First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Holds Above $28K as Investors Await Fresh Productivity, Jobs Data

Good morning.

Here’s what’s happening:

Prices: What turmoil? Bitcoin holds its perch above $28K. Other major cryptos mostly fall in weekend trading.Insights: Decentralized-focused tokens soared during the quarter. Their gains came as U.S. regulators zeroed in on centralized exchanges.PricesBitcoin Investors Continue Their Watchful Waiting

Will April bring showers or more sunshine for bitcoin?

The weekend offered few clues as the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization kicked off the new month holding at late March levels as investors weighed recent events – bank failures, inflation and crypto-focused regulatory actions – that could push prices higher or drag them down.

BTC was recently trading at $28,045, down 1.3% over the past 24 hours. It rose roughly 21% in March, despite a turbulent last two weeks in which markets teetered at times but always seemed to snap back above the $28,000 threshold.

"Bitcoin has remained resilient over the last week or so, resulting in a general improvement in market sentiment," Joe DiPasquale, CEO of crypto asset manager BitBull Capital, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.

DiPasquale noted that bitcoin was trading above its 200-day moving average, "historically a strong indicator of bullish price action."

But he also reflected uncertainty about BTC's path forward, calling "the $32K to $36K range...an area of interest on the upside while $18K to $20K...a strong range on the downside."

Ether was also slightly up from the previous day to change hands at $1,788, down 1.6% but well within its range of the past two weeks. Ethereum developers now await the Shanghai upgrade, which is scheduled to occur April 12 and will mark Ethereum’s full transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network, enabling staked ETH withdrawals. Other cryptos in the top 25 by market value were largely in the red.

ARB, the token of layer 2 blockchain Arbitrum, recently fell 7.4% to trade at $1.19. The decline came amid an uproar in the Arbitrum community over how the Arbitrum Foundation – a centralized company charged with promoting Arbitrum's claimed decentralized ecosystem – held a "ratification" vote over decisions it had already implemented, including sending nearly $1 billion in tokens to itself. On Sunday, the foundation said would break up its controversial governance package into a series of separate votes, bending to community pressure.

Popular meme coins DOGE and SHIB were recently off 5.5% and 4.8%, respectively. The CoinDesk Market Index, a measure of crypto markets overall performance was recently down 1.2%.

Equity markets closed an eventful, largely upbeat first quarter on a high with the tech-focused Nasdaq climbing 1.7% and the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rising 1.2% and 1.4%, respectively.

This week, Investors will have a fresh set of employment and productivity data to gauge whether the U.S. economy is continuing to contract as recent signs have suggested or powering forward. The U.S. Census Bureau will release February durable goods orders on Tuesday, with expectations for a 1% month-over-month decline, and on Friday the U.S. Labor Department will announce March's nonfarm payrolls, with expectations for a 225,000-job spike, and the monthly unemployment rate, which is expected to remain at its current 3.6%. A hot jobs market has figured prominently in central bankers' contemplations about the ongoing strength of the economy, which historically leads to higher inflation readings.

In an interview with CoinDesk TV, Marc Chandler, Bannockburn Global Forex managing director and chief market strategist, said that "the financial stress that we saw earlier this month is receding."

"This is allowing the market to focus on two things, which was before the banking stress," he said, adding a note of caution. "One is that the labor market remains fairly robust. And inflation is too high for the Federal Reserve."