Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

DXY has shown a bullish bias and reached its highest level since March. Normally, the crypto assets have an opposite correlation with DXY. The current price of BTC $25k was a key support level and it was likely to see the market continue to trend down in the short-term. There was a considerable decrease in trading activity of the derivatives markets of BTC and ETH. The average daily trade volume for Ethereum futures and options markets in 2023 has declined to $14.3B/day, which is approximately half of the average volume from the prior two years.

Options Market

SEC's decision on spot ETFs stays as the main upside suppressor as the space is gradually moving towards more regulatory clarity. The BTC term structure was steady, and 1-week ETH IV drifted lower after a noticeable uptick earlier in the week. The volatility spread between ETH and BTC returned to a marginally positive stance in 1-week vol and remained negative for the rest of the curve. Near-term skew for BTC cooled off further but was still in favor for puts and long-term call skew remained present. Skew for ETH, on the other hand, continued to show more downside protection demand in the short run whereas 1-year call skew started to show optimism as the markets are betting spot ETF on ETH will follow once spot ETF on BTC clears its way.

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• According to DefiLlama data, the fee for the friend.tech protocol reached $10 million in the past month.
• According to Dune data, the total supply of Bitcoin NFT protocol Ordinals' inscriptions has surpassed 30 million with a total of 30,064,319 inscriptions. The current total transaction fees amount to 1,992.5041 BTC (approximately $51,654,331).
• The U.S. CFTC has announced recent charges against Opyn, Inc., ZeroEx, Inc., and Deridex, Inc. According to the official website, Opyn has restricted usage for users in the United States.
• According to Coinglass data, the current premium rate for Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is 17.17%, and the premium rate for Ethereum Trust (ETHE) is 26.65%.
• MakerDAO has added $50 million in RWA assets through BlockTower Andromeda, primarily investing in short-term U.S. government bonds. The annualized interest rate for these assets is 4.5%. Additionally, the total RWA assets for the protocol have reached $2.513 billion.
• Decentralized insurance distributor OpenCover has completed a $4 million seed funding round, led by NFX and Jump Crypto. Coinbase has also invested $200,000 in the project to support its launch on Base.
• Privacy DEX project Brine Fi has raised $16.5 million at a valuation of $100 million. The funding round was led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Elevation Capital, StarkWare Ltd, Spartan Group, and others.
• Cross-chain protocol Socket Protocol has announced the completion of a $5 million funding round with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Framework Ventures. The new funds will be used to expand Socket's collaboration with Coinbase, including providing cross-chain services for developers and users of Coinbase Wallet and the Base network. 

Macro

The major indexes closed lower over the holiday-shortened week: the DJIA lost -0.7%, the S&P -1.3%, and the NASDAQ -1.9%. Some positive economic data offered a still-bright economy and these signals drove an increase in interest A decline in Apple partially drove the decline after the reports that upcoming increase in iPhone 15 price.