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 has gained to $65.3k and ETH to $2,650, with altcoins showing larger moves. SOL and ecosystem memecoins WIF and BONK 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 and MSTR gaining about 8%. Equity indices are showing more muted gains, with the SPY 0.09%  and QQQ gaining around 0.30%, while Chinese names continue to outperform, with KWEB 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 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 shares are up 2.67% today and have risen more than 36% over the past three months.

Technical Strategy

NEAR 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 Crypto Size Bullish signal is tied to the crypto market growing Market cap 2.27T +$24B(1.09%) BTC Dominance 56.31 % (0.19%) Stablecoins Increase in circulating stablecoins is a Bullish signal In Circulation +$119B (0.04%) In Exchanges +$22B (0.02%) 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 +0.5710(0.0200) Binance +0.4082(-0.3787) Bitfinex +0.1997(0.1997) Bitmex +0.2519(-0.0401) ByBit +1.0000(0.0047) Deribit +0.2392(-1.4501) Huobi +0.9887(0.9887) Kraken +1.0253(-0.2815) Mean +0.5710(0.0200) OKex +0.5071(-0.4331) Sentiment BMI : 55 (100.00%) Futures A positive spread between Futures Prices and Spot Prices is Bullish CME Price $64,495(1.17%) Spot Basis $-133(-0.21%) Volume 428,453(-22.73%) Open Interest 308,483(-0.14%) Options all exchanges Higher open interest change in a bull market is bullish for the sector Volume 21,964(0.87%) Open Interest 301,903 (1.22%) Vol. Put/Call Ratio 0.7297 (-29.25%) OOI Put/Call Ratio 0.5069 (1.40%) All metrics as of 2024-09-26 15:10:52 All Funding rates are in bps Crypto Prices Symbol Market Cap Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BTC $1.29T $65,144 2.55% 54.24% ETH $319B $2,647 1.70% 16.32% -24.59% SOL $74B $157 4.33% 54.43% 0.12% HNT $1.2B $7.33 -4.00% -80.58% -87.41% DOGE $263,183 $0.0003 -5.02% -99.70% -99.81% All prices as of 2024-09-26 12:05:30 Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) Symbol Prem. to Nav Last Price Daily Change Year to Date Relative to BTC YTD BITW -36.56% $30 2.55% 27.64% -17.25% ETHE -0.39% $22 3.38% 15.64% -25.03% News Quick Bits The Block PayPal to allow US business accounts to buy and transfer crypto The digital payments firm said it will enable U.S. merchants to buy, sell and hold supported cryptocurrency. CoinDesk Wall Street Titan Guggenheim Tokenizes $20M of Commercial Paper on Ethereum Guggenheim Treasury Services, a subsidiary of financial services giant Guggenheim Partners, has issued $20 million of tokenized commercial paper on the Ethereum blockchain, its partner, blockchain platform Zeconomy, announced Thursday. CoinDesk Avalanche Unveils $40M Grant Program Ahead of 'Avalanche9000' Upgrade The program, called Retro9000, is supposed to encourage developers to build on Avalanche ahead of a much-anticipated upgrade known as Avalanche9000. The Block Hamster Kombat token goes live for trading with airdrop to 131 million user accounts HMSTR token goes live for trading on several exchanges including Binance, OKX and Bitfinex as 60 billion tokens are distributed. Dose of DeFI The Block Ethena plans to launch new stablecoin backed by BlackRock’s tokenized BUIDL fund Ethena’s existing decentralized synthetic dollar, USDe, is now the fifth-largest stablecoin, with a $2.6 billion circulating supply. Web 3.0 Coin Telegraph Web3 music streaming brings direct stablecoin payouts to musicians Web3 is reshaping the music industry as platforms like Audius enable direct stablecoin payouts, offering artists more control over pricing and fan engagement. Few industries have been as proactive as the music industry in exploring and adopting emerging technologies at the intersection of Web3 and culture.From streaming and distribution to fan engagement and exclusive communities, the use cases for Web3 in music are plenty and only becoming more so. One of the early pioneers at this intersection, Audius, a decentralized, community-owned, and artist-controlled music-sharing and streaming service, just announced that artists can now be directly paid for their content via stablecoin. Read more Investment Products BTC Manager Leverage Shares debuts 3x leveraged MicroStrategy ETPs in Europe Leverage Shares has launched the first leveraged and inverse exchange-traded product tied to the performance of MicroStrategy stock. These new investment products, now available on the London Stock Exchange, include the 3x Long MicroStrategy exchange-traded product (ticker symbol ‘MST3’) and… Hacks, Exploits, and Scams The Block WazirX granted four-month moratorium to restructure its liabilities after $230 million hack Meanwhile, the hacker continues to launder the stolen funds in batches of 5,000 ether ($13 million) via crypto mixer Tornado Cash. The Block Crypto losses due to hacks and scams fall to $413 million in Q3: Immunefi The losses were dominated by hacks on crypto exchanges WazirX and BingX, which were exploited for $235 million and $52 million, respectively.