Hong Kong To Allow Legal Trading For Large-Cap Tokens With Strict KYC Procedures; Amazon Sees Slowdown In Cloud Computing Business

28 Apr 2023, Friday

3:13 AM

Hong Kong To Allow Legal Trading For Large-Cap Tokens With Strict KYC Procedures; Amazon Sees Slowdown In Cloud Computing Business

BTC

ETH

S&P Futures 500

$29,586.00

$1,914.25

$4,148.00

(+0.93%)

 (-0.58%)

(+1.68%)

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

GM Treehouser 🌳

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March 2023 Market Recap

Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

  • US economy grew slower than expected; Amazon warns of cloud computing growth slowdown (more in Macro & TradFi)
  • Hong Kong SFC to release crypto exchange license guidelines in May; Lens Protocol introduces optimistic L3 scaling solution (more in DeFi & CeFi)
  • Bitcoin continues to outperform, while interest in altcoins is declining (more in On-Chain)
  • Term structures return to contango; BTC bulls looking to profit from end-of-month contract (more in Crypto Derivatives)
  • Bullish momentum observe in both BTC and ETH as they approach their respective resistance zones (more in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

The US economy grew by 1.1% in the first quarter, below economists' expectations of 1.9% and a significant slowdown from the previous quarter's 2.6% growth. While consumer spending remained strong, business investment and housing purchases declined, causing a decrease in GDP growth. Many experts predict that the economy will slow down further, leading to a recession in the second half of the year as the Federal Reserve attempts to lower inflation.

Amazon.com has reported a rise in revenue and profit in its cloud-computing division in the first quarter, helped by strong sales and cost cuts. However, on a conference call, executives revealed that revenue growth in cloud computing had slowed in April. AWS growth is predicted to fall to single digits as companies seek to trim technology costs, and the unit is now less profitable than it was a year ago. To adjust to slowing sales growth, Amazon has been streamlining its businesses, cutting 27,000 jobs, with the latest round of layoffs mostly affecting employees of the cloud unit. Despite the cloud slowdown, Amazon's core e-commerce business has also seen growth slow since the pandemic-era boom. The company is relying on the more profitable business of selling services and advertising to independent merchants who rent space on Amazon's website and in its warehouses. Amazon saw a jump of almost 12% before erasing the gains after the conference call.

Onto US market performances, Nasdaq lead the charge as the US stock market saw strong gains following stronger-than-expected results from Meta Platforms. The S&P 500 rose by 1.95%, the DJIA gained 1.57%, and the Nasdaq Composite up by 2.42%. However, treasuries fell after the release of economic data, with the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rising to 3.486% from 3.429% the previous day. The two-year yield also jumped to 4.017% from 3.924%.

DeFi & CeFi

  • Lens Protocol introduces Bonsai, an optimistic L3 scaling solution
  • Hong Kong SFC to release crypto exchange license guidelines in May
  • HKIEF Hong Kong Innovative Encryption Fund: Hong Kong to establish VASP licensing system and implement dual license regulation
  • NEAR ecosystem DEX Veax goes live on mainnet
  • Google Cloud boosts Web3 presence with Polygon partnership
  • Arbitrum teams up with AltLayer in Layer 3 push
  • Rocket Pool adoption surges after Atlas upgrade
  • LayerZero usage triples after Arbitrum airdrop
  • Robinhood launches fiat-to-crypto on-ramp for self-custody wallets and DApps
  • US House committees hear similar testimonies in simultaneous hearings on digital assets
  • California county approves blockchain-based digital wallet for government services

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) is set to release guidelines on the licensing regime for virtual-asset exchanges in May, according to CEO Julia Leung. The new licensing regime will allow retail investors to trade major tokens such as Bitcoin and Ether, provided safeguards like knowledge tests, risk profiles, and reasonable limits on exposure are put in place. The move is part of the city's efforts to develop a digital-asset center and enhance its role as a financial hub. The regulator's consultation process for the regulatory framework received over 150 responses, and the new licensing regime is set to launch on 1 June. This policy shift contrasts with the US's crackdown on crypto.

Lens Protocol has launched Bonsai, an Optimistic L3 scaling solution that processes transactions at hyper-scale and is aimed at supporting the next generation of web3 social users. Bonsai will process Polygon transactions off-chain to achieve hyperscale and reduce costs, without compressing transactions into L1. Instead, transactions will be sent and stored on a data availability layer. The solution is intended to maintain decentralization while offering user-friendly features of traditional social networks. The closed beta version of Bonsai is now available for Lens developers, with Lens Protocol working alongside Bundlr Network and Arweave Eco teams to ensure scalability by providing data availability guarantees.

On-Chain

Bitcoin's trading volume has once again risen above $30B per day as the price fluctuates between $27.4k and $30.2k. According to on-chain data from @santiment, Bitcoin has continued to outperform other major altcoins like ETH, BNB, and XRP, while interest in altcoins is declining due to their underperforming prices compared to the top cap asset of crypto.

@Glassnode's analysis of Bitcoin Ancient Supply Spending shows that only 4.25M coins have reached the status of Ancient Supply (7+ years old) since its inception. Out of those, only 356K coins have been spent, which is equivalent to 8.3% of the all-time ancient supply total. The remaining 3.9M coins (91.7%) are assessed to be dormant or lost. These ancient coins are typically owned by HODLers who are experienced in market cycles or lost, as they are not commonly spent due to their infrequent usage. This suggests that long-term investors have a strong conviction in the asset's value, and the limited supply available for trading may contribute to increased price volatility during periods of high demand.

Crypto Derivatives

  • BTC and ETH funding rates remain positive
  • 30-day ATM IV fell to 50.86% and 51.81% for BTC and ETH respectively
  • 30-day 25-delta skew fell to 1.89% for BTC while flipping to put premium for ETH at -0.6%

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

Net Annualized APR

Perp (USDT pair)

Long on

Short On

22.27%

BNB

OKX

BINANCE

13.48%

BTC

DYDX

BYBIT

12.63%

LTC

OKX

BYBIT

Source: @CexyArbBot Telegram

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

2) CEX observed include Binance, Bybit, OKX & DYDX

@CexyArbBot allows you to customize CEX, 100+ pairs & lookback periods combo

The futures market saw $113.9M in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with equal amounts of shorts and longs.

In the options market, BTC and ETH reverted back to contango as the near-term IV came down. Despite this, the 7-day realized volatility (RV) for BTC and ETH remained elevated above the 60s, while the 7-day IV came down to hover around the 50s after the prices stabilized following the flash crash. As a result, the risk premium went more negative, currently sitting at -10.71% and -11.71% for BTC and ETH respectively.

On the flow side, traders are speculating on the 28 Apr end-of-month BTC contracts, as the daily volume on it has reached 5.1K contracts. Calls are mainly concentrated around the ATM $29K strike and OTM $30K strike, whereas puts are concentrated around the ATM $29K strike.

On the open interest front, the bulls were in favor of profiting with significant calls ranging from $23K - $28K already in the green. If BTC managed to push past the $30K psychological level, it would add another 4.72K contracts into profit. As for the bears, they were caught off-guard with the majority of puts placed below $28K.

Noteworthy trades include the selling of 325 contracts of BTC 28 Apr 30K calls and the buying of far-dated OTM 150 contracts of BTC 29 Dec 50K calls (@tradeparadigm).

Finally, the VIX fell by 9.61% to 17.03.

Crypto Technical Analysis

On the TA front, the crypto market retained the bullish momentum yesterday with BTC having six consecutive green candles on the 4H timeframe, resulting in a 6.5% gain in just 24 hours. BTC has broken through resistance at $28.8K and is hovering around the previous swing high at $29.8K. On the 1H timeframe, a rising triangle pattern has formed, with a trendline formed by the local higher lows and resistance indicating that the market is expecting a large price swing in the near future. The RSI has remained relatively flat, currently sitting at 58.6 on the 4H timeframe.

Onto ETH, upward momentum continues as ETH moved toward a strong resistance zone at roughly $1.93K, which has been tested five times in the past month. If ETH breaks this level, there are no clear resistances until the previous local high at roughly $2.12K, representing over 10% potential returns. However, a reversal to the downside will likely move ETH back toward the support zone at $1.83K. The RSI has continued to move sideways and is currently at 55.3 for the 4H timeframe.

Access institutional-grade commentary on TradFi × Crypto markets

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