BTC

ETH

S&P 500 Futures

$91,121.75

$3,157.25

$5,916.75

(+1.28%)

 (+1.85%)

(+0.06%)

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

GM 🌳

Welcome to the TRHX Pulse newsletter (formerly Treehouse Daily), where TRHX delivers your daily dose of financial news and insights for free! We believe you'll find it both informative and valuable.

Also, in case you have missed it, check out our latest research piece 👇

October 2024 Market Recap

You can also access our research articles on the Bloomberg Terminal with the command “NH TRH < GO >"!

Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

  • Trump's economic team hints at Wall Street influence; ECB prepares further rate cuts amid global risks (More in Macro & TradFi)
  • Treehouse onboards Staking Rewards as new DOR Panelist; Goldman Sachs to develop their own cryptocurrency platform (More in DeFi & CeFi)
  • ETH, XRP, and DOGE saw significant wallet growth in the last month; BTC STH SOPR is going into a healthy optimistic phase (More in On-Chain)
  • BTC markets show rising IV and bullish sentiment; Nvidia's earnings may be influencing IV (More in Crypto Derivatives)
  • BTC in consolidation after pushing past $92K but declining after; ETH’s price approaches upper Bollinger Band (More in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is considering pairing former Federal Reserve official Kevin Warsh as Treasury Secretary with hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as head of the National Economic Council (NEC), signaling a potential Wall Street-driven economic team. Both figures bring strong market credentials, but concerns persist over Warsh’s alignment with Trump’s "America First" agenda. Infighting over the Treasury post, which oversees the $28 trillion debt market and global financial policies, has delayed the decision, intensifying market uncertainty. Warsh is viewed as a stabilizing figure, though a critic of recent Federal Reserve policies, while Bessent has garnered Wall Street support. 

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank is likely to cut interest rates by 25 basis points in December, according to Governing Council member Yannis Stournaras, who described the move as "more or less" a done deal. Speaking at Bloomberg’s "Future of Greek Finance Symposium" in Athens, Stournaras suggested multiple rate cuts may follow, with borrowing costs potentially nearing 2% by late 2025 if inflation trends downward as expected. A cut in December would be ECB’s fourth rate cut since June. However, concerns persist about global inflationary volatility, particularly with Donald Trump’s re-election in the U.S., which could heighten risks of protectionism and economic instability for Europe, potentially leading to recession or deflation.

U.S. stocks closed mixed as the S&P 500 climbed 0.39%, driven by a 5.62% surge in Tesla following reports that the Trump administration will prioritize a federal framework for self-driving cars, aligning with Tesla’s autonomous vehicle strategy. The Nasdaq gained 0.71%, ending its longest rout since January, while the Dow dipped 0.13%. Market focus now shifts to Nvidia’s Q3 results on Thursday at 05:20 SGT and Japan’s CPI data release on Friday at 07:30 SGT, both expected to influence sentiment.

DeFi & CeFi

  • Treehouse onboards Staking Rewards as new DOR Panelist
  • Goldman Sachs to develop their own cryptocurrency platform
  • OCC notice hints at potential launch of spot BTC ETF options trading
  • Japan’s DMM Crypto shuts down Seamoon Protocol amid challenges
  • MicroStrategy to raise $1.75B with 0% interest notes to buy Bitcoin

Treehouse Protocol has expanded its existing network of partnerships, which includes institutions, staking providers, and other key players, by onboarding Staking Rewards—a leading platform for staking data—as a panelist in its Decentralized Offered Rates (DOR) consensus mechanism. Since 2018, Staking Rewards has provided seamless staking access for over 3M individuals and enterprises, supporting data across more than 100 blockchains and partnering with over 70 verified providers. The firm provides comprehensive data, with APIs that delivers over 1,250 data points across 167 assets and more than 100,000 validators. With its vast data capabilities, Staking Rewards is perfectly positioned to contribute precise forecasting for the Ethereum Staking Rate (ESR) within DOR, where its expertise will help project future rates with accuracy, adding significant data integrity and transparency to the benchmark system. 

In other news, Goldman Sachs is advancing its foray into blockchain technology by planning to spin out its cryptocurrency platform into a new independent entity, Tradeweb Markets. The entity will focus on creating and trading financial instruments on blockchain networks, and is expected to be completed within 12 to 18 months, pending regulatory approvals. Goldman displays a broader commitment to tokenization and blockchain adoption, as the firm previously announced plans for three tokenization products targeting institutional clients in the US and Europe. These products will center on marketplaces for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), leveraging permissioned blockchains for secure and fast execution. Additionally, Goldman Sachs has emerged as a major buyer of Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, signaling robust institutional interest in digital asset markets. 

On-Chain

According to Santiment’s analysis, we have been seeing a decline in non-empty wallets, which often signal retail capitulation and potential bullish setups as whales accumulate. Over the past month, Ethereum, XRP, and Dogecoin saw significant wallet growth, indicating rising adoption or retail interest, while Cardano experienced a notable decline, reflecting potential waning confidence. Bitcoin showed minimal change, suggesting consolidation.

In another on-chain analysis by CryptoQuant, Bitcoin's Short-Term Holder Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) indicates a phase of healthy growth, with the metric staying in a moderate range below the Extreme Greed zone, signaling potential room for further price increases before a market top. The 30-day moving average shows that short-term holders are taking profits at a controlled pace, avoiding the euphoria often linked to market corrections. Historically, the “Extreme Fear” zones mark accumulation phases, while Extreme Greed often signals resistance and downturns. Currently, the market reflects balanced optimism, but close monitoring is necessary as a swift rise in SOPR towards greed levels may indicate aggressive profit-taking and potential trend reversals.

Derivatives

  • The funding rate for BTC and ETH remained positive.
  • Deribit Implied Volatility Index (DVOL) for BTC increased 59.43 while that of ETH increased to 66.81.
  • The 30-day 25-delta skew (C-P) for BTC dipped to 3.09, while that of ETH rose to 2.91.
  • The futures market witnessed $203.95M in liquidations over the past 24 hours, with longs representing 60.36%.

Net Annualized APR

Perp (USDT pair)

Long on

Short On

26.09%

BNB

Binance

Bybit

20.11%

BNB

Binance

OKX

18.41%

ADA

Bybit

OKX

Notes:

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

2) CEXs observed include Binance, Bybit, OKX & dYdX.

3) Lookback period is 24 hours.

IV is climbing again, with 7-day ATM IV rising to 61.62 and 30-day ATM IV reaching 57.84. Speculation is growing that BTC could surge to 100K in the coming days, supported by a Put-Call Ratio of 0.54 in open interest, indicating bullish positioning among investors.

BTC’s term structure remains in backwardation, with IV rising across all tenors, particularly at the front end of the curve. While no obvious catalyst is apparent, Nvidia's earnings on Thursday could provide insights into the chipmaker's progress, a potential market mover for BTC due to its close linkage with Nvidia, whose chips are widely used by BTC miners.

Skew has dipped slightly, with 7-day Call-Put skew at 4.31 and 30-day Call-Put skew at 3.09, as option traders increased put purchases ahead of Nvidia’s earnings. Despite this activity, overall sentiment remains predominantly bullish.

Lastly, @Paradigm highlighted a blend of largely bullish strategies for BTC and ETH. Key BTC trades included the purchase of 540x 27-Dec-24 $95K/$105K Call Spreads and 375x 27-Dec-24 $100K Calls, alongside a notable 400x sale of 27-Dec-24 $105K Calls. On the ETH side, notable activity featured the purchase of 5,200x 27-Dec-24 $3.4K/$3.7K Call Spreads and 4,154x 31-Jan-25 $3.7K/$4.5K Call Spreads, as well as the sale of 10,000x 27-Dec-24 $3.8K Calls.

Crypto Technical Analysis

On the 4-hour chart, the price of BTC broke past the psychological barrier of $92K briefly but failed to push past the resistance level of $92.7K, pulling back to $90.9K soon after. The immediate support level is present at $87.1K, a 4.1% decline. The RSI at 54.56 suggests neutral momentum, and the narrowing Bollinger Bands indicate a period of consolidation which often precedes a possible breakout or breakdown. Traders could watch for any shifts in the indicators above to get a sense of which direction BTC is moving towards. 

On ETH’s 4-hour chart, the price is set to test the resistance level of $3.3K, with the current price at $3.1K, with the immediate support observed near $2.8K should ETH further decline. The Bollinger Bands are currently expanding, indicating increased volatility. The price is approaching the upper band, which may act as resistance if it continues upward. Although a break above the upper Bollinger Band could signal strong upward momentum, the inability to do so could suggest a pullback in price.

Access institutional-grade commentary on TradFi × Crypto markets

By TRHX Research

Daily Readings

TradFi

Crypto

Yours sincerely,
TRHX Research (Formerly Treehouse Research) 🌳