DefiLlama Weekend Drama Leads To Forked Website; UBS Ends Credit Suisse Crisis In An Acquisition Deal Worth Over $3B

GM Treehouser 🌳

Welcome to our Treehouse Daily newsletter, where Treehouse brings you financial news and insights free daily! We believe you’ll find this helpful.

In case you have missed it, check out our latest research piece 👇

Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

• UBS forced by the regulators into a $3B acquisition deal with Credit Suisse (more in Macro & TradFi)
• DefiLlama team clash over potential token launch, leading to forked platform (more in DeFi & CeFi)
• Bitcoin's approaching weekly close above multiple key price bands for the first time in 250 days (more in On-Chain)
• ETH flips to call skew; Backwardation on term structure steepens (more in Crypto Derivatives)
• Technicals indicates a large potential price movement for BTC while ETH might see a reversal trend from a double top (more in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

Swiss banking giant UBS have agreed to acquire Credit Suisse in a deal worth over $3 billion, spurred by Swiss regulators eager to avoid a decline in global banking system confidence. To support the deal, the Swiss government has pledged over $9 billion to backstop any losses incurred by UBS, and the Swiss National Bank has provided over $100 billion in liquidity. While UBS did not intend to buy out Credit Suisse, the acquisition eliminates its key rival and waives its monopolistic status.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Russia this week aims to strengthen ties between the two nations, even as he pitches Beijing's proposals for brokering an end to the war in Ukraine. As Russia becomes increasingly reliant on China to buy its natural gas and oil and help its economy, this week's summit highlights the continued importance of China's partnership with Russia. However, this risks further strains in Beijing's relations with the US, as the spiral of hostility emerged when the US shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon on Feb. 4 after it traveled through US airspace.

Lastly, major indices dipped on Friday, with NASDAQ, DJIA, and SPX down by -0.75%, -1.20%, and -1.11%, respectively. Treasury yields decreased significantly on Friday but have since slightly bounced back. As a result, 2-year and 10-year Treasury notes are currently at 3.93% and 3.493%, respectively.

DeFi & CeFi

• Polygon partners with Salesforce for NFT-based loyalty program
• Coinbase considers setting up non-US trading platform
• Cardano blockchain release new node version with Dynamic P2P networking functionality
• Web 3 identity platform SPACE ID announces $ID airdrop details
• Arbitrum-based lending platform Radiant Capital launches V2
• Euler Finance exploiter returns some $ETH back to Euler though full recovery remains unlikely
• Uniswap DAO approves V3 deployment on Avalanche
• MakerDAO plans to increase its exposure to US Treasuries
• Signum Digital obtains approval-in-principle for first security token platform in Hong Kong
• DefiLlama forked as team split over the future of its DeFi analytics dashboard

Over the weekend, DefiLlama, a decentralized finance analytics dashboard, was forked by one of its employees following a dispute over plans to launch a token without employee support. On March 19, 0xngmi, a pseudonymous developer at DefiLlama, said that the platform was "undergoing a hostile takeover," as the person with control of DefiLlama's web domain and Twitter had decided to launch a DefiLlama token despite objections from certain team members. This led to the creation of a new website, llama.fi, and a corresponding Twitter account, which has already amassed over 8,000 followers. Another pseudonymous co-founder of DefiLlama, 0xLlam4, has been confirmed as the sole person in control of the platform's web domain and Twitter account.

The rift between 0xLlam4 and 0xngmi stems from the project's lack of revenue, according to another pseudonymous DefiLlama contributor called Tendeeno. Despite objections raised, Tendeeno states that 0xLlam4 could announce a token launch at any time and essentially hold the team hostage. However, some Twitter users, including DeFi architect Andre Cronje, showed support for the co-founders, stating that they had been funding DefiLlama's expenses for years and trying to sustain the platform's operations. The situation highlights the challenges of governance in decentralized platforms.

On-Chain

For on-chain, Bitcoin is approaching an incredibly significant weekly close, as it's the first time in over 250 days that its price will close above several crucial price bands, including the short-term holder realized price, long-term holder realized price, adjusted realized price, and the 200-weekly moving average. For more than 250 days, Bitcoin has traded below most of these bands, which is a rare occurrence in history, partially caused by the FTX capitulation event. The fact that Bitcoin is now rising above these levels is highly significant and provides a bullish perspective for the next few weeks. If it falls back below these floor bands, it will serve as a clear point of invalidation (@cryptoquant).

Crypto Derivatives

• BTC and ETH funding rates remain positive at 0.01%
• 30-day ATM IVs increased to 69.21% and 69.17% for BTC and ETH respectively
• 30-day 25 delta skew turned to call premium for both BTC and ETH at 8.19% and 7.47%

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

For futures, total liquidations over the past 24 hours amount to $513.29M with the majority coming from shorts at $306M.

On the options front, backwardation steepens for both BTC and ETH as the IV rose across the curve with the near-term IV rising faster. Following BTC's recent demands in calls, ETH also has all its expiries skewed towards calls. 30-day call skew sits at 8.19% and 7.47% for BTC and ETH respectively. Variance risk premium remains negative for BTC while ETH recovers to a positive carry at 1.45%. Put-call open interest ratio fell significantly for BTC and ETH, falling from 0.56 to 0.50 and 0.38 to 0.34 respectively. It seems that the banking turmoil is acting as a form of fuel for crypto as evident from the bullish calls, a possible reason might be the traders' expectation of monetary easing with the banking sector experiencing liquidity problems.

On the flow side, BTC volume is mainly around the end of the week, 24 March which happens to be after the Fed’s interest-rate decision and the end of the month. As for ETH, it seems that the sentiment towards the long-term is very bullish with the call option volume being magnitudes larger than puts. Some notable trades are the 1K BTC contracts of 28 Apr 26K/40K call spread, 10K ETH contracts of 31 Mar 1.9K call being sold with another similar trade with 6K ETH contracts of 31 Mar 2K calls being bought.

Lastly, the VIX rose to 25.21.

Crypto Technical Analysis

On the TA front, BTC saw positive movement over the weekend. On Friday night, the upper trendline was broken, followed by multiple higher highs and higher lows that have formed since. This eliminates the possibility of a fakeout and confirms the bullish rally in BTC. On the daily chart, the next resistance remains at roughly $31K, indicating a potential 12% upside from the current level. At the 4H timeframe, a rising triangle has been formed in which BTC has been trading towards the end of it, potentially indicating a large movement in the near future. Lastly, RSI remains elevated at 70.2 and 66.1 for 1D and 4H, respectively.

Meanwhile, ETH has lagged behind BTC's movements over the weekend. On the daily chart, there has not been a clear break through the resistance level. On the 4H chart, ETH was rejected on the upper trendline over the weekend, and a double top has formed, potentially indicating a reversal. Going forward, it will be important to see if ETH bounces off the $1.77K resistance zone. If price dips further, the next support zone could be around $1.56K, representing a potential 12% downside. Lastly, RSI has normalized since the previous pump and currently sits at 62.0 and 53.7 for 1D and 4H, respectively.

Access institutional-grade commentary on TradFi × Crypto markets

By Treehouse Research

Read Past Issues

Daily Readings

TradFi

• UBS buys Credit Suisse for $3.2 billion as regulators look to shore up the global banking system.

• Credit Suisse says $17 billion debt worthless, angering bondholders

• Bank of England to start repo operations at 0815 GMT on Monday

• Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway speeds up stock buybacks

• Global central banks open daily dollar taps to help banks

• Silicon Valley Bank's parent company cut off from bank's records

• New York Community Bancorp unit to buy Signature Bank assets - FDIC

• Putin to welcome Xi Jinping to Moscow at critical moment

• Adani Group suspends work on $4.2 billion project in India's Gujarat, PTI reports

• World markets set for relief after Credit Suisse buyout, central banks action

• U.S. lawmakers to examine merits of higher bank deposit insurance cap

Crypto

• U.S. Banking Cutoff Presents Opportunities for Crypto in Europe.

• Venezuela overhauls national crypto department.

• DefiLlama forked as internal dispute unfolds.

• SBF shilled FTX risk model to FDIC chairman Gruenberg prior to collapse.

• Euler Finance hacker sends 100 ETH to red-flagged North Korean address.

• FTX debtors report $11.6B in claims, $4.8B in assets, with many crypto holdings ‘undetermined’

• Former Coinbase CTO makes $2M bet on Bitcoin’s performance.

• Binance’s response to U.S. Senators lacks financial information: Report.

• Date for FTX's auction of LedgerX revised for third time

• Bitcoin ATM maker General Bytes shuts down its cloud service after hacker identifies vulnerability

• Microsoft testing crypto wallet in its web browser Edge: Bleeping Computer

• SPACE ID Announces $ID Airdrop Details, Over 290K Addresses Eligible to Claim

• Arbitrum-based Lending Protocol Radiant Capital Launches V2

Yours sincerely,
Treehouse Research 🌳