail investors did not.
Jonas Betz, an analyst and founder of consultancy firm Betz Crypto, said for Forkast that he is a crypto market analyst.
While the SEC's appeal did not come as a surprise, investor confidence took a hit, as Bitcoin fell to a weekly low of US$25,060 on Monday, three days after the agency's legal action.
Tuesday brought positive developments for investors, after Standard Chartered's crypto custody arm, Zodia Custody, launched services in Singapore for financial institutions.
Standard Chartered's move indicates growing institutional acceptance towards crypto, according to Manuel Ferrari, the co-founder of Money On Chain, the first Bitcoin-backed stablecoin protocol on Rootstock.
''S leading financial institutions, Standard Chartered's entry into the crypto space lends credibility and legitimacy to digital assets,'' Ferrari said in a statement shared with Forkast.
The same day, Franklin Templeton, a holding company with US$1.52 trillion in assets under management, filed an application for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. This only brought temporary relief for investors, given that the SEC had delayed the decision on several such ETF applications, including BlackRock and WisdomTree.
Two days after the news, Bitcoin rose to US$26,529 on Thursday, which could pave the way to more upside momentum in September, according to Kadan Stadelmann, the chief technical officer of Komodo's blockchain infrastructure development firm.
Ferrari expects Bitcoin's recovery to be short-lived, but he expects it to be a short-lived event.
The price has triggered a temporary bounce in the market, likely to the US$28,000 level. That will likely be short-lived, however, as Bitcoin is likely to experience further downward pressure in the coming months, Ferrari said.
The release of the U.S. consumer price index revealed that inflation's biggest monthly rise this year, rising 0.6% for August and 3.7% from a year ago.
Bitcoin Cash, the biggest gainer in the top 100, rose 13.23% to US$217.14 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On Tuesday, the token began picking up pace as the wider crypto investor sentiment was improved by the launch of Standard Chartered's crypto custody wing.
Rune, the native governance token of ThorChain, was the second-biggest gainer this week, rising 11.53% to US$1.75. The currency has been receiving more investor interest since lending went live on the protocol on Aug. 21.
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Bitcoin's double-bottom technical formation, which printed its first leg down on June 15 and the second one this week, is a bullish sign for the short term, according to Lucas Kiely, the chief investment officer of digital asset platform Yield App.
Investors will be looking forward to the Fed's next interest rate decision on Wednesday. The CME FedWatch Tool predicts a 97% chance that the central bank will maintain the current rate unchanged in September, up from 92% a week ago. It gives a 67.2% chance for another pause in November.