Etiket: Venusbet

Since the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) cut rates by 50 basis points a week ago, the debate has been raging on whether the so-called easing represents the normalization of an overly tight monetary policy aimed at taming inflation or preparation for an impending economic swoon.

Risk assets, including pure fiat liquidity plays like bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins, have rallied since the Fed decision, a sign that markets perceive the rate cut as a normalization move. Some analysts foresee accelerated gains once bitcoin surpasses the $65,200 resistance.

However, at least three indicators point to an economic malaise ahead, suggesting caution on the part of the bulls. Perhaps, the Fed delivered an outsized rate cut, taking note of these forward-looking indicators.

The U.S. Household Survey, which tracks the unemployment rate across 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, showed that as of August, more than 57% of states experienced an increase in joblessness compared to the preceding month and the same period last year, according to data tracked by MacroMicro.

The fact that most states are witnessing an uptick in the unemployment rate means the risk of reduced income, consumer spending and investment, and a decline in business and consumer confidence in the months ahead, potentially leading to a marked economic slowdown, if not an outright recession (consecutive quarters of economic contraction). A slowdown could see investors scale back exposure to riskier investments.

“According to August’s analysis, 57.7% of U.S. states reported higher unemployment rates than the previous month and year. This points to increasing challenges in the labor market, possibly signaling a more widespread slowdown,” MacroMicro said on X.

Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) fell to 100.2 in August, falling to its lowest since October 2016. The index marked its sixth consecutive monthly decline, triggering a recession signal.

The LEI comprises several forward-looking indicators such as average weekly hours in manufacturing, average weekly initial claims for jobless insurance, ISM new orders index, stock prices and leading credit index. The index is widely tracked to identify shifts in economic trends and turning points in asset prices.

More concerning is the slide in the ratio between leading and lagging indicators to under 0.85, the lowest since at least the 1950s, according to data tracked by Jeff Weniger, head of equities at WisdomTree.

The plunge seen over the past several months points to a potential slowdown or recession, with lagging indicators catching up to the economic reality.

The ratio has seen eight similar meltdowns in the past, each portending a recession.

The ratio between prices for gold futures and brent crude futures has surged over 35% this year to nearly 40 points, the highest since 2020, according to data source MacroMicro.

Gold is a safe haven asset and an inflation hedge, while oil is tied to global demand and economic activity. Therefore, gold’s prolonged outperformance relative to oil is often taken to represent a sign of economic slowdown.

Guggenheim Treasury Services, a subsidiary of financial services giant Guggenheim Partners, has issued $20 million of tokenized commercial paper on the Ethereum blockchain, its partner, blockchain platform Zeconomy, announced Thursday.

A spokesperson for Guggenheim confirmed the transaction took place but would not comment further.

The tokenization comes weeks after German industrial giant Siemens AG issued digital commercial paper via megabank JPMorgan’s Onyx and blockchain platform SWIAT.

Tokenization of traditional financial instruments, referred to as real-world assets (RWA), has become one of the hottest areas in crypto for TradFi firms to dabble in lately. The niche has grown to a $12 billion market capitalization, including $2 billion of tokenized U.S. government securities, according to research firm RWA.XYZ.

“With tens of billions of dollars locked in DeFi and corporate treasuries, we are thrilled to partner with GTS to address a clear need for more trusted and secure blockchain solutions,” said Giacinto Cosenza, Zeconomy’s CEO, in a statement.

“As clearly demonstrated by the ETFs approval and the growth of the tokenization space, there is a massive demand for these digital assets, and we want to enable our partners so they can be at the forefront of what could be a transformative moment in the financial industry,” he said.

The commercial paper was rated P-1, the highest credit rating available for such instruments, by Moody’s Investors Service. Commercial paper is short-term (less than a year, usually 30 days), unsecured debt issued by corporations.

While RWA is a new direction for Guggenheim, which boasts a whopping $300 billion in assets under management (AUM), the global investment firm has previously participated in the crypto ecosystem.

The firm’s Macro Opportunities Funds has for years been authorized to take on up to 10% exposure to the former Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which in January converted into one of the spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF).

Ether (ETH) pushed past bitcoin (BTC) in daily gains as Token 2049, and Solana’s Breakpoint, two of the largest conferences in crypto, wrapped up in Singapore, but both of these tokens are relatively flat as the market stays stagnant.

ETH is up 2.6%, trading above $2,600, according to CoinDesk Indices data, while BTC is trading above $63,700, up 1.2%. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a measure of the performance of the largest digital assets, is flat, up less than 1%.

Data from CoinGlass shows that in the last 12 hours, slightly more short positions than longs have been liquidated, with $64.23 million in short positions and $54.42 million in longs being liquidated.

Trading is likely light in the aftermath of last week’s 50 basis points (bps) interest rate cut. BTC is up 9.5% in the last week while ETH is up over 16%. Polymarket bettors are confident that another rate cut is coming but are split as to the extent: 47% say it will be 50 bps, while 47% say it will be 25 bps.

Solana’s (SOL), which was the focus of the Breakpoint conference that took place immediately after Token 2049, is flat, trading above $145. During Breakpoint, many attendees were impressed with the announcements coming from the protocol, such as Jump Crypto’s validator going live.

Pendle, a portfolio company of Arthur Hayes’ fund Maelstrom, is down over 6.5%. Traders are likely spooked that Maelstrom has reduced its position in the project after Hayes spent a considerable amount of time promoting it on stage in Singapore.

For his part, Hayes said that they reduced their position in Pendle to get liquidity to fund “a special situation.”

“Those who monitor our wallets will get a glimpse as to what that is in the very near future,” he wrote on X.

Pendle is up over 24% on-week according to CoinGecko data.

Meanwhile, MOTHER, a memecoin promoted by music star Iggy Azalea is up 4.5% after she announced that the project was building a companion casino called Motherland.

MOTHER is one of the few celebrity memecoins that has managed to maintain its value. The token, however, mostly trades on decentralized exchanges (DEX) and is not available on any well-known centralized platforms. An addition of an online casino is sure to complicate the listing process on major centralized exchanges because of regulatory complexities.

Digital asset investment products experienced a second straight week of inflows, adding a net $321 million, according to crypto asset manager CoinShares.

CoinShares attributes the performance to the 50 basis-point interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve, the first time the U.S. central bank has reduced the cost of borrowing in four years.

Bitcoin (BTC)-linked products led the inflows with $284 million, while their ether (ETH) equivalents saw outflows of $29 million. This was the fifth consecutive week that ETH products registered outflows, even as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value led gains after the Fed move.

“This is due to persistent outflows from the incumbent Grayscale Trust and scant inflows from the newly issued ETFs,” CoinShares wrote on Monday.

Ether exchange-traded funds have consistently underperformed bitcoin ETFs since they listed in the U.S. in July. Their first five weeks of trading saw $500 million of outflows, while their BTC counterparts had experienced more than $5 billion of inflows during their first five weeks.

JPMorgan attributed the disparity to bitcoin’s “first mover advantage,” the lack of staking provision in ETH products and lower liquidity making them less appealing to institutional investors.

Cryptocurrencies that the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) deemed unregistered securities in last month’s lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance have posted double-digit percentage gains on the news of a favorable court ruling regarding Ripple’s XRP.

Solana’s (SOL), Polygon’s (MATIC), and Cardano’s (ADA) are all higher by roughly 15% in Wednesday afternoon action.

In the seminal U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) case filed in 2020 against blockchain platform Ripple, a U.S. District Court Judge in the Southern District of New York ruled Wednesday that the sale of Ripple’s XRP tokens on exchanges and through algorithms did not constitute investment contracts.

While it wasn’t a complete victory for Ripple – the judge also ruled that institutional sale of the tokens did violate federal securities laws – the news has sent XRP soaring by 54% in afternoon trade.

CoinDesk verilerine göre, Bitcoin (BTC) basın zamanından kısa bir süre önce 30.600 dolara düştü ve 13 ayın en yüksek seviyesi olan 31.500 dolardan geri çekilmenin bir kısmı ABD ADP özel istihdam raporunun 12:15 UTC’de patlak vermesinin ardından gerçekleşti.

ADP raporu, Haziran ayında 497.000 özel sektör işinin eklendiğini göstererek, piyasaları büyük ölçüde şaşırttı ve bu, 220.000 olan konsensüs tahmininin iki katından fazla. Veriler, Çalışma Bakanlığı’nın, 245.000 olan tahminin önünde geçen hafta 248.000 artan işsizlik maaşı başvuruları ile işgücü piyasasının mütevazı zayıflığını gösteren bir raporunu gölgede bıraktı.

Grafik platformu TradingView’e göre Hazine getirileri, ADP raporunun ardından erken yükselişini sürdürdü ve iki yıllık getiri yaklaşık 15 baz puan artarak 2006’dan bu yana en yüksek olan %5.118’e ulaştı. 10 yıllık getiri 11 baz puan artarak Mart ayından bu yana en yüksek seviyesi olan %4.05’e ulaştı.

İki yıllık not, kısa vadeli faiz oranı beklentilerine daha duyarlıdır. Yeni birkaç yılın en yüksek seviyelerine yükselmesi, tüccarların Fed’in faiz artırım kampanyasını genişlettiğini düşündüklerini gösteriyor. Gerçekten de, federal fon vadeli işlemleri tüccarları bu ay 25 baz puanlık bir faiz artırımı için %94 şans görüyor ve piyasalar şimdi yıl sonuna kadar üç ek faiz artırımı için %75’lik bir şans hesaba katıyor. Geçen ayki bir duraklamadan önce Fed, sözde sıkılaştırma döngüsünü Mart 2022’de başlattı ve o zamandan beri oranları 500 baz puan artırarak %5-%5,25 aralığına yükseltti. Daha sıkı para politikası, son 18 ayda kripto piyasalarındaki baygınlığın faktörleri arasında yer aldı.

Hisse senedi tüccarları, bu sabahki ADP haberlerine de olumsuz tepki verdi; S&P 500’e bağlı vadeli işlemler, yazının yazıldığı tarihte %0,9 işlem görüyor ve Nasdaq vadeli işlemleri %1,1 düştü. Altın, gün için %0,5 düşüşle ons başına 1.905 dolardan işlem gördü ve dolar endeksi erken kayıpları sildi ve gün içinde değişmeden 103,24’te işlem gördü.

New York Times’ın Perşembe günü bildirdiğine göre, NFL efsanesi Tom Brady’nin takas edilemez token (NFT) başlangıç ​​girişimi, geçen yıl boyunca ayı piyasasıyla ilgili mücadelelerin ardından stratejisini değiştiriyor.

Maliyesine aşina bir kişinin aktardığı rapora göre, şirketin geliri 2022’de dijital varlık piyasasındaki daha geniş gerilemenin ortasında düştü. Insider’ın Mayıs ayında bildirdiği ve Times’ın raporunda doğruladığı gibi, Autograph 50’den fazla çalışanı işten çıkardı.

Brady, ünlülerin hayranlarına NFT satmalarına yardımcı olmak amacıyla 2021’de Autograph’ı kurdu. Firma, geçen yılın başında B Serisi fonlamada 170 milyon dolar topladı. Ancak şirket şimdi, ünlülerin hayranlarıyla sadakatini artırmalarına yardımcı olmaya daha geniş bir odaklanmaya geçiyor ve Times’a göre pazarlamasından bazı kripto dillerini kaldırdı.

Tom Brady’nin kripto itibarı, artık iflas etmiş olan borsanın marka elçisi rolünün bir parçası olarak yaklaşık 30 milyon dolar değerinde hisse kabul ettiği FTX’i desteklemesinden darbe aldı. Brady ve eski eşi Gisele Bundchen ve basketbol yıldızı Stephen Curry gibi FTX’i destekleyen diğer ünlüler de FTX yatırımcıları tarafından kendilerini yanılttıkları iddiasıyla dava ediliyor.

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