Bitcoin recently established a new all time high of US$99,600 before retreating to below US$93,000 as traders took profit. It has since rebounded and stabilised around US$95,500. This positive price movement coincides with President-elect Trump’s nomination of crypto-friendly candidates for key U.S. Federal Government positions, including Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary and Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary. Notably, Lutnick’s firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, reportedly acquired 5% in Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, in a deal valued at approximately $600 million last year. Meanwhile, options trading for US’s spot Bitcoin ETFs had an impressive debut. Nearly $1.9 billion in notional exposure was traded on the first day through 354,000 contracts, comprising 289,000 calls and 65,000 puts for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT. Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas highlighted that such a significant volume on day one is unprecedented.
Bitcoin has soared to new all-time highs, approaching US$98,000, buoyed by a pro-crypto stance from the incoming Trump’s. administration and the highly anticipated launch of Bitcoin ETF options this week. Dubbed the “Trump Trade,” the trend has seen an increasing number of public companies adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets. Notably, MicroStrategy expanded its holdings by acquiring an additional 51,780 BTC for US$4.6 billion, bringing its total to 331,200 Bitcoin. Meanwhile, BlackRock’s IBIT options debuted to tremendous demand, accumulating nearly US$2 billion in notional exposure. As the trading volume of options on spot Bitcoin ETFs increases, liquidity will improve, potentially leading to a reduction in Bitcoin’s volatility.
Bitcoin surged to new all-time highs this week, trading as high as $93,000 as U.S. markets opened on Wednesday, with the Coinbase Premium Index signalling strong institutional demand. Riding the momentum from Donald Trump’s recent election victory and the Fed cutting rates by 25bps, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) ranked as the fourth-most traded ETF, achieving an impressive $1.2 billion in volume within the first hour. For the first time since their launch in July, Ether ETFs saw positive cumulative flows, reaching US$94.62 million, driven by five consecutive days of net inflows.
With Donald Trump’s presidential victory and Republicans’ likely control of the Senate, Bitcoin surpassed its all-time high on election night alongside a soaring digital asset market and crypto stocks such as Coinbase and MicroStrategy. The market is optimistic about a pro-crypto shift as Trump has previously pledged to make America “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of Bitcoin. He also expressed intentions to remove SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who is believed to have an anti-crypto stance, from his position. As such, BlackRock’s IBIT spot Bitcoin ETF experienced heightened trading volumes of $1 billion in the first twenty minutes of trading the day after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election.
With U.S. presidential elections approaching and the ‘Uptober’ phenomenon in full swing, Bitcoin surged past US$73,000, reaching an all-time high this week. Spot Bitcoin ETFs also saw strong inflows, coinciding with Bitcoin’s rise on Tuesday, marking their third-largest daily inflow of $870 million since launching in January. Soon, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs are expected to collectively hold nearly one million BTC – a figure close to Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated holdings of 1.1 million BTC.
Bitcoin has seen notable volatility this week, hitting a peak of US$69,470 before levelling off to where it started earlier in the week. Meanwhile, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have reached record-breaking asset values, following a six-day streak of inflows. Ten months after their launch, these funds now boast total net inflows exceeding US$20 billion—a milestone that took gold ETFs about 5 years to reach, according to Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas.
The digital asset market has been experiencing a steady upswing, with Bitcoin surpassing the US$68,000 mark. With the U.S. presidential election fast approaching, digital asset prices appear to be replicating past trends seen in previous bull cycles. In a sign of growing institutional confidence, U.S. Bitcoin ETFs also saw record inflows of US$556 million, the highest in several months.
The widely anticipated Bitcoin halving occurred on 19 April 2024, with the US-based spot Bitcoin ETF’s recording a net positive inflow prior to the day of the halving. The positive inflow into the ETFs reversed a five day streak of consecutive outflows and has remained positive to date. Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise, recently predicted that wealth management firms would increase their holdings of spot Bitcoin ETFs, noting that major financial entities were discreetly conducting thorough assessments of the Bitcoin market.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed its timeline of approval for two of the spot Ethereum ETFs proposed by Grayscale and Franklin Templeton, to June 2024. The current market consensus indicates a low probability of SEC approval for the spot Ethereum ETF applications next month. Nevertheless, most analysts remain optimistic about the eventual approval of spot Ethereum ETFs over the long term.
Crypto exchange Woo X, in partnership with London-based institutional tokenisation platform OpenTrade, launched an RWA product for retail investors called RWA Earn Vaults. It is reported as the first time a crypto exchange has offered retail customers exposure to tokenised U.S. Treasury bills.
Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, plans to increase the use of digital currencies in its crude and fuel exports to bypass U.S. sanctions. However, USDT-issuer Tether says it will freeze addresses linked to sanctioned entities as the company respects the OFAC SDN list and is committed to working to ensure sanction addresses are frozen promptly.
Coinbase expands asset recovery tool to Polygon and BNB ChainCEO Comment
The Gap between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 has largely declined 7% to 38% from last week’s 45% difference. The recent increase in Bitcoins price is largely being attributed to the outflow from Grayscale’s GBTC ETF beginning to slow down. The consistent inflows into the competing ETFs will start to push price pressure to the upside, with a report today stating that BlackRock and Fidelity now own a combined 144,640 Bitcoin worth US $6.5 billion for their spot Bitcoin ETFs or 0.74% of the total circulating supply.
As for the shift list, which we define as the major events and announcements facilitating the broader market’s transition to Web3 financial rails or the internet of value, the top shifts for this week include:
Our Top “alts shift” list featuring shifts in our Alt universe being game changing shifts that drive our thematic approach – A second Gap where the broader digital asset market has circa 65% to close so there is a big opportunity here, we see this as a selective opportunity to select and grow our alts portfolio via our “alThematics” work.
What are our favourite thematics for 2024? We continue to like any infrastructure plays of the shift from Web2 to Web3 financial rails and any plays in the real world asset tokenisation infrastructure, data validation and decentralised storage, and scale up technologies such as ZKrollups – anything Crypto identity realty, we are closely following all the ”de’s” – DeFi, DePin, DeSoc – (want to know what that means? – message us).
The widely anticipated Bitcoin halving occurred on 19 April 2024, with the US-based spot Bitcoin ETF’s recording a net positive inflow prior to the day of the halving. The positive inflow into the ETFs reversed a five day streak of consecutive outflows and has remained positive to date. Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise, recently predicted that wealth management firms would increase their holdings of spot Bitcoin ETFs, noting that major financial entities were discreetly conducting thorough assessments of the Bitcoin market.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed its timeline of approval for two of the spot Ethereum ETFs proposed by Grayscale and Franklin Templeton, to June 2024. The current market consensus indicates a low probability of SEC approval for the spot Ethereum ETF applications next month. Nevertheless, most analysts remain optimistic about the eventual approval of spot Ethereum ETFs over the long term.
Crypto exchange Woo X, in partnership with London-based institutional tokenisation platform OpenTrade, launched an RWA product for retail investors called RWA Earn Vaults. It is reported as the first time a crypto exchange has offered retail customers exposure to tokenised U.S. Treasury bills.
Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, plans to increase the use of digital currencies in its crude and fuel exports to bypass U.S. sanctions. However, USDT-issuer Tether says it will freeze addresses linked to sanctioned entities as the company respects the OFAC SDN list and is committed to working to ensure sanction addresses are frozen promptly.
Coinbase expands asset recovery tool to Polygon and BNB ChainCEO Comment
The Gap between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 has largely declined 7% to 38% from last week’s 45% difference. The recent increase in Bitcoins price is largely being attributed to the outflow from Grayscale’s GBTC ETF beginning to slow down. The consistent inflows into the competing ETFs will start to push price pressure to the upside, with a report today stating that BlackRock and Fidelity now own a combined 144,640 Bitcoin worth US $6.5 billion for their spot Bitcoin ETFs or 0.74% of the total circulating supply.
As for the shift list, which we define as the major events and announcements facilitating the broader market’s transition to Web3 financial rails or the internet of value, the top shifts for this week include:
Our Top “alts shift” list featuring shifts in our Alt universe being game changing shifts that drive our thematic approach – A second Gap where the broader digital asset market has circa 65% to close so there is a big opportunity here, we see this as a selective opportunity to select and grow our alts portfolio via our “alThematics” work.
What are our favourite thematics for 2024? We continue to like any infrastructure plays of the shift from Web2 to Web3 financial rails and any plays in the real world asset tokenisation infrastructure, data validation and decentralised storage, and scale up technologies such as ZKrollups – anything Crypto identity realty, we are closely following all the ”de’s” – DeFi, DePin, DeSoc – (want to know what that means? – message us).
The widely anticipated Bitcoin halving occurred on 19 April 2024, with the US-based spot Bitcoin ETF’s recording a net positive inflow prior to the day of the halving. The positive inflow into the ETFs reversed a five day streak of consecutive outflows and has remained positive to date. Hunter Horsley, CEO of Bitwise, recently predicted that wealth management firms would increase their holdings of spot Bitcoin ETFs, noting that major financial entities were discreetly conducting thorough assessments of the Bitcoin market.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) delayed its timeline of approval for two of the spot Ethereum ETFs proposed by Grayscale and Franklin Templeton, to June 2024. The current market consensus indicates a low probability of SEC approval for the spot Ethereum ETF applications next month. Nevertheless, most analysts remain optimistic about the eventual approval of spot Ethereum ETFs over the long term.
Crypto exchange Woo X, in partnership with London-based institutional tokenisation platform OpenTrade, launched an RWA product for retail investors called RWA Earn Vaults. It is reported as the first time a crypto exchange has offered retail customers exposure to tokenised U.S. Treasury bills.
Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, plans to increase the use of digital currencies in its crude and fuel exports to bypass U.S. sanctions. However, USDT-issuer Tether says it will freeze addresses linked to sanctioned entities as the company respects the OFAC SDN list and is committed to working to ensure sanction addresses are frozen promptly.
Coinbase expands asset recovery tool to Polygon and BNB ChainCEO Comment
The Gap between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 has largely declined 7% to 38% from last week’s 45% difference. The recent increase in Bitcoins price is largely being attributed to the outflow from Grayscale’s GBTC ETF beginning to slow down. The consistent inflows into the competing ETFs will start to push price pressure to the upside, with a report today stating that BlackRock and Fidelity now own a combined 144,640 Bitcoin worth US $6.5 billion for their spot Bitcoin ETFs or 0.74% of the total circulating supply.
As for the shift list, which we define as the major events and announcements facilitating the broader market’s transition to Web3 financial rails or the internet of value, the top shifts for this week include:
Our Top “alts shift” list featuring shifts in our Alt universe being game changing shifts that drive our thematic approach – A second Gap where the broader digital asset market has circa 65% to close so there is a big opportunity here, we see this as a selective opportunity to select and grow our alts portfolio via our “alThematics” work.
What are our favourite thematics for 2024? We continue to like any infrastructure plays of the shift from Web2 to Web3 financial rails and any plays in the real world asset tokenisation infrastructure, data validation and decentralised storage, and scale up technologies such as ZKrollups – anything Crypto identity realty, we are closely following all the ”de’s” – DeFi, DePin, DeSoc – (want to know what that means? – message us).
