Bump And Grind

The News From Planet Ruby—Friday, September 8, 2023

It's September, a month which typically sees quieter market action both here and on Earth. On Planet Ruby, we long ago learned to chill out with a few hits of Rubyherb* and sit out the lull. Sadly, the apes haven't learned this yet, and continue to agonize over every tiny piece of data and market movement. We'd feel bad for them, if it weren't for the Rubyherb.

* A completely legal** plant-based preparation.

** Everything is legal on Planet Ruby.

Deja Vu, Again

The S&P500 hit a one-year high earlier this week, but abruptly pulled back on stronger-than-expected ISM data. The Institute for Supply Management’s US services index rose to a six-month high of 54.5 in August. A figure above 50 indicates expansion, and the result was higher than all estimates. This increases the chance of further rate hikes (which the market is now seriously considering for November) and puts downward pressure on risk assets. Thursday's jobless benefits claims figures didn't help, showing claims fell by 13,000 to 216,000, the lowest since February.

Despite a deal being done earlier in the year, the US is once again staring down the barrel of a government shutdown. With a level of rancor that should by now be familiar, Republicans and Democrats are duking it out over spending legislation. They have until September 30.

Goldman Sachs is turning steadily more optimistic about the US economy, writing in a recent note: "We have further reduced our 12-month US recession probability back to 15%, from 20% previously. This change reflects continued encouraging inflation news ..."

Crypto Faces Headwinds

Bitcoin drifted lower over the course of the week, consolidating below the 200-week MA. This line, now resistance, has always represented an important buying opportunity in prior cycles. This is the first cycle where BTC has closed beneath that level, currently a little below $28,000.

A bump above $26,000 doesn't change the fact that the path of least resistance is still to the downside, with analysts divided on whether $25,000 will hold. CoinTelegraph points to $22,000 as a logical step, based on futures data. Others are eyeing $20,000. As ever, though, it's worth asking who is left to sell when sentiment seems so uniformly bearish.

There is, additionally, a shaft of light piercing the clouds. Everyone's favorite trader may just have come through for us once again.

Grayscale Calls Out The SEC, And Asks The SEC To Call

Not everyone is bearish. The underlying picture for crypto hasn't changed from a few weeks back. Analysts from crypto research firm K33 claim it's reckless not to accumulate BTC aggressively as the crypto market has not adequately priced in the impact of an ETF approval, the odds of which some have placed at 75% for this year.

Elsewhere in the cryptoverse, the Base L2 chain suffered an outage for over an hour, drawing attention to the awkward degree of centralization inherent in many chains.

Grayscale wrote an open letter to the SEC, lamenting the fact that the regulator was ghosting them following their recent date in court, and asking them to get in touch and figure out a way forwards, aka just list our Spot Bitcoin ETF already, Gary?

MetaMask has launched withdrawals to fiat, for the lean service fee of just 8-9%, or an arm and a leg, whichever is cheaper.

Finally, Tether came out as one of the world's largest holders of US Treasuries, with over $72 billion in their portfolio: More than many developed countries.

What's New In The SKALEVERSE?

In the last few days, SKALE has hit the storming milestone of 1 million unique active user wallets! The network currently supports over 20 million monthly transactions, across 20 SKALE chains.

That's all for this week!

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