Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

US inflation has dropped to 2.9%, which is below expectations. BTC extended its decline following the CPI release. In recent months, cryptocurrency prices have displayed a high level of sensitivity to economic data. During Q2 2024, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley collectively invested more than $600 million in U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, indicating an increasing institutional interest in the midst of a 12% decrease in Bitcoin's price. The DeFi sector is seeing a revival as Aave achieves a new all-time high in the number of weekly active borrowers.

Options Market

The market consolidated after last week’s sharp decline - both BTC and ETH showed strong recovery at the beginning of the week but was dented by the lowest CPI print since March 2021. The implied volatility drifted lower after the report. Front-end skew on BTC reflected neutrality whereas downside protection demand for ETH remained active - puts were bought in the $2500-$2000 range. The ETH/BTC volatility spread stayed well-bid at the front end, matching short-term realized volatility  and  the back-end spread remained around 10 vol premium on ETH.

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• According to official data, the delegation limit TVL of Solana's re-staking protocol Solayer has exceeded 95,700 sSOL since its launch on the mainnet for three days, with a total of 10,774 participants.

   

• The Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon announced in an article that it will launch the first phase of the Bitcoin staking mainnet next week. Bitcoin holders can begin to lock BTC for staking.

   

• According to an announcement on the official Telegram channel of Dogs, DOGS token distribution is now available in Telegram wallet and CEX. Users will not receive tokens immediately but will be deposited into their chosen airdrop account before August 20th.

   

• According to RWA.xyz data, the market size of tokenized US Treasury bonds has exceeded $1.9 billion, currently at $192 million, which has grown by 30% in the past three months.

   

• Aevo announced that the Orderly Network token ORDER is part of the Aevo airdrop program. The more ORDER traded during pre-market trading, the more airdrops users will receive from Aevo.

   

• Arweave AO announced the launch of a temporary data storage solution called ArFleet. Users can apply to register on the designated page for the test network and will receive three exclusive ArFleet Genesis Passes upon completion, which can be used to access the test network after ArFleet launches.

   

• Aavegotchi announced the upcoming launch of a new L3 gaming chain called Geist (Gotchichain), developed by Pixelcraft Studios and built on Base, Arbitrum, and Alchemy.

   

• MakerDAO launched the proposal "Reduce WBTC collateral size" on August 12th in response to potential risks of custody changes, which has already been used and executed.

Marco

The major indices closed lower for the week: the DJIA lost -2.1%, the S&P 500 -2.1%, and the NASDAQ -3.4%. The labor market cools down more than expected: the surprising unemployment rate jumped from 4.1% to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021. The Fed officials are now likely to concerned more about the downside risk to the labor market.