Cryptos: Great Hedge Against the Stock Market DeclineCME: Micro ETH Futures ( CME:MET1! ), Micro BTC Futures ( CME:MBT1! )
On March 29th, I published this trade idea: “Crypto Staged a Strong Comeback in Q1.” At the time, bitcoin was quoted $28,348, up $11,800 or +71.3% year-to-date. The main driver was flight-to-safety when a series of US bank failures shocked the financial markets.
On July 17th, I published a follow-up idea, “Crypto Bull Market Appears to Take Hold.” Bitcoin was closed at $30,146, up 1,798 or +6.3% since the first report.
While the 80%+ gain in the First Half had been remarkable, bitcoin was still 56.2% off its record high of $68,789. As price remerged above the critical $30K mark, investor confidence returned. I suggested that bitcoin would continue to rise.
Last Saturday, spot bitcoin price was settled at $34,090. The leading cryptocurrency is up $17,542, or +106.0% YTD in 2023. Current price is 20.3% higher since I wrote the first idea, and up 13.1% further since I published the 2nd report.
Ethereum, the other leading crypto currency, closed at 1,801 on Sunday, up 50.5% YTD.
Key Drivers for Crypto’s Recent Rises
In my opinion, the rising bitcoin prices could be attributed to the following:
Firstly, strong law enforcement helps investor regain trust in cryptocurrencies.
For a long time, bad actors found ways to steal investor’s money, even though the sector was built on blockchain technologies designed to safeguard crypto assets. This year, the SEC fined Binance, the largest crypto Exchange. Public trial of the founder of FTX, the defunct second largest Exchange, sent strong signals of investor protection.
Secondly, crypto market benefits from investors rotating assets out of stocks.
In the First Half, the S&P 500 was up 15% while the Nasdaq rose 38%. However, the boom in market indexes was a mirage, rather than a real broad-based bull market.
The S&P did not behave like a well-diversified stock market index. The “Magnificent Seven”, which include Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon, represent 30% of the entire index and were up 60%, driven largely by the AI hype. At the same time, the remaining 493 companies were up only 3%. Altogether, the S&P 500 was up 15.8% as of June 15th. Similar phenomenon occurred at the Nasdaq index.
In previously writings, I reasoned with my readers that the US stock indexes could no longer carry the heavy weight of hundreds of mediocre stocks. Rising interest rates eventually caught up with them. An average company saw its market value decline as prescribed by the Discounted Cash Flow stock valuation method.
Since the Federal Reserve turned hawkish in recent weeks, investors became more pessimistic and began taking out stock market profits. On October 27th, the S&P closed at 4,117, a 10.3% drawdown from its yearly high of 4,589. The Nasdaq, at 12,643, was down 11.9% from 14,358. Both indexes are officially in the bear market territory.
Meanwhile, bitcoin was up 16.6% in the last three months. Trade volume data suggests that investors are putting money into cryptos.
• Coinbase market data shows that its bitcoin trading volume in October averaged $15.2 billion, up 35% from September and up 21% from Q3 average.
• The S&P 500 traded 3.8 billion shares per day in October, up only 2.8% from September and up just 1.1% from Q3 average.
Thirdly, the Israeli-Hamas conflict triggers a flight to safety. Investors moved money out of risky assets and into relatively safe assets, including gold, US dollar, and cryptos.
• Since October 6th, COMEX gold futures were up 10.2%. At $2,016 per troy ounce, this is the first market close above $2K in over five months.
• Dollar Index was last closed at 106.58, up 0.5% for the same period and up 3.0% YTD.
• Bitcoin was up 24.2% while Ether rose 9.4% since the Gaza War broke out.
Finally, growing expectations that the SEC will authorize exchange-traded funds investing directly in bitcoin pushed it up by more than 25% over the past two weeks. If materialized, this momentum could form the biggest price breakout in years for cryptos.
Trading with Micro BTC and ETH Futures
In my opinion, the above price drivers will run their courses in coming months, giving solid support for the crypto market. However, having a bullish view is easy, putting money on something already doubling in price is quite hard. In crypto investment, choosing the right instrument will make a big difference.
Neither the physical bitcoin nor the bitcoin ETFs offer any leverage. When price goes up, it will take a larger dollar increase to get the same investment return. For example, when bitcoin was trading at $20,000, a price hike of $10,000 represents a 50% return. When bitcoin rose to $40K, a 50% return will require $20K in price increase.
CME Micro BTC futures ( LSE:MBT ) provide leverage and capital efficiency. Contract notional is 1/10 of 1 BTC. Initial margin is $750. November contract was last settled on $3,409.5. At current price there is a 4.5 times leverage built in the contract, which is the ratio of 3,409.5 divided by 750. If futures price goes up 10% to 3,750.45, the price gain of 340.95 would be a 45.5% return, using the $750 initial margin as a cost base.
In my view, Ether has more room to grow comparing to Bitcoin. In the past five years, Ether price closely tracked that of Bitcoin. In 2023, Ether lagged Bitcoin performance. Its 50% YTD gain, while extraordinary, is just half the return Bitcoin managed to gain.
The ETF fund expectation has a direct impact on bitcoin, but also helps pull the entire crypto market up as it inspires investor enthusiasm. Ether’s lower price, at about 1/19th of a bitcoin, would be more attractive to value investors. At the end, if one crypto ETF is approved, there will be more. ETF funds on Ether could be next.
CME Micro Ether futures ( NYSE:MET ) provide leverage and capital efficiency. Contract notional is 1/10 of 1 ETH. Initial margin is $49. November contract was last settled on $179. At current price there is a 3.6 times leverage built in the contract, which is the ratio of 179 divided by 49. If futures price goes up 10% to 196.9, the price gain of 17.9 would be a 36.5% return, using the $49 initial margin as a cost base.
Warning: Cryptocurrencies and all financial instruments based on the value of cryptos are highly risky investment.
Happy Trading.
Disclaimers
*Trade ideas cited above are for illustration only, as an integral part of a case study to demonstrate the fundamental concepts in risk management under the market scenarios being discussed. They shall not be construed as investment recommendations or advice. Nor are they used to promote any specific products, or services.
CME Real-time Market Data help identify trading set-ups and express my market views. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs www.tradingview.com
ETH1! trade ideas
Ordinals Revive Bitcoin's Builder CultureVitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, said in the Twitter space that Ordinals marks the return of the builder culture. The Ordinals are bringing back a culture of actually doing things, and it feels like the Retineye movement is really hindered, which is good. Buterin also praised Ordinals and the BRC-20 token standard, which he sees as a rejection of stagnant politics in the bitcoin ecosystem.
Abstracted accounts will drive 1 billion users in Asia to Web3Abstract accounts, also known as "smart accounts," could eventually move 1 billion users in the Asian region to Web3, according to an executive at ethereum software solutions provider ConsenSys. Laura Shi, director of strategic initiatives at ConsenSys, said that the Ethereum and Web3 ecosystems have seen strong expansion in Asia this year. More dApps are improving user experience in Asian markets, including introducing Asian language support. This expansion is largely driven by the launch of the Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) and the mass adoption of Optimistic rollups.
A giant whale proposed 8166 ETH from Binance, and the winning raAccording to the monitoring of Ember, an analyst on the chain, the giant whale address with a 100% winning rate in swing trading ETH in the previous two months once again raised 8,166 ETH ($15.69 million) from Binance today.
Adding the 8,188 ETH ($15.26 million) raised yesterday, after transferring 31.89 million USDT to Binance, he has withdrawn 16,354 ETH ($30.96 million) from Binance, with an average cost price of $1,893.
Liquidity staking protocol Diva launches Diva DAO with initial dDecentralized liquidity staking protocol Diva launches Diva DAO with an initial distribution to approximately 15,000 unique Ethereum stakers and ecosystem participants. Diva DAO allows DIVA token holders to exercise their voting rights through entrustment and make on-chain decisions about the launch of the Diva protocol, including deploying Diva smart contracts, planning the Diva protocol by adjusting network parameters (if any), and promoting the Diva protocol. Currently, Diva's protocol design is still in progress, and Diva DAO aims to allow the community to participate in shaping Diva's operating framework.
As previously reported, Diva completed a $3.5 million seed round of financing in January this year, led by A&T Capital.
Lookonchain: Giant whales have recently increased their holdingsCoinworld reported that, according to Lookonchain monitoring, the whale 0xb28f spent 200 ETH (approximately $375,000) to buy 321,934 ARBs at a price of $1.16 two hours ago.
0xb28f once spent 300 ETH ($525,000) to buy 538,558 ARBs at $0.98 on June 10.
About 10 hours ago, another whale 0x79cc spent 1,058,665 USDC to buy 937,176 ARB at an average price of $1.13.
A giant whale suspected of shorting AAVE and ETH on AAVEAccording to Lookonchain monitoring, the anonymous giant whale address is suspected of shorting AAVE and ETH on the Aave platform. The address lent 339,448 USDC from Aave an hour ago, bought 5,091 AAVE at a price of $66.67, and deposited it into the Aave platform. Since April 6, the giant whale address has purchased a total of 35,672 AAVE (approximately $2.64 million), with an average purchase price of $73.92.
The giant whale exchanged 10,580 aEthAAVE for 284aEthwstETH, and currently holds a total of 25,091 AAVE (approximately US$1.67 million) on the Aave platform.
A smart money whale made $6 million buying stETH in the past 3 mCoin World reported that according to Lookonchain monitoring, a smart money whale earned US$6 million by purchasing stETH in the past 3 months. He bought 27,606 stETH at a price of US$1,629 from March 13 to March 15. 12,746 stETH were sold at a price of $1,937 on April 21. On June 15, 15,701 stETH were bought at a price of $1,671. 15,125 stETH were sold at a price of $1,724 on June 19.
Anonymous giant whale address withdraws 10,000 ETH from BinanceCoin World reported that according to Lookonchain monitoring, the anonymous giant whale address withdrew 10,000 ETH from Binance 40 minutes ago, which is about $1.73 million. This follows a total of 86,520 ETH (approximately $150 million) withdrawn from Binance and Kraken by 3 new wallets in the past week. The address starting with 0x5bA3 extracted 35,860 ETH from Binance and transferred it to the contract address; the address starting with 0x7c82 extracted 27,000 ETH from Binance; the address starting with 0x2c74 extracted 23,660 ETH from Kraken.
A giant whale is buying back stETHCoin World reported that according to Twitter user Ember Monitoring, the giant whale wallet 0xBoby1337 sold 3,728 stETH (approximately US$6.71 million) at a price of US$1,802 on June 10. He is gradually repurchasing stETH. At present, he has spent 4 million USDT to buy back 2343 stETH, with an average price of 1707 US dollars.
ETH1! Will Go Down! Short!
Here is our detailed technical review for ETH1!.
Time Frame: 1D
Current Trend: Bearish
Sentiment: Overbought (based on 7-period RSI)
Forecast: Bearish
The market is testing a major horizontal structure 1847.5.
Taking into consideration the structure & trend analysis, I believe that the market will reach 1600.0 level soon.
P.S
We determine oversold/overbought condition with RSI indicator.
When it drops below 30 - the market is considered to be oversold.
When it bounces above 70 - the market is considered to be overbought.
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Huang Licheng's 2 addresses spent 1442 ETH to purchase 14.1% of Coin World reported that according to Lookonchain monitoring, the two addresses of "Brother Moji" Huang Licheng spent a total of 1442 ETH (about 2.6 million US dollars) to purchase 9.42 million JIMBO, with an average price of 0.2763 US dollars, accounting for 14.1% of the total supply .
A bull market will follow ????Hello friends and good night
Ethereum
4 hours analysis
The first possibility: the two impulse patterns can be 1.2 and 1.2, and we are currently correcting the second impulse pattern (1.2), which will be corrected by 50 to 61.8% and the bull market will continue.
The second possibility: It is a flat pattern whose wave (C) has not yet been completed (impulse pattern) which will continue the downward trend until the price of $1000 and then the bull market will continue.
The third possibility: We are correcting the downward trend that a zigzag pattern has been completed and the bear market will continue until the price of $500 to $600, the bull market will begin.
Good luck and be patient in your dealings.
I appreciate your support.
I have considered these possibilities based on my personal experience. If there is a weakness in the analysis, it is because of my lack of experience, and please accept my apologies, guys.