Market Summary

Bitcoin Price: US$  20,236.71 (+4.77%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 1,151.00 (+7.14%) 

Bitcoin Closes 4th Consecutive Week Beneath 200 Weekly MA

• For the fourth consecutive week, BTC has closed below its 200 weekly moving average. Historically, this has marked previous market bottoms. However, this is the longest BTC has remained below its 200 weekly average, surpassing even the Covid capitulation of March 2020.
• Bitcoin’s weekly correlation coefficient continues to remain inversely related to the US Dollar as it hit a 17-month low of -0.77. On the other hand, BTC continues its strong correlation with the Nasdaq Composite — closing at 0.78 for the week ending 7/3/2022.
• With prices continuing to fall, the number of BTC addresses accumulating BTC continues to rise. Addresses holding at least one BTC have reached a new all-time high of 877,501.
• We currently find ourselves in the middle of a slowing credit environment and tightening monetary environment. This corresponds with the lower left quadrant, which coincidentally has a poor outlook for risk assets…a macro-driven bear market indeed.

Meta signals closure of Novi wallet after a 10-month pilot

• Meta’s first foray into the world of cryptocurrencies is set to end in September with the closure of its Novi wallet pilot project.
• Novi’s website landing page has been revamped to inform pilot users that the platform will be decommissioned on September 1. This ends an eight-month-long pilot project that saw users based in the United States and Guatemala participate in a trial of the cryptocurrency-powered payment platform.
• Users are directed to withdraw the remaining funds from their respective Novi wallets to their linked bank accounts. Guatemalan users can also withdraw holdings in cash at a select site in Guatemala City.
• Novi users are also encouraged to download their account information before the closure date, including transactions and activity on their accounts. From Sept. 1, users will no longer be able to log into their wallets. Deposits to Novi wallets will also be discontinued from July 21.

CoinShares acquires French crypto asset manager Napoleon AM

• Major European digital asset manager CoinShares is finalizing the acquisition of the French fintech firm Napoleon Group despite the ongoing market decline.
• CoinShares announced on July 4 that the firm has acquired Napoleon Asset Management, a digital asset management subsidiary of Napoleon Group.
• CoinShares previously entered into a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) to acquire the entire issued share capital in Napoleon Crypto SAS for 13.9 million euros ($14.5 million) in November 2021.
• The latest acquisition came shortly after the French financial regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), authorized the acquisition of Napoleon AM on June 28. CoinShares subsequently proceeded with the transaction pursuant to the terms set out in the group SPA on June 2022.

Keys lost in the Vauld: Singapore crypto exchange freezes withdrawals

• Crypto contagion claims another casualty. In a statement, Singapore-based crypto exchange Vauld has made the “difficult decision to suspend all withdrawals, trading and deposits on the Vauld platform with immediate effect.”
• In what appears to be a run on the crypto bank, the group intends to “apply to the Singapore courts for a moratorium,” as Vauld customers have tried to withdraw an “excess of a $197.7 million since 12 June 2022.”
• The decision to suspend withdrawals is a screeching U-turn. Reportedly, Vauld boasted $1 billion assets under management in May this year, while on June 16, a company email stated that business would “continue to operate as usual.” Just 18 days later, the company is exploring “potential restructuring options.”
• On June 21, CEO Darshan Bathija tweeted that Vauld had cut its team by 30% — the first sign that the company was under duress. Separately, Bathija also stressed that Three Arrows Capital (3AC) was an early investor in the company, but had exited in late 2021.

USD stablecoin premiums surge in Argentina following economy minister’s resignation

• Argentina, a country with one of the highest crypto adoption rates in the world, saw the price of United States dollar-pegged stablecoins surge across exchanges on Saturday after the abrupt resignation of its Economy Minister, Martin Guzman. 
• The minister’s shock exit, confirmed on his Twitter account on Sunday via a seven-page letter, threatens to further destabilize a struggling economy battling high inflation and a depreciating national currency.
• According to data from Criptoya, the cost of buying Tether (USDT) using Argentinian pesos (ARS) is currently 271.4 ARS through the Binance exchange, which is around a 12% premium from before the resignation announcement, and a 116.25% premium compared to the current fiat exchange rate of USD/ARS.
• The local crypto price tracking website has also revealed a similar jump in other USD-pegged stablecoins, including Dai (DAI), Binance USD (BUSD), Pax Dollar (USDP) and Dollar on Chain (DOC).

SBF denies FTX is eyeing distressed crypto mining companies

• Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of crypto exchange FTX, has calmed speculation that the company is exploring acquisitions of distressed crypto mining companies, clarifying on Twitter on Saturday that they “aren’t really looking into the space.”
• “Really not sure why the meme about FTX and mining companies is spreading, the actual quote was that we *aren’t* really looking into the space,” clarified Bankman-Fried on Twitter on Saturday.
• Speculation that the company was on the lookout for mining firms came from an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, after the FTX founder said he did not want to discount the possibility of a “compelling opportunity” in the mining industry, stating:
• “There might come along a really compelling opportunity for us — I definitely don’t want to discount that possibility.”
• However, the quote appears to have been taken out of context, forcing SBF to clarify that the firm is “not particularly looking at miners” but is “happy to have conversations” with mining companies.

Fork of July: Cardano Vasil upgrade successfully launches on testnet

• The much-anticipated Vasil hard fork has been completed on the Cardano testnet, bringing it one major step closer to becoming a reality on the mainnet and promising broad performance upgrades.
• Project developers, stake pool operators (SPO) and exchanges are now encouraged to deploy their work on the testnet to ensure integrations run smoothly when the mainnet gets the Vasil treatment in about four weeks.
• Once completed on the mainnet, the Vasil hard fork will allow faster block creation and greater scalability for decentralized apps (DApps) running on Cardano. Input Output HK (IOHK), the organization that produced Cardano, said in a Sunday tweet that in addition to the performance upgrades, developers would benefit from “much-improved script performance and efficiency” and lower costs.
• Vasil will also enable interoperability between Cardano sidechains, one of the main features developers intend to launch in the current Basho phase of the blockchain’s development. Basho is the fourth development phase for Cardano that focuses on scaling and will be followed up with the Voltaire phase, in which governance will be the main focus.