Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

The Federal Reserve has increased interest rates by 25 basis points to their highest level since 2001, and future decisions regarding rates will be based on forthcoming economic data. There has been a minimal market response, as stocks, bonds, and the dollar have barely moved. Crypto prices continued to range, and the volatilities were at their year low level. BTC dominance has slipped 3% since the start of July, and it could be a sign of strong alt markets coming.

Options Market

The volatility in cryptocurrency has decreased significantly, with both BTC and Ethereum recording a 10-day realized volatility of approximately 25%, nudging quite close to historical lows. The ETH term structure has taken a considerable hit this week, falling by about 6-7 vols, while the volatility spread between ETH and BTC is decreasing, dipping below zero. The BTC skew term structure has become steeper, suggesting that dipps represent a solid buying opportunity. Option volumes have relaxed, but flows remain tipped to the upside, with large outright calls being bought for both BTC and ETH. 

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• CME Group posted its highest monthly trading volume of the year in July, according to The Block, despite declining trading volumes on cryptocurrency exchanges.
• According to Litecoin Halving data, the Litecoin (LTC) block reward halving time is expected to be August 2, 2023, with less than 3 days remaining, when the block reward will drop from 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC.
• According to data from Dune Analytics, the number of wallets on the Optimism chain holding WLD tokens has exceeded 300,000 and currently stands at 326,178.
• Binance said it had withdrawn its license application to German financial regulator BaFin, CoinDesk reported.
• Sequoia Capital is cutting the size of its cryptocurrency fund from $585 million to $200 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• According to L2BEAT data, the total lock-up volume (TVL) of Coinbase’s layer2 network Base has exceeded 10 million US dollars and currently reaches 10.44 million US dollars, an increase of 1024.81% in the 7 days.
• Web3 financial application hi has received $30 million in investment from Animoca Brands, which will be used to improve hi's existing products and develop new ones.
• According to Beosin's EagleEye security risk monitoring, JPEG'd was attacked and the loss was at least about 10 million US dollars.

Macro

The major indexes closed higher over a week: the DJIA ended +0.7%, the S&P 500 +1.0%, and the NASDAQ 2.0%. The Fed announced a 25 basis point increase in the federal funds rate on Wednesday, as expected.  The Fed and other global central banks may be nearing an end to rate hikes, inflation continues to gradually moderate, and growth remains resilient.