Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

Bitcoin hit a fresh all-time high of $124.5k while Ethereum climbed to $4,800, driven by inflows from Tradfi. However, the market has shown significant weakness since those peaks, with Bitcoin retesting $112k support and Ethereum falling to a low of $4,060. Powell's dovish Jackson Hole remarks sparked a market rally, with ETH jumping over 8% in the following hour. This caught markets off guard, triggering substantial unwinding after a week dominated by hedge flows. Coinglass data shows $200 million in crypto liquidations in one hour, with shorts accounting for $180 million of the total.

Upcoming Macro Calendar - Source: Trading Economics

Options Market

The crypto market was moving sideways with a downward tilt due to profit-taking activities until Powell’s Jackson Hole speech sparked a robust rally in both equities and cryptocurrencies on Friday. ETH notably reached a new all-time high within hours of the speech. BTC was less strong compared to ETH. Implied volatility for both BTC and ETH declined, as the rally-driven spike in realized volatility was considered unsustainable. Meanwhile, call skew reflected a stronger bullish sentiment for ETH compared to BTC with the ETH/BTC ratio surpassing 0.04 for the first time in over a year.

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• Story announced a $82 million IP buyback program to be launched on the open market.
  
  
   
• According to validator queue tracking site Validator Queue, the current Ethereum PoS network has 846,142 ETH pending in the exit queue. Meanwhile, 404,500 ETH are queued to join the network.
  
  
   
• Asset management firms such as Grayscale and Bitwise have submitted S-1 amendment filings for spot XRP ETFs.
  
  
   
• VanEck has submitted the first application for a spot Solana ETF based on JitoSOL.
  
  
   
• OKX CEO Star announced on social media that X Layer will undergo long-term development, and a $100 million X Layer Ecosystem Fund will be launched to support global developers building the next wave of on-chain applications.
  
  
   
• Wyoming, USA, has launched the first state-level stablecoin, Frontier (FRNT), which is now live on seven blockchains.|
  
  
   
• South Korean regulators have requested cryptocurrency exchanges to suspend lending services.
  
  
   
• Japan is set to approve the first yen-denominated stablecoin, JPYC.
  
  
   
• According to its official website, the stablecoin USDe, issued by Ethena Labs, has surpassed a supply of 12 billion tokens.

Macro

The major benchmarks closed with solid gains, hitting new record highs: the DJIA added +1.7%, the S&P 500 +0.9%, and the Nasdaq +0.8%. The Chinese also finished the week with remarkable gains: the Shanghai Composite Index added +1.7%, the CSI 300 +2.37% and the Hang Seng index added +1.65%.