This week is busy with economic data, including the US Q3 GDP (Wednesday), the Fed's favored inflation indicator PCE data (Thursday), October's non-farm payroll and unemployment rate (Friday), and Q3 earnings reports, which will determine the market direction at the beginning of November. Federal Reserve members are entering a 'quiet period' before the meeting. The Federal Reserve is the Federal Reserve for risk assets, US stocks, gold, and Bitcoin; Bitcoin serves as the Federal Reserve for Ethereum and other coins.
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The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) is establishing a formal advisory group for all licensed virtual asset trading platforms, composed of representatives from each licensed institution, to ensure that the commission considers their views in policy formulation. The SFC expects this advisory group to be operational by early 2025. In the future, the SFC will publish a white paper on priority regulatory matters in the virtual asset industry, based on discussions from this group and feedback from other stakeholders. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) announced that it will launch a virtual asset index series on November 15, 2024, providing a reliable benchmark price for this rapidly emerging asset class, supporting Hong Kong in becoming Asia's leading digital asset center. This index series will provide transparent and reliable pricing for BTC and ETH in the Asian time zone, aiming to provide a unified reference price for virtual assets, addressing price discrepancies among global exchanges. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that Tether holds approximately $100 billion in US Treasury bonds, $5.58 billion in BTC, and $3.87 billion in gold. Japanese listed company Metaplanet announced an increase of 156.78 BTC for 1.6 billion yen, currently holding a total of 1,018.17 BTC. According to OinGlass data, CEX saw a cumulative net outflow of 34,800 BTC in the past 7 days. Vitalik responded to community questions, "Why doesn't the ETH Foundation stake all its held ETH like the Nobel Prize Foundation does, only using income to cover costs? Why not consider market sentiment and everyone's voice, and insist on periodically selling ETH? You claim that ETH's POS is very safe; why not stake ETH yourself? Do you lack confidence in POS?" Vitalik responded that an internal reason is that they do not want to be forced to make an 'official choice' during a controversial hard fork and are considering providing some grants in a specific form.
FTX announced a settlement agreement with Bybit, with the latter paying $228 million in settlement fees, while FTX withdraws related lawsuits. Earlier this month, FTX's approved compensation plan was expected to allocate at least $12.6 billion to affected users, with the compensation plan set to start within 60 days after the effective date, though the specific date has not been determined. Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers stated that derivatives traders are preparing for BTC's movement a few days after the November 5 elections. For options expiring on November 8, the value of open contracts exceeds $2 billion, with major strike prices at $70,000, $75,000, and $80,000. The number of open call options is twice that of put options, and prices may fluctuate by about 3.78% in the days following the election. Top trader Eugene Ng Ah Sio analyzed that speculative long positions in October have been largely wiped out, believing that most people intend to avoid risks around the elections about a week after November 5. This catalyst merely brought the timing forward by a few days (which is why they were defensive a few days ago), believing that the upward trend could continue after the elections. Last week, net inflows into the US BTC spot ETF were $999.8 million, a 47% increase from the previous week; last week, net outflows from the ETH spot ETF were $24.45 million. Currently, the US has 9 ETH spot ETFs with a total holding of 2.765 million ETH, valued at $6.82 billion, with a net outflow of $504 million since the ETH ETF's launch. BlackRock's BTC holdings have exceeded 400,000 BTC, reaching 403,725 BTC (valued at approximately $26.98 billion), and in the past two weeks, BlackRock has increased its holdings by 34,085 BTC (valued at about $2.3 billion).
QCP Capital's briefing indicates that a bottom seems to be forming, with a net inflow of $997.7 million into BTC ETFs last week, marking the third consecutive week of net inflows, indicating strong institutional demand. The current focus is on the non-farm payroll data set to be released on Friday, which will provide further insights into the Federal Reserve's next actions. Currently, the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut in November is 95.1%, and the market expects no surprises. On Monday, US stock indices saw the Nasdaq rise by 0.5%, the S&P 500 up 0.4%, and the Dow Jones up 0.7%, while BTC gained 2%, reaching $69,000. The S&P 500 and Dow ended a six-week streak of gains last Friday, while the Nasdaq hit a new high and has risen for seven weeks. Demand for the Federal Reserve's overnight reverse repo agreements is close to falling below $200 billion, nearing its lowest level in three and a half years. Wall Street expects that once the usage of reverse repo agreements approaches zero, the Federal Reserve will have to stop quantitative tightening. This week is busy with economic data, including the US Q3 GDP (Wednesday), the Fed's favored inflation indicator PCE data (Thursday), October's non-farm payroll and unemployment rate (Friday), and Q3 earnings reports, which will determine the market direction at the beginning of November. Bitcoin feels more bullish, showing great resilience; altcoins still do not feel the bullish sentiment and are extremely sluggish. In the traditional market, BTC futures prices at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) hit $70,600 on Monday, continuing to lead the traditional market at $69,900, indicating that traditional institutions maintain confidence in Bitcoin.
The relationship between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins was interpreted during the bull market as mainstream institutional investors first choosing Bitcoin. Once Bitcoin reaches a peak, the return prospects weaken, and profit-seeking funds turn to new targets, such as Ethereum and altcoins, leading to initially Bitcoin leading the charge and increasing market share; later, Ethereum and altcoins catch up, corresponding to Bitcoin's market share decreasing. Bitcoin's rise at the expense of others is common in every bull market. In the first three bull market cycles, apart from BTC, other coins had little performance in the early stages but did not miss out later. The interpretation of 'carving a boat to seek a sword' suggests that altcoins caught up with Bitcoin's gains in the bull markets of 2013, 2017, and 2021, with this time corresponding to 2025. Another view is that only Bitcoin's own bull market prevails, and funds will not flow to other coins. Which perspective do you think is more reliable? The old man can still endure; in the previous cycle, he waited until December 2020 for altcoins to see hope, stirring restlessly, and only in 2021 did they see bubbles. In traditional markets, the Federal Reserve is the Federal Reserve for risk assets, US stocks, gold, and the crypto market; in the crypto market, BTC is the Federal Reserve for risk assets, ETH, and altcoins. Now, the US stock market, gold, and BTC have already welcomed the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut bubble, while ETH and altcoins are still waiting for Bitcoin to release the bubble. To be pessimistic, it is not yet time for the old man to be pessimistic, as the Bitcoin price has not yet broken through its previous high and accelerated upwards post-interest rate cut, leaving reason to wait for Bitcoin's bubble overflow.
