Mon Mar 20 2023
It’s good to be the king. BTC crossed $28k over the weekend and, in the process, added more than $100 billion. ETH underperformed (-1%) as whales moved big chunks to exchanges. MATIC is also down 3%, while SOL is up 6%. Digital assets ETPs saw a sixth consecutive week of outflows ($95 billion), which could be more of an indicator of liquidity needs than sentiment. ARB token will be listed on Binance this week. More than 28% of BTC has not moved wallets in the last 5 years — a bullish indicator. Liquidations were even for both longs and shorts. Upside buying drove the vol higher. Last week, we also saw peak option volumes.
Mon Mar 20 2023 — by Amit Sinha — Amit’s Market Maze (substack.com)
UBS acquired the Swiss crown jewel, Credit Suisse, in the $3.25 acquisition deal of the century. This did not bode well for the CoCo (AT1) bond holders, who got wiped off $17 billion ahead of the equity holders. Back in the US, the FDIC has sold Signature Bank (ex-Signet assets) to Flagstar Bank. The Fed is providing more dollar liquidity to five central banks via daily swap lines to ease the greenback crunch. The Fed discount window is seeing volumes higher than 2008. Also, the $300 billion increase in the Fed’s balance sheet is not necessarily extra liquidity for the market (aka QE). This is not new money, it’s mostly Fed loans.
Regulatory scrutiny in the US is forcing Coinbase to speed up its plan to expand in the rest of the world. As an aside, an independent solo miner mined a block, beating odds beyond odds to earn 6.25 BTC. Polygon co-founder Anurag Arjun has left the company to concentrate on Avail, a L1 blockchain. Microsoft is testing a non-custodial wallet for its browser. The provisional banking charter for Protego has expired. General Bytes, a crypto ATM provider, is dealing with a hack. OKX is coming with a L2 chain in addition to its L1 OKT chain. The ex-Coinbase CTO’s megabet of $1 million BTC has bought him a lot of Twitter admirers.
Brent prices dropped to their lowest level since December 2021. Gold has been on a tear, as has digital gold.
This week ahead:
Tuesday: Existing home sales
Wednesday: FOMC
Thursday: Building permits, initial jobless claims
Friday: Durable goods,
