Digital Assets Weekly: September 22nd
For a full copy of this report in PDF format please click HERE.
Market Analysis
This week, Bitcoin briefly traded above $11,000 before losing ground and ending the week down 1.9% at $10,455. Bitcoin has been exhibiting greater short-term correlation with the broader markets, which could be the primary reason for Bitcoin’s weakness in recent weeks. At time of writing, Bitcoin is currently trading at ~$10,500.
Notably, Bitcoin’s decline corresponds with the decline in the equities market. Despite recent weakness, Bitcoin remains the best performing asset class on a year-to-date basis by a wide margin.
The crypto majors continue to show correlation, and all of them declined this week. Amongst all the major crypto assets, Bitcoin’s decline was the most muted (-1.9%), whereas Litecoin had the largest decline (-11.4%).
Altcoins are often viewed as a leverage play on Bitcoin, magnifying the direction Bitcoin moves in. Continuing this week, all the FS Crypto FX indexes were negative with the FS 40 performing the worst (-14.4%) and the FS 10 performing the best (-4.3%).
Despite Ethereum’s negative performance this week, it is still up 166% YTD and is firmly the best performing crypto major. All the FS Crypto FX indexes are up more than 50% YTD.
...Reports you may have missed
INITIAL THESIS – SENATE MORE IMPORTANT THAN MANY RECOGNIZE This week, we witnessed what was the first – and potentially final – presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Anticipation for this event was high, with the public initially favoring Trump, as reflected in prediction markets. This preference was largely attributed to Harris's lackluster debate track record. However, the dynamics shifted during the debate itself, with reactions in prediction...
Caution in the Near-term Still Warranted, Q4 Setup Remains Compelling (Core Strategy Rebalance)
THIS WEEK’S ECONOMIC DATA SKEWS TOWARD HARD-LANDING For this week’s note, we will begin by revisiting our market map for the near-term outlook on crypto. Over the past few months, the market has oscillated between expectations of a hard landing, soft landing, and no landing. However, since Powells’s speech at Jackson Hole, market outcomes have narrowed, leaving only the two scenarios furthest to the left—hard landing and soft landing. Both...
LOWER VOLUMES PERSIST Earlier this week, we witnessed approximately $2B in open interest being unwound within a matter of hours—a significant forced deleveraging event for an otherwise uneventful Tuesday, lacking a clear catalyst. In our view, the selloff was largely technical and indicative of the negative seasonality we've been discussing recently. To backtrack, Monday and Tuesday followed a dovish Fed pivot at Jackson Hole, sparking a sharp rally in soft-landing...
GOVERNMENT SELLING SEEMS TO BE COMPLETE Last week, we highlighted the negative seasonality from mid-August through September but emphasized that macro trends and identifiable crypto-specific factors should take precedence in assessing risk. _Source: TradingView, Fundstrat_ Since last week’s CPI print, conditions have been favorable for crypto – yields and the DXY have fallen in a non-recessionary manner (more Goldilocks than risk-off), and rate-sensitive assets like IWM and RSP have rallied....
