Crypto Market Update

Prices have whipsawed over the past 24 hours as we enter a pivotal week of macro data releases. BTC -1.00% is moving back toward $60k after dipping lower following the US market open, while ETH 2.01% is trading just below $2,700, and SOL -3.79% is attempting to reclaim the $150 level lost over the weekend. Among the top 100 assets, major outperformers include HNT -3.95% , which continues its recent surge, SUI -9.48% , which has doubled over the past seven days after potentially finding a bottom following its significant cliff unlock in early Q2, and APT -1.82% , likely benefiting from its strong correlation to SUI -9.48% . Equities are mixed, with major indices effectively unchanged and most sectors in the red, despite the VIX dropping back below 20. Rates are lower, and gold is up, signaling a possible risk-off sentiment due to escalating global tensions over the weekend. The major event this week is the CPI release on Wednesday, but markets are also closely watching tomorrow’s PPI, retail sales on Thursday, and building permit and consumer sentiment data on Friday.

Spot ETFs Post Mixed Weekly Flows While Stablecoin Market Cap Rises

Last week, Spot BTC -1.00% ETFs experienced aggregate outflows of $167 million, though these outflows appear to have peaked on Friday, 8/2, just ahead of the market drawdown. Interestingly, the 5-day moving average for BTC -1.00% has started trending higher in recent days. In contrast, spot ETH 2.01% ETFs saw over $100 million in inflows, helping to support the partial recovery in the ETHBTC pair following the recent market turbulence. Overall, US spot ETFs experienced minimal outflows, which is fairly encouraging given the significant volatility and global uncertainty witnessed last week. Additionally, stablecoin flows have shifted in a decidedly bullish direction, with the total stablecoin market cap increasing by $1.6 billion over the past seven days, bolstered by over $1 billion in USDT minted on Thursday.

MARA to Issue Convertible Notes to Buy More BTC

Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA -3.12% ) has announced plans to privately offer $250 million in convertible senior notes, with the primary goal of using the proceeds to acquire additional bitcoin and support general corporate purposes. The notes, which will be unsecured and senior obligations of the company, will bear interest payable semi-annually and may be convertible into cash, shares of common stock, or a combination of both, at MARA’s discretion. The offering, subject to market conditions, also includes an option for initial purchasers to acquire an additional $37.5 million in notes. Proceeds will be used for acquiring more BTC -1.00% , as well as for other purposes such as working capital, strategic acquisitions, and debt repayment. This follows their $100 million purchase of BTC in July, and is likely to further its high-beta relationship to BTC price. It is interesting to see a miner pursue this strategy, since, while there is potential additional upside, this increases the level of same way risk for the company should BTC move lower, although according to their latest Q2, the company only had about $346 million in total debt, which is rather tame compared to historical debt levels.

As Mark Newton is on break, there will be no Technical Strategy section for this week. Mark will be returning on Tuesday, August 20th.

Daily Important Metrics Crypto Size Bullish signal is tied to the crypto market growing Market cap 2.11T $-20.8B(-0.98%) BTC Dominance 56.04 % (-0.44%) Stablecoins Increase in circulating stablecoins is a Bullish signal In Circulation +$116B (0.00%) In Exchanges +$20B (0.14%) BTC Metrics A decrease in Bitcoin on exchanges is bullish, indicates investors are moving coins to cold storage # BTC Exchanges +$3.0M (0.03%) Funding Rates Positive funding rates indicate traders are Bullish Aggregate +0.5977(-0.0440) Binance +0.9963(0.0001) Bitfinex +0.1551(-0.3807) Bitmex +0.2020(-0.1973) ByBit +1.0000(0.1075) Deribit +0.1132(-0.1122) Huobi +1.5545(1.5545) Kraken +0.5630(0.6811) Mean +0.5977(-0.0440) OKex +0.4771(-0.2521) Sentiment BMI : 55 (100.00%) Futures A positive spread between Futures Prices and Spot Prices is Bullish CME Price $60,020(-1.59%) Spot Basis +$245(0.41%) Volume 473,991(83.87%) Open Interest 273,061(1.46%) Options all exchanges Higher open interest change in a bull market is bullish for the sector Volume 11,123(56.96%) Open Interest 276,912 (-0.02%) Vol. Put/Call Ratio 0.7093 (-14.92%) OOI Put/Call Ratio 0.4960 (0.34%) All metrics as of 2024-08-12 16:29:22 All Funding rates are in bps Crypto Prices Symbol Market Cap Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BTC $1.18T $59,817 -0.68% 41.63% ETH $322B $2,677 2.24% 17.64% -16.94% SOL $69B $147 -1.35% 44.55% 2.06% HNT $1.1B $6.65 10.68% -82.36% -87.55% DOGE $152,891 $0.0002 -4.19% -99.83% -99.88% All prices as of 2024-08-12 16:33:50 Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) Symbol Prem. to Nav Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BITW -25.87% $33 0.21% 42.15% 0.36% ETHE -0.43% $23 3.33% 16.76% -17.56% News Quick Bits CoinDesk Binance Says Venezuela Platform Is Being Hit by Access Restrictions The Venezuelan government has blocked various websites, including the social network X, following allegations of fraud in the July 28 presidential elections. Coin Telegraph Lido community votes to bring stETH to BNB Chain Lido Finance is the market leader in Ethereum staking, claiming 28.2% of net ETH deposits. In an onchain vote completed on Aug. 9, the Lido community decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) approved the integrations of Axelar and Wormhole as the canonical solution to bridge Lido Staked ETH to the BNB Chain.According to the announcement, the bridge will allow $23 billion in total value-locked to interact with the BNB Chain, a top five chain measured by total value locked.Lido explained that the introduction of bridging Lido Staked ETH (stETH) to the BNB Chain represents a significant milestone, marking the first time Lido has connected to a layer-1 blockchain protocol outside the Ethereum ecosystem.Read more CoinDesk Tether to Fight Celsius' $3.3 Billion 'Shakedown' Litigation Tether, the company behind USDT, the world's largest stablecoin by market cap, said it will defend itself from "shakedown" litigation brought by bankrupt crypto lender Celsius on Friday. Market Data The Block Ethereum ICO whale continues $154 million month-long ether deposit spree to OKX A large holder of ether that participated in the Ethereum initial coin offering deposited 5,000 ether to OKX today. Fundraising and M&A The Block Ion Protocol raises $4.8 million to unlock native yield on rollups and appchains Ion Protocol's Nucleus platform enables rollups and appchains to generate native yield for users bridging assets to their networks. CoinDesk Bitcoin Miner Marathon Digital Plans $250M Private Note Sale to Fund Bitcoin Buying The notes will pay interest every six months and mature Sept. 1, 2031. Web 3.0 The Block EigenLayer competitor Symbiotic launches devnet, plans full mainnet in Q3 Symbiotic allows users to deposit funds to support third-party protocols, positioning itself as a competitor to EigenLayer. CoinDesk Optimism Pushes for 'Interoperability' Between Affiliated Blockchains Optimism networks that are part of the Superchain rely on Ethereum to communicate with each other in order to move assets, which tends to make such moves slow and expensive. To address that, Optimism is releasing its own interoperability roadmap.