🌳Meta's Threads Surpasses 30 Million Sign-Ups; Possible Exploit for Multichain on Fantom

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Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

• Positive economic data raises concerns of prolonged rate hikes; Meta's Threads surpasses 30 Million sign-ups (more in Macro & TradFi)
• Multichain MPC Bridge experiences outflows of more than $102M; $160M in BTC moved from Luna Foundation Guard wallet (more in DeFi & CeFi)
• Strong fee market for BTC miners thanks to BRC-20 standard; SHIB experiences surge in on-chain activity (more in On-Chain)
• BTC's elevated ATM IV, diverse trading structures underscore market's anticipation of future price volatility (more in Crypto Derivatives)
• BTC and ETH break through support levels; ETHBTC continues downward trend (more in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

Positive economic data is raising concerns that the Federal Reserve may maintain higher interest rates for an extended period to combat inflation. The 2-year Treasury yield climbed to 5.004%, from 4.949%, last exceeded in June 2007, while the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.04%, from 3.942%. ADP's employment report showed a significant increase of 497,000 private sector jobs in June, surpassing expectations. These robust job numbers indicate that the non-farm payrolls report releasing tomorrow may turn out stronger than expected, potentially signaling a resumption of the Fed's interest rate hikes.

Meanwhile, Meta introduced Threads, a text-based social network rivaling Twitter. Threads amassed over 30 million sign-ups within 16 hours of its launch, capitalizing on frustrations surrounding Twitter's recent limitations on daily post consumption. Threads resembles Twitter and is automatically linked to users' Instagram accounts. Notably, various alternatives to Twitter have emerged recently, including decentralized messaging app Mastodon and Bluesky, backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Thursday witnessed a sell-off in stocks and bonds following robust economic data, reinforcing expectations of future interest rate hikes. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both declined by 0.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 366 points, or 1.1%. All 11 sectors of the S&P 500 closed in negative territory.

DeFi & CeFi

• Wynd Network raised $1M in a pre-seed round led by No Limit Holdings and others
• Exploit concerns arise as Multichain MPC Bridge drained for over $102M
• $160M in Bitcoin moved from Luna Foundation Guard wallet
• Circle launches Wallet-as-a-Service developer platform
• Valkyrie refiles for Spot BTC ETF with Coinbase as surveillance partner
• MakerDAO’s $MKR Smart Burn Engine contracts goes live
• Layer 1 blockchain Conflux partners with Carry Protocol to enter the Korean market

On July 6, the Multichain's Fantom bridge on Ethereum witnessed withdrawals of over $102M along with $666,000 from Dogechain and $5M from Moonriver. Notably, the Fantom bridge's Ethereum smart contract experienced withdrawals of 7,214 WETH ($13.6M), 1,024 WBTC ($31M), and $58M worth of USDC, totaling approximately $102M. Moreover, the Dogechain bridge saw a withdrawal of $666,000, accounting for more than 86% of its deposits, leaving only $100,000 worth of assets. Additionally, $5,872,661 of USDC and USDT were withdrawn from the Moonriver bridge contracts, leaving only around $700,000 remaining. Several on-chain sleuths raised concerns about the event, suggesting it could potentially be an exploit. Peckshield, a blockchain security company, drew attention to the transactions on the Fantom bridge by tagging the Multichain team in a tweet, advising them to investigate the matter.

Elsewhere, an unidentified entity has transferred over $160M worth of BTC from a wallet linked to the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), an organization associated with Terraform Labs and its co-founder, Do Kwon. On July 3, 5,295 Bitcoin was moved from an LFG address to a separate wallet not directly connected to Terra. The wallet previously held approximately 6,983 BTC in October 2022, with various transactions dispersing funds to different addresses over the past nine months.

On-Chain

Bitcoin miners experienced a strong fee market in Q2 2023, earning $184M in user transaction fees out of a total of $2.4B earned during the quarter. This surpasses the combined fees earned in the previous five quarters, highlighting the significant turnaround in the fee market. The introduction of the BRC-20 token standard on Bitcoin has played a role in this resurgence, opening new possibilities for transaction types, and supporting the scalability of Bitcoin through the Lightning Network. While fee payouts have slowed in recent weeks, the impact of the token standard remains promising.

Shiba Inu, the second-largest meme coin, has experienced a surge in on-chain activity over the past month and a decline in token supply on exchanges, indicating a potential price recovery. The supply on exchanges has fallen to levels not seen since April 2021, suggesting lower selling pressure and increased accumulation. Daily active addresses have remained high, indicating growing demand and interest in the meme coin. Currently priced at $0.00000766, Shiba Inu faces resistance at $0.000008, with 57.6% of SHIB tokens held in wallets sitting on unrealized losses and less likely to be sold below that price level.

Crypto Derivatives

• Funding rates flipped to negative for BTC, but remains positive for ETH
• Deribit Implied Volatility Index (DVOL) is 48.17% and 45.80% for BTC and ETH respectively
• 30-day 25-delta skew (C-P) for BTC and ETH is at 2.62% and -1.83% respectively
• Over the last 24 hours, the futures market witnessed liquidations totaling $171M, with long positions comprising 66.6% of the overall liquidated positions.

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

The ATM IV for BTC remains elevated, and it has increased since yesterday. This rise in IV can be attributed to the spillover effects from the broad market downturn caused by rising concerns about the Fed rate hike.

The term structure for both BTC and ETH remains in contango. Mark IV has increased across all tenors as a result of the selloff in both BTC and ETH. The near-term IV (from 0 to 1 DTE) experienced a similar uptick as yesterday, driven by increased buying activity in short-term put options and approaching Friday option expirations. Notably, there has been active trading in July 25-delta Risk Reversals, indicating heightened market interest in these options as investors aim to manage their risk exposure in the current market conditions.

Analyzing the BTC Constant Maturity Skew (P-C) at 25 Delta, the 7-day skew fell significantly to 0.2%, while the 30-day skew has declined to -2.42%, extending its negative territory. This shift could imply that traders are rolling back on their Put options, reflecting a growing bullish sentiment for BTC over the medium-term.

The principal trading structures noted by @Paradigm for BTC in today's session involved the sale of 1,000x 29 Sep 23 $27K/$24K 1x2 Put Spreads (tied), the purchase of 312x 28 Jul 23 $30K / 25 Aug 23 $30K Call Calendars, the sale of 300x 29 Sep 23 $22K/$50K Bull Risk Reversals, the purchase of 250x 29-Dec-23 $35K/$45K Call “Stupids” (a position in which a trader is long two calls at two different strikes), and the purchase of 200x 8 Jul 23 $30K/$31K Bull Risk Reversals. These trades indicate the diverse strategies employed by traders in the current BTC market.

Crypto Technical Analysis

Yesterday, BTC spiked to the overhead resistance level at $31.45K before closing the day down by about 2%. As BTC trades in the bottom half of the range, the MACD indicates further downside potential after crossing over yesterday. However, the ADX provides a contrary bullish signal, with a moderately strong trend and the +DMI above the -DMI.

ETH also sold off by more than 3% yesterday. ETH quickly broke through the $1.9K support level and touched another minor support at $1.83K today. Currently, the MACD seems to be crossing over, indicating bearish momentum in the near-term, but the RSI is trading near the middle of range, suggesting a lack of directional bias. If ETH continues its move down, we could see it approach the upper trendline at $1.75K.

ETHBTC continues its downward trend after dropping by more than 1% yesterday. After breaking through the strong support level at 0.0625, the next support is near 0.06. Currently, the MACD and RSI provide conflicting signals: the MACD is trending upwards while the RSI is trending downwards.

Access institutional-grade commentary on TradFi × Crypto markets

By Treehouse Research

Read Past Issues

Daily Readings

TradFi

• Janet Yellen arrives in Beijing on mission to find common ground for U.S. and China.

• Bank of Japan deputy governor Uchida vows to keep yield control for now, Nikkei reports

• Deadline set by crypto’s Winklevoss looms for Genesis repayment deal

• Coty CEO says Gucci licence not under discussion for next five years

• Levi Strauss to cut prices as weak consumer spending hits outlook

• UK plans to reverse ban on EU-era securities rule, Bloomberg reports

• Meta's Threads swiftly signs up 30 million users, in clear threat to Musk-owned Twitter

• Chinese rush to buy Hong Kong insurance, dollars as confidence cracks, yuan weakens

• Why Japan is lagging behind in generative A.I. — and how it can create its own large language models.

• Goldman Sachs issues its verdict on generative A.I. and names top stocks to play it.

• South Korea wants to be a top A.I. hub — its memory chip dominance could be an advantage.

• Southeast Asia's IPO market is an investor favorite amid global headwinds, Deloitte says.

Crypto

• Kraken Co-Founder Jesse Powell Under Federal Investigation on Claims of Hacking, Cyberstalking Non-Profit.

• Taylor Swift Approved Sponsorship Deal With FTX, Despite Previous Reports: NYT.

• Binance Refers Dutch Users to Rival Coinmerce as It Exits Netherlands.

• EU Metaverse Strategy Set to Examine Privacy, Competition and Rights.

• Celsius, Ex-CEO Alex Mashinsky Broke CFTC Rules: Bloomberg.

• Circle Considers Issuing Stablecoin in Japan Under New Rules.

• Binance's top strategist confirms departure amid reports of US resignations.

• Tens of millions of dollars withdrawn from Multichain on Fantom in possible exploit

• Conflux Partners with Web3 Protocol Carry Protocol to Enter Korean Market

• Leveraged Strategies Protocol Stella Integrates with GMX

Deal Flow

• Wynd Network raised $1M in a pre-seed round led by No Limit Holdings and others

Yours sincerely,
Treehouse Research 🌳