👀 What’s to Come in Volume 25

🔑 Key News: Headlines, Exploits, Continued Adoption, DeFi Updates, New Projects & more from CJ

🔥 Hot Narratives: Solana and DeFi 1.0 by unexployed

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

📉 HTF Price Action Scenarios from Vlad

⛓ On-Chain Sleuthing: $RLB and $DMT, Smart Money Farms a feature along with Smart Money Moves from Cl & Amir Ormu

⚔️ A Call to Arms

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🔑 Key News

Major Crypto Headlines

• Vietnam launches investigation into Pi cryptocurrency

• Celsius Network moves $70 million of altcoins following the ruling it can swap to BTC and ETH

• Nasdaq files for Valkyrie bitcoin ETF, lists Coinbase as surveillance sharing partner

• Binance Senior Execs Quit Over CZ's Response to DOJ Investigation while CZ responds to it

• Grayscale added LDO token to its DeFi fund

• Gemini filed lawsuit against DCGco and BarrySilbert and DCGs responded to it

• Coinbase CLO responds to SEC filing

• Cboe reaches surveillance agreement with Coinbase for spot bitcoin ETFs

Exploits

• Rodeo Finance exploited for $89k and again for $880k

• MultichainOrg assets on Fantom & Moonriver moved suspiciously and their statement on it while Circle and Tether blacklisted the USDC and USDT respectively

• ArcadiaFi exploited for $455k

• Platypus Defi exploited

• Livertify exploited for $452k

Useful Weekly DeFi Updates

• MakerDAO's Spark Protocol going multichain

• Pendle expanded to BSC

• Pika Protocol v4 live on Optimism

• Archway HQ airdrop went live

• Blur launched v2

• dYdX Launches Public Testnet on Cosmos

• Nftperp closes v1 beta and gears for v2

• Barn Bridge under SEC investigation

• Redacted Cartel Hidden Hand v2 live

• Avail Project Launches Data Attestation Bridge to Ethereum

• Compound Finance introduced Encumber

• Layerzero Labs Github update revealed $ZRO as gas fees

• Arkham revealed its On-Chain Intelligence Exchange and announced token sale on Binance, airdrop snapshot already over while doxxing user’s email address in the meantime

• 0xMantle proposal to fund $200M ecosystem fund

• Cowswap introduces CoW Hooks

• Linea starts rolling out Linea mainnet alpha release

• AIP to deploy GHO on mainnet live

• Proposal to activate veYFI rewards with oYFI gauges live

• AlgoFi which represents over 50% of TVL in Algorand shutting down

Interesting New Projects

• eBTC Protocol: Built by BadgerDAO team, eBTC backed by stETH

• Dropbook: Airdrop tracking dashboard

• Public Goods Network: L2 that works to create durable and recurring funding for public goods

• Spacemesh: L1 launching soon

• Tomcat Protocol: Convex for MAV tokens (Maverick Protocol)

• Gas Hero: Game Fi project from Stepn creators

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

🔥 Hot Narratives

Potential SOL narrative

We are seeing more and more people speak up about SOL. After the flush of Alameda and FTX, the network has been somewhat in the gutter. Yet, there are a ton of interesting projects building on the network, most of them with a focus on trading (likely because of the network speed).

Best thing is, most of these projects have no token. So it is the perfect opportunity for people with little on-chain experience and a small portfolio to get in the tranches and grind it out. The network token is cheap and gas is close to free.

DeFi 1.0: the start of redemption arc?

Another sector within crypto that has been down bad: DeFi. And particularly the older and bigger DeFi projects.

Some would say DeFi is played out and that there is no interest as crypto users have turned to memecoins and gamblefi. Yet, DeFi is still one of the main pillars within crypto. An alternative financial system that can be used by anyone.

That being said, there are quite a lot of interesting developments happening over at DeFi 1.0. The $crvUSD stablecoin has been launched and is now well over 70mln in terms of supply.

And yesterday voting was opened for the AIP to launch GHO on mainnet, the stablecoin by Aave. Proposals like these are just a formality and are guaranteed to pass.

Both stablecoins are interesting as they are decentralized, censorship-resistant stablecoins and aim to take market share from the big players Circle and Tether. To us, these are signs that DeFi is consolidating and maturing.

Now, whether or not this will lead to a lot of green candles has to be seen, but for DeFi overall very good developments.

💹 Macro Outlook

Upcoming Events

• 7/12 Core Inflation / Inflation Rate

• 7/13 PPI

• 7/14 Consumer Sentiment

• 7/26 FED Interest Rate Decision

BTC, ETH, and Macro

• The fast decline in the dollar index as well as bond yields and the returning upward trend from the SPX seem to be in anticipation of a lower-than-expected inflation number for July.

• However, yearly inflation may be harder to get lower from this point going forward and may have even bottomed.

• FOMC decision is 2 weeks away, but people have already started talking about the September decision. The July rate hike currently has a 92% chance of a 25 basis point hike and the September implied probabilities are currently pointing towards a pause.

  

• Indications of China’s slowing economy seem to be popping up more frequently as of late. Services PMI’s last Friday from 57 to 53.9 scared the markets. Also, this Monday inflation numbers came in at 0% despite lowering interest rates in the previous month. Further financial easing may be required to stimulate the economy.

Crypto Options Markets

The general volatility regime is still very suppressed. 1 month BTC IV’s are currently in the low to mid-40s and are slightly lower for ETH still. An IV of 45 implies a 1-month price range of +or-12.9%. However, we are seeing some more bullish bets in the form of pure long volatility bets as well as large outright calls.

• BTC

• Short-term call spread targeting next week. $190k bet for a very short-term expiry.

  

  Block-trade source: https://t.me/tradeparadigm 

• ETH

  • $2.9m long-tenor long ETH play

    buy ETH-29MAR24-1900-C + sell ETH-29MAR24-2800-C

    (However, this could also be interpreted as being slightly bearish ETH in the near term)

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

📈 HTF Price Action Scenarios

Gm frens!

Last week it made sense to follow the LTF bullishness or to wait for a pullback into the daily demand zone.

• Re-accumulation playing out

• First daily demand zone tapped

• Looking for long opportunities

• Bullish

This is a bullish market and there are a couple of zones from which longs make sense IF a good setup is presented. At no point would I be taking shorts into any of these zones.

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

Courtesy of Vlad - trend-based trader and MentFX student

⛓ On-Chain Sleuthing

Crypto Condom & her $RLB position

Crypto condom has been shilling $RLB quite a lot recently. Understandably so as the anon has been building a sizable $RLB position in the last few days.

Already up 2x since, GG.

Approved the router, ready to take profit?

Ethersole joining the $RLB party

Currently holding a 90k position.

Digits enters $GENIE

You may remember $GENIE as we covered it last week and connected it with rumors that it might get integrated with Maestro bot.

Well, those rumors were NOT true. Genie will not get integrated with Maestro. However, five other projects have already made their integrations and we expect it to not stop there.

Maybe Digits has read our post, because after the publication 8 ETH was aped by their wallet in $GENIE.

Last week, the token was sitting at a $300k marketcap, now just short of $1mln. At this point be vigilant with entering.

Remilia & Unibot Community buying $DMT

It seems that many community members of Remilia and $UNIBOT along with some Arbitrum whales have been buying the $DMT token in the last weeks. An interesting mix of wallets is bidding/holding this token.

Example #1: 0×22…70f

0×22b is the largest holder of unstaked $DMT, holds 100 Remilios, 30 miladys, and lots of Remilia derivatives.

$DMT could be one of the first projects to bring NFT bro’s from mainnet to the L2.

Example #2: 0xda…1e9; A $UNIBOT whale ($200k position) bidding $DMT.

Smart Money Moves and Farms

• Smart Money has been engaging with $OLAS.

• Extra Finance has garnered significant popularity among smart farmers recently. Check it out at: https://app.extrafi.io/

• Velodrome V2 continues to be a preferred choice among smart farmers.

• FVM on Fantom has captured the attention of smart farmers as well. Explore more at: https://www.fvm.exchange/home

• Raft remains a popular option, with the R+DAI LP on Aura still favored by smart farmers.

• Swell has established itself as a comfortable and reliable platform for smart farmers.

• Ambient has been receiving substantial interactions from smart money, primarily due to the upcoming airdrop.

• SpookySwap has also piqued the interest of smart farmers.

Research and analysis by Cl & Amir Ormu

Thanks for reading, please give us a follow at Castle Capital and subscribe to The Castle Chronicle for an update each week!

Virtually yours,

Atomist & The Castle