Fear Around Deutsche Bank Emerges; zkSync - The First zkEVM Chain To Go Live on Mainnet

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Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

• The fear over the banks’ stabilities has spread to Deutsche Bank (more in Macro & TradFi)
• zkSync Era launches on mainnet, major DeFi protocols are expected to join the zkEVM chain (more in DeFi & CeFi)
• Bitcoin UTXO age bands show inflection point between short-term buyers and long-term holders (more in On-Chain)
• RV fell to the 60s for both BTC and ETH; ETH skew flips to put premium (more in Crypto Derivatives)
• BTC bounced back from the historical trendline and ETH saw a broadening pattern amidst the volatile market conditions (more in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

Following the Credit Suisse default, investors heavily sold Deutsche Bank shares on Friday, causing them to close with an 8.5% decline. The move led to an increase in the cost of credit-default swaps to insure against Deutsche Bank's default to the highest level since 2020. Deutsche Bank's AT1 bonds also fell to 70 cents on the dollar, causing concerns about its stability. Despite years of government retrenchment, Deutsche Bank remains a globally significant bank with a major presence on Wall Street. However, some analysts believe that Deutsche Bank's profitability and lower interest rate risks than some US regional banks make it less likely to be the next Credit Suisse.

In an interview on Sunday, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis CEO Neel Kashkari warned that smaller banks exposed to long-date Treasury bonds could indicate an impending recession. Although Kashkari said the banking system is resilient and sound, he noted that capital markets had been largely closed for weeks. The US is also considering expanding the Federal Reserve emergency lending facility for banks to give troubled First Republic Bank more time to shore up its balance sheet.

Major equity indices were relatively flat in the last trading session, with the SPX, DJIA, and NASDAQ up by 0.56%, 0.41%, and 0.31%, respectively. Treasury yields decreased slightly, with the 2-year and 10-year Treasury yields dropping significantly on Friday but rebounding since then to 3.799% and 3.378%, respectively.

DeFi & CeFi

• Euler Finance exploiter returns 51K stolen $ETH, $EUL price soars
• zkSync launches ‘Era’ public mainnet to all users, the first zkEVM live on mainnet
• ZetaChain launches free testnet bridge for crosschain token swap
• Mysten Labs to buy $96M in shares and token warrants back from FTX
• Uniswap V3 set to launch on Avalanche chain ahead of license expiration
• Do Kwon appeals extended detention order issued over flight risk
• Yuga Labs' Otherside metaverse sees over 7,200 Voyagers on second trip
• Crypto users speculate on LayerZero airdrop as token symbol $ZRO is observed in their code
• Chinese state-owned banks offer banking services to crypto firms in Hong Kong

Matter Labs has launched zkSync Era, a zero-knowledge proof roll-up scaling solution for Ethereum, making it the first Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible zk-Rollup to launch on mainnet. The network has been in development for four years and has undergone extensive testing and audits, costing $3.8 million. Currently, the zkSync Era mainnet is available to users and is expected to scale up as demand requires, offering faster and cheaper transactions. Some unique features of zkSync Era’s architecture include Native Account Abstraction, LLVM compiler and Data Compression.

Up to 50 projects are expected to go live soon on zkSync Era, including blue-chip DeFi players like Uniswap, Sushi, Maker, and Curve, among others. While some speculation on social media suggested the possibility of a token airdrop, Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski said there are no current plans for a token launch as the team is focused on further developing the protocol. However, Crypto Twitter traders have started sharing strategies for getting in early on potential zkSync airdrops, even though there are no guarantees of such rewards and scammers often use airdrops to deceive users.

Elsewhere, Chinese state-owned banks have been offering banking services to crypto firms in Hong Kong, a sign that the city's push to become a major digital asset center has backing from Beijing, even though crypto trading has been banned in mainland China for over a year. The Hong Kong arms of Bank of Communications Co., Bank of China Ltd. and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank are those insiders named. The olive branch from Chinese lenders is notable as major banks have shunned the sector and faced difficulties securing normal banking services. Even though banking for crypto businesses can be challenging as its anonymous nature has been a major red flag for traditional banks, digital asset firms are finding various workarounds to meet operational banking needs.

On-Chain

For on-chain, Bitcoin UTXO age bands signal a rapid decrease in coins stored in the 6-18 month period, representing an undervalued market where accumulation is underway. This decrease happens because coins are shifted to older age bands or circulated in the supply, making their lifetime start from one day. The shift in coins to younger age bands indicates that some people are accumulating them as a future investment, especially when there is a noticeable increase in young age bands a few months before the start of a new bull market (@cryptoquant).

Crypto Derivatives

• BTC and ETH funding rates fall
• 30-day ATM IVs decrease to 59.96% and 60.80% for BTC and ETH respectively
• 30-day 25 delta call skew decrease to 1.77% for BTC while ETH flips to put skew at -1.33%

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

The total liquidations for futures in the last 72 hours amounted to $262.66M, with longs contributing $168.56M.