By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise indicated)
Crypto market sentiment remains volatile after Bitcoin Tuesday began with a sharp surge to $114,000, and most altcoins mimicked the pop and drop. The CoinDesk 20 index is little changed in 24 hours, even as gold’s rally has stalled, raising hopes for a rotation into digital assets.
Two-way price action wiped out $600 million worth of crypto futures bets. According to CryptoQuant, this represents a three-sigma liquidation event: liquidation volume was three standard deviations away from the average, marking it as a highly outlier and indicator of increased volatility.
Meanwhile, the ratio of open interest (OI) in Bitcoin options and futures OI reached the highest level since the end of 2023. This is usually a sign that prices are about to rise. Additionally, Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility index, BVIV and DVOL remain elevated (check the technical analysis section), maintaining the gains seen after the October 10 crash and underscoring the lingering uncertainty.
“Such fluctuations do not contribute to improving the mood of crypto investors,” Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FXPro, said in an email.
The panic, reflected by the Crypto Fear & Greed Index falling to 25, could be a good entry point. “At current levels, the rule of ‘buy when everyone else is afraid’ could work, or a switch to a more intense selloff could be followed by three months of stability,” he said.
In other news, Japan’s newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is said to be preparing an economic stimulus package that builds on last year’s $92 billion to help households cope with inflation. The move is seen by observers including Maelstrom Fund CIO Arthur Hayes as further upside for BTC.
In industry news, WSJ said crypto trading firm FalconX is acquiring ETF manager 21Shares, and the combined firm will develop funds focused on derivatives and structured products. Some of Asia’s largest stock exchanges have turned hostile toward digital asset treasury firms, a Bloomberg report said.
As far as traditional markets are concerned, the dollar index posted weekly gains and gold fell for the second consecutive day near $4,000 an ounce. Be alert!
what to watch
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- crypto
- October 22, 11am: Circle is hosting a virtual seminar titled “Inside the Circle Payments Network (CPN)” on Zoom to explain how financial institutions can leverage CPN for fast, compliant stablecoin settlements.
- October 22: David Sachs, White House AI and crypto czar, meets with Republican Senate Banking Committee members to discuss advancing crypto market structure legislation.
- October 22: Two industry roundtables on crypto regulation convene in the US Senate, one hosted by Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and one hosted by Republican Senator Tim Scott.
- October 22: Zilliqa (ZIL) will activate its mainnet upgrade, Zilliqa 2.0, with a hard fork at block 11,998,800.
- macro
- Oct. 22, 8 a.m.: Mexico August Economic Activity. Year-by-Year Estimates. -1%, MoM est. 0.1%.
- Income (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- October 22: Tesla (TSLA), post-market.
symbolic events
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- governance vote and call
- unlock
- October 22: Scroll (SCR) unlocked 43.42% of its circulating supply worth $13.56 million.
- October 22: MultiBank Group (MBG) will unlock 11.97% of its circulating supply worth $16.31 million.
- token launch
- October 22: Turtle will be listed on Binance.
- 22 October: To be listed on Coinbase.
conference
For a more comprehensive list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
token talk
by oliver knight
- The otherwise weak altcoin market continued its gains on Wednesday, rising 9.2% in 24 hours.
- The privacy token has now surged a staggering 461% in the past month and is hitting record highs.
- The catalyst behind ZEC’s growth is the boost in sentiment surrounding the growth of the custodial token, which currently accounts for 27.5% of the total supply.
- Shielding is a privacy mechanism that hides transactions. Custodial tokens must be held in a non-custodial wallet, in other words not exchanged.
- With so much supply in private wallets, the premise is that the salable supply is limited.
- Combine decreasing supply with increasing demand and the result is this: a sustained rally to the upside that has overwhelmed nearly every crypto token in circulation.
- ZEC’s rise over the past few weeks has been a rare sign of optimism as many other tokens have fallen to multi-month lows.
- ASTER, often called the plat du jour in September, fell below $1.00 on Tuesday, extending its decline by 33% in the past week.
- recently released plasma The token has also found itself on the sell side of the order book, with demand and hype waning rapidly resulting in a 25% decline in the last seven days.
derivatives positioning
- Futures open interest (OI) has increased by 22% to $303 million in the last 24 hours, leading to gains in select major coins like ENA, BCH, HYPE, ADA, AVAX, and BTC.
- Futures tied to LINK, XPL and PUMP experienced capital outflows, reflecting increased investors’ risk aversion amid market volatility.
- Annual perpetual funding rates remain near zero for most major cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH, indicating a balanced derivatives market.
- BTC’s order book heat map showed a cluster of sell orders around $111K per Binance-listed BTC/USDT.
- On CME, OI in Ether futures reached a record 2.43 million ETH, with OI in options holding steady near a lifetime peak of 297K ETH. However, BTC futures continued to lag in terms of OI, standing at around 142K, significantly lower than the peak of over 200K late last year. This divergence points to institutional investors’ preference for ETH over BTC.
- On Deribit, flows included short strangles and call overwriting strategies in BTC, as well as some demand for puts as protection against deeper slides. According to Wintermute, in the case of ETH, the focus was on near-dated put spreads and calendar spreads.
- In the case of BTC, calls trade at a premium to all periods. However, TH options witnessed a rise after December expiry.
market movements
- BTC is down 2.59% at $108,002.87 (24h: -0.51%) as of 4PM ET Tuesday.
- ETH is down 3% at $3,838.34 (24 hours: -0.98%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 3.3% at 3,549.42 (24 hours: -0.78%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate Drops 1bp to 2.83%
- BTC funding rate on Binance is 0.0036% (3.9946% annualized)
- DXY is unchanged at 99.01
- Gold futures are down 0.7% at $4,080.50
- Silver futures are unchanged at $47.69
- Nikkei 225 closed at 49,307.79 without any change
- Hang Seng fell 0.94% to 25,781.77
- The FTSE is up 0.75% at 9,497.77
- The Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.35% at 5,667.02
- The DJIA closed 0.47% higher at 46,924.74 on Tuesday.
- The S&P 500 closed unchanged at 6,735.35.
- The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.16% to 22,953.67.
- The S&P/TSX Composite fell 1.73% to 29,888.82.
- The S&P 40 Latin America fell 1.24% to 2,880.55.
- US 10-year Treasury rate unchanged at 3.955%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures are unchanged at 6,775.50
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.15% at 25,257.50
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average index is unchanged at 47,133.00
bitcoin statistics
- BTC dominance: 59.75% (unchanged)
- Ether-Bitcoin ratio: 0.03568 (-0.21%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,107 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $46.57
- Total Fee: 2.95 BTC / $324,895
- CME Futures Open Interest: 142,385 BTC
- BTC price in gold: 25.7 oz.
- BTC vs Gold Market Capitalization: 7.26%
technical analysis
- BTC’s 30-day implied volatility indices, DVOL and BVIV, have surpassed their respective 200-day simple moving averages for the first time since April.
- These breakouts indicate expectations of increased price volatility over the next four weeks.
crypto equities
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $338.62 (-1.5%) in pre-market Tuesday, -2.02% at $331.78
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $129.85 (-0.73%), -1.34% at $128.11
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $42.86 (+8.1%), -5.27% at $40.60
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $57.27 (-2.54%), -2.97% at $55.57
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $20.07 (-3.18%), -2.64% at $19.54
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $20.67 (-6.09%), -2.9% to $20.07
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $19.23 (+2.23%), -2.18% to $18.81
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $18.77 (-7.99%), -3.89% at $18.04
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $56.01 (-6.29%), -4.77% at $53.34
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $24.68 (-5.55%)
crypto treasury companysat
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $301.91 (+1.79%), -2.29% at $295.00
- Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $23.51 (-0.59%)
- Sharplink Gaming (SBET): closed at $14.34 (-3.04%), -2.51% at $13.98
- Upxi (UPXI): closed at $5.09 (-11.01%), -3.54% at $4.91
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.95 (-1.52%)
etf flows
spot btc etf
- Daily net inflow: $477.2 million
- Cumulative net inflow: $61.94 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.35 million
spot eth etf
- Daily net inflow: $141.7 million
- Cumulative net inflow: $14.61 billion
- Total ETH holdings ~6.74 million
Source: Farside Investors