In markets
The crypto supercycle appears to have developed a flat tyre, with markets losing $1.84 trillion (US$1.2T) in value in just 42 days. Bitcoin dropped 13.3% this week and is currently trading at A$141,442 (US$91,782), while Ethereum lost 15.2% to trade around A$4,636 (US$3,006). Both are now negative year-to-date and are well below the level of the October 10 flash crash. Everything else is performing poorly as well, with Ripple losing 15.1% despite gaining an ETF, Solana falling 21.6%, Dogecoin down 15.7%, and Cardano pulling back 21.4%. Analysts note that Bitcoin’s 31% pullback since the all-time high of A$194,344 (US$126,198) in early October is fairly normal historically. We’ve seen two such dips already in this cycle. Traditional markets and tech stocks are also gripped with fear, as confidence drains from the AI trade — Peter Thiel sold off half a million Nvidia shares. There’s also great uncertainty over the actual state of the US economy, with the end of the shutdown meaning September’s jobs data is only finally being released this week. US Fed officials have also cast doubt on a December rate cut. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 14, indicating Extreme Fear, and the TradFi Fear and Greed Index is at the same level. Outside of market collapses, the extreme fear reading is historically the best time to buy. Santiment also reports that the 30-day MVRV ratio for a number of the top coins is in deep negative territory, which again, is historically the best time to buy.
From the OTC desk
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In headlines
What’s causing the crash?
BitMine CEO Tom Lee believes Ethereum is still in a supercycle and set to repeat Bitcoin’s stunning rise from 2017. The perma-bull believes the current crypto crash “has all the signs of a market maker (or two) with a major ‘hole’ in their balance sheet”, which was discussed as a possibility in the aftermath of the October 10 flash crash. This week also saw unfounded rumours of Strategy selling 47,000 Bitcoin, but it had just moved it, and today announced it has bought 8,178 more BTC. Worryingly, however, Strategy’s NAV fell below 1 for the first time – that’s when the shares are worth less than the value of the Bitcoin it holds. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley thinks people are selling due to a belief in four-year market cycles, but they are wrong and “2026 is open season.” Some analysts estimate that up to US$600B (A$924B) in liquidity was pulled out of markets as a result of the shutdown. Overall, there’s a good deal of puzzlement that the market is tanking despite improving fundamentals, legal clarity on the horizon, and substantial institutional buys. The Kobeissi Letter states that crypto is in a structural bear market, unrelated to its fundamentals. JP Morgan expects a US$300 billion (A$462B) liquidity injection in the US by mid-December, and quantitative easing is expected to return in 2026. And if you zoom out, Bitcoin is still up more than 500% from January 2023.
8 XRP ETFs in the space of a month
Canary Capital’s spot XRP ETF finally launched this week, with BNY Mellon providing custody of the funds, and Nasdaq is handling daily trading operations. It narrowly surpassed the Bitwise Solana ETF in first-day volume, with US$58 million (A$89M), making it the most successful ETF launch of 2025. Four more XRP ETFs are set to launch this week, and three more are scheduled in the coming weeks. In other ETF news, Harvard University reported this week that it owns US$442.8 million (A$682M) worth of BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF. The Bitcoin ETFs experienced their second-worst day on record, with US$866 million (A$1.3 billion) in outflows on Thursday.
Zcash’s triumphant return
The Solana community has been successfully talking up the price of Zcash, and now the Winklevoss twins have launched a digital asset treasury company focused on the OG privacy coin. Cypherpunk Technologies has already cornered 1.25% of the ZEC supply (although critics argue that the privacy aspects make it difficult to confirm the actual supply is 21 million). In Asia, the Japan Exchange is considering measures to make it harder for existing companies to pivot to DATs, due to concerns over losses associated with the practice.
Taiwan embraces Bitcoin
Taiwan is prepping an inventory of its seized Bitcoin and will investigate holding onto its Bitcoin in a strategic reserve. Zhuo Rongtai, premier of Taiwan, said a report was in the works along with more Bitcoin-friendly regulations.
Singapore stablecoin regulation
Properly regulated stablecoins offer the prospect of “value stability”, unlike more volatile unregulated ones, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) managing director Chia Der Jiun. “Recurrent de-pegging can erode confidence and trigger runs on other stablecoins,” said Chia. He added that MAS is preparing draft legislation for its stablecoin regulatory regime. The comments were made in the same week that Standard Chartered announced it would provide banking and financial market services for DeCard, a credit card that enables stablecoin payments at real-world stores in Singapore. Chia also said in his speech that different players tokenising RWAs will “need to agree on common standards for asset-backed tokens even as they compete to scale.”
BTC is from Mars and ETH from Venus
Bitcoin and Ethereum now operate in different monetary universes according to a new report from Glassnode and Keyrock. The report states that Bitcoin is a store of value, similar to gold, while Ether is evolving into a productive on-chain asset for staking, collateral, and institutional wrappers. The report found 61% of Bitcoin hasn’t moved in a year, and turnover is just 0.61% of free float per day, which is one of the lowest velocity profiles among major global assets. ETH’s turnover is double Bitcoin’s, at around 1.3% per day, and one in four ETH is locked in staking or in ETFs, creating a massive productive float.
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