Crypto Futures are Coming to Coinbase

GB Market Commentary 16/09/2021

by Alex Clark

Bitcoin (BTC) resumed its ascent yesterday, confirming the breakout from a parallel descending channel, and is currently up 2.5% over the past 24 hours. The asset is trying to hold above $48,000, with $46,500 and $47,500 being a crucial support zone. Moving averages are showing strong buy signals at every level and Glassnode reports a conviction to HODL with Spent Volume Age Bands (SVAB) showing that over the last two weeks, BTC spending by >1yr wallets has fallen to multi-year lows.

Other strong performers include Horizen (ZEN) which is up 22%, Synthetix (SNX) up 19.5%, SushiSwap (SUSHI) 18.5%, THORChain (RUNE) 18.5% and Ren (REN) 18%.

Ethereum has just reached its highest price since the September 7th market slump and has been gaining steadily for the past three days, but Ethereum needs to clear resistance at $3,900 to make any more significant gains and on the downside, it should find support at $3,200.

The amount of Ethereum burned since the London upgrade on August 5th has just reached a milestone of $1 billion worth at current prices. According to the current burn rate of around 5 ETH per minute, approximately 2.6 million ETH will be burnt per year which would be a theoretical total of more than $9 billion per year at current asset prices. Once the ETH 1.0 chain merges with the ETH 2.0 Beacon Chain and the ecosystem transitions from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, an update which is scheduled for sometime in Q1 or Q2 next year, ETH’s issuance is expected to become deflationary at a negative rate of -1.9%

The Cardano Summit which is scheduled for the 25th and 26th of this month promises to deliver big news with Sidney Vollmer, the Head of Brand and Comms at the Cardano Foundation, boasting -“some of the partnerships we’re announcing at the #CardanoSummit will blow people’s mind.” At present there is no itinerary nor a list of speakers for the event, causing mystery to mount around who these partners are and what their role within the ecosystem is.

In a bid to broaden its offering Coinbase has taken the first step to list crypto futures products by submitting an application to become a registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) with the National Futures Association (NFA). At present, the crypto derivatives market dwarfs the spot market but, if successful, Coinbase’s application could help grow the crypto economy.

Franklin Templeton is the latest traditional investment firm to take an interest in crypto after announcing it has raised $10 million of the total $20 million for the venture capital fund it is building. With $1.55 trillion in assets under management, $20 million is a small allocation but in the fast-moving world of digital assets it's great to see more players expanding into the space.

Joining the charge is alternative investment firm, SkyBridge who has raised more than $100 million towards the newly announced Algorand fund and has filed for a crypto-focused ETF. Founder of the firm, Anthony Scaramucci, is clear that “crypto is here to stay,” likening the situation to that of Uber a few years back, with regulators attempting to stem the snowballing adoption of the technology whilst the people are embracing it.

AMC Theatres, America’s largest movie theatre chain, has announced it would be expanding the number of cryptocurrencies it would accept as payment beyond BTC to include ETH, LTC and BCH. Litecoin has reacted to the AMC news with a 6% increase to reach $192, but there has been no move in BCH over the past 24 hours, which remains at $645.