Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins!
0. Overview:
The US dollar rises, US Treasuries fall, US stocks fall, and gold falls. The US dollar continues to drain global capital, but Bitcoin still moves sideways and volatility continues to decline. According to Glassnode, week volatility is only higher than the trading days with 4.8% amplitude; month volatility is only higher than the trading days with 9.8% amplitude. At the same time, futures and options trading volumes for Bitcoin and Ethereum have also dropped to historical lows. In addition, in the futures market, the put/call trading volume and open interest are at historical lows, meaning the market is dominated by bullish sentiment.
On Friday, the SEC issued a statement that it has not approved a Bitcoin spot ETF. It will solicit public feedback and discuss it. Unlike the previous direct refusal, this shows a shift in attitude toward being more positive.
China is expected to take the lead in mediating the Russia-Ukraine talks, which will damage the credibility of the US dollar. Wagner threatens Poland and intends to expand the war to Central and Western Europe, increasing geopolitical risk and making non-sovereign assets more attractive.
Contents
1. Global macro data
2. Macro news and Crypto news
2.1 International political and economic trends
2.2 Crypto policies and progress in various countries and sectors
2.3 Crypto news & events
3. On-chain data and market indicators
4. Commentary on BTC & ETH and market outlook
4.1 BTC narrative commentary and market outlook
4.2 Commentary on ETH progress and market outlook
5. Track and project analysis
5.1 Selected 30 and ratings
5.2 Revenue Top 20 projects
1. Global macro data
After a pullback, US Treasury yields strongly rebounded. Treasuries continue to be sold off, further widening the yield spread between the US dollar and non-USD currencies. This benefits the US dollar “sucking in” global capital and maintains the US dollar’s position. The US Dollar Index continues to rebound and has broken above last week’s high. Gold keeps falling, and crude oil continues to rebound to new highs.
US stocks have been down for two consecutive weeks, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a new downtrend has started. More likely, the market is constructing a large top formation—after a strong rally, it’s hard to form a downtrend immediately.
Not continuing to maintain extremely low-amplitude sideways oscillation. But USDT ended its upward trend; this week, it actually decreased by 500 million units.
2. Macro news and Crypto news
2.1 International political and economic trends
On the 10th, the US released CPI of 3.2%, below the expected 3.3% and above the prior value of 3.0%. On the 11th, PPI was released at 0.3%, versus the expected 0.2% and the prior value of 0.0%.【The US intentionally releases contradictory data to put the market into a contradiction, helping it manipulate market sentiment.】
In the second quarter report, Bridgewater increased holdings of China asset ETFs, as well as NIO and PDD, while reduced holdings of US stock assets. Soros is shorting the US stock index. However, as US stocks have fallen over the past two weeks, the increase in long positions in stock index futures has started to exceed short positions.
China participated in the Saudi-hosted Ukraine-Russia peace summit. Ukraine did not object to China’s position. A phone call between the foreign ministers of China and Russia took place, and Russia agreed with China’s statement.【China is expected to take the lead in mediating the Russia-Ukraine talks, and the US’s international image will be harmed, affecting US credit and US Treasury bond auctions.】
Wagner claims it will attack Poland, and Poland has reinforced troops along the border with Poland and Belarus.【Threatening European countries, using private forces to dismantle NATO, forcing Europe to break free from US control and cutting off foreign aid to Ukraine.】
CICC’s Li Zhao is bearish on US stocks and bullish on US Treasuries. Treasury yields may fall because CPI has declined from 9% to 3%. US Treasury yields are higher than the S&P 500, and sudden financial risks would reduce yields. Japan’s monetary policy and US Treasury auctions also affect things in the short term. Meanwhile, the US economy and labor market are starting to cool down.
2.2 Crypto policies and progress in various countries and sectors
The US SEC urged the public to provide comments on Ark 21Shares’ application for a Bitcoin spot ETF. The public comment period will accept proposals for three weeks. The SEC will respond within five weeks. The SEC stated four reasons for not approving this time: Bitcoin spot ETFs are easy to be manipulated; the CME futures market is not sufficient; the Bitcoin market itself is hard to resist manipulation; and whether the Coinbase protocol helps organize manipulation. 【Although the SEC continues to delay approving a spot ETF, unlike the previous direct rejection, this time it starts actively soliciting comments, indicating a change in attitude.】
The former chief of the SEC’s internet enforcement office tweeted that currently the SEC will not approve a Bitcoin spot ETF. If the Republican Party is elected in 2024, it will approve it and issue many favorable policies.
Europe’s first Bitcoin spot ETF is about to launch on the pan-European exchange in Amsterdam, with the ticker BCOIN.
Monetary Authority of Singapore: it will invest up to 150 million Singapore dollars over the next three years to promote fintech innovation generated by Web3.0, etc.
2.3 Crypto news & events
MakerDAO Dai Savings Rate (DSR) APY has been increased to 8%, higher than part of US Treasury yields. This is mainly because the DAI in circulation does not earn yield; raising the yield on deposited DAI improves the DAI deposit return. The strategy shared by 神鱼: first stake ETH to get baseline staking rewards via wstETH, then stake wstETH to mint DAI, deposit into the DSR to earn yield.
Base mainnet is officially live, with more than 100 dApps and service providers already available.
On August 9, Binance announced a strategic investment in AltLayer. AltLayer is a leading decentralized Rollups-as-a-Service (RaaS) provider for Web3 applications.
Curve incident: $73.5 million stolen, and 73% has been returned.
Fantom is exploring adding Optimistic rollups to connect to Ethereum in order to obtain more liquidity.
Rune launched a new swap, enabling native swaps between BTC, ETH, and other currencies—currently the only platform offering this.
3. On-chain data and market indicators
According to the Glassnode report, Bitcoin’s volatility has fallen to an unprecedented level, mainly shown as:
In the first week of August, the highest-lowest price spread was only 3.6%. Historically, only 4.8% of trading days had a lower intraday amplitude than this.
Over the past month, price volatility was only 9.8%; historically, only 2.8% of the trading weeks had an amplitude lower than this.
At the same time, trading volumes of Bitcoin and Ethereum futures and options have dropped to historical lows.
The arbitrage trading returns in the futures/spot market are only 6%, equivalent to US Treasury yields.
In 2021–22, implied volatility of options was mostly in the 60–100% range, whereas it is currently 24–52%.
In the futures market, the put/call volume and open interest ratios are at historical lows of 0.42–0.48, implying that the market is dominated by bullish sentiment.
With the current extremely low volatility, it means either Bitcoin has become a low-volatility asset, or its volatility has been severely underestimated.
After entering August, the Coinbase Premium Index turned from positive to negative, reaching a low of −0.166 (a new yearly low). It is currently −0.095, indicating Coinbase has selling pressure. Korea still remains at a positive premium.
Based on market options trading data, the 30-day implied volatility indicator BitVol is 36 and continues to hit a new yearly low. This suggests that a big move is not far off. This index is released by T3 Index (a financial index company) in collaboration with Bitcoin options trading platform LedgerX, reflecting the combined competitive behavior of options traders.
The 200-week moving average is $27,310; the realized price is $20,374; the current price is $29,284.
Ahr999 coin hoarding & x-index: 0.56 ＞0.45 and ＜1.2, indicating a DCA interval.
Crypto Fear & Greed Index: 49 → 54 → 50.
UTXO realized price distribution:
Divide the price from 0 to the maximum $67,600 into 100 parts. Each price bin is N±338 and is marked with the coin distribution corresponding to each price range.
This week, BTC has been oscillating narrowly around 29,400. Coin volume moved toward the $29,739 range: it increased by 158,700 coins, while coin-volume changes at other price levels were not significant. The largest coin volume is still stacked around the current-price area. All of this represents short-term active coins, suggesting that the short-term holders’ cost basis is basically consistent. A larger move is likely ahead.
Number of addresses with balance ＞1: as of August 13, it was 10.12733 million, and six days ago it was 10.1164 million—an increase of 109.3 thousand, continuing for four consecutive months, growing at this weekly rate.
BTC balance in CEX: decreased by 10,000 coins
According to CryptoQuant’s statistics across 38 datasets, on August 13 it was 2.0785 million, and on the 6th it was 2.0885 million—down by 100,000 coins.
Realized Market Value Ratio (MVRV) : 1.43 ＞1, meaning overall on-chain holdings are in profit of 43%.
Realized Market Value Ratio (MVRV) = Circulating Market Value (MV) / Realized Market Value (RV) (which can be viewed as the total market buy value). It reflects the overall on-chain profit/loss situation of all BTC. ＜1 indicates losses and extreme undervaluation; ＞3.7 indicates excessively high profits and the bull market bubble phase. The current value is ＞1 and ＜3.7, meaning it is in a reasonable profit range.
Network Unrealized Net Profit/Loss Ratio (NUPL): 0.3, meaning on-chain total profits exceed on-chain total losses by 30%.
Network Unrealized Net Profit/Loss Ratio (NUPL) = (total net unrealized profits on-chain − total net unrealized losses on-chain) / total market value. It is divided into 5 levels: ＜0, 0~0.25, 0.25~0.5, 0.5~0.75, 0.75~1, indicating the overall profit/loss condition across the chain.
Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR): the 7-day moving average is 1.003, indicating that this week on-chain movers are only in slight losses.
SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio) reflects the profit/loss status of on-chain transferred coins on a given day compared with the last transfer: ＞1 means selling at a profit, ＜1 means selling at a loss.
MVRV reflects the overall market profit/loss situation; NUPL reflects the difference between the total profit-makers and total loss-makers; SOPR reflects the profit/loss condition of sellers.
Estimated exchange leverage ratio for BTC: 0.26
Estimated leverage ratio is 「exchange open BTC contracts」 / 「BTC token reserves」, which represents the overall leverage of exchanges.
Contract funding rate: the 7-day average is 0.01; the current value is also 0.01. This is the highest level in a month, and the intention to go long at the bottom is strong.
Open interest: slightly increased
4. Commentary on BTC & ETH and market outlook
4.1 BTC narrative commentary and market outlook
With expectations of spot ETF approval on the 13th, on Tuesday the price surged by 30W, then pulled back to above 29,000. On Friday, the SEC released an announcement that it did not approve the spot ETF and would further solicit comments and discuss. However, the market price was unaffected and barely moved. By calculating it as an upside surprise, the failure to approve is not even a negative; it shows that market support at the current price level remains strong.
Continue to maintain the view from the previous two weeks: volatility has reached a historical low. The key support below is $28,450, which is the price center of the 3–5 month range and also the daily MA120 and the support trendline since the beginning of the year. As it has not effectively broken down below it, the daily uptrend has continued. The current pullback has the character of a short-term pullback that is building up momentum. Watch for when the short-term trend shifts from bearish to bullish.
4.2 ETH progress commentary and market outlook
Overall, ETH follows BTC, but is slightly weaker.
5. Track and project analysis
5.1 Selected 20 and ratings
Selected 20 projects as the target pool and used ratings to differentiate overall quality, as shown in the figure below. There is no obvious change this week.
GMX V2 finally went live on the mainnet, but due to the overall market’s lack of volatility, revenue in the derivatives track fell, causing GMX’s expectations to miss. It dropped sharply by 13% to near the previous low.
5.2 Revenue Top 20 projects
Crypto Fees on-chain revenue data
This week has no major highlights. MakerDAO’s DSR is attracting a lot of capital because the DAI deposit yield is as high as 6–8%.
