Crypto Weekly Digest | Is Each Bitcoin All-Time High a "Probing" Process? Undercurrents in Derivatives Funding During Market Consolidation Phase

Last week, Bitcoin climbed higher than the week before, surpassing the $93,000 mark on Wednesday before experiencing a fallback. As of this writing, it is still hovering around $90,000. Ethereum, after reaching its highest price since the end of July earlier this year, has since retreated. Last Friday, it faced a deeper decline, barely holding above the $3,000 mark.

On November 15, HKEX announced this new series, providing a reliable benchmark price for the rapidly emerging asset class of virtual assets. This initiative supports Hong Kong's development into a leading digital asset hub in Asia. The index series offers a transparent and reliable benchmark for the pricing of BTC and ETH in the Asian time zone, providing a unified reference price for cryptocurrencies to address transactional losses caused by pricing discrepancies across exchanges.

On November 15, the total open interest for Bitcoin contracts across all exchanges exceeded $54 billion, with open interest in Bitcoin contracts at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange approaching 200,000 BTC.

$461 million in IBIT (12,769,510 shares, an increase of 83% from the previous report in August);

$95.5 million in FBTC (1,720,291 shares, an increase of 13% from the previous report);

$71.8 million in GBTC (1,423,069 shares, an increase of 116% from the previous report);

$59.7 million in BTCO (940,443 shares, virtually unchanged from the previous report);

$22.5 million in BITB (650,961 shares, an increase of 156% from the previous report).

On November 14th, the Republican Party won enough seats to gain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, securing a comprehensive victory in the general elections and ensuring their control over both chambers of Congress and the White House.

Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton also believes that Congress might pass legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies following Trump's inauguration.

According to Bloomberg on November 14th, the UK will resume two key pieces of legislation this month to advance crypto regulation. This move may be aimed at preventing crypto companies from flocking back to the United States, where they previously enjoyed a favorable policy environment under the Trump administration.

On November 12th, according to monitoring by Trader T, the total holdings in Bitcoin ETFs worldwide have now surpassed the holdings in Satoshi Nakamoto’s wallet addresses.

Within just 211 days of its launch, BlackRock's IBIT reached an asset size of $40 billion, breaking the previous record held by IEMG (an emerging markets ETF also issued by BlackRock), in only one-sixth of the time it took for IEMG.

On November 13, according to Cointelegraph, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump suggested that he would bypass the Senate's confirmation process to appoint members of his administration, likely including the prospective replacement of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. According to the U.S. Constitution, "The President shall have power to fill all vacancies that may occur during the recess of the Senate by granting commissions, which shall expire at the end of the next session." During Trump's first term, this power enabled him to appoint some individuals who might not have otherwise obtained Senate approval.

Trump announced that Elon Musk would lead the proposed Government Efficiency Department (abbreviated as DOGE). This department will assist in restructuring bureaucratic agencies to enhance government efficiency. The associated token, DOGE (Dogecoin), experienced a short-term surge.

On November 13, Musk responded to a tweet about government spending with a "peanut" emoji. In another comment, he stated, "America is being saved by squirrels and meme coins." This remark references the euthanasia of the internet-famous American squirrel "Peanut" and the associated campaign. Following these events, the related token, PNUT, experienced a nearly 4.5-fold increase in value within 24 hours.

MicroStrategy Continues to AccumulateOn November 11, MicroStrategy further increased its holdings by purchasing an additional 27,200 BTC for over $2.03 billion, at an average purchase cost of approximately $42,692 per bitcoin. The company now holds a total of 279,420 bitcoins. The founder of MicroStrategy stated in a post that "the company will deliver a net gain of 49,936 BTC to shareholders in 2024."

Key Price LevelOn November 15, according to Into The Block, more than 300,000 addresses bought Bitcoin at an average price of $89,200. Currently, BTC is hovering around this price, which may serve as a key support/resistance level for Bitcoin.

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju stated in a post that Bitcoin is currently in a "price discovery" phase, lacking consensus on support and resistance levels, with trading depth that still needs to settle, and thus, volatility is to be expected. Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Assets Research at VanEck, also mentioned that Bitcoin's price faces technical resistance in USD, which is expected to persist until 2025: "From the end of the 2020 elections to the year's end, Bitcoin doubled in value, undergoing about six corrections of approximately 10% each; the rise is expected to continue."

QCP Capital indicated that the potential strength of BTC represents market expectations of systemic changes anticipated by Trump. Proposals for BTC as a strategic reserve could provide price support for Bitcoin.

BRN analyst Valentin Fournier states, "After the recent surge, the upward trend has paused. There's a higher likelihood of profit-taking, and a short-term pullback is reasonable, allowing for the accumulation of strength for the next wave of increases."

Zaye's Chief Investment Officer Naeem Aslam also views last Wednesday's pullback as "positive," as it creates more "boarding" opportunities, attracting a broader range of investors. He believes Bitcoin can reach the target price of $100,000 before Trump's inauguration next January.

Glassnode released a report: Historically, after Bitcoin reaches a new all-time high (ATH), the crypto market enters a long-term growth phase. With Bitcoin recently breaking its historical high again, data suggests that the upward trend has not yet fully played out. Open interest in cryptocurrency futures has surged, with stablecoin-backed collateral occupying many long positions. This helps reduce volatility, allowing institutions to adopt high-liquidity strategies during periods of increased market activity.

Thomas Erdösi, Product Manager at CF Benchmarks, states that data shows traders are rushing to buy Bitcoin Call options with a strike price of $100,000. The 30-day constant maturity 25 delta skew has now broken through the 5 vol threshold, approaching the highest level year-to-date — indicating that market demand for upside exposure is much greater.

Additionally, demand for call options with strike prices above $100,000 is also surging, with related Call Implied Volatility (IV) spiking.

Hedge funds are engaging in Bitcoin (BTC) basis arbitrage by buying Bitcoin spot and selling forward futures to lock in the difference between the two prices. This frenzy for market opportunities could further drive up BTC futures prices. On November 12, Matrixport also released a report elaborating on related indicators, noting that Bitcoin funding rates have soared to 37%, reaching their highest level in six months, indicating strong bullish sentiment. Futures open interest has also expanded significantly.

On November 13, Joe Lubin, CEO of Consensys, the developer of the crypto wallet MetaMask, stated, "Ethereum is most likely to benefit from Trump. For a long time, Ethereum has seemed lukewarm compared to Bitcoin. Ethereum will benefit more than other protocols because it has the most mature and compatible on-chain ecosystem." In recent years, Ethereum has devoted significant resources and funds to building on-chain infrastructure. The founder Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation have also been consistently questioned for selling ETH.

After announcing a "Bitcoin-first" strategy similar to MicroStrategy's, the stock price of Genius Group Limited, a US-listed education technology company, surged 66% in one day. According to Google Finance, the stock price closed up 66.4% on November 12, reaching a high of $1.4. The company plans to allocate over 90% of its reserves to BTC, launch a Web3 education series, and implement Bitcoin payments on its Edtech platform.

On November 15, Solidion Technology, a US-listed battery materials supplier, also announced a Bitcoin financial strategy. The company plans to use 60% of excess cash generated from operations to purchase BTC and convert cash interest income from money market accounts into BTC. They also intend to raise funds to acquire more Bitcoin in the future. Last Tuesday, STI's stock price rose as much as 29% during intraday trading.

According to data from Farside Investors as of November 15,

The total net inflow for U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs is $1.671 billion, including:

IBIT saw a net inflow of $1.8921 billion this week;

FBTC saw a net inflow of $4.1 million this week;

GBTC saw a net outflow of $85.7 million this week;

BITB saw a net outflow of $66.3 million this week;

ARKB saw a net outflow of $152.6 million this week.

The total net inflow for U.S. Ethereum spot ETFs is $515.3 million, including:

ETHA saw a net inflow of $287 million this week;

ETHE saw a net outflow of $101 million this week.

According to on-chain data monitoring, an address that hoarded 2,000 bitcoins at a price of less than $0.1 each 14 years ago has been activated. The bitcoins have been transferred to a new wallet, resulting in an unrealized profit of over $170 million.

According to data from IntoTheBlock, the number of large daily transactions by ETH whales has exceeded 10,000, reaching a new three-month high.

When Bitcoin's alarm bells ring, it would be wise for investors to listen, manage risks, and devise strategies to capitalize on future market opportunities.

Bitcoin is highly correlated with global liquidity, undoubtedly marking a significant trend. With zero-commission trading available, why not give it a try?