1. Wen’ ETF

On October 16, 2023, a fake news report circulated on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had approved a spot Bitcoin ETF from BlackRock. The report was quickly debunked by both the SEC and BlackRock, but not before causing a significant spike in Bitcoin’s price. The fake news report caused Bitcoin’s price to surge by as much as 7% in a matter of minutes. The price spike was likely due to traders buying Bitcoin on the expectation that the SEC’s approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF would lead to increased demand for the cryptocurrency.

As a result, the GBTC NAV narrowed to -16%, reaching levels not seen since 2021. At this point the odds of the SEC approving a Bitcoin spot ETF seeing they didn’t appeal the case they lost to Grayscale back in August. The window for appealing closed last Friday. From what we saw happen during the fake ETF news, three things are certain. The first is that there’s lots of capital on the sidelines, the market is pretty illiquid at the moment and prices will go up when a real ETF gets approved.

2. Top 70

SBF is currently ongoing trial as a result of the collapse of FTX almost a year ago. I’m not a legal expert, hence will refrain from commenting on the matter, whether he’s innocent or not, or how many years he’d serve. I’m learning how legal proceedings work in real-time. Will stick to where I’m quite knowledgeable in — on-chain analysis.

FTT the token for the defunct FTX exchange is still averaging $100m in weekly volumes.

What’s amusing is that most of this happened on Binance — which allegedly put FTX out of business. Ranking by volume, FTX would be in the top 70. This is a testament to how most of this industry is still a joke. FTT should be trading at zero. But what do I know?

3. To Ape or Not to Ape

On the back of the fake ETF news we heard earlier this week, the price has finally traded above the STH RP. The STH RP is considered a bull/bear market indicator. Just to back up a little, Short Term Holders (STH) are described as holders who have held their coins for less than 5 months (155 days). Statistically speaking, this cohort of investors is more prone to selling as their cost basis is usually close to the market price. They are usually price-sensitive. The price above the STH RP is bullish at least in the short to medium term, while the price below it is bearish.

An after-effect of the price swings we saw was liquidations averaging $165m in minutes. It also caused a wipeout on OI. But we have also seen an upward price movement, with BTC being up +7% WoW. The second move upwards appears to be spot-driven as OI is yet to reclaim levels before the wipeout, yet the price has.

4. New read

Last week, I published a new research piece where I discussed Circle’s CCTP and how it could become a standard for USDC cross-chain transfers.

In this piece:

🎯 I start ✍️ by discussing what CCTP is, why it is important and its benefits such as security, efficiency, and accessibility.

🎯 Compared CCTP to traditional cross-chain bridges, through the lens of security, reliability and user experience.

🎯 Explored the native burning🔥 and minting mechanism, which is at the heart of CCTP.

🎯 Discussed use cases 🔧 for CCTP such as cross-chain payments 💸, DeFi, and NFT trading 💱.

🎯 Closed out ✍️ by exploring the future of CCTP and how it could become the standard for cross-chain USDC transfers.

Below is a summary, but you can read the full article here.