Bitcoin and Ether began trading higher this week after bitcoin hit the $24,000 threshold for the first time this month. Can cryptocurrencies keep this momentum after months of pressure? Or is more volatility in the cards? Steve Larsen, CPA and Co-Founder of PlannerDAO, joins Closing Bell to discuss crypto price movement, whether there's still room to fall for Bitcoin, why coins move in tandem with the stock market, and more. 

Closing Bell

What to Watch in Crypto This Week: Bitcoin Reaches $24,000 for First Time This Month, More Price Action Could Come

even as Bitcoin and ether traded higher over the weekend and started today up some 5% trading volume paints a different picture as levels don't seem to be matching the rally and it's a sign of a lack of any real institution driven volume. So what can we expect this week um, when it comes to price action and sentiment joining me now is steve, Larson Cp and co founder of planner Dow, a firm focused on digital asset advisement and planning steve, it's good to have you on the show as happy to have you even as Bitcoin hit that $24,000 mark for the first time this month. Do you think there is still potentially more volatility ahead? Volatility. Yes. The question is, is there a little more upside potential that we have And I think the answer there is yes there is because we've seen some good news with the stock market lately and what's involved there. Um, it's down a little bit this afternoon but it started out up this morning and also some potentially good news around the corner about inflation in the C. P. I. So I think that's going to drive the stock market up a little bit and hopefully Bitcoin has a little more room to run as well. It is interesting. I want you to walk through this with us and for investors we've seen mostly Cryptocurrency Bitcoin at least ether as well move pretty much in lockstep parallel to the stock market. We did see a few days actually this summer that Bitcoin kind of decoupled from the stock market but by and large, based on what you're saying, it sounds like these are risky assets and the to pretty much do move in tandem. They do. So everybody asks, hey, it's Bitcoin, an inflation hedge is a hedge against the stock market and the answer is hopefully someday, but but it's not there yet. So what we're looking at now is those are all growth assets and they're all to a certain extent speculative assets as well. Stocks are too, they're just more established. So anytime there's uncertainty in the economy or uncertainly with, with what's going on, people's lives, they will get out of those growth assets and those risky assets and look for other places to put their money. So until something like Bitcoin or either matures a bunch, we will see it correlate with the stock market. Okay, I want to ask you about this certain indicator. The ether Bitcoin implied volatility spread. I'm seen here at its highest level since June of 2021, so more than a year. What does that indicate about potential price movement ahead? Well, it indicates movement. The question is what direction? So I think one place to look for an indication is the Bitcoin and the ether futures market. So if you look those up, those have been pretty volatile, pretty up and down and steady over the last couple of weeks. But they've, they've picked up over the weekend and today they're moving back up and on the five day uh the ether futures index for example is up about 5%. So there is volatility coming but most indications say it should be to the upside although that can obviously change pretty instantly. It is crypto after all. So what's it gonna take to get the recent slump in Cryptocurrency behind us? Is it simply the Fed lowering its pace of rate rises? Yeah. Well crypto is one advantage the traditional stock market doesn't have. So in the traditional markets we have to fix the macro economic issues, we have to fix inflation. Um The little labor participation rate, a bunch of things that are keeping the economy down. Crypto has a second advantage. The macro things help. But also crypto can really explode with the introduction of a few killer technologies or use cases. So there are things crypto can do. For example payments as soon as a certain Cryptocurrency like U. S. D. C. Which is a digital dollar is widely accepted. We can see crip Take off even before the macro conditions are cleared up. So people in crypto excited for both of those things. One to help fix the macro items and to to look for that use case for that technology that will bring the next million people or preferably billion people into the crypto ecosystem very quickly in just about 20 seconds we're tight on time. When do you think is a timeline for the rollout of some of these new technologies that could give a boost? Well, like most crypto, right, it's always impending, but the main one we're gonna see here coming up is the ethereum what they're calling the merge. It's scheduled for late september, and I think that's why we're seeing ethereum futures up in the first place, that'll be coming here shortly. Alright. The merge, we keep hearing about the merge as steve, Larson CP and co founder of Planner Dow steve. We appreciate it.