Opinion Leaders
Borrowing costs reach 2007 high
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Sygnum Bank
Trading Desk
Market Overview – the following section provides an overview of the week’s key metrics an their week-over-week change.
Risk appetite thinned as the Federal Reserve left rates on hold for a fifth consecutive meeting: long-dated Treasury yields returned to multi-year peaks and US equities retreated with the Nasdaq 100 sliding into correction. Chinese technology names compounded the selling, heading for their weakest month in a decade. Digital assets were largely untouched by the move: Bitcoin held between USD 63K and 65K all week, dipping briefly after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement, with Ethereum flat.
The VIX leapt around 17 percent after the FOMC statement before surrendering most of the move, confirming the shock stayed contained to rates and equities. Crypto volatility went the other way, with the Bitcoin volatility index easing some 5 percent this week. Options positioning leaned constructive with roughly 16 percent more BTC calls than puts transacted and open interest heavily skewed to the upside, with about USD 2.5bn of notional in calls at each of the USD 70K and USD 72K strikes, against just USD 1.2bn of puts at USD 60K.
Macro Movers
US interest rates
The FOMC held its benchmark rate at 3.50 to 3.75 percent for a fifth successive meeting, with chair Kevin Warsh noting that market moves between meetings had already tightened conditions. The 30-year Treasury yield climbed to its highest level since 2007, as investors questioned whether policymakers will get ahead of an oil-driven inflation impulse.
Iran escalation lifts oil
American forces struck Iran directly for the first time in almost a week after Tehran fired ballistic missiles at US installations, prompting Iranian pledges of a severe reply. Brent crude settled 7.9 percent higher above USD 90 as talks stalled over the Strait of Hormuz.
Crypto News
BNY on-chain custody
A universal blockchain-based record for share ownership now sits behind part of the world’s largest custody operation, after BNY built a digital arm of its transfer agency. With USD 8.6tn across 7.6mn accounts in the transfer agent alone, the move brings institutional scale to a tokenization effort that has so far stayed mostly in pilot form.
Strategy BTC reserves
Five weeks have passed without a Bitcoin purchase by Strategy, whose 843,775 BTC (more than 4 percent of the 21mn supply cap) carry an average cost of USD 75,476, yielding an unrealized loss at current prices. Capital has shifted towards balance sheet defense with the USD reserve increased to USD 3.75bn, covering roughly 2.1 years of dividend obligations.
Crypto spot ETFs
Trading volume in spot Bitcoin ETFs fell 14 percent to roughly USD 8.05bn, the quietest week since October 2024, while spot Ethereum products drew about USD 103mn of net inflows (more than treble what the Bitcoin funds took in) for a third consecutive positive week. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley added spot Ethereum and Solana vehicles on Tuesday, adding to their existing suite of crypto ETFs.
