Crypto Market Update

The crypto market has moved lower over the past 24 hours, with BTC -2.46% dropping back near the $58k level, ETH -7.27% just below $2,300, and SOL -6.26% once again testing the $130 mark. Yields have started the week lower ahead of the upcoming FOMC meeting, where investors are currently anticipating a 50 bps rate cut, according to the Fed funds futures market. Equities started the morning broadly in the green, except for the tech sector, which is weighing on major indices. Meanwhile, gold remains near all-time highs but has slightly declined since the US market opened. This is a critical week for investors, with the main event being the FOMC press conference on Wednesday. Chair Powell is expected to announce either a 25 or 50 bps rate cut, but more importantly, he will provide an updated outlook on the economy and the broader rate-cutting cycle. Investors will also receive a revised Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), which will help gauge the pace of cuts through year-end. Additionally, Japanese inflation data will be released on Thursday, followed by the Bank of Japan’s interest rate decision on Friday.

Flows Increase, CB Discount Suggests a Stall

Crypto flows turned net positive last week, with over $400 million in inflows into spot BTC ETFs. The largest influx occurred on Friday, when BTC ETFs saw over $260 million in USD inflows. On the other hand, ETH ETFs continued to experience net outflows, though the pace has slowed since their initial post-launch drop, with just under $13 million in outflows last week. Stablecoins saw some significant outflows late in the week, but for the seven days ending September 15th, the aggregate stablecoin market cap increased by over $1.7 billion. Notably, the Coinbase premium/discount, a reliable indicator of US spot demand, has moved into a discount for the first time in several days this morning, indicating a possible stall in capital inflows.

IREN Expands AI Cloud Services Capacity

Iris Energy Limited (IREN -14.29% ) has announced the purchase of 1,080 NVIDIA H200 GPUs for $43.9 million to enhance its AI Cloud Services business, with delivery expected in Q4 2024. This acquisition increases IREN’s total GPU count to 1,896 units and is projected to boost the AI Cloud Services’ share of earnings to approximately 10% by year-end, with further growth anticipated into 2025. Meanwhile, IREN’s Bitcoin mining capacity currently stands at 18.8 EH/s and is on track to reach 30 EH/s by Q4 2024. At that level, the estimated electricity cost per Bitcoin mined is $20,000, with an all-in cash cost of $31,000. By the end of 2024, IREN expects AI Cloud Services to generate $33 million in annualized revenue, while Bitcoin mining is projected to contribute $460 million.

Technical Strategy

Fantom has made two impressive technical accomplishments which put this back on the radar ahead of an impending upside breakout.  FTM charts show the breakout of the downtrend from March into August, which makes this a lot more technically appealing.  Second, FTM managed to rise rapidly back to test the area of late August highs following a higher low than early August.  This is also constructive price action as it forms a reverse Head and Shoulders pattern.   Daily close back above 0.5348 represents a confirmed breakout of the downtrend which should lift this up to 0.748, then 0.86, both of which look to be important upside levels.   Overall, this recent technical improvement makes FTM quite attractive ahead of a likely breakout in the weeks to come.

Daily Important Metrics Crypto Size Bullish signal is tied to the crypto market growing Market cap 2.02T $-72.8B(-3.48%) BTC Dominance 56.60 % (-0.01%) Stablecoins Increase in circulating stablecoins is a Bullish signal In Circulation +$119B (-0.02%) In Exchanges +$21B (0.06%) 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 +0.4810(0.1015) Binance -0.2910(-0.7089) Bitfinex +1.1281(-0.5430) Bitmex +0.4060(0.2631) ByBit +0.3588(-0.4181) Deribit +0.2199(0.0126) Huobi +0.9986(0.9986) Kraken +0.6769(0.0000) Mean +0.4810(0.1015) OKex +0.6579(0.4452) Sentiment BMI : 43 (100.00%) Futures A positive spread between Futures Prices and Spot Prices is Bullish CME Price $57,950(-3.31%) Spot Basis +$37(0.06%) Volume 305,888(24.95%) Open Interest 299,697(-0.36%) Options all exchanges Higher open interest change in a bull market is bullish for the sector Volume 7,136(-1.43%) Open Interest 278,924 (-0.39%) Vol. Put/Call Ratio 1.19 (58.83%) OOI Put/Call Ratio 0.4844 (0.38%) All metrics as of 2024-09-16 15:23:52 All Funding rates are in bps Crypto Prices Symbol Market Cap Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BTC $1.14T $57,797 -4.14% 36.85% ETH $275B $2,286 -5.00% 0.47% -26.58% SOL $61B $131 -3.22% 29.03% -5.71% HNT $1.1B $7.03 -5.54% -81.36% -86.38% DOGE $176,149 $0.0002 -8.73% -99.80% -99.86% All prices as of 2024-09-16 12:09:30 Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) Symbol Prem. to Nav Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BITW -37.11% $27 -1.97% 15.54% -15.57% ETHE -0.71% $19 -5.67% -0.46% -27.27% News Quick Bits CoinDesk BitGo Unveils Token Management Service for Crypto Foundations Big names like Worldcoin and LayerZero are among the first customers of the Token Management Service, announced on Monday. The Block DeFi protocol Delta Prime suffers $6 million exploit after admin lost control of private key The Delta Prime hacker initially only drained about $4.5 million but was able to continue attacking the protocol to steal funds. Regulation CoinDesk Tether Hires PayPal Government Affairs Ace as U.S. Scrutiny Unresolved Tether hired a government-affairs veteran from PayPal and Chainalysis, Jesse Spiro, to head its own shop as the issuer of the leading {{USDT}} stablecoin has long been under a cloud of reported U.S. investigations. The Block CFTC says prediction markets are vulnerable to manipulation in Kalshi case appeal The CFTC is once again attempting to stop election prediction marketplace Kalshi from offering its contracts for the 2024 election season. CoinDesk Spanish Crypto Exchange Bit2Me Obtains License in Argentina as a Virtual Asset Service Provider The registry, launched in March by Argentina's National Securities Commission, already has 79 approvals. Fundraising and M&A CoinDesk Multicoin Led $10M Raise for Crypto-Incentivized Internet Infrastructure Network Pipe Pipe is planning to launch a testnet at the Breakpoint conference in Singapore. Mining The Block Residents of a Norwegian town complained about a Bitcoin mine’s noise; now that it’s shut down, they face a 20% energy bill hike For some, it may be a cost they are willing to bear to avoid the noise. For others, it’s an unintended consequence that adds to living costs. Web 3.0 The Block Ledger partners with Exodus on new crypto swap feature Blockchain hardware firm Ledger is partnering with self-custody wallet provider Exodus on a new crypto swap aggregator called XO Swap.