Short term brightening

Crypto markets paused their recent ascent following an unexpectedly strong GDP report in the US. BTC is currently trading above $20,000 (up ~5% in the last 5 days) while ETH is trading above $1,500 (up ~15%). It is worth mentioning that while implied volatility is more or less stable as with the Deribit's DVOL index around 56% for BTC and 78% for ETH, 15d realized volatility has been increasing and reached 60% for ETH and 40% for BTC (CoinDesk).

Mining is not lucrative anymore

Core Scientific's shares have plunged by around 75% Thursday since the company announced that it will not be able to make debt payments in late October and early November due to the combination of depressed bitcoin prices, rising electricity costs and the litigation with Celsius Network (Axios).

Shrunken valuation

Blockchain.com is said to be talking over potential fundraising which would value the company at $3bn to $4bn, down from $14bn valuation as early as 2022. Blockchain.com, as many others, has been facing challenges with the decrease in the value of cryptocurrencies and had major exposure to the collapse of Three Arrow Capital (Bloomberg).

Same old story

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange was hacked. the BNB chain team said that ~$568m worth of BNB token were initially withdrawn by the hacker but he only managed to transfer $110m before the suspension of the BNB chain (Techcrunch).

Back to school

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has proposed restrictions for retail investors on the use of leverage when trading cryptocurrencies. The MAS also suggested that providers should assess that a retail customer has sufficient knowledge of the risks related to crypto services e.g. cybersecurity and market illiquidity (Decrypt).

Winter has come

Once upon a time, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) was the most successful new ETF in history amassing more than $1bn in inflows in its first week of trading on the NYSE in October 2021. One year later, with a 70% share price drop, it has become the sixth-worst performing debut ETF of its kind of all time. Morningstar calculates that BITO has lost $1.2bn of investors' money. The same applies to Andreessen Horowitz's $4.5bn crypto fund which has lost around 40% of its value (Financial Times | Wall Street Journal).

Another one bites the dust

Near protocol's USN stablecoin shut down after suffering a $40 collateral gap due to some double-minting associated with the V1 algorithm. USN holder can redeem their tokens for USDT through the USN protection program which is backed by the Near foundation (TheBlock).

Michael and Lucifer

According to Bank of America strategists A.Shah and A.Moss, Bitcoin's growing correlation with gold shows that the leading cryptocurrency, once again, can be seen by investors as a relatively safe haven. According to Kaiko Research, the correlation between the two assets reached ~0.4 earlier this month which is its highest level in 12 months. BoA's report also mentions that selling pressure should ease as investors are transferring tokens from exchange wallets to personnal wallets (Decrypt | Kaiko | CoinTelehraph).

The Crypto Story

Bloomberg has devoted an entire issue in which columnist Matt Levine is explaining crypto in great detail. It should definitely be on your weekend reading list if you want to learn more about cryptos (Bloomberg).

The bird is freed

Elon Musk has finally closed the deal to buy Twitter at the original price of $54.20 a share that is a whopping $44 billion acquisition after months of drama. Indeed, last April Twitter accepted Musk's proposal to buy the social media service before the world's richest man decided to terminate the deal alleging that the company failed to disclose the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform which led to Twitter suing him. Crypto Exchange Binance confirmed that it had wired $500m in order to be an equity investor in Musk's takeover (CNBC).

Hail to the Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak will become Britain's prime minister after winning the race to lead the Conservative Party. Sunak will face a difficult task as he takes over during one of the most turbulent eras in British political history with 3 Prime Ministers and 4 Finance Ministers in a few months. He is expected to cut spending in order to rebuild Britain's fiscal reputation following the infamous "mini-budget" (Reuters). Sunak is also known to be the architect of the UK's crypto-friendly campaign with a plan to make UK a global crypto hub (Bloomberg | Politico).

What's to come

Interest rate decision for BoJ (today), FED (02-Nov), RBA (01-Nov) & BoE (03-Nov); Inflation data for France, Italy, Germany, US (today) & EU (31-Oct); GDP data for Spain, German (today) & Italy, EU (31-Oct); Manufacturing PMI for China (31-Oct) & US (01-Nov); Unemployment data for New Zealand (01-Nov), Germany (02-Nov); Non-Manufacturing PMI for US (03-Nov)

Interest rate decision for BoJ (today), FED (02-Nov), RBA (01-Nov) & BoE (03-Nov); Inflation data for France, Italy, Germany, US (today) & EU (31-Oct); GDP data for Spain, German (today) & Italy, EU (31-Oct); Manufacturing PMI for China (31-Oct) & US (01-Nov); Unemployment data for New Zealand (01-Nov), Germany (02-Nov); Non-Manufacturing PMI for US (03-Nov)