ARP's Crypto Digest

General Digital Asset Market View:

The 11 Bitcoin ETFs in the US experienced a total inflow of $293.4 million by November 8th, led by BlackRock’s IBIT fund, which contributed $206 million. Despite some funds losing momentum, the overall inflow for the week was a robust $257.4 million amidst market volatility. 

After a strong October, with $5.6 billion in net buys, November began with three days of outflows totaling $712 million, influenced by US investors’ caution before the presidential election on November 5th. 

BlackRock’s IBIT has shown remarkable growth, purchasing $1.3 billion worth of Bitcoin in a single day last week and growing its holdings to $33.1 billion in just 10 months, outpacing the $32.9 billion amassed by BlackRock’s gold ETF over 19 years.

Macro:

The main events this week in the US are October retail sales data and the initial run of pricing data (CPI, PPI, import prices). In Asia, we will get the monthly Chinese data dump (activity, money and credit) while elsewhere the latest UK job report will be in focus alongside Q3 GDP reports in the UK and Japan. There is a holiday in the US on Monday for Veteran’s Day (exch open) and also Single’s Day in China. From a policy POV, we have the Fed’s SLOOS, the ECB’s account of their October meeting, and the BoJ’s summary of opinions. Powell and Bailey are both scheduled to speak as is Rachel Reeves at Mansion House (likely focused on governments pension fund industry reform plans). We will also need to keep a close eye on Trump cabinet appointments and any Japanese election developments. From a portco POV, this week we have RWE, Tencent and Sumitomo reporting while Lilly goes ex-div. There is also a Korea Investment & Secs conference worth keeping an eye on re Samsung. There is no UST issuance scheduled this week

More Crypto:

CME’s BTC futures saw an all-time high daily trading volume of $13.15bn on Nov 6th.

2024s average daily trading volume in CME’s BTC futures currently sits at $4.56bn. This yearly ADV is higher than the massive volume surge amidst FTX’s Nov 8, 2022 collapse.

Stablecoins Metrics and News:

Metrics:

In October, adjusted on-chain volume of stablecoins increased by 8% to $899B; Issued supply decreased by 0.7% to $149.3B, with USDT at 79.5% and USDC at 16.9% respective market share.

On Nov 7th, Tether made $1.9B USDT deposits across different exchanges — mostly to Binance with $1.7B, plus chunks to Coinbase, OKX and Kraken in last 24hrs.

All this right after they minted $2B on Ethereum and burned $1B on Tron yesterday, causing Bitcoin price to spike above $75k.

News:

• Tether’s Investment division has successfully funded its first crude oil transaction in the Middle East, involving 670,000 barrels valued at about $45 million. This marks Tether’s entry into the commodities market, leveraging its stablecoin USD₮ to enhance the efficiency and reduce costs in global trade finance —  Read More

• Ripple Labs is considering launching a dirham-backed stablecoin in the UAE, aligning with new regulations that encourage such financial innovations — Read more

• New Global Dollar Stablecoin Backed by Robinhood, Kraken, Paxos and Other Crypto Heavies — Read More

What Happened This Week:

• US Federal Reserve cut its interest rate by 25bps to a range of 4.50%-4.75%.

• Wintermute posted a proposal to distribute a portion of Ethena’s protocol revenue to $sENA.

• A pilot project by Swift, Chainlink and UBS integrated traditional payment systems with tokenized assets successfully.

• BlackRock in talks to buy minority stake in Millennium.

What to Look Out For:

• Solana is back above $200 for the first time since March. The high for the year was $210 in March. Solana’s ATH is $260 in 2021.

• Reports are emerging that BlackRock tokenization fund BUIDL may launch on Avalanche. The Avalanche-based BUIDL contract has already been activated and $1m has been deposited.

• With Trump’s election, $UNI $LDO that had previously received Wells Notices from the SEC are seeing a surge. As a result, DeFi tokens are rallying together.

• Arkham announced that the Perp DEX will be released in a week. At this point, account registration and KYC has begun.

What we enjoyed reading and listening to:

• Vitalik: From prediction markets to info finance — Link

• Detroit will become the largest US city to accept crypto to pay taxes and fees — Link

• US Debt Crisis: What Happens If America Defaults? — Link

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