Strengths
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Safe, rising 62.99%.
- Options traders are increasing bets that Bitcoin will reach a record high of $80,000 by the end of November no matter who wins the U.S. presidential election. The IV for Bitcoin options coming due around the November 5 election day is elevated, writes Bloomberg, with the wagers skewed toward call options that give the buyer the right to buy the cryptocurrency at new highs.
- Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones said he is long gold and Bitcoin in an interview with CNBC this week. He expects that the path forward will be inflationary regardless of who lands in the White House – though he has started positioning for a Trump victory, according to an article published by Bloomberg.
Weaknesses
- Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performer for the week was Aerodrome Finance, down 22.23%.
- Portofino Technologies, a Switzerland-based crypto market making firm that was given the nod earlier this year form the FCA to serve institutional crypto clients in the UK, has seen an exodus of staff in recent months, following the sacking of the firm’s co-founder and its head of finance, writes Bloomberg.
- India is considering banning cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in favor of its own central bank digital currency, according to Bloomberg, with key regulatory institutions advocating for the move. This comes as the government is preparing a discussion paper on the future of crypto regulation in the country.
Opportunities
- Bitcoin came close to $70,000 on Monday after a spurt of inflows into ETFs for the largest digital asset as well as optimism about the outlook for the U.S. regulation supported sentiment. Bitcoin rose 1% before paring some of gains to trade at $68,252, writes Bloomberg.
- Nimbus Capital is investing $10 million in Alvara Protocol to revolutionize asset management in Defi. Alvara is a transformative platform aimed at democratizing asset management within the DeFi space. Built on the newly developed ERC-7621 token standard, Alvara introduces an innovative tokenized basket factory that streamlines and simplifies basket management, making it more accessible for all users, writes Bloomberg.
- Crypto hedge fund managers JellyC and Trovio Asset Management have merged as part of an effort to attract allocations from institutions such as pension funds. Australia-based JellyC will be the majority shareholder of the combined operation, company executives said in interviews.
Threats
- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin continued his recent series of blog posts addressing Ethereum’s future in a new post which outlines possible approaches the blockchain’s community can take to mitigate proof-of-stake centralization risks as part of the planned “Scourge” upgrade, The Block reports.
- Last week’s roundup of crypto promoters and traders, following an elaborate string operation by federal prosecutors, served as a reminder that fake trades used to inflate prices continue to be a lingering issue in the digital asset world, Bloomberg reports. The wash trading strategy used to boost the FBI-created token NexFundAI remains a common practice on decentralized-finance exchanges and can be encountered on certain centralized exchanges as well.
- Valeria “Bitmama” Fedyakina, a Russian influencer, faces 10 years in prison for $22 million crypto fraud. Law enforcement previously suspected her of treason but recently charged her with economic crimes alone, writes Bloomberg. Fedyakina allegedly defrauded at least four Russian businessmen with a phony cross-border payment scheme.
