Gold prices surged to record levels, bringing cheer to metal-backed digital tokens traditionally seen as safe-haven investments.
The largest gold-backed coin by market cap rose to an all-time high of $4,425, while PAXG (PAXG) and kineses gold (KAU) also rose, raising the total market cap of gold-backed coins to $4.38 billion.
“The message is clear. Investors are still hedging against macro uncertainty rather than proactively responding to risk. This divergence continues to limit enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies even as liquidity conditions improve,” Timothy Misir, BRN’s director of research, said in an email.
Bitcoin, dubbed digital gold by some followers, rose to $89,800, while the dollar index fell and technology stocks lifted Asian stock indexes higher. Notably, gains in shares of heavyweight chipmakers TSMC and Samsung Electronics helped calm concerns about an artificial intelligence bubble. Futures tied to the S&P 500 rose about 0.3%, pointing to gains at Monday’s U.S. opening.
While the price gains are encouraging, a sustained recovery will require renewed interest in institutional investment vehicles, which currently appears to have cooled. Data from CoinShares, the data source, shows that digital asset investment products listed globally last week experienced net outflows for the first time in four weeks, with a loss of US$952 million.
Derivatives Insights
- Market stability has yet to spark a renewed need to take risks. The picture for futures was mixed, with open interest (OI) for BTC, ETH, HYPE and BNB increasing slightly over the 24 hours. Other major cryptocurrencies have also seen capital outflows.
- BTC longs raised with borrowed money continue to increase on Bitfinex. Historically, this is a feature of sustained bear markets.
- BTC’s 30-day implied volatility has held steady around 45%, suggesting trading will become subdued as the year-end approaches.
- Ethereum’s 30-day implied volatility fell to 70%, its lowest level since October 9.
- On CME, open interest in Bitcoin futures fell below 120,000 Bitcoin for the first time since early 2024. This is a sign of reduced institutional involvement.
- Perpetual market funding rates for BCH, SHIB, WLFI, and TON are negative, indicating a short position bias. Financing rates for major companies remain moderately optimistic.
- On Deribit, block flow paints a mixed picture, with both BTC call and put spreads crossing the broader market. In the case of ETH, traders chase calendar spreads.
- Overall, Bitcoin and Ethereum puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, although the put bias has weakened slightly since Friday.
token talk
- Curve DAO vetoed a proposal to send 17.45 million CRV tokens (worth approximately $6.3 million) to Swiss Stake AG, a company led by Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov and responsible for the core development of the decentralized exchange.
- The protocol’s CRV token has gained around 4% in the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader cryptocurrency market. The CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index rose 0.35% over the same period.
- The proposal, which aimed to fund protocol development, infrastructure and security work by the Swiss Stake’s 25-person team, failed with 54.46% of votes against and 45.54% of votes in favor.
- According to on-chain data, nearly 90% of people voted against wallets related to Yearn Finance and Convex Finance, two major players in the decentralized finance field.
- Some DAO members have expressed concerns about the transparency of past spending reports.
- “The DAO should have a detailed and transparent list of fees, and the DAO should not be expected to authorize more funds until this requirement is met and the community has had an opportunity to publicly discuss whether these fees are reasonable,” one DAO member wrote.
