MaiCoin Digital Asset Weekly, Nov 8 2019

Commentary

Digital Assets ended the week +0.6%. Trading this week -21% from last week’s record high. Breadth this week was positive with 64% of the top 200 coins and tokens ending higher. Alts outperformed BTC led by gains in XLM, EOS, XMR and LTC. Some very big moves in smaller names as well with ATOM +22%, MKR +23%, XTZ +30% and VET +42%

News this week was led by more positive Greater China news with Mainland authorities removing Crypto Mining from their list of industries to be phased out and HK offering further clarity on exchange licensing criteria.

Derivatives markets were another big focus following a flash crash on Deribit last week, a CME BTC futures flash crash this week, A $150M market manipulation suit against FTX, BitMEX accidentally revealing 10s of thousands of user emails and Bakkt futures seeing increasingly active trading.

Other major stories included: 1. Square reporting continued BTC user growth, 2. Ongoing management infighting at Bitmain, 3. Listed BTC miner Hut 8 positing solid 3Q numbers, 4. ‘Crypto bank’ Silvergate listing on the NYSE, and 5. the President of Venezuela flashing his Trezor on state TV.

Looking into next week, it looks as if Bart Simpson is once again planing mischief (chart 6). The Bart Simpson chart pattern is characterized by a price gap, consolidation and then another gap in the opposite direction. Our gap higher came with the price rally following President Xi Jin Ping’s positive blockchain comments. Since then, we’ve been stuck in a descending triangle pattern with price repeatedly testing the bottom end of the range. A drop below $9,000 will likely trigger the completion of the Bart pattern and a test of $7,800 support. A move > $9,500 would break the descending triangle pattern and save us from a Bart like gap lower.

Thoughts

BTC and USDT both on pace for record volume this month. BTC is tracking a daily average of $24B. USDT is on pace for $28B. I think a lot of this is being driven by sharp price moves and a string of action packed weeks in futures markets (flash crashes, large liquidations, security scares).

Combined BTC and USDT are now accounting for ~ 65% of total digital asset trading over the past 5 days — Much higher than the 100 day average of 42%

I’m not sure what this means exactly for price. But it certainly shows how these 2 assets are dominating investor interest at the moment.

News

Charts

Chart 1. Price Performance %

Chart 2. Price by Sector
– Smart Contract and Privacy the best this week led by EOS, ETC and XMR

Chart 3. Price vs Volume
– Maker and Atom up on lower volume
– XTZ, XLM and XMR up on better volume

Chart 4. Historic Price Performance
– BTC and BNB still at the highest levels ever for this point in November

Chart 5. Average Daily Volume, By Month
– BTC and USDT on pace for the best Monthly ADV ever

Chart 6. BTC, Revenge of Bart
– Possible Bart Simpson pattern forming in BTC