Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

The Federal Reserve decided to maintain the current interest rates on Wednesday. The recent data signaled a stronger-than-expected economy. The Fed may consider increasing rates towards the end of the year due to a rebound in inflation in August. As a result, the market has factored in a projection of two to three additional rate hikes by December 2024. The crypto market was taking a hit after the Fed’s decision. 10-Year Note Yield officially hit 4.50% target, now at its highest since October 2007. The deployment of stable coins into off-chain assets has become increasingly appealing.

Options Market

BTC had a strong recovery early in the week before it erased most of its gains two trading sessions after the FOMC minute. ETH lagged to post a negative week. Although the realised volatility on BTC has edged higher, the pivot support of 25k seems to be holding fairly well for now, hence the continuation of  a range-bound market. Short term skew reflected a more neutral pricing on BTC and a pretty concerned stance on ETH. The volatility spread between ETH and BTC is trending downwards, predominantly driven by short-term maturities this week. Among options traders, there is scepticism regarding ETH's ability to maintain higher realized volatility.

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• Mt. Gox trustee's repayment deadline has been extended by one year to October 31, 2024.
• According to Dune data, the total number of smart contracts on the Base chain has exceeded 20 million.
• OpenSea: A supplier was hacked and the developer's OpenSea APl key may have been leaked.
• Data: The total amount of ETH in the liquidity staking protocol has exceeded 12 million.
• Circle, the issuer of stablecoin USDC, announced that USDC has been launched on the Polkadot mainnet.
• According to Cryptoslam data, the top-selling NFT collection in the past 30 days was DMarket (approximately $31.32 million in sales), surpassing Bored Ape Yacht Club (approximately $18.85 million in sales).
• Tether buys 10,000 Nvidia chips for $420 million, strategic investment in Northern Data.
• EJF Ventures Fund, a subsidiary of alternative asset management company EJF Capital, raised US$104 million to invest in blockchain infrastructure and other fields.
• Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission: Investigation of JPEX’s suspected illegal activities has begun since March this year.

Macro

The major indexes declined for the week: the DJIA lost -1.9%, the S&P -2.9%, and the NASDAQ -3.6%. The Fed’s message surprised the market with the higher-for-longer forecast: a target range of 5.25% to 5.50% level was set at the meeting in July. A prediction for rates in 2024 was now higher than expected.