Bitwise Weekly Crypto Market Compass #50 2024
Bitwise Europe (formerly ETC Group)
Crypto ETPs backed by Crypto Specialists
Key Takeaways
Performance
Last week, cryptoassets continued to outperform traditional assets, driven by a performance leadership in altcoins.
Bitcoin’s market cap dominance declined to slightly below 55% to the lowest relative level since July 2024 as altcoins continued to gain relative market share.
Nonetheless, net inflows into global Bitcoin ETPs were very resilient as global crypto ETP net inflows reached a new record high of above 4 billion USD last week.
This week, a major focus will be on Microsoft’s shareholder vote on whether to include Bitcoin as a corporate treasury asset. The final result of the vote is expected to be disclosed on the 10th of December. MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor has already presented in front of Microsoft’s board of directors.
However, Microsoft’s board had previously recommended that shareholders vote against this proposal, which makes an approval still relatively unlikely. In fact, a Polymarket bet estimates the probability that Microsoft’s shareholders will vote in favour of this proposal at only 12%.
Regardless of the outcome of this vote, global corporate treasury adoption of Bitcoin continues to grow substantially. For instance, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy has accelerated its purchases more recently and now holds more than 400k BTC on its balance sheet already (Chart-of-the-Week).
In a recent tweet over the weekend, he has indicated that MicroStrategy has recently extended its BTC holdings even more.
Generally speaking, based on data provided by bitcointreasuries.net, publicly-listed company holdings of BTC have grown from around 266k BTC at the end of 2023 to around 528k BTC – a growth rate of 98%. Meanwhile, BTC supply has only grown by approximately 0.9% this year.
Almost every week, there is a new company that announces BTC as its new treasury reserve asset and even Amazon’s shareholders have recently requested that the board assesses adding Bitcoin to the company’s treasury.
This is adding to the overall BTC supply shock which continues to intensify judging by the continuing decline in overall BTC exchange balances.
In general, among the top 10 crypto assets, TRON, Avalanche, and BNB were the relative outperformers.
Overall altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin has continued to be very high last week, with around 95% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum also outperformed Bitcoin significantly last week.
Sentiment
Our in-house “Cryptoasset Sentiment Index” continues to signal a bullish sentiment.
At the moment, 10 out of 15 indicators are above their short-term trend.
We continue to observe high sentiment readings in indicators like the crypto dispersion index or global crypto ETP fund flows.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index continues to signal an “Extreme Greed” level of sentiment as of this morning.
Performance dispersion among cryptoassets has continued drift higher and is near the highest readings since March 2024. This signals that altcoins have become less correlated with the performance of Bitcoin.
Altcoin outperformance vis-à-vis Bitcoin has also continued to be very high last week, with around 95% of our tracked altcoins managing to outperform Bitcoin on a weekly basis. Ethereum has also continued to outperform Bitcoin last week.
In general, increasing (decreasing) altcoin outperformance tends to be a sign of increasing (decreasing) risk appetite within cryptoasset markets and the latest altcoin outperformance continues to signal a very positive risk appetite at the moment.
Sentiment in traditional financial markets as measured by our in-house measure of Cross Asset Risk Appetite (CARA) has stabilised and drifted slightly higher last week. However, the index still signals a neutral cross asset risk appetite.
Fund Flows
Weekly fund flows into global crypto ETPs have accelerated strongly last week to the highest level ever recorded.
Global crypto ETPs saw around +4,080.3 mn USD in weekly net inflows across all types of cryptoassets which is a very significant acceleration compared to prior week’s +583.7 mn USD in weekly net inflows.
Global Bitcoin ETPs that saw net inflows totalling +2,713.2 mn USD last week, of which +2,720.8 mn USD in net inflows were related to US spot Bitcoin ETFs alone.
The Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) in the US also saw net inflows, totalling +4.0 mn USD last week.
In Europe, the ETC Group Physical Bitcoin ETP (BTCE) saw minor net outflows equivalent to -5.8 mn USD, while the ETC Group Core Bitcoin ETP (BTC1) attracted some capital of around +1.0 mn USD.
Outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) accelerated somewhat, with around -303.5 mn USD in net outflows last week. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) continued to see positive net inflows of +2,630.9 mn USD last week.
Meanwhile, flows into global Ethereum ETPs accelerated even more with around +1,221.6 mn USD in net inflows, after +705.3 mn USD in net inflows the week before.
US Ethereum spot ETFs recorded their highest daily net inflow since trading launch with around +836.7 mn USD in net inflows on aggregate. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) experienced increasing net outflows of around -101.6 mn USD last week.
The Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) in the US managed to attract +20.0 mn USD in net inflows last week.
In Europe, the ETC Group Physical Ethereum ETP (ZETH) also experienced significant net inflows of +6.9 mn USD while the ETC Group Ethereum Staking ETP (ET32) also continued to attract capital with +2.2 mn USD in net inflows.
Altcoin ETPs ex Ethereum also continued to see positive net inflows with around +167.0 mn USD last week. The ETC Group Physical Solana ETP (ESOL) managed to attract +0.5 mn USD last week.
In contrast, investors continued to withdraw capital from thematic & basket crypto ETPs with around -21.6 mn USD in net outflows on aggregate last week. The ETC Group MSCI Digital Assets Select 20 ETP (DA20) saw sticky AuM (+/- 0 mn USD).
In contrast, global crypto hedge funds trimmed their market exposure to Bitcoin aggressively last week. The 20-days rolling beta of global crypto hedge funds’ performance to Bitcoin declined to around 0.60 per yesterday’s close.
On-Chain Data
In general, Bitcoin on-chain metrics have continued to be positive despite ongoing high profit-taking by long-term investors.
Selling pressure as even eased as net selling volumes on BTC spot exchanges have gradually become less pronounced with only -118 mn USD in net selling volumes last week. This implies that buying volumes have largely managed to absorb the high amount of selling volumes.
As mentioned before, profit-taking by long-term bitcoin holders has increased significantly to 5.2 bn USD – a new all-time high in USD-terms.
In general, the overall supply shock in Bitcoin has continued to build up despite the recent pick-up in realized profits. Exchange balances continued to drift lower last week signalling an ongoing decline in available liquid supply on exchanges.
That being said, whales have started to send bitcoins to exchanges on a net basis. More specifically, BTC whales have sent +5,639 BTC to exchanges last week, signalling increasing selling pressure from whales. Whales are defined as network entities that control at least 1,000 BTC.
In general, whales have reduced their share of available BTC supply to the lowest level since December 2017. At the time of writing, whale entities control around 38.6% of circulating supply. In this context, long-term holders have also decreased their share in overall BTC supply to the lowest level since July 2022 as supply has been distributed to short-term holders.
This is a typical pattern within a bull market and we still estimate that there is significant room for further distribution of supply by long-term holders to short-term holders in this cycle.
Futures, Options & Perpetuals
Last week, BTC futures open interest recovered somewhat from the week before in BTC-terms and increased by around +8k BTC. Nonetheless, increased volatility saw an increase in long futures liquidations on Thursday last week when liquidations spiked to the highest level since October 2024.
However, BTC perpetual funding rates continued to remain elevated signalling ongoing bullish sentiment among BTC perpetual traders.
When the funding rate is positive (negative), long (short) positions periodically pay short (long) positions. A positive funding rate tends to be a sign of bullish sentiment in perpetual futures markets at the moment.
The BTC 3-months annualised basis also continued to remain high at around 16.0% p.a. averaged across various futures exchanges.
BTC option open interest also recovered from its previous expiries by around +33k BTC. The put-call open interest ratio remained relatively flat.
The 1-month 25-delta skew for BTC also remained near year-to-date lows, still signalling a high appetite for call options and bullish sentiment. At the time of writing, the 1-month skew is still significantly more biased towards call options, with a premium of around 7.0% p.a. for delta-equivalent calls.
BTC option implied volatilities also remained relatively stable with only a brief temporary spike on Thursday last week.
At the time of writing, implied volatilities of 1-month ATM Bitcoin options are currently at around 55.0% p.a.
Bottom Line
Read the full report including the Cryptoasset Sentiment Index and full chart show in the appendix on our website.
Disclaimer
Important Information
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Exchange-traded commodities/cryptocurrencies, or ETPs, are a highly volatile asset and performance is unpredictable. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. The market price of ETPs will vary and they do not offer a fixed income. The value of any investment in ETPs may be affected by exchange rate and underlying price movements. This document may contain forward-looking statements including statements regarding ETC Group’s belief or current expectations with regards to the performance of certain asset classes. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and there can be no assurance that such statements will be accurate and actual results could differ materially. Therefore, you must not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. This document does not constitute investment advice nor an offer for sale nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any product or make any investment. An investment in an ETC that is linked to cryptocurrency, such as those offered by ETC Group, is dependent on the performance of the underlying cryptocurrency, less costs, but it is not expected to match that performance precisely. ETPs involve numerous risks including, among others, general market risks relating to underlying adverse price movements and currency, liquidity, operational, legal, and regulatory risks.
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