Week of May 17 - 24, 2024
Three legislative wins for digital asset industry in the U.S. and one surprise win at the hands of an otherwise recalcitrant SEC helped drive digital assets and related players like Coinbase (COIN, +13.6% WTD, +35.6% YTD) higher.
The SEC’s unexpected approval of several spot ETH ETFs applications pushed ETH (+21% WTD, +64% YTD) to its largest 1-day gain since May 2021, closing the YTD gap on BTC’s +65% YTD gain.
Of the three legislative wins, FIT21 (see story below) and the repeal of the SEC’s SAB 121 that unduly punished a firm for acting as a digital asset custodian, are the most noteworthy for industry impact and degree of non-partisan support.
This week’s news flow did NOT translate to gains for equities, bonds (BBerg Agg, -0.3%), and most commodities (Gold, -3.3% / WTI, -3.3%) as investors digested the impact of higher for longer rate realities which were substantiated by several investment firms.
The lone bright spot in equities was the EPS beat by NVIDIA (NVDA, +15% WTD), which continues to benefit from the tsunami of spending by firms on Artificial Intelligence.
Below we include the 1-year graph of NVDA with those for BTC and ETH to demonstrate a potential reason for the shift in sentiment by U.S. lawmakers. The fact that over 50% of the YTD gains in the S&P 500 are coming from just four large cap tech stocks is NOT lost on the CEOs of banks, industrials and other companies which are all but locked out of such earnings and expansion.
Bitcoin is more efficient than the current banking system’s equity securities settlement process that is only now switching to a T+1 settlement. But the approval of the spot BTC ETF was more a boon for asset managers than banks as retail and now institutions have adopted it for its apparent store of wealth properties and ‘moneyness’.
The BTC asset that rides on the globally distributed Bitcoin network is a digital alternative money and store of value, but won’t hold a digital USD, or settle a digital contract.
But the Ethereum network can.
Approving FIT21 allows banks and other industries to further engage the value proposition of the Ethereum network, leveraging the open architecture of the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
The 5-year annualized gain for banks (S5BANKX,+8.5%) barely kept pace with the growth in the money supply and is less than half of NASDAQ’s+17.4% price gain over the same period.
Can Ethereum adoption help the beleaguered banking system shift to the fintech platforms they aspire to be? We do not know, but FIT21 was likely a result of many in the banking industry lobbying for the chance to find out.
(NB: The banks may be a bit more motivated to secure new efficiencies as higher rates may cause bring defaults, a dynamic that has already caused the regional bank index to flatline in 2024.)
Headline Performance 1-Week
BTC Market Cap (▲3.33%) to $1.36T USD
ETH Market Cap (▲21.21%) to $450B USD
Implied Stablecoin Market Cap (▲0.06%) to $141B USD*
Implied Altcoin Market Cap (▲1.24%) to $525B USD*
Total Crypto Market Cap (▲5.50%) to $2.48T USD*
Bitcoin Performance 1-Week
BTC/USD (▲3.32%) to $69,148 USD
52-Week High ($73,157 USD) Low ($24,928 USD)
BTC/CAD (▲3.72%) to $94,491 CAD
52-Week High ($98,550 CAD) Low ($33,215 CAD)
Current Supply (▲0.01%) to 19,702,387 BTC*
Bitcoin Hash Rate (Mean) (▲20.37%) to 707 EH/s*
Daily Active Addresses (7D Avg) (▲6.35%) to 703,245*
Daily Transactions (7D Avg) (▲4.20%) to 586,632*
Mean Transaction Fee (7D Avg) (▼-13.34%) to 0.00004 BTC / $2.75 USD*
Ethereum Performance 1-Week
ETH/USD (▲21.20%) to $3745 USD
52-Week High ($4033 USD) Low ($1536 USD)
ETH/CAD (▲21.67%) to $5,118 CAD
52-Week High ($5437 CAD) Low ($2092 CAD)
Current Supply (▲0.00%) to 120,134,246 ETH*
Daily Active Smart Contracts (7D Avg) (Layer 1) (▲0.20%) to 96,913*
Daily Active Addresses (7D Avg) (Layer 1) (▼-5.55%) to 566,984*
Daily Active Addresses (7D Avg) (Layer 2) (▲12.32%) to 2,106,878*
Daily Transactions (7D Avg) (Layer 1) (▼-2.48%) to 1,126,387*
Daily Transactions (7D Avg) (Layer 2) (▲7.89%) to 7,253,252*
Active Validator Count (▲0.21%) to 1,006,168*
7D Avg. Validator Staking Yields to 3.49% APY
Total ETH Staked (▼-0.41%) to 32,289,940 ETH*
Percentage of Current ETH Supply Staked to 26.9%
ETH Supply Burned (7D Total) (▲48.97%) to 6,812 ETH*
Mean Transaction Fee (7D Avg) (Layer 1) (▲47.81%) to 0.00119 ETH / $4.28 USD*
TradFi Performance 1-Week
S&P 500 (▼-0.09%) to $5299 USD
NASDAQ Composite (▲1.41%) to $16,921 USD
STOXX Europe 600 (▼-0.45%) to 521 EUR
Hang Seng (▼-4.83%) to 18,609 HKD
Spot Gold Oz. (▼-3.34%) to $2335 USD
Source: 3iQ Research. Price and Market Capitalization data sourced from Bloomberg, CoinMetrics as of May 24, 2024. Market prices are based off 4:00 ET prices. You cannot invest directly into an index.
*Source: 3iQ Research. Fundamental digital asset data sourced from CoinMetrics, Etherscan, ETH.Store, GrowThePie, Coin.Dance as of May 23, 2024. Hash rate is represented in Exahashes (EH/s) per second. Some metrics are expressed as a rolling 7-day average. Some altcoin and stablecoin data has been omitted from analysis.
Market Developments Past 1-Week
U.S. SEC Approves Exchange Applications to List Spot Ether ETFs (source)
Hong Kong Considers Allowing Ether ETF Staking in Contrast to US (source)
U.S. House Approves Crypto FIT21 Bill With Wave of Democratic Support (source)
U.S. Senate Votes to Kill SEC's Crypto Accounting Policy, Testing Biden's Veto Threat (source)
Technology Developments Past 1-Week
The New Wave Of Bitcoin L2s Are Sidechains (source)
EtherFi Unveils Plans For Credit Card Tied To Restaking Holdings (source)
Major Crypto Exchanges Launch ‘Tech Against Scams’ Coalition to Combat Crypto Fraud (source)
3iQ Mentions/Developments Past 1-Week
Decrypt: Ethereum ETF Applicants Ditch Staking Language in 'Temporary Concession' to SEC: Analyst. "In other regions, such as Canada, funds that hold staked Ethereum have shown that it can be done. Two of 3iQ’s exchange-traded products, for example, began offering customers the benefits of Ethereum staking in 2023." (source)
Blockchain North Video: 3iQ Founder message to government: keep it simple and you’re allowed to say yes! At the Canadian Crypto Asset & Blockchain Policy Conference, Fred Pye, Founder & Chairman of 3iQ, shared his insights on the Canadian blockchain industry, ETFs, mining, the importance of investing in blockchain, and provided an update on his company. (source)
Schwab Network: Can Bitcoin Break the 100k Level Before the end of the Year? 3iQ’s Mark Connors details why that remains his low-end target for BTC, as he and S&P Global Ratings’ Andrew O’Neill discuss the outlook for crypto markets with Nicole Petallides. (source)