Crypto Market

BTC and ETH Market Insight

Cointelegraph tweeted that the SEC had approved the first spot Bitcoin ETF, based on information from an unverified source in a Telegram chat. The tweet caused BTC to experience a 10% increase before the news was discovered to be fake and the price retraced within the hour. The market quickly started trending up again, and this trend has been sustained without being fully retraced for the first time since BTC's decline from $29k to $25k in August. The risk-on sentiment started to form as we approached the ETF approval deadline in Jan, and this trend is likely to be influenced by the wider market holding up.

Options Market

Implied volatility rose for both BTC and ETH across the volatility surface, and remained high following the false alarm of spot BTC ETF approval. The abrupt price movement pushed the realized volatility into the 40% range for BTC, though ETH experienced a lesser impact, with its volatility around 35%. The call skew was on the rise with the spot BTC ETF hope reinvigorating the bullish sentiment. The volatility spread between ETH and BTC shifted back in favour of a BTC premium across all durations.

Altcoins and Blockchain News

• Data from The Block shows that Bitcoin’s market share has risen to 49.85%, a new high since April 2021, and was about 38% at the beginning of this year.
• CoinGecko data shows that the total market cap of USDT exceeded US$84 billion, a record high.
  
• According to TradingView data, the negative premium rate of Grayscale GBTC narrowed to 12%, which is the closest trading price to the net value (NAV) since December 2021.
  
• Tesla’s financial report shows that it did not buy or sell any Bitcoin in the third quarter of 2023. As of the end of the third quarter, Tesla still held 9,720 Bitcoins, worth approximately US$275 million.
  
• Hedge fund Runa Digital Assets has raised $42.5 million from 25 investors to invest in cryptocurrencies and digital assets, Bizjournals reports.
  
• Celestia has completed the genesis airdrop distribution of 60 million TIA, and users will receive TIA directly on the mainnet.
  
• According to The Block, the reorganization of Yuga Labs has been completed, and the team will focus on developing its interoperable metaverse Otherside while supporting the existing community.
  
• Magic Eden has suspended BRC-20 trading, since currently trading BRC-20 may have the risk of double spending.
  

Macro

The major indexes remained under pressure as the 10-year Treasury yield's briefly topped 5.0% for the first time since July 2007: the DJIA was down 1.6%, the S&P 500 fell 2.4%, and the NASDAQ slid 3.2%. The Cboe Volatility index (.VIX) closed at its highest level since March 24. Mixed earnings results from Netflix and Tesla sent the two companies’ shares in divergent moves, but the technology sector was particularly under pressure due to macro headwinds. Big techs including Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Amazon are scheduled to report their quarterly results this week with the US third-quarter GDP and the PCE data for September also on the horizon.