Weekly Market Update: A Solid Week in the Crypto Markets

Crypto markets have rallied strongly this week led by Bitcoin. The combination of an anticipated end to the monetary tightening cycle leading to an improving macro environment for crypto, plus good signals for the Spot Bitcoin ETF,  combined with  what appears to be a growing acceptance of Bitcoin as an asset to hold in uncertain times, all appear to have led to this week’s price rally. 

Notably, the gains from last week’s spot ETF misinformation were held, which proved to many that the Bitcoin ETF wasn’t priced in, leading to more activity. Volume begets volume.  

On the ETF front,  the GBTC case against the SEC is wholly positive, while Blackrock has excited the markets by literally going through the logistical minutiae of launching an ETF.  In a market looking for any signs of progress, these signals were latched onto immediately as bullish.

In other positive market news, Coinbase’s expansions continue with the international launch of leveraged perpetuals, and Binance has resumed European trading. 

The global macro picture is actually pretty static; prices of key assets such as oil are flat on the week. However, markets are nervously watching the Middle East situation.

The general theme of most markets seems to be consistent with either a bottoming of the cycle or even some small positive news. This is showing up with CPI either flattening or declining in most locations, and better sentiment measures appearing.  

Noticeably, the message from the central bankers, particularly in the US has changed.  Yes rates will be higher for longer, but there are definite signals that the era of rate rises has come to an end.

Locally,  Australia’s inflation continues to trend down and employment has plateaued, while NZ’s dairy industry is benefiting from some improved pricing.

On the downside our balance of trade is continuing its poor trend and we will need something major in the commodity sector to turn it around. 

The market flipped the switch yesterday and we witnessed a BTC god candle for the first time in a while. As a result the crypto market sentiment rocketed from a neutral 53 yesterday, to 66 today, well into greed territory.

Trend highlights this week: 

• What a week!  There is a sea of green in the top 100 assets, literally everything is up. 
• At the time of writing BTC was up 20%, while ETH was up 14%.  
• SOL continues its good run as its fundamentals look to be improving, up another 30% this week. LINK was marginally better at 35%. 
• Injective (INJ) was our biggest gainer on the week, up 52%. 
• We didn’t have any decliners this week, not one.

View all top gainers: Visit the top gainers page to find out more. 

Looking for more flexible pricing and trading volume for your high-value crypto trades? Get in touch on our OTC page and learn how we can help.

Highlights from the crypto space

This week in ETF news, the Court presiding over the GBTC trust ETF application formalised their decision on Monday, the ball is now with the SEC. GBTC said they’re ready to go. 

Blackrock ETF is now listed in the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation. This means it is has an official number in the clearing and well….things are getting closer to being real. They also announced that they will start buying BTC in October to seed the ETF. 

A quick reminder of the possible approval dates for the Bitcoin Spot ETF

News came out that Hong Kong Exchange OSL looks like it might be for sale. This was later denied. 

A review of the NY attorney general’s case against DCG looks bad, Enron bad in fact. 

Circle has launched a gas station and smart contract platform 

Fidelity Digital Assets is using an EY blockchain analyser to query onchain data. Fidelity also updated its ETF application to address some of the SEC’s concerns. 

As previously signalled, Binance US is halting USD withdrawals, instead you need to use stablecoins. 

Blackrock CEO Larry Fink said they have significant client demand for Bitcoin and it will play a role in the flight to quality. Since then, Bitcoin has been holding up way better than shares.

Other notable highlights from the crypto space:

• The EU has adopted new rules allowing tax authorities to share data on individual’s cryptocurrency holdings.
• Coinbase is opening up Perps (perpetual futures) to its non-US customers for the majors. You can get up to 3x leverage. Coinbase chose Ireland as its European hub of operations. 
• Lightning labs is apparently testing putting real world assets and Stablecoins on the Bitcoin network. 
• The lightning network has experienced 1200% growth over the past 2 years. A security researcher and LN developer has said that the network has a major vulnerability. 
• The SEC has dropped its case against two executives at Ripple for violating securities law. 
• Binance has resumed services in Europe having locked up two new fiat rail partners. 
• Apparently SBF’s defence is in big trouble. Shocker.

And that sums up the major updates from around the crypto space. Moving on, we’ll take a closer look at other macroeconomic developments from around the globe.

Starting off with global news 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is keeping markets on edge. Despite occasional expansion into other territories and the odd misfire, it still seems to be contained. 

Obviously this could change quite quickly, with Iran shaping up to be the big unknown factor. 

The price of Oil has stabilised over the last week with Brent Crude now at $89 US per barrel.

🌎 Macro news TLDR: … Markets uncertain on Gaza war news. 

U.S. economic news

US retail spending is still going strong, up 0.7% in September, and September’s industrial production was also up 0.3%. 

The US continued to ramp up its chip wars with China, banning the sale of some NVIDIA AI chips. Fed Chairman Powell spoke this week and echoed other Fed members, stating that inflation is too high, the economy is quite hot, but we need more data. 

He reiterated (jawboned) that a further rate rise is still on the table. Markets have that at a 30% chance. 

This week we will get the PCE and GDP numbers so we will have a better feel for how the economy is running.

Next week the Fed will meet so we are effectively in a news blackout until then. 

And in Europe….

The latest survey of German economic sentiment showed a marked increase of 10 points, potentially signalling the end of the gloom in Europe’s largest economy. 

In the UK, the average pay rise for July and August rose faster than inflation at 7.8%, this is the first time wages have grown faster than inflation in 2 years.

The UK’s CPI for September was steady at 6.7%, this was above market expectations and driven by petrol prices. Rate rises are back on the table now. 

The ECB will announce their latest rate decision late this week. Markets are expecting no change. 

Russian oil is back in the gun as there is more effort to enforce the oil price cap. The Ukraine war is still ongoing, news is scarce but it looks like the stalemate continues. 

And in Asia Pacific…

Chinese State enterprises have upped their investment in strategic sectors by 30% to make up for a lack of local demand. 

Signs that the economy (outside of property) is stabilising, China’s Q3 GDP number exceeded the expected 4.4% to come in at 4.9%. 

Chinese property developer Country Garden’s entire offshore debt appears to be in default as they missed an interest repayment. 

Japanese exports are up 4.3% in September as it shifts attention from China to the US. Japanese CPI fell to 3% in September, down 0.2% from August. 

Singapore’s CPI remains firmly stuck at 4.1%. The Bank of Korea held interest rates at 3.5%, while Indonesia surprised markets by lifting their interest rate 25 bps to 6%. Taiwan’s export order grew 12% month on month, but is still down 15% on last year. 

The RBA’s October minutes show they considered a 25 bps hike but held off due to a lack of data. This was way more hawkish than expected. Australia’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%, but there is a spike in part time work keeping it there. 

Global Dairy prices were up another 4.3% this week. Prices are up 17% since September which is shoring up our farming sector little by little.

New Zealand’s balance of trade continues its negative trend and is now at 3.5% of GDP which has economists worried and stating the obvious, something has to give. The trend doesn’t look great. 

That’s a wrap for this week. Thanks for reading!

Stay tuned for the next update.

Did you miss the last weekly update?

Catch-up on the previous market update.