🌳Conflict Between Hamas And Israel Escalates; HTX Recovers $8M Of Stolen Funds And Issues 250 ETH Bounty To Hacker

09 Oct 2023, Monday

2:41 AM

🌳Conflict Between Hamas And Israel Escalates; HTX Recovers $8M Of Stolen Funds And Issues 250 ETH Bounty To Hacker

BTC

ETH

S&P Futures 500

$27,814.75

$1,626.00

$4,310.00

(+1.31%)

 (+0.57%)

(+0.46%)

Note: All percentages shown above are referenced to the previous business work day's 09:00 (GMT+8)

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What We Are Covering Today

  • Conflict between Hamas and Israel escalates; China’s “Golden Week” only sees a 1.5% increase in holiday tourism revenue from pre-Covid levels in 2019 (More in Macro & TradFi)
  • HTX recovers $8M of stolen funds and issues 250 ETH bounty to hacker; Galxe protocol suffered DNS attack totalling $270K in losses (More in DeFi & CeFi)
  • Potential on-chain link between Kevin Pawlak, Head of OpenSea Ventures, and $60M AnubisDAO rug pull; Early holder of $BNB deposits 7K $BNB, equivalent to $1.48M, to Binance (More in On-Chain)
  • BTC's implied volatilities rise with job data; term structures show contango ahead of CPI (More in Crypto Derivatives)
  • BTC exhibits a triangular pattern while ETH might be breaking below its 100 and 200 period SMA (More in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

The ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel has escalated, with the death toll surpassing 1,100 as the fighting moves into the third day. This unprecedented conflict, initiated by an attack from Hamas outside the Gaza Strip, has led to over 700 Israeli and 400 Palestinian deaths, significantly destabilizing the region and affecting global markets. In response, the United States is mobilizing military support in the eastern Mediterranean. Financial markets have been reactive to these developments, with safe-haven currencies like the US dollar and Japanese yen strengthening amidst the geopolitical turmoil.

China's "Golden Week" holiday tourism revenue experienced a year-on-year surge, reaching 753.4B yuan ($103B USD), a modest 1.5% increase from the pre-Covid levels in 2019. While the number of travelers increased by 4.1% compared to 2019, and the country saw a substantial rebound from 2022 with a 71% rise in travel and a nearly 130% spike in spending, consumer sentiment remains cautious. The cautious spending is possibly attributed to concerns over income prospects amidst an uncertain labor market, with the per-tourist spending still 2% below 2019 levels. Nonetheless, experts also advise that the travel data alone is not a definitive indicator of improved consumer sentiment in the region.

Wall Street experienced a rebound on Friday with the S&P 500 and DJIA advancing 1.18% and 0.87% respectively. The Nasdaq 100 also jumped 1.60%, with large-cap tech names including Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia, powering the move as these stocks rose 2.47%, 1.48%, and 2.40% respectively. Meanwhile, in Asia, the Nikkei 225 dropped 0.26% and Hang Seng rose 1.58%.

DeFi & CeFi

  • HTX recovers $8M of stolen funds and issues 250 ETH bounty to hacker
  • Galxe protocol suffered DNS attack totalling $270K in losses
  • Stars Arena to re-open smart contract with Avalanche founder showing support
  • OpenSea’s dubious team member Kevin Pawlak under fire from @NFTethics
  • FTX hacker moved another $124M worth of $ETH to Bitcoin network
  • Solana's latest update brings native support for private blockchain transactions

Huobi Global's crypto exchange HTX has successfully retrieved the funds stolen by a hacker in late September, which totalled 5,000 ETH valued at around $8M. The exchange offered a 5% bounty, worth approximately $400K, to the hacker for returning 95% of the stolen funds before an October 2 deadline. HTX’s adviser Justin Sun confirmed the hacker’s returning of the funds and expressed gratitude to the industry for its assistance in resolving the issue.

In other news, Web3 community platform Galxe’s domain name security (DNS) system experienced a security breach on Oct 6, resulting in its website being offline for about an hour. Users were warned not to visit the domain until the situation was resolved as the exploit rerouted Galxe users to a phishing site. Reports indicate that funds were stolen from Galxe, and a wallet associated with the exploit continued to accumulate funds even after the website came back online. Just yesterday, Galxe released a statement detailing the timeline of events towards recovery, further specifying that a total of $270K had been stolen as of Oct 7, and that the platform was “fully recovered with enhanced security”.

On-Chain

Recent on-chain investigation from @lookonchain and claims by @NFTethics spotlight potential links between Kevin Pawlak, Head of OpenSea Ventures, and a wallet implicated in the $60M AnubisDAO rug pull. The wallet starting with "0xBB5B", which recently registered multiple .eth domains linked to Pawlak's name in October 2021, displayed transaction timings remarkably similar to those of sisyphus.eth. This includes near-simultaneous activities such as minting of Zorbs (ZORB) and registration of sismo.eth DAO (SDAO), and the coordinated claiming and selling of $ENS. These synchronous transactions, also confirmed by various sources including a ‘The Block’ journalist, raise suspicions that both wallets might be owned by Pawlak.

Recent on-chain data from @lookonchain reveals that an early holder of $BNB made a significant deposit of 7K $BNB, equivalent to $1.48M, to Binance today. This substantial deposit follows the early holder’s substantial profit accrual exceeding $54M on their $BNB holdings. This sequence of transactions implies a strategic offloading of assets, possibly indicating the holder’s anticipation of market shifts or a decision to realize profits amidst prevailing market conditions.

Crypto Derivatives

  • Funding rates remain positive for both BTC and ETH.
  • Deribit Implied Volatility Index (DVOL) for BTC and ETH remained relatively unchanged at 37.60% and 36.22% respectively.
  • 30-day 25-delta skew (C-P) for BTC remained at -0.64% while that of ETH dropped further to -5.12%.
  • The futures market witnessed $32.56M worth of liquidations yesterday, with longs representing 68.89% of the total.

Top 3 USDT Perpetual Funding Rate Arbitrage Opportunities

Net Annualized APR

Perp (USDT pair)

Long on

Short On

22.29%

ETH

OKX

dYdX

10.24%

DOGE

OKX

dYdX

8.37%

BTC

OKX

dYdX

Source: @CexyArbBot Telegram Bot

Notes:

1) Pairs observed include BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB, XRP, LTC, and DOGE vs. USDT perps. 

2) CEXs observed include Binance, Bybit, OKX & dYdX.

3) Lookback period is 24 hours.

Recent data reveals a notable shift in BTC's implied volatilities (IVs). The 7-day IV surged from 28.38% to 33.80%, while its 30-day counterpart rose from 31.80% to 33.30%. This upward trajectory aligns with the release of the US Nonfarm Payrolls, reporting an impressive 336K job additions in September, a marked improvement from the prior 227K.

Furthermore, term structures for both BTC and ETH consistently display contango. However, there is a slight uptick in the short-term IVs (spanning 4 days), signaling traders' heightened anticipation for the forthcoming US CPI data release on Thursday.

On the skew front, the 30-day 25-delta (C-P) for BTC hovered around -0.64% over the past weekend, maintaining its stability. In contrast, BTC's 7-day skew has risen, currently resting at -1.20%, edging towards a more neutral stance.

Lastly, as reported by @Paradigm, key option flows on Friday include the acquisition of a 1000x 29-Dec-23 23000/27000/31000 BTC Call Butterfly and a 437x 27-Oct-23 25000/23000 BTC put spread, both bought. On the ETH front, a sale of 2500x -1.00 27-Oct-23 1600 Puts combined with a purchase of 4.00 29-Dec-23 1300 Puts under a custom strategy was observed, along with the sale of 2500x 27-Oct-23 1700 ETH calls.

Crypto Technical Analysis

Turning to the realm of technical analysis, following a modest surge during the US trading hours last Friday, BTC has since maintained a relatively sideways trajectory throughout the weekend, hovering closely around the $28K mark. This level aligns with the resistance we observed in late August, accompanied by an RSI reading resting comfortably within the neutral zone at 52.35. Presently, BTC's price chart on the 4-hour timeframe reveals the formation of a triangular pattern, hinting at a potential escalation in volatility in the immediate future. If the bullish trend persists, the nearest resistance zone is situated between $28.8K and $28.9K, which previously served as a robust support area from late July to early August. Conversely, in the event of a downturn in volatility, a potential support level may emerge near $25.6K, indicating a potential 8% retracement.

Shifting our focus to ETH, it exhibits a relatively weaker trend when compared to BTC. Notably, Friday's upward momentum was thwarted upon encountering resistance at the 50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA). Furthermore, ETH's current price is threatening to breach the critical 100-day and 200-day SMA levels. Should this trend persist, the immediate support level to watch stands at $1.54K, marking the recent local low and representing a 5.5% downside potential. Conversely, should prices stage a recovery, the next resistance of significance lies at the $1.73K level, corresponding to the range highs.

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