Crypto Market Update

This morning’s big news came from the BLS, which revised payrolls down by 818k for the 12 months ending in March. In response, the DXY turned negative as yields fell and market confidence in upcoming Fed cuts grew. Price action continues to suggest that the market views a soft landing as possible, with risk assets rallying in tandem with Treasuries. BTC spiked to $60k following the U.S. market open, settling around $59.5k, a positive sign that its upside beta may be returning, potentially signaling the end of recent government sales. ETH slightly outperformed since the open, now trading just above $2,600, while SOL is lagging behind the other two majors, struggling to hold the $140 level. AAVE, a Liquid Ventures constituent, continues to outperform the broader market ahead of possible major updates to its tokenomics. In traditional markets, IWM 0.73%  and RSP 1.28%  are both outperforming the ^SPX 0.41% .

Stablecoin and BTC ETF Inflows Positive

Stablecoin inflows remain robust, with the aggregate market cap increasing by nearly $2 billion over the past week and $375 million just since yesterday. Excluding algorithmic stablecoins, the total stablecoin market cap is now only $800 million away from reaching a new all-time high. Meanwhile, Bitcoin ETFs have quietly posted their fourth consecutive day of inflows, pushing the 5-day moving average back into positive territory. BlackRock’s IBIT 0.96%  has led the BTC ETF surge, with $93 million in inflows on Monday and another $55 million yesterday. In contrast, ETH ETFs continue to see little movement, with a slight outflow of $7 million yesterday.

More Consolidation in Mining Industry

Bitfarms (BITF 3.25% ) has agreed to acquire rival Stronghold Digital (SDIG) for $175 million in stock and assumed debt as part of its strategy to diversify revenue streams beyond crypto mining. The offer values Stronghold at $6.02 per share, significantly higher than its recent closing price of $2.93, and represents a 71% premium to Stronghold’s 90-day volume-weighted average price. This acquisition is seen as a pivotal move for Bitfarms as it seeks to integrate power generation and expand into high-performance computing (HPC) and AI processing. Meanwhile, Bitfarms is fending off unwanted attention from Riot Platforms $(RIOT -1.56% ), which now owns nearly 19% of the company after abandoning a previous takeover bid.

Technical Strategy

Numeraire is higher by nearly 14% today, following through on a recent pattern of strong gains on above-average volume.  As daily NMR charts show, NMR broke out of its intermediate-term downtrend from March peaks and has been making steady progress this week in turning higher.   Near-term, a rally to $20 looks likely which would roughly align with its prior lows from April/May along with the highs of its current Ichimoku Cloud.  However, this recent strength is seen as constructive and should allow for upside to over $26.50, or near its 38.2% Fibonacci retracement area.  Overall, NMR appears like an attractive risk/reward following what appears to be a successful bottoming out this past month.

Daily Important Metrics Crypto Size Bullish signal is tied to the crypto market growing Market cap 2.11T $-22.1B(-1.04%) BTC Dominance 55.86 % (-0.30%) Stablecoins Increase in circulating stablecoins is a Bullish signal In Circulation +$117B (0.26%) In Exchanges +$21B (4.89%) BTC Metrics A decrease in Bitcoin on exchanges is bullish, indicates investors are moving coins to cold storage # BTC Exchanges +$3.0M (-0.06%) Funding Rates Positive funding rates indicate traders are Bullish Aggregate -0.5340(-0.1012) Binance -0.1446(0.2092) Bitfinex 0.0000(0.0000) Bitmex -0.7912(-0.4142) ByBit -0.2077(0.1014) Deribit -0.0104(0.0953) Huobi +0.1642(0.1642) Kraken -0.7400(-0.5128) Mean -0.5340(-0.1012) OKex -1.1972(-0.4998) Sentiment BMI : 44 (100.00%) Futures A positive spread between Futures Prices and Spot Prices is Bullish CME Price $59,690(-1.61%) Spot Basis +$51(0.09%) Volume 725,011(41.92%) Open Interest 286,284(1.32%) Options all exchanges Higher open interest change in a bull market is bullish for the sector Volume 26,791(70.14%) Open Interest 288,724 (2.55%) Vol. Put/Call Ratio 0.6581 (16.69%) OOI Put/Call Ratio 0.4803 (-0.10%) All metrics as of 2024-08-21 15:38:52 All Funding rates are in bps Crypto Prices Symbol Market Cap Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BTC $1.20T $60,800 2.49% 43.96% ETH $317B $2,638 1.71% 15.95% -19.45% SOL $67B $143 -0.64% 40.19% -2.62% HNT $1.1B $6.88 -6.72% -81.77% -87.34% DOGE $198,812 $0.0002 0.40% -99.78% -99.84% All prices as of 2024-08-21 14:59:39 Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) Symbol Prem. to Nav Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BITW -24.67% $33 0.33% 42.02% -1.35% ETHE 1.10% $22 1.50% 15.21% -19.97% News Quick Bits CoinDesk Tether Plans to Develop UAE Dirham-Pegged Stablecoin Alongside Phoenix Group Tether plans to seek licensing for the stablecoin under the U.A.E. Central Bank's Payment Token Services Regulation. Market Data CoinDesk BlackRock’s ETHA Becomes First Ethereum ETF to Cross $1B in Net Inflows ETHA holds over $860 million in net assets. Only Grayscale’s mini ether trust (ETH) and Ethereum trust (ETHE) have more. Its net inflows are more than the next three highest ETF inflows combined. The Block US spot bitcoin ETFs extend positive flow streak with $88 million inflows BlackRock’s IBIT, the largest spot bitcoin ETF by net assets, led inflows with $55.43 million going into the fund on Tuesday. The Block Mt. Gox moves over $700 million worth of bitcoin to unknown wallet: Arkham Such movements of bitcoin in the recent past have preceded repayments from Mt. Gox to its creditors via distributors. The Block ZKsync Era’s daily revenue plummets post-airdrop, highlighting Layer 2 market struggles The struggles of ZKsync Era reflect a broader trend in the crypto market, particularly among Layer 2 solutions and recent token launches. Fundraising and M&A CoinDesk Bitcoin Miner Bitfarms to Buy Rival Stronghold Digital for $175M in Stock, Debt The deal comes weeks after Riot Platforms dropped a bid to buy Bitfarms, choosing to overhaul the company's board before pursuing a takoever again. CoinDesk Story Protocol Developer Raises $80M Series B, Led by A16z, for Intellectual Property Chain "We’re focused on solving a real problem that impacts the creative industry, not just creating another technical tweak," Story Protocol CEO SY Lee says. Web 3.0 The Block Babylon to launch self-custodial bitcoin staking mainnet in two days Babylon is set to roll out its self-custodial bitcoin staking mainnet in two days, marking the beginning of its phased rollout.