Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

In March, the expectations for Bitcoin were very high as it surpassed its ATH. However, in the last six months, there has been a significant amount of supply dumped on the market, resulting in frequent liquidation events. Many people are predicting a bearish trend due to factors such as September seasonality, recession concerns, and Kamala Harris winning. However, according to Glassnode, a significant proportion of supply held by short-term holders is transitioning into Long-Term Holder status, having been held for at least 155 days. BTC reserves on exchanges hit new lows for the year as well. Periods of tranquility in the market structure are typically brief and tend to signal an increased volatility.

Options Market

TBoth BTC and ETH reversed their last week’s gain after BTC hit 65k high and ETH 2.8k respectively. Realised volatility shifted down and short-dated implied volatility drifted lower in tandem while long-dated vol held steadfast as the curve steepened into contango. Front-end put skew rose on the pullback while the long-term call skew faded a bit. ETH/BTC spot trended lower with ETH lacking a compelling narrative against BTC as the BTC dominance rose. The volatility spread between BTC and ETH narrowed down to around 8 points across the curve.

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the social media platform Telegram, who was previously arrested in France, has been released on bail after being charged and is prohibited from leaving the country.

   

• Telegram holds $4 billion worth of cryptocurrency on its balance sheet.

   

• According to Token Terminal data, Base currently ranks No.1 in weekly transaction volume among all Layer 2 (L2).

   

• The StakeStone team has proposed integrating its STONE token into Aave V3's Scroll chain.
  Sony blockchain Soneium has partnered with Transak to provide global fiat currency access services.

   

• The Layer 1 cryptocurrency network Quai Network has completed a $5 million strategic financing round.

   

• According to The Block, Web3 payment company Bridge, founded by former Coinbase and Square employees, has raised $58 million with investments from Sequoia Capital, Ribbit, Index, and Haun Ventures.

Marco

The major benchmarks closed mixed for the week: the DJIA added +0.9%, the S&P 500 added +0.2% and the NASDAQ -0.9%. The tech giant NVIDIA lost ~10% of its value from the peak, dragging the NASDAQ. The inflation data is heading towards the Fed’s target, so the focus will be more about the economic growth for the next stage.