OKX Reveals Proof Of Reserves; Tight Labor Market Figures Fail To Uplift Markets

GM Treehouser 🌳

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Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

• Labor market remains tight as US initial jobless claim drop to the lowest level since September (more in Macro & TradFi)
• MakerDAO votes in favor of keeping GUSD in its reserves; OKX proof-of-reserve shows $7.5B in clean assets (more in DeFi & CeFi)
• About 7.3K BTC flowed to exchanges from miner wallets in the past week (more in On-Chain)
• IV continues to fall for BTC and ETH and RV breaks its rising streak (more in Crypto Derivatives)
• BTC and ETH recover slightly but lack strength to reclaim lost ground (more in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

Asian stocks defied gravity as Hong Kong / China shares led the push to upside on the last trading day in these respective markets before CNY holidays set in; HSTECH trades more than 1% higher as of writing. Last night’s US initial jobless claim (190k actual vs 214k consensus) didn’t help tumbling stocks, although the economic data contradicted the recession narrative that sent markets lower in the first place. USD/JPY recovered almost all lost ground after Japanese CPI topped 4% revived bets on BOJ being forced to normalize monetary policies.

All three US indices traded lower; NASDAQ down 0.75%, SPX 0.63% and DOW 0.61%. US Treasury yields gave up some tightening from the previous day, trading around 2-4bps wider across the curve. Both oil benchmarks rebounded over 2%.

DeFi & CeFi

• MakerDAO votes to keep GUSD as reserves
• OKX publishes proof-of-reserve showing $7.5B in clean assets
• ZK tech developer Nil Foundation raises $22M
• Nexo is charged $45M for its Earn Interest Product (EIP)
• SSV launches $50M developer fund to support projects using their Distributed Validator Technology
• 20 South Koreans are charged with profiteering $170M worth of crypto from the kimchi premium
• Binance is named as a counterparty associated with Bizlato
• Trader Joe plans to bridge native token JOE once DEX is live on Arbitrum and BNB Chain

MakerDAO governance voting shows a split in the community as the votes were just marginally in favor for keeping GUSD as its reserve at 50.85% compared to the 49.15% for removing GUSD from its reserve. Gemini has avoided a near disaster as 85% (489M GUSD) of the circulating GUSD was held as reserve by MakerDAO.

OKX’s proof-of-reserve shows that their assets are overcollateralized with a reserve ratio of 105% for BTC, 105% for ETH and 101% for USDT. The term “clean assets” is used to describe crypto assets used in proof-of-reserve that is purely made up of high market-cap tokens, excluding the exchange native tokens. OKX’s reserves are 100% while Binance is 87% clean, Bitfinex is 70% clean and Huobi is 60% clean.

On-Chain

For on-chain data, the supply of BTC.b saw a huge jump above 5K in less than a week as users bridged native BTC to Avalanche network as BTC.b (@gfk_acid).

Meanwhile, there have been large BTC inflows to exchanges from miner wallets. There have been almost 7.3K $BTC sent to exchanges in the past week, which will have huge selling pressure on its current price. According to @jjcmoreno, most of these movements came from mining pool 1THash as it emptied its reserve.

Crypto Derivatives

• BTC and ETH funding rate remains positive
• 30-day ATM IV fell for both BTC & ETH to 53.0% and 64.5% respectively
• 30-day 25d call skew fell for both BTC & ETH to 0.99% and 0.35% respectively

For futures, total liquidations for the last 24hrs came in at $49.23M, with the majority coming from shorts at $29.42M.

On the options front, IV further fell across the curve as term structure remains in contango for both BTC and ETH. Near-dated IV saw a larger drop as compared to longer-dated IV with the weekend approaching. RV broke its week-long streak, falling to 61.23 for BTC and 72.20 for ETH. Variance risk premium slightly rose to 10.53% for BTC and to 10.82% for ETH.

On the flow front, most of the volume comes from long-dated options expiring on 30 June. On the ETH side, the most popular strategy is the bear call spread, as traders look to capture the next leg down.

Lastly, the VIX largely remained unchanged at 20.52.

Crypto Technical Analysis

Looking at TA, prices found support at $20.5K yesterday before moving back to reclaim $21K last night. Price action hit a wall at $21.1K in the morning as volume retreated. On the weekly timeframe, BTC continues to trade above its 20MA at $18,569.

ETH, on the other hand, found support at 1.5K before attempting to move higher again but stopping just short at the H4 20MA at $1,556. RSI on the H4 seems to normalize hovering near 50 since yesterday. On the weekly timeframe, ETH trades at 14.93% above the 20W MA at $1,345.

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Daily Readings

TradFi

• Japan's Dec core CPI rises 4.0% year/year

• Fed 'probing' for right rate level as prospects rise for 'soft landing'

• WeWork to cut about 300 global jobs as it pares back presence

• UK consumer mood slides back to near 50-year low - GfK

• Nordstrom cuts annual profit outlook as off-price Rack sales fall

• U.S. Treasury launches debt limit cash management measures

• South Korea Dec producer inflation slows for sixth month

• Wall St slips as labor market data fuels Fed worry

Crypto

• Paxos Courts MakerDAO With Paying Yield for Holding Up to $1.5B USDP Stablecoin.

• Crypto Lender Nexo to Pay $45M, Cease Offering EIP in Settlement With SEC.

• Huobi, Confirming Justin Sun as Leader, Takes Aim at 'Rat Trading'.

• Gemini’s Bitcoin Inflows From Other Exchanges Dropped to Roughly Six-Year Low, CryptoQuant Data Shows.

• NFT Marketplace Blur Delays Native Token Launch.

• China Launches Smart-Contract Functionality on Digital Yuan Through E-Commerce App Meituan.

• MakerDAO Votes to Keep Gemini USD in DAI Stablecoin’s Reserves.

• OKX declares $7.5B in liquid assets in proof-of-reserves report.

Deal Flow

• Tech Veteran-Backed Web3 Social Platform Plai Labs Raises $32M in Seed Round.

• Sports NFT Firm Candy Digital Raised Over $38M Amid Founder Strife.

• MoonPay acquires web3 creative studio Nightshift in its first deal

Yours sincerely,
Treehouse Research 🌳