Weekend Brief

US Presidential Race

• The debate between Trump and Harris was the highlight of the week, despite no mention of crypto. 
• Harris putting her decades of experience as an attorney to good use during the debate, winning the endorsement of the clout wielding Taylor Swift. 
• As of now, Harris has pulled ahead according to Polymarket, with slightly over 50% chance of being elected as the first female POTUS.

US Inflation

• CPI data on Wednesday came in inline with expectations (2.5% actual vs 2.5% expected), increasing the odds of a 25bps rate cut to 85%.
• However, core PPI (YoY) on Thursday came in 0.1% lower than expected (2.4% actual vs 2.5% expected), leading the market to shift and price a 50/50 chance of 25bps and 50bps cut.
• Gold continued its rally on the back of PPI data, pushing fresh all-time-highs. 

Flows

• BTC ETF saw positive inflows 4 out of 5 days this week, with Friday printing +263.2m, in contrast to last week’s nett outflow.
• Outflows from GBTC are slowing down, with inflows of 6.7m recorded on Friday. Could this be the end of GBTC supply?
• MicroStrategy announced on Friday that is has purchased an additional 18.3k BTC, bringing its total holdings to 244.8k BTC.
• Last night’s rally to 60k liquidated almost 50m of short positions.
• The options market saw a sudden revival of ETH interest. With over 20k contracts being bought targeting 3k levels by 27-Dec.

Trade idea

Despite some short term uncertainty and potential drawdowns, we still favour locking in yields ahead of the rates cut and positioning for bullish scenarios. 

CFCC

• Receive weekly 65.6% p.a. coupons as long as BTC price is above 60k.
• Maturity: 27-Dec
• Strike: 55k
• Protection level: 50k
• Coupon trigger: 60K
• Coupon rate: 65.6% p.a.
• At expiry, if BTC is below 50k, the USD deployed will be converted to BTC at 55k.