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This Month in Crypto: Monthly Insights from February 2023
Despite a regulatory crackdown on unregistered securities in the US, the total crypto markets remained headwind-resistant throughout February with a slight decline of nearly 2%. The resistance came primarily on the back of “Ordinals,” a Bitcoin-native protocol enabling minting NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain for the first time, which boosted the network’s assets by 4.61% over the past month.
In addition, Ethereum’s testnet that simulated token withdrawals on February 7 increased ETH’s assets under management by ~9% over the past month as shown in Figure 1. The outperformers of last month’s rally were Optimism (21.34%) and Lido (41.56%); factors mainly driving these returns include Coinbase’s own scaling solution dubbed “Base” being built on Optimism and it was also known that Founder of Tron, Justin Sun staked 200K ETH via Lido, among other developments that we’ll delve deeper into later in this monthly review. February’s biggest loser was Avalanche, which declined by 15.10% on the back of a decline in daily activity on the network.
Figure 1: Price and TVL Development of Major Crypto Sectors
Source: 21Shares, Coingecko, DeFi Llama. Data as of February 27.
Key takeaways from this report
• The SEC cracks down on unregistered securities, halting the minting of Paxos’ BUSD on Binance among others.
• Ethereum executes two testnet upgrades prior to withdrawals.
• Coinbase launching Base, its own scaling solution on Ethereum
• Centrifuge suggests backing Aave’s GHO with RWAs, Siemens and Hamilton Lane issue a public bond and direct equity fund on Polygon, and Swarm introduces tokenized exposure to US treasury bills and stocks.
• An NFT protocol drives Bitcoin’s assets under management and broadens the use case of the original cryptoasset and Blur flips OpenSea in trading volume on the marketplace.
Spot and Derivatives Markets
Figure 2: BTC Perpetual Swap Open Interest / Market Cap
Source: Glassnode
Figure 2 shows BTC perpetual swap open interest relative to Bitcoin’s market cap. We can see that the number of contracts built up relative to the market size increased significantly in 2022 until the FTX collapse. Since then, we have observed a general deleveraging of the system. However, over the month of February, the ratio has increased slightly as BTC’s price has consolidated, suggesting that risk appetite may be picking up among investors.
On-chain Indicators
Figure 3: Bitcoin Taproot Adoption
Source: Glassnode
Figure 3 shows that Taproot adoption surpassed 5% for the first time on February 1 and reached 17.68% on February 9. The sudden rise in Taproot adoption is attributed to the launch of a project called Ordinals, which enables Bitcoin-native NFTs. Created by Casey Rodarmor, Ordinals embed image-related data into the Bitcoin blockchain using the input field in Taproot transactions. The Taproot upgrade, activated in November 2021, makes it cheaper to store arbitrary data and allows users to store as much data as they like in a single transaction, as long as they pay for it and the total block size remains under 4MB. Before Taproot, one had to use multiple transactions or inputs to store large amounts of data.
The introduction of NFTs on Bitcoin can expand its use cases beyond a store of value asset. The latter would increase fees, which would be a net positive for the long-term security of the network, especially as the emission of new BTC will end in 2140.
Next Month’s Calendar
Source: 21shares, Forex Factory
Read full report here
Research Newsletter
Each week the 21Shares Research team will publish our data-driven insights into the crypto asset world through this newsletter. Please direct any comments, questions, and words of feedback to research@21shares.com
Disclaimer
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Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index ETP, den största kryptoindexprodukten i Europa med över 500 miljoner USD i AUM, har nominerats till ETF Stream Awards 2024, i kategorin ”Digital Assets ETP Of The Year”!
Hashdex är glada över att se sitt engagemang för att tillhandahålla innovativ, reglerad tillgång till kryptotillgångsklassen erkänd. Detta erkännande belyser deras ledarskap när det gäller att utveckla kryptoinvesteringslösningar.
Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index ETP, den största kryptoindexprodukten i Europa med över 500 miljoner USD i AUM, har nominerats till ETF Stream Awards 2024, i kategorin ”Digital Assets ETP Of The Year”!
Detta erkännande belyser Hashdex engagemang för att tillhandahålla innovativa, robusta produkter som förenklar tillgången till kryptotillgångarnas värld. HDX1 erbjuder diversifierad exponering och tydlighet på en komplex marknad, vilket förkroppsligar Hashdex uppdrag att föra kryptons framtid in i nutiden av investeringar.
Prisutdelningen äger rum den 28 november i London, där Hashdex kommer att ansluta sig till branschens främsta ETF-spelare.
For years, India has been ramping up to contend with China as the region’s top technology leader. Pandemic-era supply chain issues hastened its successes in luring foreign tech firms. Now, equity investment flows are following suit. Dina Ting, Head of Global Index Portfolio Management at Franklin Templeton, highlights a few factors behind how the subcontinent is benefiting from rotational flows.
As China braces for renewed friction over President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats, investor flows may be following similar currents as those of regional supply chain shifts—that is to say, diversifying from China and toward opportunities in markets such as India and Japan.
After the People’s Bank of China revealed the most aggressive stimulus package it’s rolled out since the COVID-19 pandemic, China stock markets saw a short-lived rally at the end of September. A lack of detailed measures targeting consumption seems to have disappointed investors and led the bullish sentiment to deflate.
Adding to the country’s economic woes are societal changes like falling birthrates and a rapidly ageing population. Estimates by China’s National Health Commission suggest the country’s elderly population will grow to over 400 million by about 2035. To better cope with this crisis, China’s statutory retirement age will be extended, starting in January 2025, for the first time since the 1950s.
India investors, meanwhile, are finding the subcontinent—which has already overtaken China as the world’s most populous nation—appealing for its relative immunity to global risks, given its domestic-driven economy. Its younger labor force has also attracted a market pivot to this prime alternative to China manufacturing. For the 12-month period prior to China’s September 2024 stimulus announcement, US-listed India equity exchange traded funds (ETFs) garnered US$7.5 billion in flows—a sharp contrast to the US$6 billion in outflows experienced by China ETFs over the same period.1
Judging by India’s impressive initial public offering (IPO) environment, businesses there are feeling the optimism. The country’s 258 IPOs accounted for 30% of the global total by number by the end of September and 12% by the amount of money raised, in an economy that makes up just over 3% of global GDP.2
And investors in India are taking note. Aided by the improving digitalization of finance and increased internet access, India’s middle class is also an expanding retail investor class. By one measure, nationwide stock trading accounts nearly tripled from 2019 to 2023 to roughly 140 million.3
In dollar terms, total returns for Indian stocks have risen by 93% over the past five years, compared with about a 24% rise overall for emerging markets and drop of 5% for China stocks over the same period.
Many investors seeking to better diversify emerging market exposure or layer in targeted broad country allocation can tap single-country exchange-traded strategies.
Emerging markets in the Asia region are not the only beneficiaries of a potential US-China trade war. Earlier this year, investors were already driving up flows into Japan ETFs. Market watchers consider Japanese stocks to be indirect beneficiaries of Trump’s reflationary economic policy—which may keep interest rates high, thereby boosting the dollar and weakening the yen to the advantage of Japanese exporters.
The MSCI Japan Index is up nearly 21% in US dollar terms in the one-year period ending October 31, 2024. Consumer discretionary, financials and industrials holdings led gains during this time.
An element of uncertainty around the policies of a second Trump term, however, are still causing jitters around Asia, especially given the president-elect’s transactional approach to international relations.
Fortunately, Japan is seeing a renaissance in its semiconductor industry for which Tokyo is investing heavily (more than US$25 billion through 2025) and has established strong multilateral trade partnerships.
Japan has already elevated its role in global supply chain reorganization in recent years, and seeks to take advantage of its clout in joint free trade initiatives, such as the US’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity to strengthen its regional supply-chain leadership.
Hashdex kryptokorg nominerad till Digital Assets ETP Of The Year
China’s ETF outflows captured elsewhere in Asia
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