Gold and bitcoin fall for different reasons

Every week, Amdax summarizes what’s happening in the crypto market for you. Want to dive deeper? Click on the links (if available) in this article for more insights.

Market update

Stay informed in three steps:

1. Bitcoin moves in step with tech stocks
Over the past week, bitcoin moved in step with tech stocks and barely reacted to news from the crypto sector itself. In the stock market, doubts are growing about whether the huge investments in AI will pay off, and how they will be financed, and that unease seems to have pulled bitcoin down with it, to around 80,000 dollars. When investors cut risk, they often sell their most volatile positions first, and both tech stocks and bitcoin fall into that category. Gold also fell below 4,000 dollars, but it seems to be weighed down mainly by expectations that higher oil prices will keep the Fed holding rates higher for longer. That drop came even as the US ten-year yield dropped below 5 percent, which usually makes gold more attractive. The Fed decides today, and investors expect no change.

2. First final rules for the US stablecoin law
The OCC, a US financial regulator, published the first final rules under the GENIUS Act, the US stablecoin law, on October 21. They take effect on January 18, 2027. An issuer must always hold reserves at least equal to the value of all outstanding stablecoins, and generally has to process redemption requests within two business days. Issuers remain barred from paying interest. On one point, the OCC differs from the proposal the Fed made in September. The Fed wants to treat a return paid through a third party as prohibited interest by default, while the OCC looks at each case separately and can step in against attempts to get around the ban. That difference affects the rewards trading platforms pay on stablecoins, a sticking point around the CLARITY-Act. Europe has already settled the question: MiCAR bars both issuers and crypto service providers from paying interest on stablecoins.

3. First DNB figures on household crypto holdings
On October 27, DNB, the Dutch central bank, published its first figures on the crypto that Dutch households hold with Dutch crypto service providers. At the end of June, it stood at 3.2 billion euros, lower than a quarter earlier. Businesses and other parties held around 200 million euros more with the same providers. Among households, bitcoin was by far the largest holding at 1.5 billion euros, followed by ether at 300 million euros, while stablecoins made up less than 1 percent of the total. Set against the 234 billion euros households hold in stocks, investment funds and bonds, crypto comes to about 1.4 percent. That is a minimum, because crypto held with foreign providers or in self-custody wallets is not included.

Ries’ take

We have written before about the effect of an allocation to crypto on a classic diversified portfolio: between 2018 and early 2026, a 5 percent share of crypto delivered a higher total return and a better trade-off between return and risk, though the bad years did get worse. DNB’s new figures put crypto at about 1.4 percent for Dutch households, and that is a minimum. We expect this share to rise in the coming years, because crypto is increasingly becoming an ordinary asset class. Since July 1, crypto has been regulated across the EU under MiCAR, bitcoin is less volatile than it was a few years ago, and large wealth managers such as Morgan Stanley are adding crypto to their investment guidelines. For investors, the question is shifting from whether crypto belongs in a portfolio to what role it should play.

Behind the scenes

The back door is elsewhere

According to Transparency International Netherlands, Russia uses crypto to get around sanctions. Lucas Wensing thinks the problem is even bigger than the organization describes. But Transparency is looking for the solution in the wrong place, he writes in an opinion piece in Het Financieele Dagblad. Europe has already locked its back door: the ruble stablecoin A7A5 has been under EU sanctions for almost a year, and the rules Transparency is asking for are already in place. The money flows through transit countries, beyond the reach of European supervision.

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