Rates Continue to Surge, Chase Censors Crypto Payments
Market Update
- Recent bearish trends continue to persist this afternoon. The SPX has sunk to its lowest level in months in part due to underwhelming home sales and consumer confidence data. Despite this data, rates continue to rise, with the U.S. 30-year yield eyeing the 4.7% mark after an early morning bout of short covering. All market sectors are currently in negative territory, and in the commodities market, oil prices are rebounding to levels just above $90. Meanwhile, gold is pulling back, approaching the $1,900 level. The DXY is maintaining its strength, solidly crossing the 106 threshold and on track for its 11th straight week of gains. In contrast to the broader market downturn, BTC 2.55% has managed to hold its ground, staying above the $26,000 level despite the strong dollar, increasing interest rates, and declines in both gold and equities. The altcoin market is largely struggling, although there are notable exceptions such as OP 0.75% , up about 2% for the day, and MKR -2.79% , which has surged by 7% today and has been one of the few crypto assets to show consistently positive price performance over recent weeks.
- Starting October 16, Chase Bank will implement a ban on crypto-related payments via debit cards or bank transfers for its U.K. customers, citing an uptick in crypto-related fraud as the primary motivator. This decision is part of a larger trend in the U.K. financial sector, where traditional institutions like Santander, Barclays, and NatWest have already imposed similar restrictions. These moves reflect a growing caution towards the volatile crypto market, even as fintech companies like Revolut and Monzo continue to offer crypto-friendly services. Revolut, despite shutting down its U.S. operations, allows U.K. customers to send crypto, while Monzo promotes the use of various crypto exchanges for personal banking. Along most metrics, crypto adoption in western Europe is relatively low, thus we do not anticipate this to have an outsized effect on fund flows, however, is something worth keeping an eye on.
- In stark contrast to the approach of traditional banks, MoneyGram is embracing crypto rails with its plan to launch a non-custodial digital wallet in the first quarter of next year. Built on the Stellar network, the wallet aims to enable seamless conversions between fiat and crypto. As part of MoneyGram's broader strategy to expand its digital and crypto payment services, the wallet will offer zero fees until June and will integrate with existing fiat on- and off-ramps on the Stellar blockchain. With an extensive network of 350,000 global money transfer locations and ATMs, MoneyGram will facilitate easy conversion of digital assets to cash. Although specific details have yet to be released, the wallet will enable users to send USDC to other wallet users. This initiative by MoneyGram highlights the increasing role that non-banking entities are likely to play in the adoption of crypto, particularly as traditional banks remain cautious. Furthermore, it adds to the growing evidence that stablecoins have achieved significant product-market fit, marking them as one of the few crypto applications that can make such a claim.
Source: Glassnode, Fundstrat
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
EOS has struggled in its recovery efforts following just scant consolidation in recent months. EOS decline from March into June managed to successfully find support near the 50% absolute retracement level of its early 2023 high, but the initial rally attempt into July proved short-lived ahead of another pullback to new 2023 lows. Since then prices have grinded sideways in consolidation over the last month, but rallies have proven to be far weaker than on past attempts, and this week's decline has taken prices back down to multi-day lows. The area of early September lows at $.5288 will have importance, and under there would allow for a challenge of August intra-day lows which occurred right near $0.50. Overall, given the weakness of recent rally attempts combined with ongoing negative trend, it will be important to exceed $0.60 on a weekly close before having much confidence about EOS having bottomed. Until then, lower prices look likely into early October.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of September 26, 2023 10:56 AM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $510B | $26,173 | ↓ -0.70% | ↑ 58% | |
 ETH | $191B | $1,586 | ↓ -0.48% | ↑ 32% | ↓ -26% |
 ADA | $8.6B | $0.2448 | ↓ -0.28% | ↓ -0.82% | ↓ -59% |
 DOGE | $8.5B | $0.0603 | ↓ -1.26% | ↓ -14% | ↓ -72% |
 SOL | $7.9B | $19.19 | ↓ -2.02% | ↑ 94% | ↑ 36% |
 DOT | $4.9B | $4.01 | ↓ -1.61% | ↓ -7.80% | ↓ -66% |
 MATIC | $4.8B | $0.5163 | ↓ -0.38% | ↓ -32% | ↓ -90% |
 LINK | $4.1B | $7.29 | ↓ -2.68% | ↑ 31% | ↓ -27% |
 NEAR | $1.0B | $1.09 | ↓ -1.85% | ↓ -15% | ↓ -73% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -21% | $18.22 | ↓ -1.25% | ↑ 120% | ↑ 62% |
| BITW | ↓ -46% | $11.58 | ↓ -1.49% | ↑ 116% | ↑ 58% |
| ETHE | ↓ -28% | $10.31 | ↓ -2.09% | ↑ 117% | ↑ 59% |
| BTCC | ↑ 0.06% | $4.78 | ↓ -0.83% | ↑ 58% | ↓ -0.24% |
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