Leveraged BTC ETF Launches on CBOE, Prime Trust Placed in Receivership
Market Update
- Bitcoin continues to hover above $30k, gaining 2% over the last day. ETH has bucked its trend of underperforming BTC, with ETHBTC up 0.72% today, although its medium-term downtrend remains intact. The crypto market turned higher after news broke that Fidelity had potentially joined other large asset management companies in filing for a spot BTC ETF. While Fidelity previously filed for a similar ETF in 2021, the SEC rejected that effort last year. BCH 0.70% and PEPE continue to outperform among the top 100 over the last week, with BCH 0.70% benefiting from its listing on the institutionally backed EDX Market Exchange. PEPE has not had any specific catalyst behind its 70% move in the last week. After dropping over 80% from its peak, it has caught a bid as the market's favorite meme coin of this cycle. Older meme coins DOGE and SHIB have largely underperformed BTC and the rest of this market in this rebound. The S&P and Nasdaq rose 1.1% and 1.6%, with continued momentum from tech and AI-related equities.
- The Volatility Shares 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITX 5.60% ) will launch on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) today. This comes as the potential approval of a spot-based bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) from regulators has gained traction. While there are existing futures-based ETFs available on the market, such as the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO 2.64% ) and VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (XBTF), BITX 5.60% will be the first ETF that incorporates leveraged trading. Chang Kim, COO of Volatility Shares, stated the new ETF would differ from a potential spot-based ETF as BITX 5.60% is intended for trading with a shorter time horizon and utilizes margin accounts to gain leverage. BITX 5.60% will be Volatility Shares' first crypto-related ETF with a management fee of 1.85%.
- Nevada's Financial Institutions Division (FID) will freeze the crypto-based custodian Prime Trust business and has placed it into receivership. This request follows a recent cease-and-desist order alleging that the custodian was nearing insolvency. Rival custody platform BitGo has also terminated plans to acquire the struggling crypto custodian after reaching a preliminary agreement earlier this month. Prime Trust currently owes $69.5M in crypto while having $68.6M on hand. The recent receivership request also highlights the crypto custodian also owing clients upwards of $85M in fiat despite only having $3M in fiat on hand. Furthermore, the filing also indicated that Prime Trust was operating at a $12M deficit in equity. This downfall is partially attributed to Prime Trust's inability to access legacy wallets after entering an asset management agreement with Fireblocks. The filing states Prime Trust bought cryptocurrency using customer money to fulfill the withdrawals requested from the inaccessible Legacy wallets.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Stellar has continued to outperform on its latest rally, and today's 5% lift brings XLM to the highest levels since mid-April. Following a successful bottoming out right near prior lows from March, XLM managed to stabilize and turned higher to break its two-month downtrend on above-average volume. Since this bottomed on 6/16, XLM has rallied nearly 30% and appears to have little resistance until $.106, which lines up with the ongoing consolidation resistance from its peak last August. Overall, the success in regaining $.11 will be important to watch in the weeks ahead, as this would help XLM successfully break out of this 10-month trend. Moreover, gains would then likely help to carry Stellar up to near 0.14 initially. At present, XLM looks attractive despite RSI having just become overbought on daily charts. Its recent momentum looks promising for further gains, and until weekly momentum starts to reach overbought levels, it looks right to position long, expecting an upcoming test of $.106. Any minor dip in the days ahead likely proves temporary and should find strong support near $0.087-$0.091 before this continues higher into mid-July.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of June 27, 2023 2:28 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $596B | $30,722 | ↑ 1.85% | ↑ 85% | |
 ETH | $228B | $1,901 | ↑ 2.77% | ↑ 59% | ↓ -27% |
 ADA | $9.9B | $0.2841 | ↑ 0.78% | ↑ 15% | ↓ -70% |
 DOGE | $9.2B | $0.0656 | ↑ 1.22% | ↓ -6.52% | ↓ -92% |
 SOL | $6.7B | $16.73 | ↑ 2.41% | ↑ 69% | ↓ -16% |
 MATIC | $6.2B | $0.6668 | ↑ 3.36% | ↓ -13% | ↓ -98% |
 DOT | $6.1B | $5.12 | ↓ -0.10% | ↑ 18% | ↓ -68% |
 LINK | $3.4B | $6.23 | ↑ 2.16% | ↑ 12% | ↓ -73% |
 NEAR | $1.4B | $1.48 | ↓ -4.55% | ↑ 17% | ↓ -69% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -34% | $19.34 | ↑ 6.38% | ↑ 133% | ↑ 48% |
| BITW | ↓ -56% | $11.35 | ↑ 3.37% | ↑ 111% | ↑ 26% |
| ETHE | ↓ -49% | $9.98 | ↑ 7.80% | ↑ 110% | ↑ 24% |
| BTCC | ↑ 0.22% | $5.64 | ↑ 1.35% | ↑ 86% | ↑ 0.69% |
News
QUICK BITS
CoinDesk Nevada Places Crypto Custodian Prime Trust Into Receivership Nevada's Financial Institutions Divisoin filed to appoint a receiver for crypto custodian on Prime Trust, the regulator announced on Tuesday. |
NFTS
Decrypt.co Azuki Elementals NFT Drop Yields $38 Million in Just 15 Minutes All 10,000 Azuki Elementals NFTs offered for sale were snatched up during the presale, even in a weakened market. |
INVESTMENT PRODUCTS
CryptoSlate First leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF opens for trading on CBOE The Volatility Shares 2x Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITX) opened for trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) on June 27. Chang Kim, COO at Volatility Sh... |
HACKS, EXPLOITS, AND SCAMS
CoinDesk Judge Rejects FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried's Motions to Dismiss Criminal Charges U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan denied several of Sam Bankman-Fried's motions to dismiss criminal charges against him. He had previously denied the FTX founder's remain... |
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