Triaconta Weekly #263

The following topics will be addressed in this weekly:

  • Bundle performance
  • Winners & Losers
  • Market overview

In July, the newsletter is taking a break for a few weeks. The next newsletter will be published on 28 July.

Bundle performance
Bitcoin is bouncing between $30,000 and $31,000 dollars as traders defend their positions. On this last Friday of the month, both monthly and quarterly options on Bitcoin expire and $5 billion is at stake. The chances of a 0.25% interest rate hike in July in the US are unfortunately increasing. Europe, too, wants interest rates to rise further to curb inflation. The various crypto coins in the bunds show big differences in returns of which the broad-based Top 30 benefits the most.

Big3:
1 Month: +1.43% | 7D: +0.20% | 24H: +1.78%

Top30:
1 Month: -4.41% | 7D: +7.55% | 24H: +5.45%

Penny:
1 Month: -12.49% | 7D: +1.91% | 24H: +3.95%

DeFi:
1 Month: -9.72% | 7D: +3.05% | 24H: +4.63%

Winners & Losers
Wall Street decides what the winners and losers are these days. Since the first Wall Street-backed crypto exchange EDX Markets went live on 21 June with just four listings (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin), these coins have soared. The approval of the four coins by an exchange backed by Wall Street incumbents is seen by the market as an unofficial endorsement of the coins’ safe legal status compared to other altcoins.

Bitcoin Cash (+107%) benefited the most this week as many traders had short positions in this coin and when it reached certain levels were forced to buy it back (also known as short squeeze). Another big gainer is Compound (+85%) which has filed an application with regulator SEC for Superstate, a new company that will combine short-term government bonds and blockchain. Litecoin (+12%) is easing a little.

The declines and laggards came due to the SEC’s indictment earlier this month of Binance and Coinbase for allegedly selling unregistered securities without the required licence. It has not been determined for any crypto at this time whether it is a security. The indictment mentioned several altcoins that were alleged to be possible securities and continued to fall this week such as Algorand (-7%), BNB (-2%), Polygon (-3%) and Cardano (-2%). A surprising recovery is seen in the case of Solana (+14%), also mentioned in the indictment, a comeback that happens to coincide with the launch of a new NFT collection by Melania Trump on this blockchain.

Market overview

Hong Kong’s largest bank, HSBC, offers Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs to its customers. Bitcoin ETFs are now available in Canada, Germany (for all of Europe), Brazil, Singapore and so from now on in HongKong. The regulator SEC in America was taken to court by Grayscale last July after yet another rejection of a US Bitcoin ETF application. Several experts expect a ruling in the case soon and now give Grayscale a 70% chance of winning.

CACEIS bank, the banking division of the CACEIS group that also drops Credit Agricole and Santander, has registered for a crypto storage licence in France. The bank says it wants to respond to growing demand from investment funds and institutional investors. CACIES group is one of the largest asset managers in Europe with €2,100 billion.

MicroStrategy has bought over 12 thousand Bitcoins again in the past two months at an average price of $28.136. This brings the largest Bitcoin owner to a treasury of over 152 thousand Bitcoins together currently worth $4.5 billion.

Circle, the issuer of the second-largest stablecoin USDC is now also connected to Abitrum where the Cross Chain Transfer Protocol enables rapid exchange with the already connected blockchains of Ethereum and Avalanche. Under the new protocol, USDC is destroyed on one chain and created on another. This is much more secure than the old method of blocking and creating, which has led to hacks with millions in damages in the past.

The European Union has completed years of research and is about to propose a digital form of the euro, issued by the European Central Bank. To avoid getting in the way of commercial banks, you will probably be allowed to put a maximum of 3,000 digital euros on a card or on your phone. It is meant to replace cash payments and a bank account, and use for payments will also be free. It should be possible to directly pay other people and businesses anywhere in the eurozone. Bear in mind that, for example, Ideal only works in the Netherlands and so far there is no European system for digital payments. There are no plans (for now) to make the digital euro programmable so that it can only be spent on things preferred by the government. So we assume that this will soon become a new European payment option to buy crypto at Triaconta, for instance ;-)

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