Gold Claims the Spotlight

Find out our latest reports, listed below:

• Metaplanet Is Selling Vol, Who Is Next?

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• Bybit x Block Scholes August Volatility Review

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• Bybit x Block Scholes Quarterly Report: What will drive crypto in Q3 2025?

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Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves:

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Daily Updates:

• After a string of all-time highs in BTC and US equities, both pulled back yesterday amidst signs of a slowdown in buy-side demand. 
• Previously, BTC had rallied going into the September FOMC meeting, and sold off sharply after, falling to $109K. 
• It had then increased monotonically until Monday evening, where a selloff from new ATH levels now sees it trade at $121K. 
• The move down in spot price has had a different impact in certain parts of derivatives markets compared to others. For example, 8-hourly funding rates for BTC have plummeted from their recent highs of 0.03 and 0.04% and now trade just above neutral levels, while the term structure of futures spot yields has eroded most of its downward slope and remains only marginally inverted. 
• Interestingly, options markets appear largely unchanged: ATM IV levels have traded sideways over the past 24 hours, while short-dated OTM puts continue to trade at a premium to call options. 

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• The bigger overnight move in options markets has occurred in ETH. The wider pullback in risk-on sentiment has seen Ether decline nearly 5% in the past 24 hours, down from $4,700 to $4,400. That has resulted in a sharp increase for downside protection with the vol smile for one-week contracts moving down from neutral levels to a 3 vol point premium in puts over calls. 
• In Wall Street, the selloff in the S&P 500 was due to a slowdown in the big Tech and artificial intelligence rally. That saw the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 end the day 0.38% and 0.55% lower, respectively. 
• The only asset unaffected by the flurry of profit taking was gold. For the first time in history, spot gold prices broke through $4,000 per oz. 

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• During a fireside chat yesterday, Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran reiterated his view that the Fed should continue to lower interest rates as population growth slows down and amidst limited signs of tariff-induced inflation. Miran said “My forecast for inflation is more sanguine than some of my colleagues … So I view the mandate as less in tension than some others do.”
• Miran also said “In the near term, I'm not very pessimistic at all about the economy, but I do see some risks lurking there if we don't adjust policy." and therefore pushed the idea that "additional restrictiveness of monetary policy poses some risks going forward."
• That view is not shared by all of Miran’s colleagues however. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said yesterday that “You would expect to see the economy have a burst of high inflation” should the Fed embark on a rapid burst of interest rate cuts. He added, “If you try to drive the economy faster than its potential to grow and its potential to produce prices, you end up just going up across the economy.”

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• As BNB reaches new highs, investment firm YZi Labs, previously known as Binance Labs, has announced a $1B Builder Fund dedicated to supporting early-stage startups working on the BNB Chain
• The fund will be prioritised for projects with Web3, artificial intelligence (AI), and biotechnology components reinforcing YZi Labs’ commitment to advancing the broader BNB ecosystem.

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• S&P Global has announced the launch of a new crypto based index, the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index, which aims to track 35 publicly listed crypto-related equities and 15 major cryptocurrencies. 
• The index will also be available to trade via a tokenised version of the benchmark, created by U.S.-based tokenisation firm, Dinari, on their blockchain-based platform, dShares.

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• The Bank of England is preparing to grant exemptions to its proposed limits on stablecoin holdings, according to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday. 
• Earlier proposals had suggested caps of up to $26,800 for individuals and $13.4M for businesses, but the central bank now plans to issue waivers for certain firms, including crypto exchanges that require larger reserves.
• The exemptions are also expected to allow stablecoins to serve as settlement assets in the Bank’s Digital Securities Sandbox.

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• ICE (Intercontinental Exchange), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange and global financial infrastructure firm, will be investing $2B in Polymarket, valuing the company at around $9B.
• Through this partnership, ICE will distribute Polymarket’s prediction-market data to thousands of financial institutions worldwide. 
• This follows Polymarket's return to the US, after securing a Designated Contract Market license for $112 million in July, which allows it to self-certify markets for US users, including sports and election betting. Previously, Polymarket was forced to exit the U.S. in January 2022 for operating as an unlicensed exchange.

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This Week’s Calendar:

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Charts of the Day:

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