Crypto Adoption, CZ Stepping Down, Macro Favors Risk & More

The Castle Chronicle: Volume 44

AuthorAuthorAuthorAuthorAuthor

unex, 0x_Vlad, CJ CJ, han solar & Caroulemapoule
November 22, 2023

 👀 What’s to Come in Volume 44

🔑 Key News: ETH Spot ETF Filings by Blackrock & Fidelity, JP Morgan Onyx, Tether Invests in Bitcoin Mining & more from CJ

⛓ On-Chain Sleuthing: Condom Accumulating $AIOZ & Blast L2 feature along with Smart Money Moves from Cl

🔥 Hot Narratives: CZ Stepping Down & Arbitrum STIP Round 2 from unexployed

📈 Macro Outlook: Simplified Round-up and Implications from Hansolar

📉 HTF Price Action Scenarios from Vlad

⚔️ A Call to Arms

Think you have what it takes to enter the Castle and contribute to funding and advising projects across the space?

🔑 Key News

Major Headlines

  • U.S. CPI: +3.2% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +3.3%)

    U.S. CORE CPI: +4% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +4.1%)

  • Fake XRP filing causes market turmoil

  • StanChart launches blockchain unit, eyes Singapore bond fund

  • Microsoft, Tencent and other tech giants join Decentralized Infura Network

  • JP Morgan Apollo Global announces Onyx

  • China's largest board and card game company, Boyaa, to acquire $90 million worth of BTC & ETH while South Korea’s national pension fund bought $20M worth of Coinbase shares

  • Blackrock & Fidelity files for spot ETH ETF while Ark Invest files for amendments in their BTC ETF

  • Tether to invest $500M into bitcoin mining

  • Sam Altman fired from OpenAI and joins Microsoft to lead their AI research unit

  • Santander Private Bank Introduces Bitcoin, Ethereum Trading for Clients in Switzerland

Exploit & Updates

Project Updates

Interesting Projects

  • USDV Money: Omnichain tokenized treasury-backed stablecoin

  • Redstone: Plasma-inspired Alt-DA chain, built on the OP Stack

  • Grace Protocol: Lending protocol built by Inverse Finance founder

  • Penomo Protocol: Tokenizing renewable energy assets assets

  • Multibit Bridge: Bridge between BRC20 assets and ERC20

  • Aether VM: Community owned, Free Public Infrastructure Consumer Chain and EVM tooling for the Cosmos hub

  • OM Trade: Copy trading protocol which raised $6M seed round

Courtesy of CJ - check out his telegram channel for daily news, projects updates and new releases

⛓ On-Chain Sleuthing

Condom Building Position in $AIOZ

Crypto Condom has a new AI play called $AIOZ. She has been building a position over the last few weeks and currently amounts to $78k.

Crypto Condom’s Wallet [only visible for free subs]

Blur Team Extracting More Value

The team behind Blur have launched a new Layer 2 network called BLAST:

People can “bridge” ETH to the chain by sending assets to this multisig. As of writing over 70 million in ETH has been transferred to the multisig.

It is extremely degenerate to trust your assets to these people. This is not yet a real Layer 2 and the bridged assets are held in a multisig.

The project promises a stable yield on your assets, but be aware that you have to lock your assets for a period of three months. The harsh reality is that this is a classic “food” farm from back in the day, a la Sushi and Yam, but more sophisticated.

Instead of showing you the yield beforehand, it takes the yield from staked ETH and promises additional yield in the form of an airdrop using the point and referral system from Friend Tech.

It is a blatant ponzi. Know the risks.

Research and analysis by Cl

🔥 Hot Narratives

CZ Stepping Down: End of an Era

Huge news broke regarding Binance and CZ.

CZ pleaded guilty to violating AML in the US and plans to step down. Additionally, the company will be paying a $4 BILLION fine. It seems that Adam Cochran will be doing victory laps as he has been spewing stuff about Binance wrongdoings for a long time now.

CZ is allowed to maintain his majority share in Binance, but not suit an executive role at the company. On Twitter he said that he would be focussing more on investing and DeFi. His statement can be found here.

Some people on Twitter claim this is a net positive for the industry:

Arbitrum STIP Round 2

The quorum for a second round of STIP is passing. Best to keep an eye on this and for protocols that may be eligible to receive a grant. We can likely run it again as with the STIP round 1 and buy some ARB ecosystem projects in anticipation.

This was a very lucrative play the first time, however, don’t expect the gains from the first round.

Potential receivers: $GNS, $RDO, $PNP (full list of candidates here).

Note that this is fairly risky and these are extremely small market cap projects (apart from $GNS).

Courtesy of unexployed

Use our referral system to spread the word about the Chronicle!

💹 Macro Outlook

Please note that if certain technical jargon or concepts mentioned in this text are unclear, you can refer to investopedia.com for detailed explanations and definitions. Additionally, for a comprehensive overview of macroeconomic events, you can explore the event calendar on investing.com/economic-calendar/.

Upcoming Events

  • Tues 21st Nov: FOMC minutes

  • Wed 22nd Nov: Durable Goods Orders

  • Fri 24th Nov: Japanese Inflation rate

BTC, ETH and Macro

  • With less than 50 days until the ETF decision, BTC fought off two consecutive jabs from the US; a >$4b fine for Binance and another from Kraken. BTC quickly recovered from the news and made an attempt at 38k which again was rejected from the thick ask walls above. BTC currently looks like it would bounce around in the highs until a more significant catalyst.

  • Macro currently is looking favorable towards risk. The 10-year yields are falling as inflation seems more under control, DXY continues its downward trajectory, and SPX and GLD continue upwards. This week is a quiet week in terms of data releases, so again not a bad week to take on some risk.

  • Options markets are pointing towards a bullish 3 to 6 months according to skews. This was a great early indicator during the previous bull run too. It can be found in the options section of the Velo app, which also offers a range of trading indicators like CVDs, open interest, and funding rates.

Courtesy of Hansolar - check out his telegram chat for all things options, crypto and DeFi

📈 HTF Price Action Scenarios

Gm frens!

Last week I was looking to continue longing this trend for as long as there was steam in it and once price starts re-accumulating again we play the patience game.

Price has since started liquidating lows (re-accumulation) and we are now once again waiting for big money to enter before looking to jump on board. Overall this is still a very bullish market that is doing exactly what we would expect from a bullish trend. Therefore it should be no surprise if we undergo a deeper correction with some significant lows getting liquidated before continuation.

  • Accumulation inside daily demand zone

  • Expansion out of consolidation

  • Bullish momentum

  • Lows being liquidated

Once price starts liquidating highs again I will look to follow the trend long. Until then we chillin’.

Trade responsibly and I’ll see y’all next week!

Courtesy of Vlad - trend-based trader and MentFX student

The Alpha Assembly

Receive Telegram notifications of our posts and those of our partners! Join the Alpha Assembly Telegram channel today!

The central hub for anything crypto:

Thanks for reading, please give us a follow on Twitter at @Castle__Cap and visit our website to learn more about our services.

Virtually yours,

The Castle

🔔 p.s. You can join the Alpha Assembly Telegram channel to receive notifications of our posts and those of our partners!

In our newsletter, we may discuss projects or tokens in which we hold positions. While we aim to provide informative content, our views are not financial advice. Please conduct your research and consult professionals before making investment decisions. Crypto markets are volatile, and past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Invest responsibly, and be aware of the risks. Your capital is at risk, and we do not accept liability for any losses.

Reply

or to participate.