• On January 17, the UMA price started to move up from around $2.00 to $2.50. The next day, the bulls continued to hike the price, which triggered a $3 million short position liquidation and pushed the price to $6.70, the intraday high. Additionally, a large price spread between spot and perpetual prices and a negative funding rate created a favorable condition for the higher demand and upward momentum of UMA.

  • UMA’s trading volume on Convert soared 23,920.7% in the last seven days during the volatile market move. Traders and investors utilized our auto-quoting Convert platform to eliminate market risk by locking the price on the platform for sizable trades. Furthermore, there is no trading fee on Convert, further supporting favorable trading conditions.

  • The massive price action on UMA also spread to other Oracle projects, including API3 ($API3), Tellor ($TRB), and Chainlink ($LINK). The trading volume of these tokens on Convert similarly soared due to the volatile market conditions. 

Overall Market

  • The above chart shows the BTC from November 2023 to present.

  • Following the BTC selloff in the first two trading weeks after the 11 BTC spot ETFs were launched on January 11, the upper and lower blue trend lines were broken and now serve as resistance lines. 

  • The green zone, which is around $38,000, is now serving as a strong support zone. This was the resistance level that prevented the Bitcoin price from rising for more than 21 days in November 2023. 

  • Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has experienced $2.8 billion in outflows since its conversion to an ETF on January 11. Over $1 billion of the $2.8 billion outflow came from FTX's bankruptcy estate, which sold the GBTC ETF on the market. The quick liquidation action by FTX's bankruptcy estate explains part of the heavy selling pressure that occurred over the last two weeks.

  • After the bankruptcy estate finished its liquidation, we should see a slowdown in BTC selloff from the ETF side. However, BTC is not out of the woods yet. Mt. Gox recently sent confirmation emails to creditors, hinting at a significant Bitcoin release within the next 60 days. Although the exact size is unknown, it is thought to range from 142,000 to 200,000 BTC. 

  • The potential selloff from Mt. Gox caused market concern about the BTC price, pushing it to $38,500 today before bouncing back.

  • The above chart shows the ETH price since November 2023.

  • Ethereum was moving on the upward channel after successfully breaking the downward trend that had been in place since the Shanghai upgrade. 

  • The recent BTC selloff following the Bitcoin spot ETF approval brought the entire crypto market down, and Ethereum's spot ETF approval narrative faded after analysts suggested that the SEC approval would take longer than initially expected.

  • The recent free fall in the ETH price with increased volume was caused by on-chain movements initiated by Celsius Network. The on-chain explorer shows that Celsius Network sent over 15,000 ETH to centralized exchanges. This move is consistent with the platform's commitment to liquidating assets to meet financial obligations and creditor demands. The potential liquidation encourages other investors and traders to close long positions and open short positions in order to profit from the potential ETH selloff.

  • Currently, the $2,130 level serves as support. If ETH breaks through this support level,  it opens the door to further downside, with the next support level expected to be around $1,850.

Options Market

  • The above table shows the 25-delta skewness on BTC and ETH options. 

  • Following the recent selloff in BTC and ETH, implied volatility returned to the range before the spot ETF approval. This indicates that the market expects a lower probability of volatile moves in BTC and ETH prices. Currently, the IVs of BTC and ETH options in the short to medium term range are between 45% and 50%.

  • The 25-delta skewness table above indicates that options traders are biased towards the downside for BTC and ETH prices. Across the 7 to 90-day tenors, all BTC and ETH options have negative 25-delta skewnesses.

  • The negative skewness suggests that investors are buying puts to hedge their downside risks rather than calls for potential upside.

  • The return-to-normal implied volatility and negative skewness indicate that downward pressure on BTC and ETH persists. While the selling pressure may not be as strong as it was in the previous two weeks, downward momentum continues to build. 



Macro at a glance 

  • Last Wednesday (2024-01-17)

    • Eurozone CPI growth in December 2023 is up 2.9% on a yearly basis, an increase from 2.4% in November 2023. The core CPI growth rate is 3.4%, a decrease from November's 3.6% annual rate.

    • In December of last year, US retail sales increased by 0.6% on a monthly basis, exceeding the estimated 0.4% and the 0.3% seen in November. Core retail sales increased by 0.4%, exceeding the expected 0.2%. Retail sales growth rates in the United States were higher than expected, indicating that the economy remains relatively strong and in the expansion stage.

  • Last Thursday (2024-01-18)

    • US initial jobless claims fell to 187k, a 16-month low. The initial jobless claims were 203k the week before, with an estimated 207k for the week ending January 13. The low jobless claim number and strong retail sales growth indicate that the US economy is strong, which may make it difficult for the Fed to cut rates in March, as markets have priced in and are anticipating.

    • The Atlanta Fed predicted that US GDP would grow by 2.4% in Q4 2023. The strong growth in the United States GDP suggests that the Federal Reserve may need to keep interest rates at their current level for an extended period.

    • On the other side of the Atlantic, the UK reported its retail sales change for December 2023. Its retail sales fell 2.4%, while its core retail sales fell 2.1% on a yearly basis. The weaker-than-expected retail sales data points to some spending weakness among UK consumers.

  • On Monday (2024-01-22)

    • The Bank of Japan maintains its interest rate decision of -0.1%. BOJ Governor Ueda repeatedly emphasized the bank's progress toward sustained inflation. In the press, he stated that the BOJ aims to implement monetary policy without causing significant market disruptions with a policy exit.



Convert Portal Volume Change

  • The above table shows the volume change on our Convert Portal by zone. 

  • In the last seven days, our desk has noticed some significant volume changes in the different zones.

  • Last week, trading volume in the Fan Token zone increased the most overall. The trading volumes of $ALPINE and $SANTOS increased the most out of the twelve tokens in the Fan Token zone.

  • Last week, the two tokens with the highest volume increase in the Monitoring zone were $XEM and $MOB. The increased trading demand for $XEM and $MOB was driven by last week's price volatility.

  • In the Meme zone, trading volume for BRC20 tokens, $ORDI, and $1000SATS has decreased a lot. Both tokens' prices were highly correlated with the BTC price, which had recently experienced significant selling pressure. The poor performance of the two tokens resulted in lower trading demand from the market.

Why trade OTC?  

Binance offers our clients various ways to access OTC trading, including chat communication channels and the Binance OTC platform (https://www.binance.com/en/otc) for manual price quotations, Algo Orders, or automated price quotations via Binance Convert and Block Trade platform (https://www.binance.com/en/convert) and the Binance Convert OTC API. 

To access manual price quotations, you may visit our Binance OTC platform (https://www.binance.com/en/OTC-Trading/spot), where you can RFQ (request-for-quote) and trade directly with our OTC trading team via a live chat.

To utilise our Algo orders features, you may visit our BinanceAlgo Orders platform (https://www.binance.com/en/OTC-Trading/AlgoTrading). 

For any other inquiries on OTC trading, please reach out to us via our email at trading@binance.com for our trading desk to get in touch with you and get started. 

OTC trades may also be automatically quoted on Binance Convert and via API, offering users a quick and simple way to execute trades across 60,000+ pairs with one simple click. Binance Convert supports over 350 tokens listed on the exchange including fiat pairs. Begin trading from as little as 1 USD. To start, simply navigate to the Binance Convert & Block Trade platform (https://www.binance.com/en/convert), select the coins you wish to trade, preview and confirm the quote with settlement reflecting almost instantly in your wallet balance. For details and access to Binance Convert OTC API, please refer to our Convert Endpoints (https://binance-docs.github.io/apidocs/spot/en/#convert-endpoints) and reach out to us at trading@binance.com if you have any questions or require assistance.

Visit Binance OTC (https://www.binance.com/en/otc) for more information on our OTC products and solutions. 

Experience the main benefits of Binance Convert and OTC Trading: 

  • Fast & Competitive Pricing 

  • Instant settlement 

  • Widest availability of coins 

  • Bespoke service with unique market insights 

  • Zero fees and slippage 

Email: trading@binance.com 

Join our Telegram (https://t.me/BinanceOTC) to stay up to date with the markets!