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MARKETS week ahead: November 20 – 26Last week in the news Inflation data was driving the markets during the previous week. US equities finished the week slightly higher from the week before, while Treasury yields continue to slow down. While the US Dollar weakened slightly, the price of Gold reverted once again toward the $2K as markets are betting on further Fed`s pause on monetary tightening. The crypto market is still driven by the ETF hype, with BTC reaching $38K resistance during the week. The wholesale prices in the US recorded the biggest drop on a monthly basis since April 2020. As per published data the producer price index in the US was down by 0.5% in October, beating market expectation of an increase of 0.1%. Inflation rate in the US in October fell to the level of 3.2% on a yearly basis, modestly below market estimate of 3.3%. Core inflation remained at a bit higher levels, reaching 4.0% in October, while expected was 4.1%. These figures are showing to investors that inflation is certainly on the road of further easing and that the Fed will not further increase interest rates. The market's attention is now switched toward the question when the Fed will start decreasing its rates, the so-called “pivoting”, a slang widely used by market participants. Equity markets reacted positively on a potential for Fed`s pivoting during the course of the next year, bringing main US indices to the higher grounds. There has been discussions in the news during the previous week, related to soaring US credit card debt. As per official data US citizens increased use of the debt on their credit cards to the level of $1.08 trillion in the Q3 this year. Economists are for now sure that it will not lead to the next financial crisis and that the level of debt does not represent the systemic risk for the US economy. On the other hand, there are some analysts as well as market participants who perceive it as a risk for a recession in the coming year, along with a looming housing and car market. On the other side are investors such as Ray Dalio, who in an interview with CNBC pointed to a rising US government debt which might pose a systemic risk for the US economy. The race within the tech industry influenced Germany to make some significant changes in its capital markets framework. The reforms are expected to be enforced as of the beginning of the next year, and include changes in the listings and taxation of companies for stock-based compensations at start-ups. The main aim of these reforms is to support the tech start up industry in Germany, which will now become more competitive to Silicon Valley in the US. Another goal which should be addressed with law reforms is a “brain drain”, where for several years now, the best people from Germany were switching their country for the US largest tech giants. The largest Swiss bank, UBS Group AG will allow its clients to trade exchange traded funds which are linked to crypto currencies on the Hong Kong platform. This option will be allowed to clients with minimum $2 million in funds. Hong Kong has officially announced its intention to become a “global crypto hub”, supporting a regulated trading of crypto products on its exchanges. Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission provided authorisations for three crypto ETF`s in this country, which are backed by both BTC and ETH. Crypto market cap The hype about the first crypto ETF in the US is still quite strong on markets, where any news on this topic is moving the crypto market to the upside. Same was during the previous week, when once again news related to BlackRock`s ETH ETF pushed the price of BTC up to the level of $38K resistance line. Still, as of the week end, the hype eased, after officially published data on the US inflation and potential for Fed`s so-called “pivotal” point during the next year. This was one of the main reasons why the focus of the market was switched to the US equities, leading to a modest decline in the total crypto market capitalization. Regardless of the hype from the beginning of the week, the crypto market is ending the week 2.4% lower from the week before, losing a total $33B. Daily trading volumes were modestly decreased to the level of $92B on a daily basis, from over $100B two weeks ago. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 80%, where it has added total $604B to the market cap. Although the previous week started in a positive manner for the majority of crypto coins, still, the weekend brought a short reversal point for the crypto market. Ether was leading the market toward the downside will total loss of $13.1B or 5.2% on a weekly basis. Bitcoin took the second place, with a total loss of almost $ 9B or 1.2%. Other major coins followed the path, with Ripple decreasing its market cap by $3.4B or 9.4%, LINK was down by $1.5B or 16.2%, and BNB lost $1.4B or 3.6% in value. Other altcoins with significant loss in relative terms during the week were NEO, which was down by 15.3%, Theta lost 12.5% in value, DASH was down by more than 8%, same as Polkadot. There were only a few coins which managed to increase their market cap, such as Maker, which was up by 4.7% on a weekly basis, Polygon was up by 0.4%, while Tether increased its value by 1.2%, by increasing its coins in circulation by this percentage. In line with higher volatility on the crypto market, there has been further increased developments with circulating coins. As previously mentioned, Tether managed to increase its coins in circulation by 1.2%, not recently seen on the market. While Miota and Filecoin increased the number of their coins by 0.6% both, Polkadot had a decrease of 4.0% compared to the week before. Several other altcoins had an increase in coins which are circulating on the market by 0.1%. Crypto futures market After a strong shift of the crypto futures during the last four weeks, the previous week brought some relaxation in prices of the crypto futures. Short term correction from the spot market was reflected also in both BTC and ETH derivatives. BTC short term futures ended the week by more than 2% lower from the week before, with December this year ending the week at a price of $37.075 or 2.4% lower on a weekly basis. Longer term futures ended the week at some lower pace, around 1.8%. Futures maturing in December next year were last traded at price $39.135 or 1.88% lower from the week before. March 2025 was closed at $39.850 and slipped from $40K level, traded two weeks before. ETH short term futures had a higher drop of more than 7% on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year ended the week at the level of $1.973, slipping from the $2K psychological level. At the same time, longer term futures were traded more than 4% lower, where December 2024 ended the week at price $2.087 and managed still to hold above the $2K line.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: November 13 – 19Last week in the news Fed Chair Powell's speech one more time impacted the market sentiment, where EU equities finished the week lower, while positive sentiment still holds the US equities. Gold and commodities eased during the previous week, as well as 10Y US Treasuries. The crypto markets continue to be under impact of the ETF frenzy, which might continue to hold in the weeks to come. Bitcoin tested levels above $37K; however, $38K resistance remains a hard task. Fed Chair Powell held a speech for the IMF audience in Washington during the previous week, where he noted that he is still not sure if he and his Fed colleagues have done enough to bring the inflation down to targeted 2%. He noted that they are still balancing between doing too much and doing too little. He also addressed the market expectations that the Fed might cut rates during the course of the next year, noting that Fed will increase further interest rates if inflation “reaccelerates”. After the speech, the equity market headed for lower levels, while 2Y Treasury yields again headed toward the 5%. Rating agencies continue to lose confidence in the US Government. During the previous week, the rating agency Moody's cut the US long term credit rating to negative from stable. This is the result of rising risks when the country's fiscal policy is in question. As noted in the agency's statement “in the context of higher interest rates, without effective fiscal policy measures to reduce government spending or increase revenues”, the agency puts into question further debt affordability for the US Government. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed his opinion that the SEC has “lost sight of their mission to protect investors” in an interview with CNBC. The SEC and the crypto industry have been on different sides for some time now. While, on one side SEC is insisting to put the crypto industry into the current legal framework related to securities, even through legal disputes, the crypto industry is not ready to comply, requesting a different set of laws. Several legal cases have been won, where dispute with Ripple was the first, and lasted for more than two years. Ripple won as the judge ruled that XRP is not a security. Garlinghouse expressed his hopes that the crypto regulation will stop being ruled by court decisions and that laws governing digital currencies will be adopted by the Congress. While the spot BTC ETF frenzy is still hot on the market, another one hit it during the previous week. There has been news that BlackRock, the largest asset management fund in the world, is seeking ways to list its first ETH ETF, while still waiting for the SEC`s approval of its first BTC ETF. The news came out that the entity called iShares Ethereum Trust has been registered in Delaware, US. Whether this news is true, BlackRock officials refused to comment, however, ETH was significantly supported with it, reaching $2.1K during the week. The United Kingdom has scheduled a world conference for crypto tax evasion for the year 2027. The aim of this initiative is to set rules by which tax authorities between countries, signatories of the agreement, will exchange information between each other with the aim to fight offshore crypto tax evasion. Currently 48 countries signed up, however, several largest countries when it comes to the crypto industry, like Turkey, India, China, African countries and Russia are not within signatory to the statement. Crypto market cap ETF frenzy is widely shaking the crypto market. During the last few weeks it was all about potential introduction of the first spot BTC ETF, however, starting from the previous week, the frenzy added to it Ethereum`s token ETH. Namely, there has been published news that BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, is seeking the way to list its first spot EFH ETF. The company refused to comment on this news, so for the moment, there is a question whether such news is officially true or not. Still, as markets like to buy the news and later sell the fact, it did not matter too much for investors who were rushing to invest both into BTC and ETH. Total crypto market capitalization was increased by 10% during the week, adding $125B to its value. The crypto market cap reached the level of almost $1.4 trillion, the last time seen in April last year. Daily trading volumes were significantly increased during the week, reaching a level of $104B on a daily basis, which might be treated as the crypto market is getting back to its old track. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 84%, where it has added total $637B to the market cap. It was another positive week for almost all crypto coins on the crypto market. Gains during the week are reminiscent of a period when the crypto market was booming. Almost all coins gained during the week, with BTC and ETH leading the market. In nominal terms BTC was once again the weekly winner of the market, which added $47B to its market cap or almost 7%. ETH managed to beat BTC in relative terms, by increasing its market cap by 13.3%, adding to it almost $30B on a weekly basis. Major altcoins also had significant gains, like Solana, with an incredible weekly increase in value of 43% where it has added a total $7.5B to its market cap. Among significant gainers are also BNB, which gained $2.8B or 8%, LINK added $2.8% or 45%, ADA surged by $2.45B or 21.5%. Both Polkadot and Polygon increased their market cap by $1.4B both, increasing it by around 24%. It should be noted also significant gain made by XRP of $3.4B or 10.6% on a weekly basis. All other altcoins were among weekly gainers. There has also been significant activity when it comes to coins in circulation. Tether is back in the game, by adding 1.5% coins and increasing its market value for this amount. Polkadot managed to increase its circulating coins by 4.6%, while Algorand`s coins were up by 1.0%. Filecoin has also added new coins into circulation of 0.9% w/w. There have been a lot of other altcoins which increased the number of available coins by at least 0.1%. Crypto futures market The frenzy from the BTC and ETH spot market was also reflected in the futures market for these coins. BTC short term futures were last traded higher by more than 7%, while the longer term ones were up by more than 4%. Futures maturing in December 2023 were last traded at price $37.985 or 7.59% higher from the week before, while those maturing in December next year closed the week at price of $39.885. It is interesting to note that BTC futures maturing in March 2025 reached the price of $40.615, which is a significant breakthrough when it comes to the expectations of the BTC price for the future period. ETH futures were strongly supported by the unconfirmed news that BlackRock will probably file for the ETH ETF in the future period. Short term futures were traded higher by an incredible 14%, while long term ones were up by more than 12% on a weekly basis. ETH futures maturing in December this year finished the week at price $2.135, while those maturing in December next year were last traded at $2.175. It is positive for ETH that its price for the future period managed to finally break the $2K psychological line.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: November 6 – 12Last week in the news The Fed has temporarily stopped further increase of interest rates, as per Fed Chair Powell, but the market perceives that interest rates have topped. The US equities started November with a positive sentiment, as well as US Treasury bonds. Gold was testing $2K resistance during the whole week, amid geopolitical tensions. The crypto market is still under ETF hype mode, gaining during the week, but Bitcoin is still holding modestly below $35K resistance. The major event during the previous week was the FOMC meeting, and rate decision as of November 1st. The Fed decided to hold interest rates unchanged, but at after-the-meeting testimony Fed Chair Powell noted that potential further rate increases are not excluded by FOMC members, as such decisions will depend on further developments in the US economy with respect to inflation and employment. Friday’s trading session was positively supported by the US unemployment figures. Non-farm payrolls were increased by 150K in October, lower from market expectations of 170K, while the unemployment rate rose to the level of 3.9% from 3.8% posted for the previous month. Wages were increased by 0.2% in October for the month, to 4.1% on a yearly basis. These figures represent one of the gauges for the Fed as a potential inflation indicator, in which sense, market expectations are that the inflation might further ease till the end of this year. News that occupied the attention of the public during the previous week was the finalization of the trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. The jury found him guilty of all seven counts, by which, he is currently facing a potential sentence of 115 years in prison. October ended, but the US Securities and Exchange Commission did not issue any approval or disapproval of several filings for the first spot BTC ETF. The SEC`s Chair Gary Gensler commented on Thursday that the SEC has 8 to 10 filings for considerations, without any further comment on the topic. It seems that the SEC still needs more time in order to make the final decision. Until then, analysts are speculating over the potential funds to inflow into the crypto market after the approval of the first ETF. Current estimates are ranging from $ 14B up to $55B within the next three years. As Coindesk is reporting, the SEC requested additional documentation for PayPal`s stablecoin PYUSD. As seen by the reporters, this represents the latest regulatory action amid businesses that include crypto assets. As noted, it does not necessarily mean that potential lawsuits might be in store for PayPal, considering SEC`s perception that majority of altcoins and stablecoins are securities and should be officially registered with the SEC. Crypto market cap October is over, but there has not been any news related to the first spot BTC ETF. The SEC remained silent, neither approving, neither disapproving several ETF fillings. The only news reported by Reuters is that SEC Chair Gensler shortly commented that the Commission is currently reviewing 8-10 ETF filings. When the final decision will be brought up is unknown at this moment. Regardless of a new postponement of the decision, the market remains optimistic about the crypto market and its further inclusion into mainstream markets. During the previous week total crypto capitalization was increased by additional $35B or 2.8% on a weekly basis. Although Bitcoin continues to dominate the crypto market cap, still, this week other altcoins contributed to the total increase of the market value. The last time the crypto market held this level of capitalization was during May last year. Daily trading volumes continue to hold at increased levels of $60B on a daily basis, without change on a weekly basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 68%, where it has added total $512B to the market cap. Although Bitcoin is for one more week leader on the market when it comes to the total market cap increase, still, during the previous week there has been significant inflow of funds into major altcoins on the market. BTC increased its total capitalization by $11.8B on a weekly basis, which is an increase of 1.78%. ETH also had a solid performance with a surge of $5.3B in total market cap or 2.48% w/w. During the previous week Solana had an excellent performance, with an increase in its market cap by almost $ 4B, which represents a surge of 29.3% for this coin. XRP had another good week, by managing to increase its cap by additional $3.5B or 11.9% on a weekly basis. When it comes to excellent weekly performance, it should be mentioned ADA, which added more than $ 1B to its cap, which is an increase of 10.3%, and was followed by BNB, which added $1.2B and an increase in cap by 3.5%. Altcoins with good performance in a relative terms were NEO, with surge in cap of 15.3% w/w, Theta was up by more than 12%, same as OMG Network, Uniswap has increased its value by 13.7%, while Polkadot was up by more than 10%. It should be mentioned that only a few coins finished the week in red, like Bitcoin Cash, which was down by 3.55% w/w, Maker lost more than 9% of its value, while DOGE lost 0.7% in value. During the previous week there has been modestly increased activity related to coins in circulation. Miota increased its circulating coins by 0.6%, followed by Filecoin, with an increase of 0.5%. Stellar`s coins were up by 0.3%, while Solana`s coins were higher by 0.2%. Tether should be mentioned, as the coin increased its value and circulating coins by 1.0% on a weekly basis. On the opposite side, few altcoins decreased the number of its circulating coins, where Polkadot`s total coins decreased by 1.1%, Polygon's drop in circulating coins was 0.7%. Crypto futures market Positive market sentiment is still holding with crypto investors, both on spot and futures markets. BTC futures for all maturities were traded higher by more than 2% on a weekly basis. Short term maturities were up 2.75%, with December 2023 ending the week at price of $35.305 on CBOE. Longer term maturities are still holding above the $38K price range, which is very positive for BTC, as investors are pretty confident at this moment regarding the potential for future price increase of the BTC from current levels. Futures maturing in December 2024 ended the week at level of $38.225 or 2.65% higher from the end of the previous week. At the same time, futures maturing in March 2025 ended the week at price $38.925, which supports the sentiment of further rise in the value of BTC. ETH short term futures were traded more than 2% higher on a weekly basis. December 2024 is ending the week at a price $1.859, which is 2.64% higher from the end of the previous week. Same as with BTC, investors are also expecting further increase in value of the ETH, with December 2024 futures ending the week at price of $1.937 or 0.99% higher, while those maturing in March 2025 ended the week at $1.964. Still, what is interesting to note for the price of ETH is that it is still not able to cross the $2K psychological level.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: October 30 – November 5Last week in the news The US stock market continued with its correction cycle, losing 10% from its peak in July this year. The ECB left rates unchanged, as expected, but it did not help EU stocks to gain during the previous week. At the same time, Bitcoin reached its resistance level at $35K, amid news on a potential approval of the first ETF. For the second week in a row Gold lost its correlation with USD, and was traded higher, due to geopolitical risks. In short, it was the second week in a row on financial markets with challenging earning aspects. After straight ten consecutive rate hikes, the ECB left its benchmark interest rates on hold during the previous week. Its key rate remained at 4%, the level at which ECB hopes the inflation will slowly return back to its 2% target. The ECB Council members have confirmed their expectations for mid-term inflation expectations of 2.1%. Although there has been no news with respect to the future economic moves, rhetoric of the ECB modestly differed from their colleagues in the US. Namely, as the Fed narrative for interest rates is “higher for longer”, the ECB is speaking the same narrative, but for inflation. On the opposite side, the ECB did not make comments regarding potential for rate cuts in the future period, considering that the inflation forecast for this year still stands at 5.6% and 3.2% during the course of the next year. At the same time, economists are concerned over EU economic growth, where rate cuts might come sooner, in order to support an economy which is on the downturn. Fed`s favorite inflation gauge, PCE Index was left unchanged in September at 3.4% and core PCE at 3.7%. Posted figures for GDP growth in Q3 surprised markets, by reaching 4.9%, higher from market expectation of 4.3%. Although the US economy looks in good shape at the first sight, still, there have been several discussions during the previous week concerning deterioration in consumer spending. Namely, analysts are warning that consumer figures look strong, but at the same time, the household savings ratio has decreased, while during the last three months, the real income of the US households has been negative. There is an increasing number of both economists and analysts who are actually concerned about the real outlook for the US economy in the coming year. The Bank of England is preparing for introduction of the central bank digital currency in the future period. It was the reason why they left the CBDC consultation paper on public discussion, after which, they received more than 50.000 responses. Still the majority of responses were related to concerns regarding safety of the digital currencies, following its programmability while a significant majority of participants were concerned over the decline in cash. The BoE did not bring a formal decision over introduction of the CBDC, nor did they have defined a deadline for such a move. Crypto market cap To be or not to be an ETF is the major topic on the crypto market during the last two weeks. Regardless of any other economic or political developments, the crypto market is currently following its own story. During the previous week capital inflow into the crypto market continued, however, strong push to the upside was supported by significant levels of both margin calls on derivative markets, as well as re-positioning on the options market. The odds for the approval of the first BTC ETF are increased by market participants; however, it should be considered that the last word will be by the SEC. Although the SEC postponed the decision on the approval of ETF filings from several big names in the financial industry for the end of October, it should be acknowledged that SEC might do this again or, in the final case, reject all these filings. Risks for the crypto market are still very high. Still market sentiment or speculation is hard to avoid in situations like this, so the price of the crypto assets might continue with high volatility in the coming week(s). Total crypto market capitalization was increased by 11.5% during the previous week, adding $127B to its cap. Most of these funds are coming from BTC and ETH. Daily trading volumes were also increased compared to the week before, ranging around $60B on a daily basis, from $55B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 63%, where it has added total $477B to the market cap. Another week ended in green for the majority of crypto coins. BTC continues to be the most traded coin, which added $85.6B to the total market cap of the crypto market, increasing its value by more than 14% on a weekly basis. BTC was followed by ETH, which managed to gain market optimism and increase its market cap by additional $22B or more than 11% on a weekly basis. During the previous week BNB managed to get back in the crypto game, adding $2.15B to its market cap, increasing it by 6.6%. XRP also had another positive week, with a surge in the market cap by $1.7B or more than 6%. Other coins with good performance during the week were LINK, with an increase in cap by $1.7B or 38.4%, DOGE gained additional $1.2B or 13.8%, ADA was up by $1.28B or more than 14%, while Solana gained $1.3B or 11% on a weekly basis. Another coin that should be mentioned in relation to its performance was NEO, with an increase in value of 35%, OMG Network surged by 17%, while Filecoin was up by almost 13%. Majority of other altcoins gained during the week. Considering coins in circulation, the highest weekly inflow had Solana, with an increase of 0.6%. Tether is also gradually building its circulating coins, adding another 0.5% to it during the previous week. Polkadot and Filecoin also added 0.3%, while several other altcoins have increased their circulating coins by 0.1% w/w. Crypto futures market Based solely on crypto derivative markets, it seems that investors' positive sentiment for crypto currencies is back on the market. During the previous week both BTC and ETH futures gained significantly compared to prices from the end of the previous week. BTC futures maturing in December this year were traded higher by 13.8%, reaching the price of $34.360. At the same time, longer term futures were traded above 18% higher from the week before, where December 2024 ended the week at level of $37.240. This was a huge move for BTC, as the market was struggling for a long time to sustain the price of $30K for this maturity. ETH futures also managed to finish the week with a positive investor sentiment. ETH futures maturing in December this year were last traded higher by 11.7% on a weekly basis, ending the week at level of $1.811. At the same time, futures maturing in December next year finished the week at level of $1.918 or more than 14% higher from the week before. It should be noted that futures maturing in March 2025 ended the week at price $1.945, which indicates current market sentiment with expectation for the price of ETH to continue to move to the higher ground in the years to come.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: October 23 – 29Last week in the news Geopolitical risks and Fed`s mimicking to the markets are continuing to shape the sentiment of investors. The US 10Y Treasury yields reached 5% for the first time since 2007, US equity markets were traded lower, while Gold is traded near $2K. The crypto market also had a positive week, with Bitcoin headed back toward $30K. It was a week full of news and surprising developments on financial markets. Fed Chair Powell gave a speech to the Economic Club of New York on Thursday. He noted that the road to bringing inflation down to 2% will be “bumpy” and that currently nobody knows exact timing when this goal will be reached, but Fed officials will stay on the course of achieving their goals. He also did not provide indication that FOMC is necessarily pushing for higher interest rates from current levels. After his speech, the market changed sentiment, decreasing the probability of another rate hike during the course of this year. However, Powell once again noted that a fight with inflation will mean that economic growth and the labor market would have to slow down in the coming period. At the same time, he refused to comment on the potential for rate cuts at this moment. Bicoin topped $30K for one more time at Friday`s trading session, amid increased investor`s confidence that the first BTC ETF might be approved by SEC as of the end of October. These assumptions were fueled by a comment from Coinbase Chief legal officer Paul Grewal, in a comment to CNBC. His rationale was “I`m quite hopeful that these (ETF) applications will be granted, if only because they should be granted under the law”. Although analysts are not sure if this will be the proper reason for SEC to approve first BTC ETF, still, markets are increasing probability of approval of filings of few big names in the financial industry, as well as, that SEC did not appeal the ruling in the Grayscale`s case. JPMorgan also issued a report on this topic, expressing their positive opinion on the possibility that the BTC ETF will be approved. Their deadline is set for 21st January next year, as this is the last date when application of Ark21Shares should be approved or dismissed. The rationale that JPMorgan is stressing in this case is that SEC would rather approve several applications at once, instead of providing market advantage to any specific fund. After receiving a $42.5 million fine from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2021, backed by allegations that USDT is not fully backed by USD, Tether announced that the company will publicly disclose data on its reserves backing USDT, starting from 2024. In its latest report, the company was holding $3.3 billion in excess reserves. Crypto market cap News about potential for the approval of the first BTC exchange traded fund are emerging as many investors and market practitioners are heating the market with their optimism. Even Larry Fink, the CEO of the BlackRock commented first BTC rally toward $30K after the fake news about ETF approval as “example of the pent-up interest in crypto”. The crypto market is for some time set for approval or disapproval of the ETF and only pending is final resolution. For some time in the past, the crypto market was traded sideways, waiting for the final SECs resolution. In case that an ETF is approved, this is going to be a huge milestone for the crypto market, with expectation that significant funds currently sitting on money market funds will be transferred to the crypto market. Estimates differ, depending on an analyst, but one thing is for sure and that is that the positive outcome of ETF filings by several large names in the financial industry, will certainly bring a lot of funds back into the crypto market. During the previous week total crypto market capitalization increased by more than 7%, adding $75B to its market cap. Daily trading volumes were increased to the level of $55B on a daily basis, compared to $ 41B traded during the previous week. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 46%, where it has added total $350B to the market cap. Almost all coins gained during the previous week. Of course, BTC is the coin that will gain the most from the ETF approval, in which sense, the value of BTC increased the most during the week, adding $56B to its total market cap, which is a significant increase of more than 10% on a weekly basis. ETH also had a relatively good week, with an increase in market cap by $ 6B or more than 3% w/w. XRP was also in the group of significant gainers, with a surge in capitalization of $1.5B or 6%. During the previous week Solana had an excellent performance, where it added around $2.9B to its market capitalization, which is an increase of 31.4%. Following a surge in BTC value, Bitcoin Gold managed to increase its value by 13%, while Bitcoin Cash was up by 11.3%. Few other coins with relatively good performance during the week were LINK, which was up by 10%, while IOTA and Polygon increased their market value by more than 7% both. There have been significant developments with circulating coins also. It seems that the majority of stake coins are slowly getting back on the market. The highest weekly movement had IOTA, with a surge in circulating coins of 7.2% on a weekly basis. Uniswap`s circulating coins were increased by 1.9%, while Polkadot managed to increase its coins by 1.5%. It also seems that Tether is getting back in the crypto game, as coin managed to increase its coins by 0.7%, which has not been seen for several months now. Majority of other coins gained at least 0.1% of new coins in circulation. This trend shows that the crypto market is slowly waking up, after the last two months of quiet movements. Crypto futures market Strong shifts on the spot market made an impact on the crypto futures market. Both BTC and ETH futures were traded higher during the week, for all maturities. BTC short term futures were traded higher by some 10%, while long term ones were traded above 7% higher from the end of the week before. BTC futures maturing in December this year ended the week at level of $30.190 or for 10% higher, while those maturing in December next year were up by 7.6%, ending the week at level $31.525. This is positive for the BTC, as investors are expecting the price of BTC to hold above $30K after eight straight weeks traded below this level. ETH futures gained a bit less from BTC futures, but it was generally a positive week for ETH. Futures maturing in December this year gained the most from all other maturities, ending the week at level of $1.620 or 4.3% higher than the week before. Futures maturing in December 2024 ended the week at level $1.681 or 2.3% higher from the week before. It is interesting that there has not been enough market interest for these ETH maturities, so the price is still holding below $1.7K, for the second week in a row.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: October 16 – 22Last week in the news Increased geopolitical tensions in the Middle-East impact some volatility on financial markets, as they represent concerning events for investors around the globe. The US equity markets finished the week in green supported by the US economic data. Treasuries have eased due to the same reason, while the crypto market continues with its side trading. Bitcoin ended the week above $26K, while Ether is still holding above $1.5K. The FOMC meeting Minutes were released during the previous week. Question whether interest rates should be further increased was sort of conflicting for FOMC members, but the unique opinion was that they should stay elevated until Fed officials are convinced that the inflation is clearly on its way to reach 2%. The FOMC members also noted the resiliency of the US economy, still, citing several risks, including the slowdown in growth and potential short-time inflation reversal. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank held a meeting during the previous week in Morocco. Few conclusions from this meeting were related to the world economic outlook, which has been revised from 3.5% to 3% for this year and 2.9% for 2024. They are also expecting for global inflation to slow down to 5.8%, where central bankers around the world expressed readiness to end further increase of their reference interest rates. As the main challenges for global growth in the coming year, the IMF and the WB officials see higher policy rates, strong US dollar and geopolitical issues. The car company Ferrari announced last week that it will start accepting crypto currencies from its customers for luxury car payments. This service will initially be available for clients in the US, but the plan is to extend this service also to EU clients. The rationale for such a decision, Ferrari officials are noting that a significant number of their clients have invested into crypto currencies, and the company is willing to provide them an option to purchase their favorite cars through payments in crypto currencies. At the initial stage, Ferrari will accept bitcoin, ether and USDC, and will not charge any additional fees for payments in crypto currencies. Through the company Bitpay, coins will immediately be transferred into traditional currency, in which way, Ferrari will not carry any risk originating from coins volatility. The crypto market nervousness regarding the first BTC ETF is heating up. News regarding SEC moves around potential approval or disapproval of fillings for both BTC and ETH ETF funds is closely watched by the market, and impact significantly BTC`s price. During the previous week, BTC sharply reacted to news that the SEC will not react to the court's reversal of SEC`s decision by which SEC did not approve company Grayscale to convert its trust funds into an exchange traded fund, as reported by the Condesk. The deadline for SEC`s appeal was until the end of Friday. Crypto market cap The latest information provided by the Fed officials from September`s FOMC meeting seems finally fully priced by financial markets. At the same time, the released inflation rate for the US for September showed modest movement to the upside of 0.1% on a yearly basis, to the level of 3.7%. While the US equity market showed some positive sentiment during the previous week, and Treasuries relaxed yields, still, the crypto market remained on its old course of side trading. What the market is expecting for some time is the resolution of several fillings for the first spot BTC exchange traded fund, where even big players like BlackRock filed for. The time for SEC`s response was postponed till the end of October, which should occur within the next week or two. Until its final resolution, the crypto market might continue with side trading. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by $ 41B during the previous week, which is a total drop of 3.8%. Daily trading volumes remained relatively flat compared to the week before, moving around $ 43B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 36%, where it has added total $275B to the market cap. Major coins on the market were the ones that made a negative impact of $ 41B drop in total market capitalization, although the majority of altcoins finished the week in red. Bitcoin made a significant drop of $21B or 3.85% of its value compared to the end of the previous week. ETH was following BTC on its negative path with a loss of $ 10B or 5.05% in value. XRP was another major coin which made a higher loss in value of almost $ 2B or 6.8% in value on a weekly basis. BNB made a lower loss of $0.89B or 2.7% of its value. Among altcoins with a higher loss in relative terms were Polygon, which dropped by 8.7%, Polkadot was down by almost 8%, Bitcoin Cash was down by 6.2% and ZCash dropped by 6.8%. As for coins in circulation, there have been changes with several coins which added around 0.1%, except for Filecoin, which added 0.6% of new coins in circulation, while Solana added 0.5% of new coins. Algorand and Polkadot increased their circulating coins by 0.2% both. Crypto futures market Crypto futures for both BTC and ETH were following developments on the spot market during the previous week, dragging prices of both long and short futures further to the downside. BTC short term futures ended the week around 4% lower from the week before, with December 2023 ending the week at level of $27.435 or 3.72% lower from the week before. Longer term futures were last traded around 3% lower. Futures maturing in December 2024 were traded again a bit below $30K for the first time after two weeks holding above $30K. December 2024 ended the week at a price of $29.295 or 2.95% lower from the week before. ETH futures were also trading in red compared to the week before, but with some interesting developments. Namely, futures from October till December this year ended the week at the same price of $1.555. Never before had there been such developments on the ETH futures market, which points to investors' current insecurity regarding the future course of ETH`s price. At the same time, almost all maturities were traded between 5% to 6% lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December next year ended the week below $1.7K level, at price $1.642 or 5.41% lower from the week before.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: October 9 – 15Last week in the news The market star of the previous week were US Treasury bonds, which continued with drop in prices, reaching 16 year lows, in an aim to adjust to the new Fed narrative. Equities were trying to adjust to this new sentiment on bonds, but still finished the week in green territory. The crypto market continues to be side traded, while gold was adjusting to new US Dollar highs. This could be a short summary of the previous week on financial markets. The US equity markets reacted positively on posted jobs figures on Friday, although, not all analysts are of the same opinion regarding the reason for this increase. The unemployment rate remained flat at 3.8% in September, although the markets were expecting to see 3.7%. At the same time, non-farm payrolls were significantly above market estimates of 170K, reaching a figure of 336K new jobs in September. Regardless of continuously strong jobs data, wage increases slowed down a bit in September, providing some relaxation to market participants that the effect of the job market on inflation will not be significant. Average hourly earnings were up by 0.2% in September, standing at 4.2% on a yearly basis. On the other side are several analysts who are noting that Friday`s surge in equity markets is a result of its heavy oversold side during September, as well as, a modest easing in US Treasury yields. Fed`s Governor Michelle Bowman, noted her standing that interest rates should be increased further on next FOMC meeting. She repeated this on Connecticut Bankers Association during the previous week. She also commented on Friday`s job figures as “solid”. As per CME Group`s tracker, market participants are currently anticipating 43% probability that the Fed will increase rates before the end of this year. FundStart, a company specialized in analysis, posted a report which revealed that the venture capital funding for projects within the crypto industry dropped by 75% on a yearly basis in Q3 this year. This also represents a six consecutive quarterly drop within this area. Tokenized US Treasury bonds will be offered on the Coinbase exchange. This was announced by Backed Finance, a Switzerland based company, which specializes in asset tokenization. Since this product is issued under Switzerland`s tokenized securities law, it could be offered only to companies which follow the know-your-customer and anti-money laundering rules. The tokenization businesses are gaining in popularity, and could reach a market capitalization of $16 trillion in 2030, as noted by the Boston Consulting Group report. Crypto market cap The US Treasury bonds were the ones that collected market attention during the previous week. Their drop in prices intensified after the latest FOMC meeting, where Fed Chair Powell introduced a new Fed`s narrative called “higher for longer”. The stronger adjustment to this new narrative was conducted during the previous week, where the 10Y US Treasury benchmark rate reached the highest level at 4.88%. While equities were also moving within a correction path, still, on Friday they managed to make a bit of an upside move, during the easing of Treasury yields uptrend. During this period, the crypto market remained short at a side of investors interest, ending the week relatively flat, with a modest increase of total crypto market capitalization of 1.3% on a weekly basis, adding total $ 14B to the market cap. Daily trading volumes are still relatively low and were moving around $ 41B during the previous week, a modest drop from $56B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 42%, where it has added total $316B to the market cap. Bitcoin was the one that drove a market cap up $ 14B during the previous week. BTC added a total of $18.4B to its cap, or around 3.5%. Other coins were traded in a mixed manner. Ether finished the week in red, losing 2.5% on a weekly basis, or around $5B. Coins with solid performance during the week were Solana, which increased its market cap by 8.6%, Polygon also managed to increase its value by 6.6%, while Monero was up by 4.4% on a weekly basis. Bitcoin Gold also gained during the week, adding a little bit less than 4% to its market cap. Coins which finished the week in red were LINK, with a drop in value of 7.7%, DASH was down by 6.2%, Theta lost 4.6%, while Ethereum Classic decreased its value by 5.9%. There have also been some movements within circulating coins. Algorand gained the most coins in circulation during the previous week, increasing it by 1%, and was followed by Filecoin, with an increase of 0.7%, and Solana by 0.3%. At the same time, Polkadot decreased its circulating coins by 0.2%. Crypto futures market The crypto futures market was following developments on the spot market during the previous week. BTC short term futures were last traded higher around 4%, while longer term ones were traded relatively flat. BTC futures maturing in December this year ended the week at price $28.495 or 4.42% higher from previous week`s close. There has not been much change with prices of futures maturing in December next week, as they were closed at $30.185 or 0.12% higher on a weekly basis. It is positive for BTC that it managed to hold a price above $30K for the year ahead. Opposite to BTC, ETH` short term futures were traded between 1.4% and 3.3% lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year closed the week at price $1.634 or 3.37% lower on a weekly basis. Those futures maturing in December next year were down by 3.07% and were last traded at price $1.736. Positive for ETH is that those futures are still managing to hold prices above $1.7K for the four weeks.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
1
MARKETS week ahead: October 2 – 8Last week in the news “Higher for longer” continued to shape investors sentiment, ending September in losses. During the last trading week of the month, equity markets both in the EU and the US continued with correction, while US Treasury yields continued to be elevated, reaching higher levels from the 2008 financial crisis. The S&P 500 finished the month some 4.7% lower. The crypto market gained some 2.4% on a weekly basis, but still with fragile strength to sustain higher grounds. Although the general sentiment on financial markets is pretty negative during the last period, the investors are continuing to closely monitor inflation developments, anticipating the next Fed`s move. During the previous week, the Fed`s favorite inflation indicator was published, posting the core personal consumption expenditures price index to 0.1% in August, lower from market expectation of 0.2%. At the same time, core PCE on a yearly basis was down to 3.9% in August from 4.3% posted for July. This was a small positive sign for market participants that inflation is indeed slowing down and that measures imposed by the Fed in the previous period are giving the results. Based on the latest report, markets are currently giving only 15% probability for a potential rate increase at November`s FOMC meeting. In line with the US inflation gauges, inflation in the Euro Area also seems to slow down. As per published data, the inflation in the EU fell to the level of 4.3% on a yearly basis in September, although the markets were expecting to see the figure of 4.5%. Although core inflation reached 4.5% y/y, it was still a significant drop from 5.3% posted for August. August inflation figures are at its lowest levels since October 2021. Based on the latest ECB projections it could be expected for inflation to fall down to 3.2% next year, and finally reach targeted 2% in 2025. The ECB is also following Fed`s rhetoric of “higher for longer” interest rates. JPMorgan Chase decided to block their crypto-related operations in the U.K. over concerns on the “rise in frauds” related to the crypto assets. Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong criticized such action of JPMorgan and other banks which took the same course in the UK when it comes to their crypto related businesses, strongly disagreeing with a decision to de-platform the whole crypto industry. Instead, he is noting that regulators should be the ones to make a decision on what is allowed and what is not on the market, and not banks. Ripple announced that the company is discontinuing its initial intention to purchase a chartered trust company Fortress Trust, based in Nevada. As announced at the company, Ripple will continue to be an investor in this company. Although there has not been officially noted the reason for such a decision, the market speculates that it might be due to the recent theft occurred at Fortress Trust, totalling around $15 million, due to “unnamed third-party vendor, that had fallen victim to a phishing attack”, as Coindesk reported. Crypto market cap Markets are continuing to digest the “higher for longer” rhetoric from FED during its September`s monetary meeting. Investors continue to be focused on inflation figures in a hope that the Fed will skip further rate hikes for this year. As per current CME questionnaire, market has lowered expectations for another rate hike at November's FOMC meeting, but still, surprises by Fed officials are possible, especially after Fed Chair Powell`s announcement that there will be yet another rate hike till the end of this year. After that, the US interest rates will continue to be elevated through the course of the next year. But even with these elevated interest rates, the Fed is not expecting to reach its 2% inflation target until year 2025. It seems that monetary authorities are ready to accept generally changed global economic circumstances where increased inflation becomes a part of the economic reality. Although US equities and Treasuries lost in value during the previous week, the crypto market gained from investors' slowly emerging appetite for riskier assets in anticipation of higher returns for this year. Total crypto market capitalization has increased by 2.3% during the week, adding total $24B to its market cap. Daily trading volumes were modestly increased to $56B on a daily basis, from FWB:33B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year reached a level of 40%, where it has added a total $302B to the market cap. It was a generally positive week for crypto coins, where the majority of them gained in value. BTC and ETH were major coins with highest participation in total crypto market cap increase during the previous week. BTC gained $8.8B on a weekly basis or 1.70%. The winner of the week was ETH, with a gain of $10.8B or 5.65% increase within a single week. BNB could also be mentioned as a significant gainer in nominal terms, as this coin managed to add $0.85B to its total value, which represents a 2.6% increase for this coin. There have been several coins with solid gains in relative terms, like Maker with a surge in value of 18.4%, LINK was up by 15.8%, Bitcoin Cash was up by 13.3%, OMG Network gained 12.7% w/w. There have been only a few losers during the week, with relatively smaller drop in price like NEO, with a drop in value of almost 2%, Stellar was down by 1% while Polkadot lost 1.75% on a weekly basis. There has been modest movements in circulating coins for several currencies, where Polkadot lost 3.8% of its coins in circulation while Filecoin added 0.4% new coins. Crypto futures market The crypto futures market was holding a positive sentiment during the previous week. Both BTC and ETH futures were traded at higher grounds from the end of the previous week. BTC short term futures were traded some 1.5% higher from the week before, and in line with developments on the spot market. Futures maturing in December this year ended the week at price $27.290 or 0.7% higher, while December 2024 managed to return to the levels above $30K as of the end of the previous week. ETH short term futures were traded around 4.6% higher on a weekly basis, but still lower from the spot market. December this year ended the week at a price $1.691 or 4.9% higher from the end of the previous week. At the same time, longer term futures prices were increased by more than 4%, with December 2024 ending the week at price $1.791. Regardless of the developments on the spot market, investors are still holding precaution when ETH future prices are in question.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: Sept 25 - Oct 1Last week in the news Soft landing, hard landing or no-landing is the pending question among market participants after the FOMC meeting held on Wednesday. Markets are never happy with uncertainty, which brought some increased volatility on US markets. After Fed Chair Powell's speech, Treasury yields reached their highest levels since 2007, equity markets sharply fell, while Bitcoin followed the drop on the stronger US dollar. The FOMC meeting was held on Wednesday where the Fed left rates unchanged, still, leaving some space for another rate hike till the end of this year. Fed Chair Powell delivered an after-meeting speech where he pointed toward the higher-for-longer interest rate levels. One of the important notes from this meeting is expectations from the Fed to cut rates during the next year. Gross domestic product was sharply revised to the level of 2.1% for this year, but is expected to fall during the next year. Markets immediately priced the new Fed`s standing of higher-for-longer rates, where Treasury yields were significantly elevated and the US stock markets fell sharply during the Chair Powell's speech. Another topic that spotted investors interest during the previous week was Japanese yen weakening against the US dollar. As per analysis from JPMorgan experts, a further yen weakening might influence the Government of Japan to increase interest rates, which could further spark the repatriation of Japan's capital kept in the foreign markets. As per analysts, such an event might further increase volatilities across the US markets. The Bank of Japan is still holding short term interest rates at a negative territory, at level of -0.1%, while 10Y Government bond continues to yield around zero. JPMorgan analysts commented on Ethereum in their latest research report published on Thursday. As per their opinion, Ethereum`s Shanghai upgrade, which was implemented in April, did not provide expected results. The activity on this network modestly dropped during the last few months, while they presented the result of a 12% decrease in daily transactions since the Shanghai upgrade was implemented. At the same time, several other analysts are noting that there is a general drop in activity on the crypto market, hence, it does not mean that the drop in activity on Ethereum network is necessarily a consequence of the Shanghai upgrade. Binance Holdings and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao have filed a request to the US court to officially dismiss a lawsuit made by the US Security and Exchange Commission. The basis for such a claim is that the SEC overstepped its authority through this lawsuit, considering that there is still no clear guidelines on how crypto companies should comply with the law in the US while the SEC should not impose any further guidelines retroactively, as they are trying to do in the case of Binance Exchange. Crypto market cap The pivotal event of the previous week was certainly the FOMC meeting. Fed officials changed rhetoric a bit, as well as projections for the next two years. Although they left the interest rate unchanged at this meeting, still, based on their projections, there is still room for rates to be increased until the end of this year. The Fed`s pivotal point should be expected somewhere during the next year, when they will start slowly with interest rate decrease. Expectations on the growth of the US economy for this year are revised up to the level of 2.1%, with a decrease in the year ahead. Also, the unemployment rate is expected to reach its highest level around 4.1% during the next year. The economists are quite divided on such projections, noting that the latest Fed`s revised projections would certainly need another revision in the coming period. Anyway, markets did not perceive well what they have heard from Fed Chair Powell, and the downturn on the markets began even during this speech. Bitcoin also followed mainstream`s markets path to the downside, amid stronger US dollar, but overall, the crypto market remained relatively flat. Total crypto market capitalization remained at almost the same level, losing some $2B in value, which represents around 0.2% of its total market cap. Daily trading volumes were again decreased, to the daily levels around $ 33B, from $ 43B traded the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year remained flat at level of 37%, where it has added total $278B to the market cap. Another mixed week on the crypto market. Total market capitalization remained flat week on week, however, there has been some reallocation of funds between coins. Bitcoin had a relatively volatile week, but managed to end it relatively flat, adding 0.11% to its market cap. At the same time, ETH lost $5.5B in value, decreasing its cap by 2.8% w/w. Altcoins with significant increase in value during the week were LINK, with an increase of 13.29% in value followed by Algorand, with an increase of 5.4%. XRP, Theta, ZCash and Solana ended the previous week more than 2% higher from the week before. On the losing side were Miota, with a drop in value of 4.65%, Bitcoin Cash was down by 2.9%, Stellar lost 3.3%, while ADA dropped by 2%. As for coins in circulation, the situation was a bit calmer from the week before, where Polkadot increased its circulating coins by 4.8% w/w, Stellar`s coins were up by 0.6%, while Solana increased coins in circulation by 0.3% same as Filecoin. Crypto futures market The crypto futures market was generally following developments on the spot market during the previous week. Bitcoin short term futures ended the week in a modest green territory, where December 2023 futures were traded 0.67% higher compared to the week before, and ended the week at level $27.095. At the same time, longer term futures were traded some 0.40% lower on a weekly basis. December 2024 ended the week at level $29.640 or 0.45% lower on a weekly basis. ETH futures did not have a good week, as all maturities dropped between 2% and 3% compared to the week before. Short term ETH futures were traded some 2% lower, with December 2023 ending the week at level of $1.612 or even 3.13% lower from the end of the previous week. December 2024. was closed at price $1.712, some 2.93% lower on a weekly basis. ETH`s future prices continue to be negatively perceived by the markets.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: September 11 – 17Last week in the news Another losing week on the equity markets and another flat one on the crypto market. This week was marked by surging commodities prices, which left its mark on the market sentiment. The further inflation fears are again active, as Saudi Arabia announced oil production cuts, while gas prices surged by 10% in the EU due to union strike in the largest gas production facility in Australia. SPX is ending the week below 4.500 level, BTC continues to hold above 25K support line, while ETH manages to stay above $1.6K. The previous week put commodities back to the spotlight of the markets. Namely, it started with an announcement of Saudi Arabia that the country will extend its 1 million barrel daily voluntary oil production cut. Decrease in production will last at least till the end of this year, and will be reviewed on a monthly basis. Few other OPEC nations will also join Saudi Arabia with their cuts in production till the end of this year, which is a silent agreement outside the OPEC+ agreement. Highest Brent crude oil price reached was $90/barrel after the news was announced. Such a news was also perceived negatively across markets, considering that it puts into jeopardize efforts of western countries officials to fight inflation. Further increase in oil prices might imply higher inflation and probably more rate increases in the future. At the same time with the surge of the oil prices on the markets, came the news that gas prices in the EU jumped by 10% due to the strike in the major LNG facilities in Australia. The unions are currently in negotiations with the US energy company Chevron over jobs and salary conditions. It is expected for decreased gas production to be prolonged during the week until the agreement is made between the company and the work union. The EU economy is struggling with both inflation and decreased economic output, in which sense, increased gas prices during the winter period might further hurt the EU economy. In light of the dozens of filings with SEC for the first spot BTC ETF, during the previous week ARK Invest and the crypto investment firm 21Shares filed for the SEC`s approval for the first spot ETH exchange traded fund. This filing counts among the first ones with the aim to invest in ETH instead of BTC. Although SEC recently postponed its decision on BTC ETF`s for October this year, the decision of Ark Investment to file for ETH ETF was supported by the Grayscale`s win of a lawsuit against SEC after SEC refused to provide green light to Grayscale for a conversion of its Bitcoin Trust into an ETF. Reuters is reporting that HongKong digital asset financial services firm HashKey Capital will invest $100 million of its funds into altcoins. BTC will take less than half of these funds, while ETH and two other altcoins will take the rest of the funds. A decision was also supported by Hong Kong`s clear regulation on digital assets, putting it as a world`s leading crypto hub. Crypto market cap Previous week was the one with commodities in focus, while other market events were more or less put aside. The increasing oil prices caused by Saudi Arabia's announcement of continuation in decreased oil output at least till the end of this year, impacted the oil prices to go as high as $90/barrel. This news was not well perceived by financial markets as expectations on further increase in inflation emerged. If the oil market does not calm down in the coming period, it might imply further rate increases by central banks in order to fight inflation. Regardless of developments on the oil market, and investors’ concerns, the crypto market slowed down further during the previous week, losing modest 1% on a weekly basis or $7B in nominal value. Currently this market is set to react to any news related to SEC`s moves on BTC and ETH ETF`s applications which might impact further flat moves in the coming period. Daily trading volumes reached their lowest levels since December last year, moving around $28B on a daily basis. This is also a significant drop from $60B traded during the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at level of 35%, where it has added total $267B to the market cap. During the previous week the crypto market was performing in a mixed manner. Major coins were on a losing track, while several altcoins performed relatively good on a weekly basis. BTC lost $3.2B in market value or 0.65%, while ETH was down by 1% with a loss of $2B in its market cap. XRP was another coin with a drop in value of 3.5% or almost $1B. In a relative terms, other altcoins which finished the week in red were ADA with a drop in value of almost 2%, Litecoin was down by almost 3%, Polkadot decreased its value by 5%, while Uniswap was down by 5.3%. On the opposite side were several altcoins with relatively good performance, like Maker, which was up by around 10%, Miota was winner of the week with an increase in value by 19.5%, OMG surged by 6.6% , while LINK and Dash were up by more than 3%. It seems that some funds flows occurred from major coins toward the several altcoins during the previous week. There has been some increased activity when it comes to the coins in circulation. For the first time in many months, BTC has increased its circulating coins by 0.1% w/w. Solana and Filecoin had an increase in coins in circulation by 0.7% both, while Monero managed to add even 3.3% to its total circulating coins. Such activity in new coins on the market has not been recently seen, especially taking into account significantly decreased daily trading volumes on the crypto market. Crypto futures market The crypto futures continued their downtrend for the third week in a row. Both BTC and ETH futures finished third week in red on the CME. BTC short term futures were trading around 1.5% lower from the week before, while the long term ones were down by 0.7% on average. Futures maturing in December this year were last traded down by 2.13% w/w ending the week at price of $26.420, while those maturing in December next year were traded down by 0.7% and closed the week at price $28.940. This was a drop from the $ 29K level, traded during the week before. ETH futures performed in a similar manner. Short term futures were down by 1.6% on average, while long term ones were down by almost 1% on a weekly basis. December 2023 was down by 1.7% and ended the week at price $1.665, while December 2024 was down by 0.95% with a closing price of $1.776. This was a further decrease from the $1.8K level for ETH. At this moment expectations of the market for both BTC and ETH are not positive.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: September 4 – 10Last week in the news Equity markets started September in a positive territory, erasing some of the losses incurred during the previous month. Treasury yields slowed down on reported US unemployment figures, while the crypto market was supported by the Grayscale`s lawsuit win against SEC`s after the regulator denied its application for BTC ETF. Bitcoin is ending the week close to $26K, while ETH manages to hold above $1.6K. The crypto market has been supported during the previous week with the news that the US Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Grayscale in its lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission, after the SEC has denied Grayscale`s application for conversion of company`s Bitcoin Trust into an Exchange Traded Fund. Such a decision is important in a manner that it might support other companies which have filed with SEC for the first BTC ETF, to gain approval. This is at least per market expectations. However, the last word is with the SEC, so it might be too early for higher optimism. As the news was published, BTC surged by more than 7%, while other major coins also gained in value. The US Securities and Exchange Commission delayed to issue a response to all applicants for spot BTC ETF`s, including BlackRock, WisdomTree, VanEck, Valkyrie Digital Assets and others. As per information provided, such a decision could be expected to be brought up in October this year. One of the rationales for such a decision is expectations to have adequate public feedback on applications. Bitcoin dropped more than 4% on this news. The US banks continue to struggle with regulation, opting for their survival of current unfavorable economic conditions. In their latest call to regional banks, the US regulators unveiled plans by which regional banks, with at least $100 billion in assets, will be forced to increase their capital through debt issuance in order to strengthen their position. The aim of such a decision is to protect depositors in case of some further difficulties faced by banks in the US. Analysts perceive such a government move as a negative, considering that it is going to increase costs of conducting business for banks, which are already struggling to sustain their profitability and capital levels. Paolo Gentiloni, the European Commissioner for economic affairs, requested CNBC journalists not to call the current state of the EU economy a “recession”. He rather preferred the wording of “double crisis”. The double crisis refers to geopolitical impact and “subsequent economic hit” to the EU. As per IMF estimate, the Euro Zone ended 2022 with GDP growth of 3.5%, while expected GDP for this year would account to 0.8% and 1.4% in 2024. At the same time Gentiloni is certain that the Euro Area can avoid a recession. Crypto market cap Previous week was a bit volatile for the crypto market considering two important news which hit the market. Both were related to the probability for the first spot BTC Exchange Traded Fund to see the light of the day. First the market was thrilled with the court decision which ruled out in favor of Grayscale, a leading crypto asset management fund, in its lawsuit against SEC for denying the company to convert its Bitcoin Trust into an Exchange Traded Fund. The market perceived positively such a court decision, increasing the probability that the SEC might finally approve the first spot BTC ETF. However, the optimism was soon reverted by the SEC`s decision to postpone the response to all applicants for spot BTC ETF for October this year. Currently the waiting list includes names like BlackRock, WisdomTree, VanEck, Valkyrie Digital Assets and others. On this news, almost all previous gains on the crypto market were erased. Total crypto market capitalization remained flat for another week in a row. Compared to the week before, total market cap was down by $5B, ending the week at a level of $1.025 trillion. Daily trading volumes increased a bit during the week, moving around $60B on a daily basis. This was an increase in volumes from previous week`s $43B. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year remained flat at level of 36%, where it has added total $269B to the market cap. Crypto coins were traded in a mixed manner during the week. Major coins were mostly on a losing side, while several altcoins had quite a good performance. BTC lost $2B in value or 0.43%, while ETH was down by 0.6% losing more than $1B in value. XRP also finished the week in red, down by $1B or 4.2% w/w. Among other altcoins some of the highest drops in value were with Stellar, which was down by more than 7%, Uniswap dropped by 4.5%, Solana was down by 3.2%. There have been several altcoins with relatively good performance, like Bitcoin Cash, who managed to increase its market cap by 5.15% w/w. IOTA was up by an incredible 9.7%, OMG Network also had a good week with an increase in value of 8.3%. The winner of the week was Maker, which managed to surge by 12% in a single week. As for coins in circulation there has not been significant changes, except for Polkadot, which increased its circulating coins by 5.7% on a weekly basis. Filecoin`s circulating coins were up by 0.5%, while Stellar and Solana also had an increase of coins in circulation by 0.2% both. Crypto futures market The crypto futures market has stabilized a bit during the previous week, after a strong downtrend in futures prices since three weeks ago. Short term BTC futures were traded around 2% lower from the end of the week before, while long term futures remained relatively flat on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year, ended the week at price $26.655 without significant change from the previous week. At the same time, December 2024 was last traded at price $29.285, also without significant change on a weekly basis. ETH short term futures were traded down by 1.5% on average, while there has not been significant changes in prices for longer term futures on a weekly basis. December 2023 ended the week at $1.666, down by 1% from the previous week, while December 2024 was last traded at $1.800, almost flat from the week before.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
Markets week ahead: August 28 - September 3Last week in the news Major weekly event, a Fed Chair speech at the Jackson Hole on Friday left the markets relatively volatile, as well as the US Treasury yields. At the same time the crypto market was traded in a flat mode. Bitcoin is ending the week around $26K, while Ether manages to hold above $1.6K. Major event during the previous week was the Jackson Hall symposium, and speech of Fed Chair Powell as of the end of the conference. The markets were waiting for his speech with high interest, considering many opposite standing points of both analysts and economists in the US whether the country will be able to avoid a recession in the coming period and if the Fed will start to cut interest rates somewhere at the beginning of the year ahead. Fed Chair Powell stressed that the ultimate goal of Fed's policy is bringing inflation down to 2% target and that the Fed might increase interest rates to the higher levels if inflation remains persistent. The policy will remain restrictive “until inflation sustainably slowing”. Since some progress has been made, the Fed will proceed carefully but flexibly from this moment. Negative news for Binance continues as Mastercard decided to end its partnership with this company, and will no longer offer cards in Latin America and the Middle East for Binance-brand. Binance's card issuer in Europe was Visa, however, this company also ended the business relationship with Binance during July. As per publicly available information, the rationale for such decisions is currently ongoing regulatory scrutiny of Binance in both the EU and the US. The company noted that only a small portion of its users will be affected by this decision, as customers are usually using Binance Pay, a “ borderless and secure cryptocurrency payment technology designed by Binance''. The U.S. Treasury department finally proposed amendments to the tax law, by which, crypto brokers will be differentiated from the traditional brokerage companies. The new amendments also address the question regarding user’s personal data, which these companies should gather. Namely, based on the proposal, crypto companies will declare their tax obligation on a new form – called 1099-DA. Miners are excluded from this new form. Amendments are currently open for a public view and discussion, while its final adoption could be expected by the end of this year. The Monetary Authority of Hong Kong will further explore possibilities of the bond market tokenization. This decision comes after the Government issued $100 million of tokenized green bonds in February this year. Their aim is to dig further into potential for increasing efficiency, liquidity and transparency of the bond market. Crypto market cap After the final break to the downside two weeks ago, the crypto market remained relatively quiet, in anticipation of the Fed Chair Powell speech at the Jackson Hall conference. Generally, markets did not hear anything new from his speech; however, it brought some modest optimism to the equity markets. The bottom line is that there is still a way to go when it comes to inflation, and the Fed might increase interest rates even higher if inflation remains persistent. The crypto market remained relatively flat during the week. Total crypto market capitalization was increased by modest $1B, actually, without much change from the week before. Daily trading volumes modestly increased to the level of SGX:43B on a daily basis, from $35B the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year remained flat at level of 36%, where it has added total $274B to the market cap. Crypto coins were traded relatively flat during the week, with modest movements in prices of coins. There were almost equal numbers of coins that finished the week on a positive and negative side. BTC managed to gain $2.5B in its market cap, which is an increase of 0.5% on a weekly basis. ETH was shiny down by $1.1B or 0.5%. XRP was one of the major winning coins during the week, with an increase in market cap of $1B or 4%. Few other coins with relatively solid performance on a weekly basis were Tron, with a gain of 4.85%, Miota was up by 2.5% and Litecoin with a modest surge of 2.1%. Several coins finished the week in red, like Filecoin, which was down by 7.7%, Uniswap lost 6.7% in its market cap and Solana decreased its value by 6.5%. As for coins in circulation, there also has not been too much change. Tron was the one coin whose coins in circulation were down by 0.1%, while Polkadot increased the number of its coins in circulation by 0.2%. Crypto futures market Although the crypto spot market remained relatively flat during the week, the crypto futures market went through some changes in investors long term perception for both BTC and ETH futures. Analysts from JPMorgan were commenting on current open interest on the crypto derivative markets and noted that current unwind of long positions can be perceived as they are in the end phase. “As a result we see limited downside for crypto markets over the near term”, as noted by a JPMorgan analyst. If that is the case, then traders might hope that September will be a better month for cryptos, than it was August. BTC short term futures ended the week down around 1% on average, but the longer term ones suffered a huge drop of around 7% on a weekly basis. During the first part of August and major downturn, BTC long term futures were holding pretty steady, however, this is the first week when December 2024 dropped below $30K levels, ending the week at price of $29.145. At the same time, futures maturing in December this year were last traded at $26.730, or 0.63% lower from the week before. With ETH futures the situation is a bit different, considering that almost all maturities dropped by more than 5% on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December 2024 were last traded at price $1.793 or 5.13% lower from the week before, while those maturing in December this year were also down by 5.30% ending the week at price $1.684.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: August 21 – 27Last week in the news China is evidently slowing down, while Fed's meeting minutes revealed the possibility for interest rates to move even higher from currently expected levels. Negative sentiment continues to prevail on financial markets. Both EU and US equities continued their negative trend for the third week in a row, while US Treasuries continue to rise. Bitcoin had the worst week since May this year, followed by other crypto coins. Markets are clearly revisiting their optimism from the beginning of this year. China's housing market is passing through difficult times. During the previous week markets were hit by a series of negative news related to some Chinese big players within this industry. One of the largest real estate companies, Country Garden, defaulted on its bond payments on Monday. On the other side, by far the largest real estate company in China, Evergrande, registered in the US, filed for protection under the bankruptcy law in the US. The company was previously in trouble, trying to save the business through restructuring, but it failed to find supporting funds for that mission. Further destiny of the company is currently unknown. Another important event which made an impact on market sentiment was a release of FOMC meeting minutes from its meeting held in July. One of the concerns expressed at this meeting was the possibility that more rate hikes will be necessary in the future period in order to fight inflation. Several FOMC members were concerned that a tight job market could support further increase in inflation, which would require more rate hikes. Markets were holding to previous Fed Chair Powell's statement over possible two rate hikes till the end of this year. Since the Fed increased rates in July, markets were expecting another one in September through December. However, minutes revealed something on which markets were not prepared, and that is the possibility for further rate hikes, which made them reassess their economic growth prospectus for the next year. Minutes mentioned another important topic, which is related to FOMC members' concern over the issues in commercial real estate and problems which they can cause to some banks and financial institutions. The market reaction was that both the equities and crypto market lost in value during the week, while Treasury yields surged. Coinbase announced that the company gained the regulatory approval from National Futures Association to offer crypto future products to US customers. The company also noted that it filed an application for this product in 2021. This approval refers to only federally regulated futures. News was perceived positively by the markets, as shares of Coinbase gained 5% after the announcement. Although CBDC`s are still not officially launched, many companies are preparing for this moment, and trying to create full ecosystems around CBDC`s. One of the world’s largest payment and cards companies, Mastercard, organized a forum related to this topic, including some of the well-known names from the crypto industry, including Ripple, Fireblocks and Consensys. At this moment, their program partnership includes only discussions on innovation drives and efficiencies, however, it could be easily expanded in the future. Crypto market cap Final break to the downside occurred on the crypto market during the previous week. There are two major reasons which supported negative market sentiment. On the one side are published FOMC meeting minutes which revealed concerns of some FOMC members that more rate hikes will be necessary in the coming months / year in order to cope with inflation. There is also expressed concern over issues in commercial real estate which can bring potential negative consequences to some banks and financial institutions. At the same time, China's real estate market exposed some huge concerns, when big real estate company Country Garden defaulted on part of its bond payments, while the biggest player in this field, company Evergrande, filed for protection under the US bankruptcy law. Economists called such developments “a perfect storm” for financial markets. Not only that crypto market lost a significant portion of its value within a week, but was also followed by US equity markets. Total crypto market capitalization decreased during the week by 9%, losing a total $107B. Daily trading volumes almost doubled during the week, trading around $65B on a daily basis, from $35B during the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 36%, where it has added total $273B to the market cap. All coins lost during the previous week, however, drop in value of $107B on a weekly basis was driven by major coins, which participated with 89% in this drop. BTC lost FWB:68B or around 12% on a weekly basis, and was followed by ETH, with a drop of $23B or more than 10%. XRP was another coin with a significant drop in value of $6.6B or less than 20%. BNB was down by almost $4B or 10.6%. DOGE decreased its value by 17% or $1.8B in nominal amounts. Both ADA and SOL dropped around $1B losing 9.8% and 11.5% in value respectively. Majority of all other altcoins lost between 10% and 20% in value. As for coins in circulation, Tether managed to lose 0.7% circulating coins in a single week, which is not recently seen on the market. At the same time, Solana increased its circulating coins by 0.4%. Crypto futures market Negative news and investor’s sentiment left its mark also on the crypto futures market. As per Coinglass data, around $1B loss in liquidations of long positions were wiped out from this market. It was one of the worst sell-offs of the year. Short term BTC futures ended the week around 11% lower from the week before, while ETH futures dropped by more than 10%. On a positive side is that longer term futures suffered a lower drop in prices. BTC long term futures were down by more than 5%. Futures maturing in December this year ended the Friday`s trading session at level of $26.900, while those maturing in December next year were last traded at price $31.275. On a positive side is that December next year is still holding above $30K level. ETH long term futures dropped more than 6%, with December 2023 ending the week at price $1.778. Futures maturing in December 2024 dropped below $2K level where they were managing to hold for a few weeks. Last price for those futures was $1.890.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: August 14 – 20Last week in the news The stock markets continued with their modest correction for a second week in a row. US banks ended the week in negative territory after Moody's downgraded ten banks and put some big US names on watch for a downgrade in the coming period. At the same time US Treasurys modestly increased during the week, after published inflation data in line with expectations. Crypto market gained on Moody's downgrade of US banks. Bitcoin is ending another week below $30K, while Ether found strong support above $1.8K level. The US Consumer Price Index published for July increased 3.2% y/y, less than market expectations, rising 0.2% for the month. Core CPI also rose 0.2%, running at 4.7% on a yearly basis. Figures are showing that the inflation is slowing down in the US, but it is still running above Fed's target of 2%. Many analysts are of the opinion that this trend would make the Fed probably to hold its next rate increase and postpone it till the end of this year. On the other side investors are looking for a moment of Fed`s pivot, which would mean that the Fed would start to decrease interest rates. Still, Fed Chair Powell noted that it should be expected for rates to stay elevated for a longer period of time even if inflation slows down further. Two weeks ago credit rating agency Fitch downgraded US government long-term currency issuer default rating to AA+, while during the previous week another credit rating agency Moody's downgraded ten US banks. In addition, Moody's put several banks to watch for the downgrade, including some big names like Bank of New York Mellon, State Street and Northern Trust. As a rationale for such a decision, Moody`s is noting asset-liability practices in these banks, with high exposures to the interest rate risks, coming from depression of Treasury holdings due to increased interest rates which might deteriorate banks value and earnings potential. This news supported Bitcoin trading, while negatively affecting equity markets. Tesla`s Chief Financial Officer, Zach Kirkhorn, announced to step down from his position in the company, after spending the last four years in this position and a total 13 years in Tesla. There has not been announced reason for such a decision. Markets reacted in a negative manner, pushing TSLA shares 3% lower. Nvidia passed the $1 trillion valuation, with the latest surge in stock price, putting this company in line with other big 4 names – Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet. This came as a result of making the best graphic processors for OpenAI and ChatGPT. Although investors see high earnings potential with this company, still, there are analysts who are arguing that the company is highly overpriced at this moment. Their opinion is that the general AI market is highly overvalued and its potential to drive future gains. Some analysts are even making a parallel between the 1999 dot-com bubble and current frenzy about AI. PayPal launched its stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD) aiming to keep pace with increasing interest for payments in crypto currencies. Analysts see it as a positive move from PayPal as it will be able to adjust easily for forthcoming central bank digital currencies, which will be available in the near future. Crypto market cap Markets continue to move flat, digesting both positive and negative news. Credit rating agencies in the US are continuing with downgrades, after Fitch downgraded US Government long term debt by one notch, Moody's downgraded ten US banks with more of them on the watchlist for the same move in the coming period. On a positive side is that the inflation in the US is slowing down, holding at the level of 3.2% in July. Although this is positive news, still, analysts are questioning whether this slowdown in inflation would impact Fed's decision to hold with further increases of interest rates. A fear of recession vanished on the market, with increasing voices over so-called soft-landing of the economy. With a strong jobs market, strong earnings and higher than expected Q2 GDP assumptions on soft-landing are well supported. Total crypto market capitalization remained flat during the previous week, with a modest increase of FWB:14B or less than 1% on a weekly basis. This is the third week when daily trading volumes have significantly decreased. Previous week`s range was around $35B on a daily basis, which is a further decrease from FWB:46B traded a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 50%, where it has added total $380B to the market cap. The crypto market entered into side trade during the previous week. Significantly decreased daily trading volumes are not able to push the price to either side. Still, the majority of coins finished the previous week on a shy green side, with few of them with good weekly performance. Bitcoin added $5.5B to its market cap during the week, increasing its value by less than 1%. Same performance had ETH with an increase in cap of $2B. In a relative term, Solana continued with gains, adding more than 10% during the previous week. Algorand also had solid performance with an increase in value of 6.4% w/w. LINK gained 4%, while DASH managed to increase its cap by 5.8%. Few coins were on a losing side, like Bitcoin Gold, which decreased its value by 3.5%, Ethereum Classic was down by 1.1%, while Maker and Polkadot were both down by 2.4% w/w. There has not been significant changes in coins in circulation, where Filecoin was the highest gainer with 0.6% increase in its circulating coins. Crypto futures market The crypto futures remained relatively flat during the previous week, in line with developments on the spot market. BTC short term futures were up by some 0.5% on average, while long term ones were traded higher by modest 0.3% w/w. BTC futures maturing in December this year are still holding above $30K, and finished the week at level of $30.425, while those maturing in December next year were traded modestly higher with last trade on Friday closed at price $33.065. ETH futures were also in a flat mode. Short term ones were traded down by some 0.4% on average, while long term ones were traded in green. December 2023 is finishing the week at level of $1.894, 0.37% lower from the week before, while December 2024 was traded 0.2% higher and finished the week at price of $2.013. It remains positive that the long term price of ETH sustains the levels above $2K.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: August 7 – 13Last week in the news The rating agency Fitch downgraded the long term credit rating of the US by one notch to AA+ from previous AAA. Market reacted with a negative sentiment, bringing the US equity markets lower and Treasury yields to the upside. The crypto market was traded flat most of the week, sliding down as of Friday`s trading. Bitcoin is ending the week at FWB:29K , while Ether is still managing to hold modestly above $1.8K. Quite a negative news hit the markets at the beginning of the previous week. One of the largest US credit rating agencies, Fitch, downgraded the US Government long-term currency issuer default rating to AA+, from previous AAA grade. The rationale for such a decision was “expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years” as well as lack of governance for its debt-ceiling. This was certainly a huge surprise for markets which were traded in a red zone through the rest of the week. However, economists have different opinions. On one side are those who are questioning why such a decision is coming at this point of time, when all said in the Fitch`s report is well known from a long time ago. On the other side are those who are cheering such a decision as it could help the Fed to finally halt its monetary tightening. Markets were cheering Ripple Lab`s win over SEC with higher optimism that it could be of some use in other SEC`s disputes with several crypto market participants, for which closure is still pending. It was a sort of surprise and also disappointment for markets when this ruling was rejected by the Southern District of New York Judge Rakoff in a case between SEC and Coinbase. Rationale for a rejection was “a misinterpretation of the Howey test”. This makes it an extremely hard task for Coinbase to use Ripple`s ruling for its own benefit in this case. Finally some good news for Binance. Binance`s CEO CZ officially announced that a subsidiary of the company in Japan will start its operations in this country from August 14th. Binance entered Japan`s market in November last year, by acquiring Sakura Exchange BitCoin crypto exchange. This is good news for Binance in a moment when the company is facing scrutiny from regulators in the US and the EU. As per CME reports, investors have doubled their positions in the crypto options during July. Options trading activity increased by 24% in July from the month before for both BTC and ETH options. This might be an indication that investors are currently looking for a hedging tool for their positions in these coins. Filings for BTC exchange traded funds are growing among financial institutions in the US. While BlackRock is still waiting for the final resolution of its application with the SEC for the first BTC based ETF, during the previous week ProShares and Bitwise also filed their applications for both BTC and ETH exchange traded funds. In case that BlackRock receives a positive outcome for their filing, it will be a huge gain for the BTC and crypto community, and would certainly open the door for other ETF`s based on other coins, like ETH. Crypto market cap Markets are calming down after surprising news during the previous week that the Fitch rating agency has downgraded the US long-term debt by one notch, to AA+ from previous AAA. How this move would impact the future economic outlook is about to be seen. Economists are noting that a downgrade would mean further increase of costs of borrowing, considering that the financial industry would now seek higher interest rates on borrowed funds, in order to cover increased risk for borrowing funds. Higher costs of borrowing might further slow down economic activity, but to what extent, is to be seen, as the US economy has been pretty resilient to significant increase of Fed's interest rates during the previous period. The crypto market continues to be on hold, marking the third week on a downside. Total crypto market capitalization decreased by additional 2% during the week, losing $24B in total value. Daily trading volumes continue to decrease, moving around FWB:46B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 48%, where it has added total $366B to the market cap. Another week the crypto market finished in red. Two coins were leading the drop in total market cap in nominal terms. Ether lost almost $5B, dropping its value by 2.2% on a weekly basis. ETH was followed by XRP, with a drop in value of more than 12% or $4.5B. This time, Bitcoin took the third place, whose market value dropped by $2.2B or 0.4% compared to the week before. Solana was another coin with a significant loss of $1B in value, dropping by more than 10% on a weekly basis. At the same time, BNB managed to sustain its value flat during the week. Significant losers in relative terms during this week were Stellar, with a drop of 13.6% w/w, Litecoin was down by 9.4%, LINK lost almost 8% in value same as OMG Network, Theta also dropped by 7.5%. The only coin with a significant increase in value was Bitcoin Gold, which managed to increase its value by more than 16% during the week. At this moment there is no official information available as to why this surge occurred. Coins in circulation remained relatively stable during the week, except for Polkadot`s increase of circulating coins by a significant 1.4%. Solana had a modest surge by 0.2%, same as Stellar. Crypto futures market For the third week in a row, crypto futures were traded lower. Short term Bitcoin futures were traded around 2.8% lower from the week before, however, longer term futures were traded in a green zone at Friday`s trading session on CME. Futures maturing in December 2023 ended the week at price of $30.355, while December 2024 managed to end the week at price of $32.955. Although the price did not manage to reach levels above BER:33K , this is still a positive sign of investors' expectations for the future price of the BTC. Market optimism for ETH futures is still lacking a higher level of confidence. Short term futures were down by some 2.5% on average, while longer term futures were last traded about 1% lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year were last traded down by 1.5%, ending the week at price $1.892. Futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week at level of $2.009, or 1.13% lower from the week before.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 30 – August 5Last week in the news Both Fed and ECB increased their reference interest rates by 25bps, which was fully in line with market expectations. Markets ended the week digesting the central banker`s view on the current state of both economies, in expectations that pivoting might come somewhere during the course of the next year. All markets slowed down during the week, still S&P 500 ended the week 1% higher on the inflation data. Bitcoin continues to struggle to hold FWB:29K , while Ether finished the week below $1.9K. There have not been any surprises when Central bankers are in question. Fed increased its reference interest rates by 25 bps as it was expected, with some probability for additional rate hike till the end of this year. In the meantime, figures are showing that the US inflation continues to ease further through the course of this year. Still, Fed Chair Powell continues to stress that further rate increases would be data-driven and that FOMC members will rely their future decisions exclusively on economic data. Some economists are again raising a question of how further increase of interest rates will affect small banks in the US, implying that some of them might enter into trouble, considering incurred fair value losses on Treasury bonds portfolios. At the same time, Central bankers in the EU also raised interest rates by 25 bps, with an old note that inflation will stay elevated for a longer period of time. However, the ECB President Lagarde did not exclude the possibility to pause further rate hikes in September. The recession fears are still very high on the EU market, especially with its major economy, Germany, significantly slowing down since the beginning of this year. A huge surprise during the previous week was an unexpected move for the monetary policy of the Bank of Japan. As they called it, “a greater flexibility”, means that the BoJ would leave its yield curve to fluctuate within a range of plus/minus 1% instead of current 50 bps. The BoJ is well known for its 0% yields policy on 10Y government bonds. It is keeping their rates around 0% in order to support economic growth. However, this move might have broad implications on developed financial markets, considering that many large institutions were taking advantage of interest rate differentials in Japan and the US or EU. They were taking JPY funds at 0% or near 0% in order to invest them in the western markets at higher yields. A new BoJ policy would mean more expensive funds for investors and lower level of investments in other markets. Both EU and US markets reacted to this news with lower closes. Worldcoin (WLD) became live during the previous week. It is a project of Sam Altman, a CEO of Open AI, which drew many controversies before its official launch. The coin is based on privacy-preserved identity, or World ID, which allows for humans to have an identity in the digital world. It is also noted that its aim is to “distribute a universal basic income to people worldwide”. However, for authorities in the EU it rang a bell for its data protection rules, as they are currently investigating legality of such a data collection. At the same time, the Worldcoin Foundation commented to CoinDesk that they will cooperate with the government on their “privacy and data protection practices”. Crypto market cap The Fed increased its interest rates by 25 bps as it has been expected. Still, posted inflation figures for the US are showing that inflation continues to be on a down-track, which supports investors optimism that the monetary tightening might soon come to an end. Still, it should be taken into consideration that Fed Chair Powell promised two rate hikes till the end of this year, which leave us with one additional 25 bps hike in the coming months. A potential Fed`s pivoting will support investors' appetite for riskier assets. Until then, investors remain oriented toward the equity markets and US Treasury bonds, especially the short term ones. The crypto market is for the last two weeks left aside from investors' attention. Second week in a row the crypto market capitalisation is finishing the week with a modest drop in value. During the previous week, total market cap dropped by 2%, losing $19B in the total value. Major coins on the market were the ones which were dragging the market to the downside. This week, the majority of altcoins also followed the same path. Daily trading volumes were further decreased to the level of FWB:37B on a daily basis, from FWB:49B traded during the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year stands at 52%, where it has added a total $390B to the market cap. Several altcoins finished the previous week in green. Major coins on the market were the ones that were leading the total market capitalization to the downside in a nominal sense, participating with a total 75% in $19B value decrease. Bitcoin lost even $11.8B or 2% of its market value during the week. Ether managed to hold relatively flat, with a modest drop in value of $2.2B or less than 1%. XRP was also on a losing side, with a drop in market cap of almost $3B or 7.4% on a weekly basis. Other altcoins were losing less than 10%, among which NEO lost almost 6%, EOS was down by 5.3% and Polygon dropped by 6.3% w/w. There were few coins with relatively solid performance, like Maker, who managed to gain 13% in value. There was also a DOGE with an increase in market cap of 8.6%. As for coins in circulation, the market calmed down compared to the week before, and there has not been much change. Polkadot managed to increase its circulating coins by 2.9% w/w, while XRP continues to increase its coins in circulation, adding 0.3% during the previous week. Tether remained flat during the week. Crypto futures market Crypto futures market continued its correction which started a week before. During the previous week, there has been a further drop in BTC short term futures by more than 2%, while ETH futures were traded down by some 1.5% on average. BTC longer term futures also had a correction of more than 2%. Futures maturing in December this year were last traded down by 1.98%, and finished the week at price $30.500. At the same time, futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week by 2.16% lower from the week before, at price $32.880, and down from $33.605 traded as of the end of the previous week. ETH long term futures dropped by 1.60% w/w. December this year was last traded at the price of $1.911, dropping below $2K psychological level. Futures maturing in December 2024 were traded 1.55% lower from the week before, while still managing to hold above $2K level. Last traded price was $2.032 on CME.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 24 – 30Last week in the news While EU markets finished the week in green, amid positive corporate results, US markets were traded in a mixed manner, as investors still need to digest the latest corporate data and prospectus for the future period. The S&P 500 was traded almost flat on Friday, after adding 0.69% during the week. The crypto market remained relatively flat on a weekly basis, with Bitcoin ending the week testing $30K support, while Ether was traded below $1.9K. Market interest is currently focused on the next Fed move with respect to its monetary policy and increase of interest rates. The FOMC meeting will be held on July 26-27, where its members will decide whether current economic conditions support another rate hike. Majority of market participants continue to be of the opinion that another 25 bps rate increase is coming. Fed Chair Powell previously promised two rate hikes till the end of this year. There is a small portion of investors and economists who are of the opinion that Fed might pause during July`s meeting. Such an opinion is supported by the latest inflation data, which shows that it is cooling down, but still, it moves at a higher level from the Fed's target of 2%. The Federal Reserve officially launched its new payment system called FedNow. It represents an instant payment system, which is expected to improve the flow of money for individuals and businesses. As it has been noted, 35 financial institutions have accepted FedNow, including big names like JPMorgan and Wells Fargo. Fed is expecting to further develop the system and to include it into websites and applications of banks. Ripple – SEC dispute might be over, but SEC`s fight against digital asset industry is still not. During the previous week SEC Chair Gensler asked the US government for additional $72 million of funds in order to protect investors in the crypto market from “noncompliance”. He also called the current crypto market a “Wild West” and stressed the need to protect investors' “hard earned money” from “fire and noncompliance” of the crypto industry. Cathy Wood, CEO of Ark Investment fund, was commenting on the strategy of its Innovation Fund and noted that the fund had decreased its exposure to China to zero. The rationale for such a decision was a slowdown of this market. Funds are transferred to the local US market and companies within the tech industry like Tesla and Coinbase. Metaverse continues to drag businesses, as they are trying to expand reach to the customers even in the digital world. During the previous week McDonalds, a fast food giant, opened a McNuggets Land in the Metaverse, as a sort of virtual restaurant. The European Union is speeding up its efforts for the introduction of its digital currency – digital Euro. The Central bank of France conducted testing of the cross border payments, during the previous period, and concluded that a wholesale digital currency, created for use by business entities within the EU, will significantly improve cross border payments and settlement of transactions for various financial assets. Crypto market cap The celebration of Ripples' win over SEC has been short. During the previous week SEC Chair Gensler asked the US Government for additional funds in the amount of $72 million in order to fight the “Wild West” in the crypto industry. This move represents his determination to make crypto businesses comply with the current Securities laws in the US. There are still pending SEC lawsuits against several big players in the crypto industry, waiting for its court resolution. Although, on one side there are businesses who are arguing the lack of clear crypto regulation, there are still those, including SEC, arguing that the regulation exists and it just needs to be implemented among crypto participants. Instead of making an argument-deal between the SEC and the crypto industry, it seems that the regulation in the US will be determined by the court decisions. On the other hand, investors are also weightening potential Fed moves on July`s FOMC meeting which will be held in a week ahead. Those were the main reasons why the crypto market slowed down during the previous week. Total crypto market capitalization was modestly decreased by 1%, losing FWB:13B within a week. Major coins were the ones that were driving the crypto market cap to the downside. Daily trading volumes significantly dropped during the week to the level of FWB:49B on a daily basis, from $82B traded during the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year stands at 54%, where it has added a total $409B to the market cap. Major coins on the crypto market were slowing down, however, investors' interest is still on altcoins. Bitcoin lost $7.6B on a weekly basis or 1.3% and was followed by Ether, with a loss of 5B in market cap or 2.1%. Binance Coin also finished the week 2.6% lower from the week before or $1.65B. XRP continues to be positively impacted by the resolution of the Ripple – SEC dispute. The coin managed to add an additional 8.3% to its market cap during the week, increasing it for $3B. Several other coins had a very good week in relative terms. Stellar managed to gain 26% during the week, while Maker increased its market cap by 24% w/w. LINK was also in the group of significant gainers, adding almost 15% to its total capitalization. Within coins in circulation there had again been some interesting developments. BNB decreased its circulating coins by 1.3% on a weekly basis, which is something not frequently seen on the crypto market. At the same time, Algorand continues to increase its coins in circulation by 1.1% during the previous week. Solana had an increase in coins by 0.3% w/w, same as Stellar. Crypto futures market Crypto futures market was in a modest correction during the previous week, but most importantly, the prices are still holding above significant levels. BTC short term futures were traded lower by 1.3% on average, which is in line with the spot market. Longer term futures were lower by more than 6%. Futures maturing in December this year are still holding above FWB:31K , finishing the week at level of $31.115. At the same time, futures maturing in December 2024 were last traded at price $33.605 on CME, down from $35.8K traded a week before. ETH short term futures had a lower drop during the week than the spot market. These were traded around 1.5% lower from the week before. Longer term futures were traded around 6% lower from the week before, with December 2023 finishing the week at level of $1.942, while December 2024 ended the week at price of $2.064. On a positive side is that the price is still holding above $2K, which is a psychological level for ETH.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 17 – 23Last week in the news Aside from general developments on financial markets, the previous week was the winning one for Ripple and altcoins. The court ruled that XRP is not a security, which significantly boosted the price of this coin. The US equity markets were further boosted by the market expectations of the soft landing in the US economy. At the same time, the same expectation pushed the value of USD and Treasury yields to the downside. Bitcoin is ending the week relatively flat and modestly above $30K, while Ether is holding above $1.9K. Ripple Labs made a huge win in a lawsuit with SEC, as the court ruled out that in terms of the US Laws, XRP is not a security. Other rulings stress that sales on exchanges and sales by executives are not securities. However, there is a tricky part to a court decision. Namely, such outcome is based on a fact that during early 2020 investors were not able to fully understand the crypto, their price was just a little fraction of their current prices and regulators were only mildly interested in these digital assets. It was a huge win for XRP, but not for all investors in digital assets. Namely, the second part of the ruling suggests that institutional sales could not be treated as the offer and sale of investment contracts. This part of the court decision might have some impact on other SEC`s lawsuits against Binance, Coinbase or Gemini. Analysts are noting that the SEC might use these court conclusions against these companies, so it is still not time for a celebration. Positive investors sentiment was supported by the latest published figures on inflation. The Producer Price Index for June showed that inflation is slowing down at a higher pace as anticipated by the market. PPI for June was 0.1% and lower from 0.2% market estimation. Core PPI also rose by 0.1%. At the same time, released figures for the consumer price index for June showed an increase of 3% compared to the year before, which is its lowest level since March 2021. Such development is supporting investor’s opinion that FED might be at the end of its quantitative tightening period. The SEC filed a lawsuit against Coinbase for its staking products more than a month ago, while California, New Jersey, South Carolina and Wisconsin requested changes in Coinbase staking products. Coinbase strongly disapproves treatment of its staking products as securities, but will pause offering these products in mentioned states. Larry Fink, a CEO of the world largest asset manager BlackRock, talked again about crypto, after his company filed for the first spot BTC ETF a month ago. This time he noted his observation that there is increasing demand for crypto assets from those investors who previously preferred to invest in gold. He was also mentioning the role of the ETF`s in allowing easy access to gold, where BTC ETF might do the same thing. He also noted that their ETF will be “safe, sound and protected”. Luxury industry is just heating up for the NFT market. A famous fashion brand Gucci is preparing to release a digital NFT collection called “Future Frequencies: Explorations in Generative Art and Fashion”. The collection will be offered for a sale at auction house Christie's. Crypto market cap A week like the previous one is rarely seen on the crypto market. A lawsuit between SEC and Ripple Labs, which lasted since 2020 is finally resolved. There is a mixed sentiment as to who actually won the lawsuit, however, the most important part is that XRP is ruled not to be a security, as per current Securities Law in the US. This had a huge implication also for other altcoins on the market, for which the SEC recently claimed that they are securities. Market reaction was quite positive, where altcoins were leading the increase in total market capitalization during the previous week. BTC was left behind in this round. Total crypto market capitalization was increased by 4% during the week, adding FWB:44B to the market cap. Major coins on the market were participating with a modest 30% in this increase. Daily trading volumes remained elevated around $82B on a daily basis. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year is 56%, where it has added a total $422B to the market cap. Bitcoin was not the one to lead the market during the previous week. The coin remained relatively flat, ending the week with a plus of only $2B or 0.36%. Absolute winner of the week was XRP who skyrocketed after the news about SEC dispute resolution with an additional $12B in value or 51% w/w. Other altcoins were following the XRP, but at lower levels. Among those coins were Solana, with an increase in market value of $2B or 26.7%, BNB added also more than $2B to its market cap, increasing it by more than 6%, DOGE, ADA and Polygon added more than $1B each to market cap, increasing it by 11%, 14% and 18.5% respectively. It should be mentioned that Stellar increased its value by 31% w/w, but in nominal terms this increase was below $1B. There were also coins which lost some of their value during the week, like Bitcoin Cash, which was down by 3%, Bitcoin Gold was down by 3.75%, Litecoin lost 3% in value, while Maker dropped by 5.5% w/w. As for coins in circulation, XRP increased its circulating coins by 0.6% w/w, Algorand continued with a strong push in circulating coins adding 1.8% during the previous week, while Tether gained 0.3% of new coins. Crypto futures market Previous week was a rare one where the crypto futures market was not fully aligned with the spot market, but certainly, there are quite positive developments. BTC short term futures were down by some 0.3% on average, however, long term futures gained significantly. In this sense, futures maturing in December this year were traded by more than 4% higher from the week before, ending the week at level of $33.105. At the same time, the price of futures maturing in December 2024 were traded almost 10% higher, with closing price at $35.840. More important developments occurred with ETH futures. Short term ones were traded by 2.5% higher from the week before. Futures maturing in December 2023 reached level above $2K for the first time since April, and were 8.6% higher from the previous week. On a positive side is also that futures maturing in December 2024 skipped the $2K level, ending the week at price of $2.187 and 9.4% higher from the previous week`s close. Such developments imply increased market sentiment for both coins, especially ETH, suggesting that the price of coins will reach higher grounds in the coming period.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 10 – 16Last week in the news The US equity market closed lower on Friday amid market expectations over further interest rates increase. At the same time, the crypto market ended the week modestly lower compared to the week before. Bitcoin is ending the week above $30K, while Ether is holding above support at $1.850. Whether it is just a seasonal effect, or the US jobs market is cooling down is about to be seen during the following months. Still, published data for June show that payrolls in the US increased by 209K which is far less from the market expectation of 240K. At the same time, the level of wages was up, as average hourly earnings in June were up by 0.4% m/m, which is 4.4% increase from the same period last year. This shows a bit of a mixed picture when the jobs market is in question, which increased market expectation that FED might bring rates higher in the coming month. According to the market poll, there is currently a 92% chance for rate increase at July`s FOMC meeting. In an interview with CNBC, Chicago FED President Austan Goolsbee noted his expectations that inflation can be brought back to target without a recession in the US. He stressed that the primary goal of the FED currently is to take inflation down to targeted 2% level with a “golden path” which does not include a recession. On the other hand, economists are convinced that such a pace of rate increases would certainly lead to at least modest recession in the coming months. Goolsbee`s recent notes are also not fully compliant with released June FOMC minutes. The Minutes revealed that some Fed officials are concerned over the possibility of a recession within next six months, followed by “moderately paced recovery”. During the previous week a lot of market and news attention was on the statement of the BlackRock`s CEO Larry Fink, who significantly changed his view on Bitcoin. Namely, in an interview he noted that Bitcoin could “revolutionize finance”, which is a significant shift in thinking from previous extreme skepticism toward the crypto coin. Analysts are noting that the initial idea behind the creation of Bitcoin was decentralization, where the middle-institution is not necessary, in which sense, they are arguing that BlackRock is entering the crypto area with wrong reasons. Just as a reminder, BlackRock recently filed with SEC for its first BTC ETF, still pending official conclusion. Problems for Binance exchanger continues to emerge. During the previous week, authorities in Australia demanded a copies of internal communication from both current and former employees of Binance. There is currently no official information what was the aim of these requests, or whether it is in connection to recent trials from US regulators, or raids within the EU of Binance exchanger. Crypto market cap The SEC issue over the question of what is and is not treated as a security in the crypto world is digested by the market, so now old issues emerge. Latest officially published job and earnings data in the US continue to send mixed signals, but due to an increase in wages in June, markets raised expectations of another rate hike in July. The sentiment has now increased to 92% for a rate increase at the FOMC meeting in July. Fed Chair Powell stressed potential two more rate increases till the end of this year, but it will take some time until monetary measures fully transmit into the economy. While economists are certain that there would be at least a modest recession, some Fed officials are stressing a possibility of no-recession. Total crypto market capitalization ended the previous week 2% lower from the week before, losing $24B in value. Daily trading volumes significantly decreased from the week before, trading around SGX:40B on a daily basis, from $94B a week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year is 50%, where it has added a total $378B to the market cap. Although during the previous week the market was generally oriented toward the short term correction, not all coins lost in value. Major coins were leading the drop in total market capitalization. Both Bitcoin and Ether lost more than $7B in value, leading to drop in market cap of BTC by 1.20% and ETH by 3.1% on a weekly basis. Due to issues with regulators in the EU and Australia of Binance exchanger, BNB lost $1.6B in value or 4.2%. Other coins with significant drop in value during the week in relative terms were ZCash, with a drop of 18%, DASH was down by 12%, same as NEO. Ethereum Classic lost 10% in the market cap, while Bitcoin Cash decreased its cap by more than 8%. Among coins which finished the week in green were Solana, with an increase of 19.2% in value, Polygon was up by 1.6%, Filecoin increased its cap by 6.2% and Maker managed to finish the week 11% higher from previous one. As for coins in circulation, Algorand increased its circulating coins by 2.6%, while Solana`s coins were higher in number by 0.5% w/w. Crypto futures market There have been some interesting developments in the crypto futures market when ETH is in question. Regardless of developments on the spot market and previous inverted futures curve, during the previous week, short term ETH futures were down by more than 3%, while longer term futures were traded up between 1.4% and 3%. This situation is not so frequently seen with ETH futures. ETH futures maturing in December this year were traded higher by 1.42% w/w, finishing the week at level of $1.935. At the same time, ETH futures maturing in December next year were traded at level $1.999 which is 3% higher from the week before. This implies that the market is perceiving some positive developments with ETH in the future period and potential that the price might return to the level of $2K during the course of the next year. BTC short term futures were traded in line with the spot market, down by some 0.7% w/. Futures maturing in December this year ended the week at level of $31.790 or 1.7% higher from the week before. However, futures maturing in December next year were down by 0.97%, ending the week at level of $32.610.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: July 2 – 8Last week in the news Both EU and US markets finished the week in green, mostly driven by stocks from the tech industry. June was an extremely good month for the S & P 500, considering that it managed to gain 6.5% during the month, and 15.9% since the beginning of this year. The crypto market was relatively flat during the week, although with good performance of altcoins. BTC is ending the week below FWB:31K , while Ether is holding above $1.9K. Equity markets in the US continue to be supported by the tech industry. Nvidia is certainly one of currently most interesting companies for investors, however, the biggest news during the previous week was that Apple reached a market cap of $3 trillion, after its share price reached $190.73. Share price of Apple has increased around 49% since the start of this year. Fidelity investment fund followed the steps of the BlackRock and filed with the SEC for their own BTC ETF. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that SEC returned filings from CBOE and Nasdaq for BTC ETF as being “inadequate” and not sufficiently clear. The major concern of SEC with a BTC ETF is its structure, which needs to be sufficient in order to prevent potential fraudulent and manipulative actions. Spokesman of the CBOE noted that they are planning to update filings and submit them once again. Bitcoin reacted to this news, by modest return to the levels below $30,5K, waiting for positive news in order to bring the price to the higher grounds. The FED published the results of an annual stress test on banks. The aim of this stress test is to show how resilient are US banks to highly adverse stress scenarios. Stress test is conducted by 23 largest US banks, and included scenarios of unemployment rate surging to 10%, a 40% drop in prices of real estate and 38% decline in housing prices. As per results published by FED, banks were able to sustain a $541 billion in projected losses and still manage to sustain minimum required capital levels. As CoinDesk is reporting, Kraken has been ordered by the court to provide account information to the IRS for all users which transacted more than $20.000 for the last calendar year. As it has been noted, the aim of these data would be for the IRS to check whether users have filed their taxes properly. Bloomberg is reporting that Citigroup, one of the largest banks in the world, is in negotiations with Metaco and several other crypto custodians, in order to expand its business to the digital asset area. It is also interesting that Metaco was acquired by company Ripple, which has an ongoing lawsuit with SEC, over its offer of crypto tokens. Problems for Binance continue, as the market regulator in Belgium ordered Binance to stop offering its services in this country. As it has been noted, the European financial markets regulator, FSMA, stressed that Binance is offering its services to EU clients from countries other than the European Economic Area, which is a violation of the local regulation. Crypto market cap It is still a game of nerves on the crypto market when dealing with regulators is in question. BlackRock was the first one to start another round of filing for spot BTC ETF. Several companies followed the move, among which were Fidelity fund, CBOE and Nasdaq. Based on news from the previous week, SEC rejected CBOE`s and Nasdaq`s filings as “inadequate”. The major issue for SEC continues to be the structure of the product which might allow potential fraudulent and manipulative actions. CBOE officials noted that they will update filings and start another round of the process for gaining the approval for BTC ETF product. Initial market positive sentiment is currently on hold, until it is finally resolved with the latest round of filings for the first spot BTC ETF. On the other side, the market is still waiting for the resolution of the Deutsche bank filing with German regulators for the license to conduct a custody service for digital assets, including crypto currencies. During the previous week total crypto market capitalization stayed almost flat, with a modest increase of 1% or FWB:14B on a weekly basis. Interestingly, daily trading volumes were further increased to the level of $94B on a daily basis, from $80B during the previous week and $60B from two weeks ago. This is positive signal that investors are back on the crypto market. Total crypto market capitalization increased since the beginning of this year by 53%, where it has been added total $402B to the market cap. During the previous period, Bitcoin was a leader of the crypto market capitalization increase, however, during the previous week altcoins were the one in the spotlight of investors. BTC finished the week flat compared to the end of the previous week. But, the absolute gainer of the week was actually Bitcoin Cash, which gained an incredible 56% on a weekly basis, adding more than $2B to its market cap. ETH also finished the week in green, with an increase in cap of more than $4B or 1.8%, and was followed by Litecoin with a gain of $1.2B or 19% in the market cap. Binance Coin managed to recover some of previous losses, by increasing its value by 4.7% or $1.7B w/w. Few other coins with good weekly performance were Bitcoin Gold, with a surge of 18.8% in cap, Stellar was up by 18.6%, ZCash gained 19.5%, Uniswap was up by 16% and Maker returned to the crypto game with an surge in value by 24.2% on a weekly basis. There have been only a few losers during the week, like Algorand, with a drop in value of 7%, OMG Network was down by 13%, and XRP lost almost 3% in value. There has been increased activity when coins in circulation are in question. Stellar increased its circulating coins by 0.4%, Algorand gained a significant 1.8%, Filecoin was up by 0.2% same as Polkadot and Tether. Crypto futures market BTC futures gained significantly during the last few weeks, but the previous week was a sort of short-term halt, when both spot and futures markets were in question. BTC short term futures were down approximately 1.5% from the week before, while December 2023 is still holding above $31K. On the other side, futures with longer term maturity gained some 1.5%, which is positive for this coin. It shows that investors see some prospectus for BTC in the future period. Futures maturing in December 2024 were closed at price $32.930, which is 1.5% higher from previous week`s close at $32.425. Situation with ETH futures is opposite to developments with BTC futures. Those maturing in July and August this year were up by 1.25% and 1.45% respectively, however, all other maturities were traded lower from the week before. Futures maturing in December this year were traded 0.78% lower, finishing the week at a price of $1.908. At the same time, futures maturing in December next year were closed at price $1.940 and 1.12% lower from the week before. Spread between futures maturing in July this year and December next year is almost zero, which shows that investors are still not sure about future prospectus for this coin.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: June 25 – July 1Last week in the news The US equity market entered into a short reversal on Friday, after a strong push for the last two months. On the other side, the crypto market is back on its track, with more positive news coming from German largest bank, Deutsche bank. Bitcoin is back at $30K level, Ether is following the increased investors optimism, ending the week modestly below $1.9K. Fed Chair Powell held a speech to a Senate banking panel on Wednesday, touching several currently important topics. He noted that the US economy still holds strong, however, inflation pressures are persistent, in which sense, it could be expected that further rate hikes will occur by the end of the year. He perceives the jobs market still as tight, with some signals that the conditions are loosening. Still, in order to get inflation at a targeted 2%, the US economy would need to slow down, as per his comments. One of the questions imposed by the Senate members was related to de-dollarisation currently occurring in some parts of the world, to which Powell answered that US dollar as a reserve currency is very important to the FED, and he believes that US dollar would remain a world reserve currency also in the future period. One of the important questions for the crypto community was FED`s standing on the crypto currencies, with focus on stablecoins. Powell noted that the FED perceives stablecoins as a form of money and that the US should not allow private money creation. Mainstream companies are not ready to give up on Bitcoin. Considering the latest developments, they acted like “white knights” for the crypto industry. Two weeks ago, the crypto market stopped its downtrend after it was announced that BlackRock, a largest US asset manager, filed with SEC for its first BTC based ETF. During the previous week Deutsche bank, the largest bank in Germany, announced that the bank had applied to gain a license from local regulators to manage a custody service for digital assets, including crypto currencies. With this move, Deutsche bank is strategically moving toward building up its digital assets and custody business. Markets were more than thrilled with such positive news, and Bitcoin price ended the week swiftly reaching the level of $30K. At the State of Crypto Summit held in New York last week, a head of strategic partnership in BlackRock, Joseph Chalom, noted the importance of counterparty identification as a critical point in order for large institutions to involve in decentralized finance, or DeFi. Crypto analysts are now discussing potential BlackRock involvement in setting the mainstream for regulation of the crypto industry, considering the size of a company as well as its recent involvement into BTC ETF`s. News is reporting that one of the largest investment banks in the US, JPMorgan, is bringing its settlement of JPM Coin to the next level with expanding it to euro-denominated payments. With over $300 billion in conducted transactions over the last four years, the JPMorgan institutional clients will now be able to make settlements also in euros using the same blockchain technology. Crypto market cap It seems like a new dawn emerged on the crypto market, however, not for all coins. Last few weeks were quite critical, considering moves from the US SEC, aimed to get crypto companies to align with regulation, jeopardizing the whole crypto ecosystem. However, on a positive side was a comment from SEC Chair Gary Gansler, that not all coins on the market fall under securities, mentioning that there are only few which fall under the term of real crypto currencies, without mentioning which coins are in question. From two weeks ago, the market started to get a glimpse of what he meant with his statement, when the largest asset manager in the US, BlackRock, filed with the SEC for its first BTC exchange traded fund. During the previous week, the crypto market regained confidence when the largest German bank and important player on the world scene, Deutsche bank, applied with the German regulator for the license to conduct a custody service for digital assets, including crypto currencies. This news pushed the crypto market to the upside, gaining on the weekly level total $108B in market capitalization, increasing its cap by 10%. Daily trading volumes were increased to the level of $80B on a daily basis, from $60B traded the week before. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year jumped to 51%, where it has added a total $388B to the market cap. Total crypto market capitalization gained $108B during the previous week, still, almost 90% of this amount belongs to Bitcoin and Ether. BTC was the winner of the week, by increasing its cap by $80B or 15.6%. Ether followed the up-path with a gain of $19B or almost 9% during the week. Other coins gained significantly but in relative terms. Bitcoin Cash was also in the spotlight of investors, as it managed to gain $1.5B or even 74% w/w, and was a winner of the week when it comes to percentage increase in value. Some other significant gainers were Ethereum Classic, with an increase in the market cap of almost 19%, OMG Network was up by a significant 37%, Litecoin, Link, NEO and Monero were up by more than 14% w/w. Binance Coin was in the group of rare losers of the week, as its value dropped by 4.2%, losing $1.6B in market cap. Surprisingly, Tether lost 0.4% of its coins in circulation, decreasing its market cap by this amount. Major changes in circulating coins relates to XRP, which gained 0.5% in circulating coins, while Polkadot`s and Filecoin`s coins were up by 0.3% Crypto futures market The optimism from the spot market was reflected also on the crypto futures market, however, not with equal expectations for BTC and ETH. Based on the long term price moves for ETH, it seems that investors are still reluctant to be more optimistic on the future prices of this coin. During the previous week, ETH short term futures were up by around 14% on average with futures maturing in December this year ending the week at level of $1.923. Longer term futures were up by more than 13%, where last trade for December 2024 futures was at price $1.962. Expectations of investors are mixed, but evidently, there is no strength to push longer term prices to the higher levels. The price difference between futures maturing in June this year and those maturing in December 2024 is only 39 points. As for BTC futures, the situation is a bit different. Short term futures were traded higher by more than 18% compared to the week before, with futures maturing in December this year ending the week at level of $31.185. Long term futures were traded more than 20% higher on the weekly basis, with December 2024 ending the week at level of $32.425. The market continues to make a significant difference on the price expectations between BTC and ETH.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKETS week ahead: June 18 – 24Last week in the news Previous week was marked by the moves of central banks of both the US and EU. Fed made a short pause of further rate hikes, while ECB continued with a 25 bps increase. While EU equity markets were supported by the ECB decision, the US markets ended the week in red, after reaching new short-term highs during the week. On the other side, the BlackRock`s filing for first BTC backed ETF fund supported the crypto market as of the end of the week. BTC is finishing the week above $26K, ETH is holding above $1.7K. During the previous week, both FOMC and ECB meetings were held. As it was expected, the FED skipped to hike rates at June`s meeting, however, as per after-the-meeting statements, it is still not planned to halt further increases of interest rates, as two more are ahead. This pause will be used by FED officials to assess implications of current monetary measures. Two more rate increases would lead US benchmark interest rates to the level of 5.6% as of the end of this year. As Fed Chair Powell said, the full effect of current measures is still to be fully relieved in the future period. At the same time, their colleagues from the European Central bank continued raising rates by an additional 25 bps on Thursday. The rate increase is coming due to ECB`s expectations for headline inflation to be elevated during the course of this year at levels of 5.4% and 3% in 2024. The ECB also revised the expected growth rate for the EU for this year to the level of 0.9% and 1.5% in 2024. In her speech, ECB President Lagarde commented that the ECB is still not finished with rate hikes, indicating potential for another hike in July this year. Officially released data shows that the EU is in technical recession, where some economists think would be a limiting factor for ECB to continue further hakes from levels of 3.75%-4%. In a wake of disputes with the SEC, Binance is cutting jobs in order to prepare for the costly fight with the regulator, and also announced that the company will exit the Netherlands market. This decision is coming after Binance`s failure to obtain the license from Netherland`s authorities to conduct its business as a virtual asset service provider. In its official announcement, there has not been a comment over the cause why the Dutch regulator rejected Binance`s application. Still the company already obtained such licenses in France, Spain, Sweden, and several other EU countries. However, although Binance is claiming that the SEC`s allegations do not affect Binance`s businesses in other countries, still during the week the news hit the market that Binance`s office in Paris has been visited by the French police, investigating “money laundering”. As of the end of the week, the crypto market has been highly supported by the filing of the BlackRock, asset management company, for the first spot bitcoin ETF, where Coinbase will be its crypto custodian. Previous applications from other investment companies in the US for BTC ETF fund have been rejected by the SEC, so BlackRock`s filing would represent a sort of break-through on the market in case that it is approved by the SEC. Still, analysts are noting that BlackRock`s btc ETF fund is not the same as, for example, Grayscale`s ETF fund. The difference is coming from the structure of a trust which allows redemptions, so the fund will function like an ETF. On the other hand, GBTC did not have an option of redemptions. The crypto market gained significantly as of the end of the week, as this news was announced. Crypto market cap During the week the crypto market was trying to recover from the previous losses, but all investors' eyes were on the equity market, which gained strongly since the beginning of this year. Significant breakthrough was made at the end of the week, by the announced filling of the BlackRock, a largest asset manager in the US, for its first BTC ETF. This was the moment when markets regained positive sentiment, after the last two weeks of negative news related to the crypto industry and SEC`s allegations. Certainly, the recovery will be slow, but this move from BlackRock shows that investors are still not ready to give up on cryptos. Total market capitalization gained modestly from the week before, by adding total $27B to the market cap, which is a 3% increase. Daily trading volumes modestly eased to the level of $60B on a daily basis, from previous week`s $85B. Total crypto market capitalization increase since the beginning of this year currently stands at 37%, where it has been added total $280B to the market cap. It was a sort of mixed trading week on the crypto market, ending in a positive sentiment. Total crypto market capitalization has increased by 3% and was mostly driven by BTC in nominal terms. BTC gained $17.5B in its market capitalisation during the week, increasing it by 3.5% on a weekly level. ETH had a relatively modest week with a small loss of $1B in value or 0.5%. Regardless of all negative news, BNB managed to modestly recover from recent losses, adding $1.6B to its market cap, or 4.3% on a weekly basis. Altcoins with significant gain during the week in a relative terms were LINK, with gain of 10.4%, Uniswap surged by 13%, while Polygon, Algorand, Filecoin and Maker were up by 10% w/w. There has been an increase in circulating coins, where LINK managed to increase its coins by 4.1% and was the absolute winner of the week. Tether continues with an increase of its coins in circulation by 0.3%, while Filecoin added 0.4% w/w. Crypto futures market A relatively negative market sentiment was holding on the crypto futures market, regardless of the positive developments on the spot market as of the end of the week. BTC short term futures were holding relatively flat compared to the week before, still, the long term ones were traded more than 4% lower. BTC futures maturing as of the end of this year were traded at the price of $ 26.150, or 4.4% lower, while those maturing in December 2024 were down by 4.25% and were closed at price of $26.800. ETH futures experienced a higher drop from BTC futures, where short term ones were traded up to 10% lower on a weekly basis. Futures maturing in December this year were down by 10.5%, finishing the week at price $1.689. Futures maturing in December 2024 finished the week at price $1.730, which was by 9.85% from previous week`s level of $1.919.
CRYPTOCAP:TOTAL
by XBTFX
MARKET OVERVIEW 25.01.22Wild day for markets yesterday with Nasdaq erasing a 5% drop and finishing positive. Here's a couple of interesting facts about yesterday. The S&P 500 has recovered from an intraday loss of more than 4% only three times (since HLC data began in 1977): - Jan 24, 2022 (yesterday) - Oct 16, 2008 = down -4.63% and closed up 4.25% - Oct 23, 2008 = down -4.28% and closed up 1.26% Wild volatility like this tends to happen in a bear market, not a bull market. The only example of this kind of trading before today was in October 2008. That was the beginning of the market falling apart, it would go on to decline another 28% until March 2009. Also, $SPY traded over $100b worth of shares for only the second time ever. March 2020 was the other time - we all remember that month. Keep in mind that despite the huge reversal day we saw yesterday, NASDAQ net lows still outpaced net highs, which is a bearish indication. VIX is above 30 and Put/Call ratio is at its highest point since March 2020. Both indicators are showing fear in the market.
TVC:VIX
by teodorgun