Q9 Weekly | Into High Alt-itude
9 November 2023
· Alt-coins rally, BTC dominance falls
· Grayscale’s Chainlink Trust trading at 200% premium
· Crypto funds see highest inflows since 2021
As has been the case in previous bull runs, Bitcoin leads, Ethereum follows, then everything else takes off. This time is no different. This week saw major alt-coins posting double-digit gains with Chainlink (+33%), Polygon (+29.6%), Ethereum (+17.8%) and Cardano (+14%) as star performers.
The chart below shows how the alts market is heating up. It shows the spread between Deribit’s ETH DVOL and BTC DVOL indices — DVOL represents options-implied expectations for price turbulence over 30 days. The spread has narrowed to -0.6 from -11.6, a sign investor focus has shifted from market leader Bitcoin to Ether and other alternative cryptocurrencies.
Source: Amberdata
This trend can also be seen in the fall of Bitcoin’s dominance vs everything else as alt-coins rallied this week.
Bitcoin Dominance Falls, 1 Week
Source: TradingView
Chainlink Unlinked
Grayscale Chainlink Trust is trading at a 200% premium to spot prices, suggesting institutional demand. The trust is one of the only ways for institutional investors to gain exposure to LINK tokens through a regulated product.
Source: @ChainlinkGod
The LINK token continues to strengthen as professional traders and enterprise solution clients enter Chainlink’s ecosystem. The impressive price surge seems to be driven by expectations of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and initial signs of institutional adoption.
Funds Up
Crypto funds have had their best run of inflows since the 2021 crypto bull market as investors keep piling into the market. Investment vehicles holding cryptocurrencies saw $261mn of net inflows last week, recording six consecutive weeks of positive influx totalling $767mn inflows.
Source: CoinShares
Deal or No Deal
However, one sides of the crypto market is still way down. Crypto fundraising continued to trend downwards in October, with just over 100 deals investing ~$500mn.
Source: Messari
The overall downward trend of deal count and dollar volume from the start of 2023 go hand-in-hand with smaller average deal sizes as well. In October, the average deal size was around $5mn on average.
Maybe its easy to see why with some of the previous deals done in this space…
In the News…
· Post-FTX, Bitcoin is ready for its next chapter
· U.S. Treasuries spearhead tokenization boom
· Hong Kong considers allowing retail access to spot crypto ETFs
· 70% crypto yields are back with DeFi becoming a hot spot for leverage again
· Kraken building its own Layer-2 blockchain network
· HSBC plans custody service for non-crypto digital assets
· Robinhood to expand crypto trading into EU, plans to start UK brokerage
· AI platform Ritual looks to ‘decentralize access to AI’ with $25mn backing
· ‘Shrapnel’ game studio Neon Machine raises $20mn led by Polychain
· Layer2 Station, creating insights on L2 ETH, has raised $12mn, led by Uniswap
· Coinbase blocked in Kazakhstan for breaking new digital assets law
· The crypto ATM business is somehow still booming
· Bored Ape crypto fans report ‘eye burn’ after Hong Kong party
