Bullish Insights Weekly Market Recap

The Bullish Insights Weekly Market Recap includes curated industry news and analysis from the Bullish team for the week of October 2, 2023.

Bullish exchange

This week’s peak exchange trade volume (24h): $891,831,978 (32,244 BTC) on October 4, 2023.

This week’s headlines

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opposed Coinbase's request to the U.S. District Court for a complete dismissal of the lawsuit between the two entities, according to a recent court filing. Coinbase argues that the SEC has not sufficiently identified transactions as securities purchases or sales, reflecting the ongoing debate over what constitutes a security in the crypto space.
• On 3 October, District Court Judge Analisa Torres rejected the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) attempt to appeal its case against Ripple Labs. Judge Torres had previously ruled on 13 July that Ripple did not violate federal securities law when selling its XRP token on public exchanges.
• Ripple has been granted a license to operate as a major payment institution by Singapore's central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). This follows an in-principle approval received in June and allows Ripple's local entity, Ripple Markets APAC Pte Ltd, to continue its operations in Singapore, according to an Oct. 4 statement from the company.
• The decentralized social media application Stars Arena has triggered a significant surge in activity on Avalanche’s C-Chain network, resulting in an over 8% increase in the price of the network's native AVAX token in the last 24 hours. Launched in late September, Stars Arena, inspired by Friend.tech, has contributed to a more than 186% growth in the total number of daily transactions on the Avalanche C-Chain.
• Jaynti Kanani, one of the Polygon co-founders’ has announced he will be stepping down and has changed his Twitter profile to “Previously, founder @Polygon.”
• CMCC Global has launched the Titan Fund to invest in early-stage blockchain startups focusing on infrastructure, fintech, and consumer applications like gaming, metaverse, and NFTs. Yen Shiau Sin will lead the fund’s operations.
• Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis has made a 15% cut to its workforce, equating to approximately 135 employees, due to the ongoing bearish conditions in the crypto market. This is the second round of layoffs this year, as the company continues to focus on growing efficiently and reducing expenses.
• Grayscale Investments and NYSE Arca have filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to convert the Grayscale Ethereum Trust, the world's largest ether investment product with nearly $5 billion in assets, into a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Equity markets

• US equity markets closed on a mixed note in Monday’s session with the utilities sector underperforming. The S&P 500 saw little change, the Dow was down by 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite rose by 0.7%.
• Bond yields rose to a multi-year high spiking above 4.8% for the first time since August 2007, driving down major US indexes in Tuesday’s session. Specifically, tech firms, rate sensitive banks and companies that derive revenue from consumer discretionary sectors bore major losses. The S&P 500 fell by 1.4%, the Dow was down by 1.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite dipped by 1.9%.
• Wednesday’s session saw a recovery in US equity markets as Treasury yields pushed lower following the week’s earlier intense sell off in government bonds. The S&P 500 rose by 0.8%, the Dow was up by 0.8%, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed by 1.4%.

Crypto market highlights

• The number of Bitcoin on exchanges has been trending downwards since March 2020. This figure has dropped to levels last seen since December 2017. Generally speaking this is a positive signal for Bitcoin as less coins on exchanges means the less impetus for selling behavior.
• Last week, for the second consecutive week, digital asset investment products saw another round of inflows at $125mn. Bitcoin saw majority of inflows of $123mn, Ethereum saw minor inflows of $2.7mn and short bitcoin also saw outflows of $0.9mn. Other alts like Cardano, Ripple and Litecoin saw inflows of $0.9mn, $0.4mn and $0.3mn respectively. By region, Germany and Canada saw the bulk of inflows at $64.8mn and $34.7mn respectively. Sweden and Brazil saw the largest outflows by region of $3.1mn and $2.2mn respectively.
• Bitcoin dominance rose to 50.6 on 05/10/2023.

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