CPI Falls To 5.0% With May Rate Hike Still In Contention; More Than 500K $ETH Awaits Exit As Shapella Upgrade Goes Live

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Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

• Headline CPI declines while core inflation continues to move up (more in Macro & TradFi)
• Ethereum Shapella Upgrade is now live; DeFi insurer Nexus Mutual to lawyer up if Euler hack claimants fail to return payout (more in DeFi & CeFi)
• A recent surge in social activity for Avalanche could signal an upcoming price movement (more in On-Chain)
• Near-term IV crashed after CPI print; ETH volume spiked from near-term call options (more in Crypto Derivatives)
• BTC trades sideways while ETH forms a double top post-Shapella Upgrade (more in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

According to data from the Labor Department, US inflation fell from 6% in February to 5% in March, marking its lowest level in nearly two years. The decline was driven by decreases in prices for groceries, gasoline, medical care, and utilities. However, core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food categories, increased from 5.5% in February to 5.6% last month. The Consumer Price Index rose by 0.1% in March. As a result, the Fed is now seen as more likely to raise interest rates again in May to combat the continuing elevated level of inflation.

Meanwhile, SoftBank Group has reportedly sold $7.2 billion worth of Alibaba shares this year through prepaid forward contracts, which will reduce its stake in the Chinese tech giant to just 3.8%. SoftBank, which had a 34% stake at one point after Alibaba's US IPO in 2014, is now selling its shares at a price comparable to when it bought them. Alibaba's US-traded shares fell nearly 6% on Wednesday following the report. SoftBank is seeking to improve its financial situation after taking massive losses in its tech-company investments in recent years.

Lastly, major US indices ended lower due to the news about the potential further rate hike. Specifically, the S&P 500, DJIA, and NASDAQ all experienced declines of -0.42%, -0.12%, and -0.86%, respectively. The 2-year and 10-year Treasury yields both slightly decreased, with the former currently at 3.966% and the latter at 3.399%.

DeFi & CeFi

• Ethereum Shapella upgrade goes live, over 22K $ETH has been withdrawn
• Layer 1 blockchain Sei raises another $50M led by Bitget and Foresight Ventures after announcing a 30M round raise yesterday
• HashKey Group launches $HSK, EcoPoints tokens aim to incentivize contributors in its ecosystem
• DeFi insurer Nexus Mutual demands $2M in refund from Euler hack claimants
• Solana announces product launch event for its Web3 mobile phone Sage on 13 April at 5pm UTC
• zkSync Era attracts over $200M in deposits since its deployment while Polygon zkEVM underwhelms
• $TUSD goes live on BNB Chain as a native token
• PancakeSwap launches on Ethereum, powered by LayerZero’s OFT (Omnichain Fungible Tokens)
• Sybil Samurai to launch an automated airdrop farming protocol

Ethereum's Shanghai hard fork, also referred to as “Shapella” has been completed, allowing users who have staked their ether (ETH) to secure and validate transactions on the blockchain to withdraw their funds. This upgrade marks a historic milestone as it completes Ethereum's multi-year transition to a full proof-of-stake network. Since the launch of the Beacon Chain in December 2020, over 18 million ETH has been staked, about 15% of the total ETH supply. About 1.1 million accrued ETH from rewards is now eligible to be immediately withdrawn, and entities facing financial pressure such as Celsius Network and Kraken may add additional selling pressure. As of now, over 38K ETH has been withdrawn, and 592K ETH is waiting for full exit. More on this in the on-chain segment.

If you want to learn more about the conditions of ETH staking after the Shanghai upgrade, you can check out our outlook on Treehouse Academy.

Elsewhere, Nexus Mutual, a crypto insurer that covers high-risk DeFi deposits, may consider legal action against policyholders who filed claims for losses from the recent Euler Finance hack but didn't pay back the insurance project. Euler suffered a $200 million hack last month, but the culprit returned nearly all the money, and Nexus Mutual covered losses for people who ended up not actually having losses. Five clients who filed claims for their losses owe the insurer about $2 million, and while four have returned some $380,000 in various cryptocurrencies, one policyholder has traded away the 200 ETH (over $380,000) they owe to Nexus Mutual. If necessary, Nexus Mutual's DAO members may engage legal counsel to pursue the remaining claims.

On-Chain

According to data from @Santiment, there has been a recent increase in social activity and positive sentiment surrounding AVAX, which is the native token of the Avalanche blockchain. It's worth noting that the weekly discussion rate of AVAX has jumped by 292% since 12 March 2023. This increase occurred while the price of AVAX remained relatively stable when compared to BTC and ETH. Nevertheless, this trend could be a leading indicator of future price movement, which retail investors may pick up on in the near future.

According to data from @parsec, there are currently 18,536 validators waiting to fully exit their staked ETH. This is a significant increase from 12 April 2023 with only 3,579 exits prior to the Shanghai Upgrade, as reported by @glassnode. The total amount of ETH that will be withdrawn is 594,016 which is 3.1% of the total staked ETH. However, the amount of full withdrawals processed each day is limited by the churn rate, and only about 57,600 ETH could be unlocked daily.

It's worth noting that validators could have already initiated a voluntary exit before the Shanghai upgrade and be queued forward to receive their staked ETH. Since these new exits were initiated after the upgrade, it suggests that these validators may not be in a rush to sell their positions. Instead, they might be exploring other staking methods or providers, such as Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSDs).

Crypto Derivatives

• BTC and ETH funding rates remain positive
• 30-day ATM IVs for BTC and ETH decreased to 52.07% and 56.54% respectively
• 30-day 25 delta call skew for BTC and ETH falls to 2.60% and 0.04%

Top 3 CEX USDT perp funding rate arbitrage based on last 24-hour lookback:

The futures market experienced $116.07M in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with long liquidations accounting for the majority at $74.29M.

In the options market, the term structure for BTC has reverted back to contango as the near-term IV crashed after the CPI print, which was largely in line with expectations. The ETH call skew continues to fall after the Shapella upgrade and currently sits near neutral at 0.04%. The variance risk premium (VRP) hit its YTD all-time high for ETH on Monday at 29.18, as IV rose in anticipation of Shapella. Currently, VRP has crashed after the CPI print and Shapella upgrade, with BTC premium sitting at 17.15%, while ETH premium sitting at 22.96%.

On the flow side, ETH options saw a large increase in volume leading up to the Shapella upgrade. Calls were in control during this time as the put-call volume ratio fell and hit 0.42. Notable trades for ETH include the front-end topside buying with 5.75K contracts of 21 Apr 2K calls and 5K contracts of 28 Apr 2K calls as traders eye the psychological level of $2K. Another noteworthy trade is the 5.25K contracts of 26 May 2.2K calls being sold.

For BTC, some traders used the opportunity of elevated near-term IV to buy a call calendar of 975 contracts of 28 Apr 30K / 26 May 30K (@tradeparadigm).

Finally, the VIX remained unchanged at 19.09.

Crypto Technical Analysis

On the TA front, the Shapella upgrade did not have a material impact on BTC price with it trading in a tight range between $29.8K and 30.4K. Zooming into the 1H timeframe, we can also observe a small near-horizontal channel that was formed around the $30K psychological resistance zone. RSI has come down slightly but remains elevated at 69.2 for the 4H timeframe. As a result, a clear breakout from this range remains to be the key determinant of the short term price movement as it could indicate a reversal vs further upside to the $31K level.

Turning to ETH, the Shapella upgrade did not provide a sufficient change in the fundamentals as price continues to respect technical indicators. In anticipation of the upgrade, price moved toward the $1.92K resistance. However, as the upgrade completes, ETH did not see a clear breakout and has formed a double-top reversal pattern since then. As such, ETH could re-test the lower trendline at approximately $1.86K before potentially falling further to the $1.83K support zone.

Access institutional-grade commentary on TradFi × Crypto markets

By Treehouse Research

Read Past Issues

Daily Readings

TradFi

• France wants independence, will stay 'strong and reliable' US ally, finance minister says

• Trump accuses France's Macron of pandering to China

• Credit Suisse rescue package rejected by Swiss parliament

• EU says Broadcom's proposed VMware deal could restrict competition

• Sovereign debtors, creditors agree on steps to jumpstart debt restructurings

• U.S. government posts $378 billion deficit in March

• Bank of Canada holds rates, strikes hawkish tone as recession fears fade

• G7 finance leaders pledge financial stability, supply chain diversity

• Exclusive: Kenya expects $1.2 billion Q2 financing boost, seeks fresh IMF funds

• Zambia reforms could go to waste if restructuring delayed further -Treasury Secretary

• Japan, France and India to launch platform to coordinate Sri Lanka debt

• US consumer prices rise moderately; underlying inflation too hot

• BOJ to continue monetary easing to achieve inflation target

• Asia likely to grow 5% faster than developed economies by year-end - Morgan Stanley

Crypto

• Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade Is Complete, Starting New Era of Staking Withdrawals.

• Blockchain Financial Services Firm Paxos Sets Withdrawal From Canada.

• DeFi Insurer Nexus Mutual Demands $2M Refund From Euler Hack Claimants. One User Traded it Anyway.

• New Privacy Blockchain Namada Proposes First-Ever Shielded Airdrop to Zcash.

• Texas Senate Passes Bill to Limit Bitcoin Miners' Participation in Demand Response Programs.

• Crypto Exchange FTX Could Reopen, Its Attorney Says; Firm’s FTT Token Surges.

• Wisdom Tree, T. Rowe Price Among TradFi Firms to Test Avalanche's Blockchain Subnet.

• SushiSwap to Launch Claims Website for Vested SUSHI Tokens.

• Alameda to Be Repaid $53M Deltec Loan, Delaware Bankruptcy Court Rules.

• Euler Finance Lets Users Redeem Recovered Funds Following $200M Theft.

• Argentina’s National Securities Commission Approves Bitcoin Futures.

• Stablecoins Need to Be Regulated Like Commercial Bank Money, Bank of England's Andrew Bailey Says.

• Chainalysis and Calgary police launch cryptocurrency investigation center.

• Blockchain Association files brief in Tornado Cash case.

• Swiss court gives green light for FTX to sell its European arm.

• $TUSD Launches on BNB Chain as a Native Token

• PancakeSwap Launches $CAKE on Ethereum

Yours sincerely,
Treehouse Research 🌳