Friday, Jan 26, 2024

BTC on the move, the US GDP surprise, Apple and blockchain apps, more education needed

“Reality is frequently inaccurate.” – Douglas Adams  ||    

Hello everyone, and Happy Friday!!

You’re reading the daily premium Crypto is Macro Now newsletter, where I look at the growing overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes. There’s also usually some market commentary, but I don’t give trading ideas, and NOTHING I say is investment advice. For full disclosure, I have held the same long positions in BTC and ETH for years, and have no intention to either buy more or sell in the near future.

Since many of you are new here (hello! welcome!), I should introduce myself again. My name is Noelle, I’ve been writing crypto newsletters with an institutional focus for over seven years now, first for CoinDesk as MD of Research (among other roles) and then for Genesis Trading as Head of Market Insights. I left there in September 2022 to focus on better understanding how crypto is shaping the broader economic and geopolitical outlook.

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IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• BTC on the move again

• The US GDP surprise

• Retail interest in Bitcoin – a long way to go

• Apple opens up, can crypto benefit?

WHAT I’M WATCHING

BTC on the move again

Just as it was starting to look like the post-ETF slump was going to drag on, BTC jumped this morning in what looks like a short squeeze – no clear news that I can see, and an almost vertical slope. For now, it seems to be holding.

(chart via TradingView)

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the GBTC outflows are over. Yesterday, they were $394 million, which sounds like a lot but is the lowest outflow since launch day. Total net outflows from all spot BTC ETFs was almost half the previous day’s. But flows can be volatile, as we have seen.

(table via BitMEX Research)

Rather, it reminds us that flows matter but are not the main driver of the BTC price. I’ve been talking a lot this week about how macro influences are still significant, especially as the Fed pivot approaches. Yesterday, assets reacted favourably to the strong GDP combined with what looks like controlled inflation (more on this below). BTC didn’t, and could be doing some catch-up here.

We also saw yesterday that the US government filed a notice of its plan to sell $117 million worth of seized BTC. This is likely to reassure investors that the almost $8 billion worth of BTC that the US government reportedly holds will not be “dumped” on the market. It will be sold piecemeal, with plenty of notice. This removes a potential overhang.