📣 July 2024 Weekly Update #2

July 8th to 14th Recap:

▫️ The German government continued BTC sales & sold off all holdings
▫️ The SEC dropped investigations into Paxos & Bitcoin L2 Stacks
▫️ Cboe filed 19b-4 forms with SEC for Vaneck & 21Shares Solana ETF approvals
▫️ Bitcoin ETFs recorded $300M of inflows on Friday
▫️ Australia’s ASX stock exchange listed 2nd spot Bitcoin ETF on Friday BlackRock's BUIDL Fund hit $500M & Goldman Sachs announced plan to launch 3 tokenization projects by EOY
▫️ MakerDAO launched the $1B tokenized asset Spark Tokenization Grand Prix
▫️ Squarespace hacking vulnerability potentially affecting over 125 DeFi platforms revealed
▫️ BitMEX pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations
▫️ US CPI made 1st monthly dip in 4 years dropping by 0.1% to a 12 month rate of 3%

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $60,351
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $54,424

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,214
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,838

July 15th to 21st Upcoming Events:

▪️ July 15 - STRK, 36M token unlock
▪️ July 15 - Pudgy Penguins “Pudgy Wizard” collectible release
▪️ July 16 - ARB, 66M token unlock
▪️ July 16 - Chromia MVP Mainnet launch
▪️ July 17 - APE, 11.5M token unlock

*Nota Bene:
As the German government has finalized selling off its Bitcoin holdings, all eyes continue to remain on Bitcoin sales and purchases. Last week saw Bitcoin record the 5th largest weekly inflows to date with $1.35B worth of inflows. Alongside this, Ethereum saw $72M worth of inflows, the largest since March which highlights the market anticipating the approval of spot-based ETFs in the US.

Ethereum ETFs could go live as early as Monday this week which could lead to further bullish trading activity. In addition, last week’s rather tame US inflation report and Jerome Powell's acknowledgement that coming rate cuts are likely provide a decent backdrop for positive sentiment and price action. With the market also reacting bullishly to the events at the weekend’s Trump rally, it seems that it would take significant adverse news regarding Mt Gox distributions to dampen the current sentiment change.

📣 July 2024 Weekly Update #3

July 15th to 21st Recap:

▫️ SEC approved Grayscale & ProShares ETH ETF NYSE listing proposal
▫️ The German government confirmed conclusion of “emergency” BTC sales
▫️ Mt Gox Rehabilitation Trustee announced BTC & BCH payments to over 13k creditors with 36% of all BTC already sent out
▫️ Kraken confirmed receipt of Mt Gox funds
▫️ FTX & CFTC reached a $12.7B settlement agreement
▫️ Bankrupt lender BlockFi announced fund distributions to begin in July
▫️ Grayscale launched decentralized AI fund with NEAR, FIL & RNDR as top weighted assets
▫️ Indian exchange WazirX & Liminal Custody suffer $230M hack
▫️ Ryan Selkis quits as Messari CEO following inflammatory posts on X regarding Trump support
▫️ Polygon announced plans for Sept 4 MATIC to POL token swap

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $68,418
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $62,755

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,537
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,361

July 22nd to 28th Upcoming Events:

▪️ July 22 - Binance 28th BNB Burn
▪️ July 23 - ETH ETFs to begin trading in the US
▪️ July 23 - WLD, $15M token unlock
▪️ July 25 - ALT. $110M token unlock
▪️ July 25 to 27 - Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville, US
▪️ July 27 - YGG, $7M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

Last week saw Bitcoin rally to hit $68,000 while $1.27B of inflows into BTC ETFs were recorded. This took place during a global Crowdstrike IT infrastructure outage which caused widespread disruption to numerous industries including aviation, emergency services, banking, and financial markets. Alongside this, news of Mt. Gox moving around 140k BTC to several wallets, and Joe Biden stepping down from the US presidential race highlighted Bitcoin’s ability to ride both market and overall macroeconomic uncertainty.

Ethereum will be in the spotlight this week, with all eyes on ETH’s ability to respond to the imminent ETH ETF launches. Last week saw $45M of ETH inflows which enabled ETH to overtake SOL as the digital asset with the second highest inflows year-to-date at $103M. However, Grayscale plans to convert its ETHE trust into a spot ETF while launching a mini trust seeded with $1B from the former fund. Grayscale will also keep ETHE’s fee significantly higher than competitors, at 2.5%. Most issuers have opted for fee waivers, and as a result, ETHE could see outflows from the fund, similar to the performance of GBTC after the conversion to a spot BTC ETF. This could lead to ETH price volatility relative to initial inflow numbers while the market searches for a more “natural” equilibrium.

📣 July 2024 Weekly Update #4

July 22nd to 28th Recap:

▫️ SEC approved spot ETH ETFs to commence trading on Tuesday
▫️ ETH ETFs amassed $1B in volume on 1st trading day
▫️ US spot ETH ETF inflows exceeded $106M on 1st trading day
▫️ Kraken began & completed distributing Mt Gox BTC & BCH
▫️ Bitstamp started distributing Mt Gox BTC & BCH on Thursday
▫️ Mayor announced Jersey City pension fund to buy BTC ETFs
▫️ Galaxy Asset Management raised $113M for early stage crypto venture fund
▫️ WazirX revealed recovery plan offering 55% unlocked & 45% locked funds
▫️ DYDX Exchange website hacked & recovered
▫️ DeBridge cross chain platform announced plan to issue governance token

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $69,190
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $63,740

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,530
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,103

July 29th to Aug 4th Upcoming Events:

▪️ July 31 - Acala Network 257K ACA token burn
▪️ July 31 - OP, $53M token unlock
▪️ August 1 - DYDX, $10M token unlock
▪️ August 1 - ZETA. $32M token unlock
▪️ August 2 -GAL, $12M token unlock
▪️ August 4 - ENA, $6.5M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

All eyes were on the launch of spot ETH ETFs last week with many wondering if they would actually represent a sell the news moment. ETH ETFs generated around $1.08B of cumulative volume on their first day of trading, approximately 23% of the volume generated by Bitcoin ETFs on their debut. However, this only translated to around $107M worth of net inflows due to $484.9M worth of outflows from the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which amounted to around 5% of the previously $9B fund.
This theme continued across the week with US spot ETH ETFs seeing $2.2B worth of inflows, while Grayscale’s ETHE alone witnessed outflows of $1.5B, Grayscale also chose to seed its new Mini Trust ETF with capital from its incumbent closed-end trust somewhat skewing the inflow numbers, with the fall out seeing ETH ETFs record over $285M in net outflows across their opening week.

Bitcoin recorded inflows of approximately $519M which helped digital asset investment products amass $245M of inflows over the week with the prices of both BTC and ETH remaining relatively stable. The focus will stay on the market’s appetite to absorb sell offs from Grayscale ETHE while continuing to deploy capital into BTC ETFs. Bulls are currently in the ascendancy, however, price volatility relative to inflows and outflows looks set to continue.

📣 August 2024 Weekly Update #1

July 29th to August 4th Recap:

▫️ End of week market crash led to $500B market cap loss & almost $300M in liquidations
▫️ SEC amended Binance complaint rescinding need to prove SOL, ADA, FIL, MATIC are securities
▫️ The US Govt moved around 30k BTC worth $2B
▫️ Russia legalized crypto payments for international trade
▫️ Tether released Q2 2024 attestation, reported $5.2B billion H1 profit
▫️ Coinbase revealed Q2 revenue of $1.45B
▫️ Microstrategy announced 226,500 BTC holdings & plan to raise further $2B in capital
▫️ Terra blockchain tokens stolen due to IBC hook vulnerability & Montenegro rejected US request will extradite Do Kwon to South Korea
▫️ M2 exchange announced UAE residents can directly purchase BTC & ETH via bank accounts
▫️ Genesis completed bankruptcy restructuring & transferred $1.6B to pay creditors

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $69,799
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $57,898

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,386
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,689

August 5th to 11th Upcoming Events:

▪️ August 6 - Hearing on FTX Settlement
▪️ August 7 - Enso token launch postponement
▪️ August 9 - IMX, $37M token unlock
▪️ August 9 - XAI. $8M token unlock
▪️ August 12 -APT, $59M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

At the beginning of last week a portion of the macro narrative aligned around the possibility of further rate cuts both in the US and globally after the Fed kept interest rates unchanged at 5.5% & their meeting notes outlined progress made towards a 2% inflation target amongst other things.

However, the focus & sentiment shifted sharply at the end of the week as analysts witnessed stark market reactions to a perceived economic slow-down impacting global equity markets & digital risk-assets even more severely.

A perfect storm of fear around a slowdown in the US economy, mixed earnings from big tech, Japanese Yen funded carry trade sell-offs & the looming possibility of war in the Middle East caused markets to tumble. Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped over 12% in a day, the worst single-day decline since 1987 with Taiwan's stock market suffering its worst day in 57 years. US capital markets lost over $3T, the largest drop since March 2020, with the Nasdaq, Dow Jones & the S&P 500 all dipping while news of Berkshire Hathaway selling nearly half its $84.2B Apple stake circulated, further fueling stock market panic.

Alongside this, digital asset investment products saw $528M in net outflows with $400M in BTC & $146M in ETH. As a result, all eyes remain glued to the charts this week as observers remain hypervigilant to market reactions to the weekend’s carnage. In addition, economic indicators giving insight in which direction things are headed come to the fore & after last Friday's US jobs report this week sees the non-manufacturing ISM a key global services indicator announcement take place on Aug 5.

📣 August 2024 Weekly Update #2

August 5th to 11th Recap:

▫️ Traders racked up over $1B in liquidations to start the week
▫️ 5,222.45 ETH burnt on Monday, highest since March 14, day after Dencun upgrade
▫️ US judge ordered FTX, Alameda to pay $12.7B to creditors
▫️ Ripple hit with $125M fine for institutional sales violations
▫️ Russia legalized crypto mining
▫️ BlackRock & Nasdaq filed applications with the SEC for options on spot Ethereum ETFs
▫️ Celsius sued Tether for $3.5B in BTC returns, damages & fees
▫️ Brazil’s SEC approved the first Solana based spot ETF
▫️ Franklin Templeton launched tokenized money market fund on Arbitrum
▫️ Jump Crypto unstaked & moved 120k ETH worth $315M to exchanges
▫️ Starknet Foundation CEO Diego Oliva stepped down

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $62,384
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $49,842

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,702
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,226

August 12th to 18th Upcoming Events:

▪️ August 14 - US CPI Announcement
▪️ August 14 - SAND, $51M token unlock
▪️ August 15 - STRK, $23M token unlock
▪️ August 15 - SEI, starts $1.35M (5.03M SEI) per day for 365 days token unlock
▪️ August 16 - ARB, $51M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

After a brutal start to last week, the Bank of Japan’s reversal on hiking the interest rate helped to stimulate market recovery with both the S&P 500 and Nikkei closing at similar levels to the week prior. Bitcoin has recovered to trade close to $60k, and while Ethereum still lags behind its pre-drop price of $3,250 (around $2,600 at time of writing), it's evident that the correlation between crypto and global markets is currently close to 1.

With that considered, all eyes will be on this Wednesday's US CPI inflation report where a rate lower than 3% YoY will be viewed favorably by the markets and increase the likelihood of a Fed September rate cut with the most ambitious analysts calling for a 50 bps rate-cut to reverse a potential economic slowdown. As we’ve seen, favorable fiscal policy changes can have a dramatic effect on market sentiment, and this week may be no different.

📣 August 2024 Weekly Update #3

August 12th to 18th Recap:

▫️ Bitcoin miners' daily revenue reported on Monday to have hit a 2024 low of $2.5M
▫️ BitGo announced plan to move BTC backing WBTC to Hong Kong & Singapore
▫️ MakerDAO halted new WBTC-backed loans due to BitGo concerns
▫️ Coinbase, Crypto.соm, & Gemini opposed a CFTC proposal possibly banning Polymarket type US political prediction markets
▫️ NYSE withdrew application to list BTC ETF options while CBOE re-filed
▫️ Goldman Sachs reported $418M spot BTC ETF holdings for end of June
▫️ Marathon Digital revealed intention to offer $250M in convertible notes to buy more BTC
▫️ BlackRock surpassed Grayscale as largest digital asset fund manager by AUM
▫️ Former TON Foundation members raised $40M for new Web3 investment firm, TON Ventures
▫️ Dubai Court of First Instance recognized crypto as valid salary payments under employment contracts
▫️ MetaMask began rollout of self custodial crypto debit card developed with Mastercard & Baanx
▫️ Uniswap’s cumulative front-end revenue

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $61,491
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $56,640

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,756
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,540

August 19th to 25th Upcoming Events:

▪️ August 18 - ROSE, $9M token unlock
▪️ August 20 - AVAX, $196M token unlock
▪️ August 21 - Scroll to launch Darwin upgrade
▪️ Aug 22 - US Services/Manufacturing PMI Announcement
▪️ Aug 23 - Fed Chairman Powell speaks at Jackson Hole

*Nota Bene:

Powered by strong US retail sales the S&P 500 traded higher last week along with the FTSE and Nikkei. This capped another strong week for equity markets while crypto markets generally traded sideways with BTC struggling to break the $60k barrier. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's speech this Friday should be monitored mostly to gauge the magnitude of any potential interest rate cuts.

Alongside key macro developments, the geopolitical landscape will be worth keeping an eye on over the coming week as any significant news regarding changes in relations between Iran and Israel (possibly due to an anticipated Iranian retaliation) could lead to investors taking a risk-off approach which will impact crypto markets in the short term.

📣 August 2024 Weekly Update #4

August 19th to 25th Recap:

▫️ Mt. Gox moved BTC worth over $700M & sent $75M in BTC to Bitstamp
▫️ Bitwise acquired ETC Group, issuer of Europe’s largest physical BTC ETP
▫️ Anchorage announced partnership with PayPal over rewards for PYUSD holders
▫️ California Judge rules Kraken must face SEC lawsuit over registration failures
▫️ Tether announced plan to launch a UAE dirham-pegged stablecoin
▫️ DCG announced full repayment of short-term debts as of June, crypto subsidiary Genesis.still owed $1.1B promissory note
▫️ MakerDAO announced endgame plan to optionally redenominate 1 MKR into 24,000 NGT tokens
▫️ Justin Sun’s USDD removed 12,000 BTC without DAO voting
▫️ Base announced ENS user sub-names with Dutch auction launch as over 50% of active L2 addresses revealed to be on Base

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $64,666
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $58,821

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,812
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,570

August 26th to September 1st Upcoming Events:

▪️ August 28 - NVIDIA earnings announcement
▪️ August 31 - OP, $42M token unlock
▪️ September 1 - DYDX, $8M token unlock
▪️ September 1 - SUI, $50M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

Both Bitcoin and the S&P traded higher WoW at 7% and 1% respectively with investors primarily buoyed by Fed Chairman Jerome Powells' dovish comments at the Jackson Hole Symposium. Digital asset investment products saw inflows of around $533M, the largest inflows in five weeks. Bitcoin attracted the majority of buying, amassing $543M of inflows, again highlighting its sensitivity to interest rate expectations.

However, it remains to be seen if news of an imminent rate-cut becomes a "sell the news" event over the week. In addition, any “Big Tech” moves post the NVIDIA earnings announced should be monitored as the price of BTC continues to be increasingly correlated with growth tech stocks this year alongside other pressing macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.

📣 September 2024 Weekly Update #1

August 26th to September 1st Recap:

▫️ Telegram CEO Pavel Durov arrested in France & then released on €5M bail
▫️ TON blockchain went down for six hours
▫️ OpenSea received a Wells notice from the SEC
▫️ Tesla/Musk won dismissal of lawsuit claiming Dogecoin rigging
▫️ Celsius' bankruptcy plan administrator revealed to have paid out over $2.5B
▫️ Bitcoin miner Rhodium filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with $100M to $500M in assets
▫️ PayPal's PYUSD reached $1B in market cap
▫️ Non algorithmic stablecoin market cap reached new ATH at around $170B
▫️ Tokenized Treasury notes surpassed a $2B market cap

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $64,524
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $57,488

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,750
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,434

September 2nd to 8th Upcoming Events:

▪️ September 4 - Uniswap Security Competition begins
▪️ September 4 -Polygon begins MATIC to POL token migration
▪️ September 4 - THORchain Hard Fork Upgrade
▪️ September 4 - Flow Crescendo Network Upgrade
▪️ September 5 - TAIKO, $18M token unlock
▪️ September 6 - IMX, $41M token unlock
▪️ September 6 - US Unemployment rate announcement

*Nota Bene:

Global markets mostly remained flat while Bitcoin went down 8% over the final week of summer with low volumes recorded across the board. Crypto sentiment remains somewhat low as Bitcoin struggles to maintain $60k and the US unemployment rate announcement on Friday is not expected to impact the magnitude of a possible rate cut the week after. It appears that most market participants have already priced in a potential 25 bps cut to the Fed rate.

As a result, anyone looking for shoots of optimism may focus on developments like PayPal's PYUSD reaching $1B in market cap while the total market cap of non algorithmic stablecoins has risen to a new all time high, currently fluctuating at around $170B, surpassing the old highs of late 2021/early 2022.

With the continued emergence of regulatory friendly stablecoins such as PYUSD being backed by dollar deposits, US treasuries, and cash equivalents, it’s another sign that capital continues to flow into the market.

📣 September 2024 Weekly Update #2

September 2nd to 8th Recap:

▫️ SEC charged crypto advisory firm Galois Capital for custody failures & FTX loses
▫️ BTC ETFs saw $287M record capital outflow on Tuesday
▫️ ZKB the 4th largest bank in Switzerland launched a BTC & ETH trading service
▫️ VanEck announced plan to close down ETH Futures ETF
▫️ WisdomTree requested SEC to withdraw spot ETH ETF S-1 registration filing
▫️ NYAG subpoenaed a16z & Union Square Ventures over UNI investments
▫️ CFTC hit Uniswap with $175k penalty for offering illegal leveraged/margined txs
▫️ Penpie hacked & Pendle paused contracts to secure funds
▫️ EigenLayer revealed Season 2 Stakedrop & 86M EIGEN token distribution plan
▫️ Travala partnered with Skyscanner bringing crypto payments to over 2.2M hotels & 110M monthly users

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $59,655
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $52,720

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,549
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,174

September 9th to 15th Upcoming Events:

▪️ September 9 - XAI, $6M token unlock
▪️ September 11 - APT, $66M token unlock
▪️ September 11- US Consumer Price Index announcement
▪️ September 15 - STRK, $27M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

September is historically a difficult month for traditional markets and approximately $2.2T of market cap was erased from the S&P 500 across the week. At the same time digital asset investment funds saw around $700M of outflows, the second largest on record, while BTC ETFs saw outflows worth $287M on Tuesday alone, the largest day of outflows since May 1st.

As a result, BTC currently struggles to maintain a price of $55k while the total crypto market cap fluctuates at around $2T. With the Bank of Canada cutting rates by 25 bps and the ECB set to follow suit, fear of a sustained slowdown in the global economy continue to linger. All eyes will be on this week’s US Consumer Price Index announcement on the 11th ahead of the FOMC interest rate decision on the 18th.
With last week’s US unemployment rate announcement of 4.2% falling in-line with expectations, there is a growing sentiment that favorable US CPI numbers will precede the FED announcing a rate cut on the 18th. However, despite this possibility, markets may continue to drop in the meanwhile.

📣 September 2024 Weekly Update #3

September 9th to 15th Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy acquired 18,300 BTC for $1.11B at $60,408 per BTC
▫️ eToro reached $1.5M settlement with SEC & restricted US trading activity to BTC, BCH, & ETH
▫️ Binance released its 22nd proof of reserves with customer balances worth $36.3B of BTC & $22.1B of USDT
▫️ The SEC expanded its lawsuit against Binance including ATOM, AXS, FIL, MANA, & SAND as unregistered securities
▫️ FTX reached a settlement with Emergent Technologies over $600M worth of disputed Robinhood shares
▫️ Standard Chartered Bank received Dubai crypto custody license & launched crypto custody services in the UAE
▫️ English high court ruled Tether's USDT qualifies as property
▫️ Coinbase launched its Wrapped BTC offering (cbBTC) on Ethereum and Base
▫️ Paypal & Venmo integrated Ethereum Name Service for crypto payments
▫️ Sam Bankman-Fried appealed to overturn his fraud conviction

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $60,599
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $52,827

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,455
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,171

September 16th to 22nd Upcoming Events:

▪️ September 16 - ARB, $49M token unlock
▪️ September 17 - APE, $11.4M token unlock
▪️ September 18- FOMC interest-rate decision
▪️ September 18/19 - Token 2049 Singapore
▪️ September 22 - ID, $27M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

All eyes are on the Fed’s interest rate decision on Wednesday and market’s may have already begun pricing in a Fed pivot in monetary policy. The S&P 500 was up 2.75% across the week while BTC ETFs recorded inflows of $28.7M on Monday to break eight consecutive days of outflows. This spate of buying hit a peak on Friday as BTC ETFs saw $263M of inflows to close out the week.

With both the Bank of Canada and ECB recently cutting rates by 25 bps speculation has shifted to focus on the size of a potential interest rate cut. JPMorgan and Evercore expect a 50 bps easing by the Fed this coming week, while Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo expect a more conservative 25 bps easing. If the Fed reveals a rate cut as expected, analysts will be keeping an eye on whether the announcement turns out to be a sell the news event or more of a long term stimulus for overall bullish market sentiment.

📣 September 2024 Weekly Update #4

September 16th to 22nd Recap:

▫️ MicroStrategy announced proposed private offering of $700M of convertible senior notes & acquired 7,420 BTC for $458.2M at $61,750 per BTC
▫️ SEC approved options on Blackrock spot Bitcoin ETF
▫️ Silvergate Capital, parent co of Silvergate Bank, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with listed assets between $100M & $500M & liabilities between $10M & $50M
▫️ The Royal Government of Bhutan’s 13k BTC holdings worth over $750M revealed
▫️ Singapore's largest bank, DBS Bank announced launch of OTC crypto services & structured notes for institutional clients in Q4 2024
▫️ Texas Court dismissed Consensys lawsuit against SEC over MetaMask & Ethereum claims
▫️ Commerzbank announced launch of BTC, ETH trading to corporate clients
▫️ Google Cloud released Ethereum-compatible RPC service
▫️ WalletConnect released plan to airdrop 185 million WCT tokens at launch
▫️ Base hit a record 4.5M transactions in 24 hours after cbBTC launch
▫️ Delta Prime DeFi protocol & Banana Gun Telegram bot exploited

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $63,983
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $57,594

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,622
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,264

September 23rd to 29th Upcoming Events:

▪️ September 23 - U.S. services PMI announcement
▪️ September 24 - PancakeSwap/Eigenpie IFO on Arbitrum
▪️ September 24 -WCT airdrop registration opens
▪️ September 25 - VENOM, $26M token unlock
▪️ September 27- YGG, $6.4M token unlock
▪️ September 28 - AGIX, $5.7M token unlock
▪️ September 29 -CZ's scheduled release date

*Nota Bene:

Prior to the Fed announcement, the general consensus amongst market watchers was that a 25 bps cut was on the cards. The Fed therefore caught many analysts by surprise by opting for an aggressive 50 bps rate cut on Wednesday, stimulating an almost immediate market reaction. Both global and crypto markets traded higher over the week with BTC up by approximately 9% WoW and looking to reclaim $65k.

The sudden sentiment shift saw digital asset investment products experience a second consecutive week of inflows, totalling around $321M, with BTC seeing $284M in inflows. Short traders also got their fingers burnt as over $155M worth of shorts were liquidated during the midweek period as Bitcoin surged by roughly 6% and broke past $63.3k.

BlackRock has announced it is preparing for a potential U.S. dollar crisis, and that the $35T debt pile could see institutions flock to BTC as a hedge with BTC increasingly seen as a unique diversifier against economic risks for both retail and institutional actors. Looking ahead, with the big rate cut announcement in the back mirror and no obvious near-term bearish catalysts, the week ahead could be dictated by a "follow the trend" mindset and the crypto market trading higher.

September 2024 Weekly Update #5

September 23rd to 29th Recap:

▫️ BNY approved by SEC for crypto custody beyond ETFs
▫️ PayPal enabled U.S. merchants to buy, hold & sell cryptos from their business accounts
▫️ The SEC delayed options on BlackRock spot ETH ETF
▫️ TrustToken & TrueCoin reach $340K settlement with SEC over TrueUSD allegations
▫️ Ex Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison received a 2 year prison sentence
▫️ Entities operating Mango Markets trading platform settle with SEC & agree to destroy MNGO tokens
▫️ $300B asset management giant Guggenheim partnered with Zeconomy to tokenize $20M of commercial paper on ETH
▫️ Celestia foundation raised $100M led by Bain Capital Crypto, total amount raised jumped to $155M
▫️ USDC issuer Circle launched compliance platform to enable KYC & travel rule compliance
▫️ Coinbase Ventures-backed Truflation suffered $5M hack

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $66,331
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $62,808

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,722
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,565

September 30th to October 6th Upcoming Events:

▪️ September 30 to October 2 - Messari Mainnet 2024
▪️ October 1 - SUI, $114M token unlock
▪️ October 2 - ADA, $7.3M token unlock
▪️ October 2 - ENA, $166.7M token unlock
▪️ October 4 - IMX, $53M token unlock
▪️ October 4 - US Unemployment rate announcement

*Nota Bene:

While the S&P 500 moved sideways last week, crypto markets rose with BTC & ETH gaining 3% & 2% respectively. In addition, digital asset investment products saw a third consecutive week of inflows with the total hitting $1.2B. BTC saw inflows of $1B while ETH saw inflows of $87M, breaking its 5-week spell of outflows.

This provides a hint that the market expects continued dovish monetary policy in the US while the US presidential election candidate Kamala Harris' recent quotes imply the campaign is beginning to cozy up to crypto. Considering that, another marginally positive week for digital asset prices remains likely.

With regards to macro factors, last week saw China's larger than expected stimulus news cause Chinese markets to rally while geopolitical tensions escalated in the Middle East following Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, both possible triggers for volatility in the week ahead.

Coming back to crypto, October is a big month in the token world with over $3B worth of tokens hitting the market. Sui kicks things off with over 64M SUI tokens worth around $114M being unlocked on October 1 with 11.3M APT tokens worth $89M dropping on October 11. However, Celestia’s end of the month unlock outweighs them both with the 175.5M TIA token unlock valued at around $1B. These sizable unlocks could also provide a further trigger for volatility over the next seven days.

October Weekly Update #1

September 30th to October 6th Recap:

▫️ Middle East tension caused over $450M of liquidations on Tuesday
▫️ Bitwise filed an S-1 registration with the SEC for a spot XRP ETF
▫️ Coinbase announced the delisting of all EU MiCA non compliant stablecoins by the end of 2024
▫️ Gemini announced the termination of its services to Canadians by December 31
▫️ CFTC approved guidelines allowing tokenized funds to be used as collateral in TradFi transactions
▫️ Robinhood launched crypto transfers for European customers
▫️ The UAE exempted crypto transfers & conversions from value-added tax
▫️ It was revealed that Bitcoin miners' revenue dropped to a yearly low of $816M in September
▫️ Grayscale rolled out an Aave fund
▫️ Aerodrome topped $1B in deposits, taking 1st place for DeFi on Base

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $64,100
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $60,092

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,653
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,313

October 7th to 13th Upcoming Events:

▪️ October 7 - FTX reorganization plan confirmation hearing
▪️ October 9 - Stacks Nakamoto hard fork
▪️ October 10 - US Inflation Announcement
▪️ October 10 - OP, $13M token unlock
▪️ October 11 - APT, $97.5M token unlock
▪️ October 13 - NEAR, start of 423.68k token unlock per day for 365 days

*Nota Bene:

After experiencing gains last week, rising tensions in the Middle East caused both BTC & ETH to end the week down in price with decreases of around 1% & 4% respectively. The sudden dip in prices early in the week also resulted in over $500M of liquidations over 24 hours on Tuesday.

Digital asset investment products also saw outflows over the week totalling $147M. US BTC ETFs experienced approximately $274M in outflows with US ETH ETFs losing $25M. Interestingly, inflows from Canada & Switzerland into various domestic funds exceeded $77M bringing down the overall outflow total.

With the market now steadily recovering from last week’s dip, the focus returns to US macro factors, & after a strong jobs report last week, next Thursday's US CPI reading is worth tracking closely. This is due to the fact that a higher than expected inflation reading directly lowers the odds of further rate-cuts this year & can be expected to negatively affect market sentiment in the short term.

October Weekly Update #2

October 7th to 13th Recap:

▫️ Delaware judge approved FTX estate’s $16.5B bankruptcy repayment plan
▫️ U.S. Supreme Court ruled that U.S. govt can sell 69,370k silk road BTC worth $4.4B
▫️ Crypto dot com received Wells notice then sued the SEC
▫️ Bitfinex deemed 'sole victim' eligible for return of 120k BTC worth $7.4B
▫️ Mt. Gox extended its repayment deadline for compensation by 1 year, to Oct 31, 2025
▫️ SEC sued Cumberland DRW for operating as unregistered securities dealer
▫️ U.S. District Court charged market makers including Gotbit & ZM Quant for market manipulation & wash trading
▫️ Trump-supported World Liberty Financial announced public token sale on Oct 15 for $300M raise
▫️ Google integrated support for Ethereum Name Service (ENS)
▫️ VanEck launched VanEck Ventures, $30M fintech, digital assets,& AI startup fund
▫️ Uniswap Labs unveiled own Layer-2 network, Unichain, built on Optimism stack
▫️ Optimism launched fifth airdrop, sending 10.3M OP tokens worth $16M to 54,700 addresses
▫️ Arbitrum became first L2 to surpass $200B in swap volume on Uniswap

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $63,743
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $59,161

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,482
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,347

October 14th to 20th Upcoming Events:

▪️ October 14 - DEEP token launch on Sui
▪️ October 15 - Australia’s 1st spot ETH ETF goes live
▪️ October 15 - STRK, $27M token unlock
▪️ October 15 - EIGEN, $40M token unlock
▪️ October 16 - ARB, $49M token unlock
▪️ October 17 to 19 - ETH Sofia
▪️ October 18 - WalletConnect, WCT airdrop registration closes

*Nota Bene:

A relatively kind US inflation report (2.4% YoY/ 0.2% MoM) gave credence to investors backing a "soft-landing" as markets generally experienced a mixed week. However, BTC recovered from a sluggish start to end the week trading above $63K. Digital asset investment products saw inflows of US$407M, with BTC experiencing inflows totalling US$419M, while ETH saw outflows of just under $10M.

With upcoming Q3 earnings announcements from Taiwan Semiconductors, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, Blackstone, and Amex, markets could continue to trend upwards in the week ahead. However, this of course assumes that there aren't any unexpected negative surprises hiding in the reports. Other key developments to watch out for in the coming week include any fiscal stimulus details released by the government of China and any crypto-related assertions made by either of the US presidential candidates as the election draws near.

October Weekly Update #3

October 14th to 20th Recap:

▫️ SEC cleared all 11 spot BTC ETFs for options trading
▫️ Grayscale filed to convert crypto fund with BTC, ETH & SOL into ETF
▫️ Blockstream secured $210M to expand BTC treasury & drive Layer 2 growth
▫️ Thailand's oldest bank, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) debuted stablecoin adoption in partnership with Lightnet
▫️ SEC charged creator of Saitama Inu memecoin for unregistered securities & market manipulation
▫️ Kraken launched its Wrapped Bitcoin token kBTC
▫️ Vitalik Buterin presented an updated ETH roadmap focused on layer 2 scaling, wallet security, & data privacy
▫️ Polymarket crossed $1B in monthly trading volume & led Apple US app downloads
▫️ Base became the largest ETH rollup by total value locked, surpassing Arbitrum
▫️ Uniswap revealed to be largest driver of fees on Ethereum L1, generating almost $3B since launching
▫️ Radiant Capital suffered a $51M exploit on its BNB Chain & Arbitrum instances

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $68,872
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $65,261

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,708
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,560

October 21st to 27th Upcoming Events:

▪️ October 22 - Scroll’s SCR token launch
▪️ October 22 to 23 - Blockchain Life conference in Dubai
▪️ October 22 - ADA, $6.7M token unlock
▪️ October 23 - ENA, $5.3M token unlock
▪️ October 27 - YGG, $7.7M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

As we predicted last week, markets continued their upward trend with BTC & ETH gaining around 10% WoW at the time of writing. The two leading digital assets pulled the market along with them as the total market cap teeters close to $2.5T for the first time since July.

Digital asset investment products saw inflows of $2.2B, the largest weekly increase since July. Interestingly, BTC was the main beneficiary with inflows of $2.13B, while US inflows alone hit $2.3B. Almost every other country saw minor outflows, including Canada, Sweden & Switzerland bringing the total down slightly.

In terms of macro, last week saw the ECB announce a key interest rate cut by 25 basis points to 3.25% & outline continued hope for a "soft landing" which can be taken as a positive for crypto. Looking forward, with no major macro news expected in the week ahead, both Trump & Harris will tour swing states as a final push before the elections to rally support. Any pro-Harris polling indications or breaking news developments could affect crypto market sentiment as Trump is viewed as the more bullish-crypto candidate.

In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. government can sell 69,370k silk road BTC worth $4.4B, alongside Tesla moving its entire 11.5k BTC holdings, worth approximately $760M may lead to some twitchy trading fingers over the coming days.

October Weekly Update #4

October 21st to 27th Recap:

▫️ US government wallet addresses compromised for $20M then recovered
▫️ Stripe announced acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge in a $1.1B deal
▫️ Pennsylvania passed the Bitcoin Rights bill, protecting BTC self-custody & payment method use
▫️ Microsoft revealed "Assessment of Investing in Bitcoin" voting to occur in a shareholder meeting on Dec 10
▫️ Nigeria court released Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan detained since February
▫️ Kraken announced plan to launch its Ink Layer 2 blockchain in 2025
▫️ Vitalik Buterin presented The Verge phase outline, aimed at full blockchain verification on mobile wallets & smartwatches via Verkle trees & SNARKs use
▫️ Uniswap's permissionless bridging went live across nine networks including ETH, ARB, OP, & Base
▫️ Aerodrome revealed to account for over half of Base’s $1.3B TVL & 58% of Base’s DEX volumes
▫️ Restaked Bitcoin TVL revealed to have surpassed $1B
▫️ Uniswap crossed $2T in all-time volume on Ethereum L1
▫️ GnosisDAO approved launch of new $40M venture fund targeting RWA, crypto infrastructure, & payments

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $$68,679
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $65,535

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,679
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,387

October 28th to November 3rd Upcoming Events:

▪️ October 30 - TIA, $850M token unlock
▪️ October 31 - Elixir launches Mainnet phase 1
▪️ October 31 -OP, $50M token unlock
▪️ November 1 - US Unemployment report
▪️ November 1 - SUI, $105M token unlock
▪️ November 1 - IMX, 40M token unlock
▪️ November 1 - ZETA, $32M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

Last week proved to be fairly neutral across the markets as the S&P 500 closed around 1% down WoW while the total crypto market cap fluctuated between $2.4T & $2.5T for much of the week despite very strong BTC ETF inflows. Bitcoin attracted around $920M in global inflows with well over $900M inflows into US BTC ETFs alone.

However, with less than 10 days until the US Presidential Election, undoubtedly the biggest price catalyst, all focus has shifted in that direction. Presidential candidates Donald Trump & Kamala Harris appear neck-and -neck as early polling has already begun. While it is difficult to make any kind of definitive judgment based on early polling turnouts, any meaningful consensus forming among analysts and watchers in the week ahead will surely lead to volatility in the crypto markets.

However, this anticipated volatility might lead to some traders reducing exposure to crypto and waiting on the sidelines before a definitive trend emerges which could result in weak price action at the beginning of the week.

In addition, the next seven days could potentially see over $1B in token unlocks led by the TIA unlock on October 30 which represents just over 80% of the circulating supply & is currently worth over $850M.

November Weekly Update #1

October 28th to November 3rd Recap:

▫️ Microstrategy announced plan to raise $42B over next 3 years to buy BTC
▫️ BlackRock’s IBIT saw record 875M of BTC inflows
▫️ Florida's CFO revealed state holds about $800M in crypto related investments
▫️ Canary Capital Group filed Form S-1 for a Solana ETF
▫️ UBS launched uMINT, a tokenized USD Money Market Investment Fund on Ethereum
▫️ Franklin Templeton made its tokenized treasury fund available on Base
▫️ Coinbase announced $1.2B Q3 earnings & $1B share buyback scheme
▫️ Robinhood’s Q3 results revealed 112% YoY surge in crypto trading volume to $14.4B & 165% revenue jump to $61M
▫️ Tether reported a $2.5B Q3 profit Q3, & over $100B of U.S.Treasuries holdings
▫️ Consensys cut 20% of workforce, DYDX CEO laid off 35% of core team
▫️ DeFi fees revealed to have hit a 2024 low of $218M in Sept, down over 50% from $486M in March
▫️ Solana's DEX volume hit a record 168% of Ethereum's mainnet DEX volume as Raydium hit $22.3B in October
▫️ Nillion raised a further $25M to expand 'blind computing'
▫️ 1inch’s front-end got compromised

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $73,274
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $67,605

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $2,716
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,417

November 4th to 10th Upcoming Events:

▪️ November 5 - US Presidential Elections
▪️ November 6 - ADA, $6M token unlock
▪️ November 7 - US interest rate announcement
▪️ November 10 - BGB, 6M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

After very bullish price action early on in the week with BTC moving close to its ATH, the market retraced to close out at roughly 3% up WoW. Digital asset investment products saw inflows of $2.2B, which brought year-to-date inflows to a record $29.2B. BTC was the main beneficiary with $2.2B of inflows while ETH only saw $9.5M worth of inflows

After more than a year of the cryptosphere looking forward to the US Presidential election as its big defining bullrun moment, the elections are upon us. Without doubt the week ahead will be volatile, especially on Nov 5 as polling results from the 7 swing states start trickling in on election day. As of now, early polling slightly favors Trump which would be a positive for crypto sentiment as a result of his promises around regulatory clarity & overall positive statements about making the US the center of web3 development, however, the consensus among pollsters is that the election remains too close to call.

November Weekly Update #2

November 4th to 10th Recap:

▫️ Trump elected 47th US president as all 48 crypto PAC backed political candidates won their respective elections
▫️ US presidential winner prediction market crossed $3B on Polymarket day before the election
▫️ BlackRock’s IBIT BTC ETF saw ‘biggest volume day ever’ with $4.1B traded
▫️ Detroit became largest US city to accept crypto payments for taxes & fees
▫️ BTC price volatility resulted in over $600M worth of liquidations on Sunday
▫️ Medical device company Semler Scientific increased holdings by an additional 47 BTC, bringing total to 1,058 coins
▫️ UK pension advisor Cartwright, announced a pioneering 3% BTC allocation ($59M) into a pension scheme investment portfolio
▫️ Anchorage Digital, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Robinhood, & Paxos introduced their Global Dollar Network (USDG)
▫️ Ethereum Foundation reported $970M treasury with $788M of crypto holdings
▫️ Galaxy Digital announced a net $54M loss in Q3 earnings report
▫️ Tether’s Trade Finance division processed a pioneering $45M Middle Eastern crude oil transaction using USDT
▫️ Coinbase launched cbBTC on the Solana blockchain
▫️ Coinbase gained legal win as a judge ordered the FDIC to release "Operation Chokepoint 2.0" pause letters

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $79,488
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $67,033

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,232
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $2,366

November 11th to 17th Upcoming Events:

▪️ November 13 - US Inflation announcement
▪️ November 13 - Maple Finance SYRUP token launch on Maple & SyrupFi
▪️ November 15 - STRK, $32M token unlock
▪️ November 16 - ARB, $60M token unlock
▪️ November 16 - CKB, $20M token unlock
▪️ November 17 - APE, $17.5M token unlock

*Nota Bene:

Unforeseen by many except maybe the most passionate MAGA supporters, Donald Trump swept the US Presidential elections taking both the electoral college vote & the popular vote. In addition, the Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate & are on the brink of retaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This comprehensive & historic victory has led to a feeling of a new dawn in the markets & an upswing in sentiment demonstrated by sustained positive price action as the crypto market rallied by around 23% over the past week to reach a total market cap of approximately $2.82T. Bitcoin unsurprisingly took charge sailing towards $80,000 & accounting for $1.8B of ETF inflows as digital asset investment products saw global inflows of $1.98B.

The euphoria resulted in BlackRock's IBIT ETF seeing its biggest daily trading volume since its inception as over $4.1B in trading took place on November 6. U.S. spot-listed BTC ETFs saw over $620M of net inflows on the same day.

The past week's developments are undoubtedly long-term bullish for the sector, however, a key issue to focus on is whether the bullish price action continues in the week ahead or if traders opt to do some profit-taking after the sudden run up in prices.