A Perspiring Expiration 😅

Market Report: 20th Sept. 2018 — Subscribe to our newsletter.

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CRYPTO NOTE

The daily view from our desk

Football fans rejoice, the Champions League has returned with lots of goals, drama and this burgeoning English talent. Is he a star in the making, could he eclipse the fame of Kylie Jenner if he goes another three years without eating cereal with milk? A group of Bristol students paid for a cleaner to go home for the first time in 10 years, you wouldn’t catch a Londoner doing that!

A PERSPIRING EXPIRATION

How the expiration of traditional Bitcoin futures still impacts the market

What a delightful day. We have covered Bitcoin futures since last December and considered yesterday’s expiration of the CBOE Bitcoin monthly contract to be a non-event — like it was in May — not worth signalling amongst all the crypto-noise. In one way, it ended up being quite unremarkable, with BTC sitting just 0.8% above the level it was 24 hours ago, and the top 100 projects appreciating only 0.2% on average.
But it was also noteworthy due to the intra-day volatility it caused, with BTC dropping 3.5% in less than one hour — to an exact bottom of £4.6k ($6.1k) on Bitfinex. However, the more interesting aspect was the explosive 7.4% jump that followed, around half hour before said futures contract expired. Whalepool argues CBOE doesn’t have the volume to influence the market, but Josh Olszewicz claims that volume is not what matters here.

TRADE ME UP INSIDE

Call my office and save me from the insider trading. Bid my bulls to run

To add fuel to the fire, Kraken, an exchange used to calculate CME’s Bitcoin futures price index, claimed that such wild action was related to the NY State Attorney General report we shared yesterday. Focused on the integrity of crypto markets, it concluded that most platforms have conflicting interests and allow abusive trading. The vocal cephalopod even implied insider trading among the Attorney General office might be to blame.
However, it’s possible that a simpler explanation is at play, as this move’s outcome was the quick liquidation of several shorts and longs, as Josh Rager notes. Bringing Occam to the rescue, Ramen argues the quick rise was likely caused by the liquidation of a 20x short someone opened at OKEX, an Asian-based futures exchange, right when bitcoin hit £4.6k ($6.1k). At least no cryptoasset saw 94% gains wiped out in minutes — pot’s top?

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

Filter the noise and stay ahead of the pack

▪ Curious about learning how supply and demand concepts can be applied to trading? BitDealer shares a simple example and points out additional resources you can explore.

▪ It might seem like EOS has surpassed Ethereum “in terms of number of dApp users”, as Qiao Wang remarks, but En Hui Ong reminds us that the EOS network must be adapted in order to calculate such statistics, and Panek shows how most EOS transactions are spam.

▪ Are you still following Ran Neuner’s CNBC Crypto Trader? If so, be critical and watch out for people that are presenting scams in the TV show, as Udi Wertheimer reveals.

WHAT TO READ TODAY

An insight a day could give you more profits to play

▪ Are bears taking a toll on you? DonAlt shares some lessons everyone should have picked up in these harsh conditions, and LongHash argues why we should love this bear market.

▪ Patrick Kershaw, a crypto investor, explains — on TokenEconomy’s blog — how cryptoassets can help solve the Problem of the Commons through ‘friendly AIs’.

▪ David Chaum, the creator of eCash, the first successful form of digital cash, claims he has developed a better cryptocurrency — Elixxir. Adam Taché summarises it here.

FOUNDATIONAL TRIVIA

Because the building blocks of crypto needn’t be irrelevant

David Chaum is a famous cryptographer, father of cryptocurrency and cypherpunk. He developed the first successful implementation of private digital payments — eCash, back in 1982 — and founded DigiCash in 1990, a company that aimed to profit from his research. Ironically, he is known as “the man that turned down a fortune”.