2024-01-02 12:27

Some investors have bought the "No side shares" of the prediction contract to hedge against potential delays in the SEC's approval of spot ETFs. Traders from the decentralized prediction platform Polymarket seem confident one or more exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that invest in bitcoin (BTC) will go live in the U.S. within two weeks. At press time, shares of the Yes side of the contract "Bitcoin ETF approved by Jan 15" changed hands at 89 cents, representing an 89% probability of the highly-anticipated event coming to fruition by the second half of the month. The probability has increased significantly from roughly 50% a month ago. Speculation about the imminent launch of the U.S.-based spot ETF gripped the market in early October. Since then, bitcoin has risen by over 55% to trade above $45,000, mainly on optimism that the impending ETFs would bring billions of dollars in investor money to the bitcoin market. Polymarket, which debuted in 2020, has emerged as one of the top prediction markets in recent years, allowing investors to take bets on various events. So far, traders have bet $437,394 on an ETF-dedicated prediction contract, which will settle to "Yes" if the SEC approves any ETF by Jan. 15. Per Reuters, the SEC could notify the current 14 spot ETF applicants as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday that they have the green light to launch ETFs in the following weeks. Some traders have bought shares of the No side of the contract to hedge against bullish exposure in the spot/futures market. Bitcoin's price may drop if the SEC delays the delays the expected ETF launch. "I'm buying No as an insurance against my Long positions. If the ETF will not be approved, the market will dump hard, but I will still make profits," one trader said in the comments section of the prediction contract. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/02/polymarket-traders-see-89-chance-of-sec-approving-spot-btc-etf-by-jan-15/

2024-01-02 10:29

U.S.-listed companies rode bitcoin's bullish momentum to show significant gains in pre-market trading, including COIN, MSTR, MARA and RIOT. Shares of prominent bitcoin-adjacent companies rose in pre-market trading on Tuesday as the world's largest cryptocurrency started 2024 by surpassing $45,000 for the first time in 21 months. Bitcoin (BTC) has added more than 7% in the last 24 hours to about $45,600, the highest level since the start of April 2022. U.S.-traded companies such as crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), software developer MicroStrategy (MSTR) – which owns a large number of bitcoin – and mining firms Marathon Digital (MARA) and Riot Blockchain (RIOT) rode the bullish momentum to show significant gains in pre-market trading. Coinbase is up 6.34% at $184.95 at the time of writing, while MicroStrategy is up over 9% at $689.84. Marathon and Riot both added more than 10%. Bitcoin's latest surge indicates ever-increasing anticipation of a spot BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) being listed in the U.S. A Reuters report on Dec. 30 suggested that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could notify ETF sponsors as early as Tuesday that their applications would be approved. Read More: BlackRock, Valkyrie Name Authorized Participants Including JPMorgan for Bitcoin ETF https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/02/bitcoin-related-companies-show-pre-market-gains-as-btc-nears-46k/

2024-01-02 09:41

Meme coin SEIYAN – apparently a cult term for holders of the SEI token – has gained 400% in the past week, serving as a proxy for the growth of the broader Sei ecosystem. The rise in popularity of EVM-compliant blockchains and the parallelization process is driving the growth of the Sei Network's SEI token, which has seen over 75% gains in the past week. The Sei Network, launched in August 2023, is a trading-focused blockchain backed by prominent investors and designed for speed, low fees and other features that support trading applications. On-chain metrics for the network are heating up, with the growth of ecosystem plays like SEIYAN and SEILOR tokens and an increase in SEI futures open interest indicating mounting interest in the network. The parallelized EVM narrative is seemingly favoring holders of Sei Network’s SEI tokens, which have yielded gains of more than 75% for buyers over the past week and were the best-performers on the first day of 2024. EVM, short for Ethereum Virtual Machine, is a virtual computer where all smart contracts and Ethereum applications are deployed. An EVM-compliant blockchain is another network that can run such applications. Parallelization is a relatively new blockchain process that settles multiple transactions at the same time on the network. Sei Network launched in August as a trading-focused blockchain backed by prominent investors Jump Crypto and Multicoin Capital. It was designed with a focus on speed, low fees and other features tuned to support certain kinds of trading apps. The network's SEI tokens reached a $400 million capitalization within the first 24 hours after issuance, but gained little in the next few months as on-chain trading behavior remained subdued. However, the recent token trading frenzy in blockchains such as Solana and Avalanche is driving speculators to bet on blockchains other than Ethereum, the usual favorite, and networks such as Sei are benefiting. Data shows that on-chain metrics are rapidly heating up for Sei Network, favoring bullish bets on ecosystem plays in the short term. Meme coin SEIYAN – apparently a cult term for SEI holders – has gained 400% in the past week, serving as a proxy for the growth of the broader Sei ecosystem. As of Tuesday, there’s just over $5.5 million locked on Sei-based decentralized applications (dapps), with trading service Astroport holding more than 95% of that, data shows. Meanwhile, liquid staking protocol Kryptonite’s SEILOR tokens have gained 80% in the past 24 hours as users warm up to more fundamental plays. SEI futures open interest, or the number of unsettled contracts, increased to $228 million on Tuesday from $69 million at the start of December, suggesting a large jump in trading interest for the tokens. Hype for Sei Hype for Sei could be driven by a forthcoming update the developers say will make the network the fastest blockchain in the market while adding other features that let project developers deploy audited smart contracts from EVM-compatible networks and introduce parallelization. “Sei’s major upgrade is nearly code complete right now. Once audits are complete, this upgrade will be released in a public testnet in Q1 2024, and will get deployed to mainnet sometime in H1 2024,” a recent developer update stated. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/02/sei-network-emerges-as-latest-crypto-favorite-meme-coin-seiyan-leads-bets/

2024-01-02 07:52

Futures tracking the lesser-known token saw $68 million evaporate in leveraged bets in a 24-hour period. A relatively illiquid market and likely overleveraged trading positions pushed Tellor’s TRB token prices up over 250% in 24 hours on Saturday, only for the cryptocurrency to tumble and fall 70% since a lifetime peak set on Sunday. Tellor is a so-called oracle protocol that uses blockchain-based tools to fetch and share data among different networks. Its native cryptocurrency, TRB, is used to reward users and data providers who stake the coins to maintain network security. A rollercoaster session over the weekend saw TRB futures jump from the $180 level to as high as $737 on crypto exchange OKX, with spot prices on the exchange and Binance reaching $550. Traders likely placed overleveraged bets on prices rising even further but were caught offside as a liquidation cascade began – jolting prices by over 70% to trade near the $175 level. Data shows the entire price movement occurred over a roughly six-hour period. The price volatility culminated in nearly $40 million worth of shorts, or bets against, and $17 million in longs, or bets on higher prices, to be liquidated to set a record-high figure for TRB futures. Data tracked and cited by the on-chain analysis tool Lookonchain suggests a wallet linked to Tellor's development team may have transferred $2.4 million worth of the tokens to crypto exchange Coinbase – where the tokens were likely sold – contributing to the price fall. Despite the meltdown, TRB is still up more than 1,000% on a yearly basis – joining one of the top-performing bets of last year alongside Solana's SOL and Ethereum ecosystem tokens. However, chatter about TRB in crypto circles has remained relatively lower than popular tokens such as SOL, suggesting that most of its volumes and trading interest arose from a smaller pool of traders. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/02/wild-trading-session-sees-tellors-trb-token-slide-from-720-to-180-in-hours/

2024-01-02 06:27

Data tracked by Matrixport show global average perpetual funding rates rose to a record 66% annualized early Monday. Holding long positions or leveraged bullish bets in the perpetual futures market tied to bitcoin became costlier than ever early Monday as bitcoin topped $45,000 for the first time since April 2022. Data tracked by crypto services provider Matrixport show global average perpetual funding rates rose to a record 66% annualized during the Asian trading hours. Perpetuals are futures with no expiry that use the funding rate mechanism to keep prices for perpetuals in sync with the cryptocurrency's going market price. Positive funding rates mean perpetuals are trading at a premium to the spot price, and longs are paying shorts to keep their positions open. Negative rates indicate otherwise. Exchanges collect funding rates every eight hours. "This morning, the funding rate is reaching a new high at+66%. This means longs pay shorts 66% per year to stay long," Matrixport's head of Research and strategy and 10x Research's founder Markus Thielen, said. The chart shows that the funding rate has remained elevated throughout the year-end holiday season, indicating a bullish mood in the market. "Surprisingly, the bitcoin funding rate has remained elevated during the holiday period, indicating that crypto traders have stayed very bullish and expect an imminent bitcoin ETF approval," Thielen noted. Note that super-high funding rates often become a burden for longs when the market stops moving higher, leading to the unwinding of bullish bets and price pullback. As of writing, bitcoin shows no signs of bullish exhaustion, with prices trading above $45,000. The cryptocurrency rallied over 56% in the final quarter of 2023 as speculation gripped the market that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would approve one or more spot-based BTC exchange-traded funds (ETF). Per Reuters, the decision may come as soon as Tuesday. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/02/bitcoin-bullish-bets-costlier-than-ever-as-funding-rates-hit-record-66/

2024-01-02 00:53

Speculation has been growing that regulatory approval for a U.S.-based spot bitcoin ETF is coming this week. The bitcoin (BTC) price started 2024 on a roll, adding more than 7% in 24 hours to approach $46,000, the highest level since April 2022, in a strong start to the new year. As has been the case for the past several weeks, anticipation that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will greenlight a number of spot bitcoin ETFs appears to be the catalyst for the move higher. A Reuters report over the weekend suggested the regulatory agency could begin notifying ETF sponsors as soon as Tuesday that their applications were to be approved. Traditional-finance heavyweights such as BlackRock and VanEck are among the 13 companies in the race – and the move could fuel buying pressure for bitcoin in the coming months as the first regulated spot bitcoin product in the U.S., traders expect. Still, market commentators and analysts remain mixed on the impact of ETF approval. "Some analysts from cryptocurrency trading platforms believe that even if the ETF is approved, Bitcoin may not immediately experience a significant rally," Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, said in an email. "There are also some optimistic views, such as influential trader Scott Melker predicting that Bitcoin could surge to $54,000 in the next few days once the SEC approves the ETF. Matrixport predicts that BTC will rise to $50,000 within a month after passing the BTC spot ETF in January." Bitcoin burst through $45,000 and was trading recently at $45,707, according to CoinDesk Indices data. Meanwhile, broader crypto markets are on the move higher as well, with ether (ETH) ahead by 4% and solana (SOL) and avalanche (AVAX) up as much as 12%. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/01/02/bitcoin-begins-2024-with-a-push-toward-45k/