Crypto Surges on More China Stimulus, Ethena Announces New Stablecoin
Market Update
The PBoC has announced a fresh package of economic stimulus, weighing a $142 billion injection into top domestic banks and pledging to stabilize the housing and stock markets. Domestically, durable goods data came in better than expected, and GDP met expectations, providing more confidence in the stability of the U.S. economy. Crypto is responding positively to both developments, as BTC -2.05% has gained to $65.3k and ETH -6.44% to $2,650, with altcoins showing larger moves. SOL -4.93% and ecosystem memecoins WIF -9.63% and BONK -7.77% are some of the top gainers, rising 6.01%, 12.13%, and 9.65%, respectively. Crypto-related equities are reacting to the move, with COIN -2.71% and MSTR -1.73% gaining about 8%. Equity indices are showing more muted gains, with the SPY -0.27% and QQQ -0.54% gaining around 0.30%, while Chinese names continue to outperform, with KWEB 2.04% gaining more than 10%.
Ethena Announces UStb
Ethena, a stablecoin protocol, has announced its newest product, UStb, a fully collateralized stablecoin backed by Blackrock’s BUIDL fund. BUIDL is a tokenized MMF fund that mainly holds U.S. treasuries. UStb will diversify Ethena’s product suite, creating a fiat-backed stablecoin separated from its main product, USDe. The new product comes in response to concerns about how USDe would operate in times of prolonged negative funding environments. If needed, Ethena can now adjust the backing composition of USDe between basis positions and liquid stables. They can close hedging positions and reallocate collateral towards UStb to alleviate potential risks. Additionally, as Ethena integrates with centralized exchanges, they can now offer two options for margin collateral. Ethena has surged following the product announcement, with ENA -10.67% gaining more than 16%.
Paypal Enabling Crypto Capabilities for Businesses
Paypal has announced plans to allow U.S. business customers to buy, sell, hold, and transfer crypto via their PayPal accounts. The service will be available in all states except New York upon initial launch. The same functionality has been enabled within personal PayPal and Venmo accounts since 2020, but they stated they have observed how users want to leverage crypto and have seen increased interest among businesses looking to accept or use crypto. PayPal continues diving deeper into crypto, launching its own stablecoin last year, which has grown substantially after launching on Solana. PYUSD’s market cap has grown to over $700 million, making it the 7th largest stablecoin. PYPL -1.74% shares are up 2.67% today and have risen more than 36% over the past three months.
Technical Strategy
NEAR -7.64% has begun to turn the corner given today’s 12% gains. This directly followed last week’s trendline breakout which exceeded a downtrend extending back since May, and NEAR was able to bottom out at an exact area of Ichimoku cloud support. Overall, gains look likely to test $8.52 in the months ahead and this is a very key technical area of resistance. Getting above this argues for a much larger rally up to $10.91 and then $13.22, both of which have importance being retracements of the former decline from early 2022. Overall, NEAR looks like an appealing risk/reward and pullbacks likely find support near $5-$5.15 before turning back higher.
Daily Important Metrics
All metrics as of 2024-09-26 15:10:52 All Funding rates are in bps Crypto Prices
All prices as of 2024-09-26 12:05:30 Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
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