BTC ETF Fakeout, Ripple Buyback
Market Update
- The SEC caused a stir yesterday when it erroneously tweeted about approving a Bitcoin ETF post-market close, which was quickly rectified by SEC Chair Gensler, who stated that it had not been approved and the SEC's Twitter account had been hacked. Many thought the tweet was a premature official announcement, but it was confirmed as a security breach. Despite this incident potentially tarnishing the SEC's reputation, it's unlikely to affect the decision on Bitcoin ETFs. The SEC is compelled to decide on the Ark/21Shares application today without the possibility of delay, and approval orders are expected post-market close, especially in light of the Grayscale court decision. Approval could lead to trading as early as tomorrow morning. Interestingly, while the false news led to a downturn in Bitcoin (-1.7%), ETH experienced a significant rally (+7.5%), which could suggest a shift in focus to Ethereum ETFs, which are next in line for consideration in May. Ethereum-based tokens experienced a significant uptick in the last 24 hours, with liquid-staking token LDO surging by over 16% and scaling solution ARB -0.15% jumping nearly 19%. U.S. equities showed a modest increase as investors anticipated the upcoming release of new U.S. inflation figures and earnings reports.
- Market volatility led to $230 million in liquidations on centralized exchanges over the last day, mainly driven by Bitcoin price fluctuations. Bitcoin initially surged to nearly $48,000 following a false tweet from the SEC's hacked account about a Bitcoin ETF approval but later fell back to the $45,000 range after the misinformation was corrected. This erratic movement resulted in over $90 million in leveraged Bitcoin positions being liquidated, with total liquidations for all crypto positions reaching $230 million. Most of these were long positions, amounting to $140 million, alongside $91 million in short positions. Currently, Bitcoin is trading at $46,250, marking a 0.8% decrease in the last 24 hours. This volatility is the highest in several weeks, with Bitcoin's annualized volatility now at 50.97%. Speculation over the potential approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs has stirred the market. However, a report from CryptoQuant cautions that the Bitcoin market could still face sudden price corrections due to high levels of unrealized profits among holders. The circulating supply of Bitcoin in profit has hit a multi-year peak of 90.23%.
- According to two anonymous sources, Ripple Labs, the company behind XRP cryptocurrency, is repurchasing $285 million of its shares from early investors and employees. This buyback values Ripple at $11.3 billion, with investors limited to selling a maximum of 6% of their holdings. While confirming this tender offer, the company plans to use $500 million for the buyback to facilitate the conversion of restricted stock units to shares and cover related taxes. CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed that Ripple, currently not considering a U.S. public listing due to regulatory uncertainties, intends to conduct regular share buybacks to offer liquidity to its investors. Ripple boasts over $1 billion in cash and over $25 billion in crypto assets, predominantly XRP. This move follows Ripple's legal success against the SEC, which acknowledged that XRP sales on public exchanges weren't unregistered securities offerings. Founded in 2012, Ripple focuses on a payment system that eases international transactions and encourages XRP usage. It acquired the Swiss crypto custody firm Metaco for $250 million last May. Despite the challenges posed by the SEC lawsuit, Garlinghouse highlighted Ripple's growth, with 95% of its customers being non-U.S. financial institutions. As of Wednesday, XRP's market cap stood at $30 billion, according to CoinMarketCap, making it the 6th largest crypto by market map.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Bitcoin remains bullish and recent consolidation this week should translate into buying opportunities ahead of any SEC decision. BTC has weakened for two straight sessions ahead of today's possible SEC ruling but has begun to strengthen well off early lows to near the highs of today's session. Interestingly enough, despite the near doubling in price from September 2022 lows, there aren't any DeMark related exhaustion signals that might warn of a potential peak in price from a counter-trend perspective. The recent triangle pattern from early December was resolved by an upside breakout this past Monday, 1/8/24, and further gains are likely up to $48.6k in the short run, with the potential for $57.5k before any meaningful peak. Until/unless price deterioration begins that breaks the current uptrend, and/or evidence of DeMark-related "13 Countdown" sells appear based on TD Combo and/or TD Sequential indicators, it looks incorrect to exit longs technically just based on a Spot-ETF announcement being made this week. Technical trends remain bullish and not meaningfully overbought, and this week's bullish breakout should still lead prices higher. Once February gets underway, there could be cyclical concerns that result in minor consolidation in price. Yet, i expect that BTC should at least rally back to test and likely exceed all-time highs near $69k without much problem this year. Overall, it's right to maintain longs in BTC Technically until evidence of trend deterioration occurs.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of January 10, 2024 12:59 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $909B | $46,385 | ↓ -0.53% | ↑ 9.83% | |
 ETH | $292B | $2,432 | ↑ 6.93% | ↑ 6.87% | ↓ -2.96% |
 SOL | $42B | $97.33 | ↓ -3.03% | ↓ -4.31% | ↓ -14% |
 ADA | $18B | $0.5118 | ↑ 0.38% | ↓ -14% | ↓ -23% |
 DOGE | $11B | $0.0788 | ↓ -1.33% | ↓ -11% | ↓ -21% |
 DOT | $9.1B | $7.17 | ↑ 0.88% | ↓ -12% | ↓ -21% |
 MATIC | $8.1B | $0.8518 | ↑ 6.87% | ↓ -11% | ↓ -21% |
 LINK | $8.0B | $14.14 | ↑ 3.44% | ↓ -5.52% | ↓ -15% |
 NEAR | $3.3B | $3.27 | ↑ 4.09% | ↓ -9.18% | ↓ -19% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -5.44% | $37.25 | ↑ 4.78% | ↑ 1.09% | ↓ -8.74% |
| BITW | ↓ -37% | $24.10 | ↑ 3.88% | ↓ -1.87% | ↓ -12% |
| ETHE | ↓ -17% | $19.73 | ↑ 4.50% | ↑ 1.39% | ↓ -8.44% |
| BTCC | ↑ 0.18% | $8.07 | ↑ 3.46% | ↓ -1.34% | ↓ -11% |
News
QUICK BITS
Bitcoin Magazine How Two Digital Nomads Launched The Fastest Growing Bitcoin Community In El Salvador Two digital nomads living in El Salvador have kicked off a domino of ground up adoption of Bitcoin in the small mountain town of Berlin. |
BTC Manager Cosmos community votes to set ATOM’s minimum inflation at 0% The Cosmos Hub ecosystem community has begun voting on a proposal to set the minimum inflation rate for the ATOM token at 0%. Voting has begun in the Cosmos Hub... |
MARKET DATA
The Block Market volatility causes $230 million liquidations on centralized exchanges in 24 hours Bitcoin market volatility caused the asset’s price to rise to almost $48,000, before falling back into the $45,000 range in the past 24 hours. |
Decrypt.co XAI Airdrop on Arbitrum Puts $70 Million Into Gamers' Wallets Arbitrum’s new “layer-3” gaming network Xai launches the XAI token, hitting a market cap above $154 million after the airdrop. |
Bitcoin.com Ethereum Bounces Back: Surpasses 2-Year Low Against Bitcoin Following Erroneous SEC Announcement On Jan. 9, 2024, ethereum’s value relative to bitcoin plummeted to its lowest level since November 2021. Yet, in the past 24 hours, ether has rallied, gaining 3... |
THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS
NewsBTC Valkyrie CIO Anticipates XRP And Ethereum Spot ETFs Following Bitcoin’s Approval While Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications are still awaiting approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), executives from asset ma... |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
CoinDesk Arthur Hayes Joins Decentralized AI platform Ritual BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has joined decentralized AI platform Ritual as an adviser with the aim of committing to the financialization of the AI industry. |
Fundstrat AI Robot Ripple to buy back $285 million of its shares, valuing company at $11 bln - sources | Reuters Cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs, known for its XRP coins, is buying back $285 million worth of shares in the company from early investors and ... |
PRODUCT UPDATES AND PARTNERSHIPS
CoinDesk Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane Back New Tokenization Platform Libre Freshly out of stealth, Libre is also working with Nomura’s Laser Digital unit and has been built using Polygon’s chain development kit by tokenization pioneer ... |
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