By evening, Bitcoin was hovering around $76,000. Just 24 hours earlier, it was still above $80,000. It fell more than 5% in a day, touching a low of about $75,700 in the morning (Finnhub/CoinMarketCap figures, as of the evening of Nov. 6 Beijing time).
The cause of the drop wasn’t in crypto. U.S. stocks had their worst day in about 18 months overnight: the Nasdaq fell 5.52%, the S&P 500 dropped 4.35%, and chip and AI stocks led the declines. The Fear and Greed Index fell from 50 to 28. Crypto fell alongside tech stocks, with about $1.08 billion in liquidations across the market over 24 hours, mostly long positions (CoinLab/KuCoin figures). Ethereum also fell 7.7%, to about $2,238.
One suspenseful question remains tonight: the U.S. October jobs report will be released at 21:30 Beijing time tonight. The market expects around 59,000 to 65,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 4.2%. The data isn’t out yet, so I won’t guess the result—it will really affect how expectations for a Fed rate hike in December develop, and crypto prices will probably move again in response tonight.
But on the same day, something else went almost unnoticed: Nigeria’s central bank introduced new stablecoin regulations, which took effect on November 5. Foreign-currency stablecoin issuers must be licensed locally and have paid-in capital of at least 15 billion naira (about $11.16 million); naira-pegged coins need 10 billion naira, and algorithmic stablecoins are banned outright (reported by TechCabal/Punch on November 6). Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest crypto markets, and this step effectively moves stablecoins from “everyone uses them” to “you need a license to use them.”
Meanwhile, USDC is trading close to $1 today, at around $1.0010 (according to Investing.com on November 6). Prices have fallen this much, but the peg hasn’t budged.
That’s the conclusion of my review tonight: prices are waiting on a report, but regulations aren’t waiting. Stablecoins are moving from “usable” to “regulated.” For ordinary users like us, the real things to watch aren’t how many percentage points prices fell today, but three things: whether the U in our hands is holding its peg, who the issuer is, and whether the rules have changed.
My approach is simple. In the evening, I first open PayAll’s stablecoin overview: each coin’s price, source, and update time are listed, with different data sources shown side by side. USDC is close to $1, so I feel halfway reassured. I leave the other half to PayAll Agent. I just tell it, “Keep an eye out for changes to stablecoin regulations,” and it’ll alert me when new rules come out, so I don’t have to check the news every day. Before moving any money, I’ll double-check everything myself.
I won’t make any moves before the jobs report comes out at 21:30 tonight. Three takeaways from my review: risk-asset sentiment is what’s falling; the peg is holding. Rules are being set faster than prices are rising or falling. What ordinary people can do is first get clear on what they can “see.”
This is not investment advice.