Weekly Market Insights: Trump Trade Works, Bitcoin Continues to Fluctuate at a High Level

Hot News

• Bitcoin prices fell 1.58% last week, reflecting cautious optimism ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election next Tuesday. Meanwhile, the ETH/BTC trading pair reached its lowest level since April 2021.
• Polls including those from Ipsos and FiveThirtyEight show Kamala Harris' lead over Donald Trump between 2 and 5 percentage points. However, prediction markets like Polymarket give Trump a 65% chance of winning. Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes, remains a key state in determining the next U.S. president. Polls close at different times in each state, usually around 7 p.m. local time. While election results are usually "announced" within a few days, the finalization of official results can take longer, even stretching to months.

Macro Outlook

• U.S. durable goods orders fell 0.8% in September, slightly higher than the market's expectation of a 1% decline. This data did not have a significant impact on the probability of a 25 basis point rate cut next Friday, which is still 92.8%.
• Israel carried out airstrikes on Iran, targeting missiles and air defense facilities. Crude oil prices fell 5.11% at the open on Monday. The market viewed the attack as restrained and could help diplomatic efforts to reach a regional agreement.
• North Korea sends troops to Russia to join the war with Ukraine.

The upcoming economic calendar includes:

• Tuesday, October 29, 10:00 PM: US JOLTs job openings for September
• Wednesday, October 30, 8:30 PM: U.S. Q3 GDP estimate and quarterly fiscal refinancing announcement
• Thursday, October 31, 8:30 PM: US September core PCE, personal income and spending
• Friday, November 1, 8:30 pm: US October non-farm payrolls and unemployment rate
• Friday, November 1, 10:00 PM: US October ISM Manufacturing PMI

Cryptocurrency Market Quick Facts

• According to the Wall Street Journal, Tether may be under federal investigation for violating anti-money laundering and sanctions rules. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said there is no indication that Tether is under investigation.
• VanEck has announced that its Solana exchange-traded note (ETN) launched in the European market has successfully enabled staking.

Layer 1 and Layer 2 Public Chains

• Kraken announced that the testnet of Ink, an Ethereum layer 2 network based on OP Stacks, will be launched during Ethereum Devcon, and the mainnet is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2025.
• GnosisDAO announced the launch of the GnosisVC ecosystem, a $40 million venture fund focused on advancing RWAs and improving decentralized infrastructure.
• Avalanche has launched a Visa credit card that allows users to spend their credit line based on their assets.
• Dymension introduced the First RollApp Funding (IRO), where the funds raised will be used to provide liquidity to Dymension’s DEX and burn LP tokens. RollApps can choose their preferred bonding curve for the IRO.
• Gala launched the decentralization white paper of GalaChain, which transforms its consensus mechanism from Raft (leader-based) to a Byzantine fault-tolerant algorithm, improving the security and scalability of the network.
• Sophon selected Avail DA as its data availability layer.
• Mantra launches mainnet of its RWA-focused layer 1 network, allowing users to stake OM, bridge tokens for future airdrops, and earn KARMA.

Dapps

• Virtual Protocol has upgraded Luna, the top AI agent on its platform, to Sentient Mode v2.0, allowing her to control her X account without human supervision. Luna can now freely trade on-chain and issue reward tokens to users who complete advertised tasks.
• LayerAI launches AI Agent Launchpool. Each memecoin will be led by an AI agent with a social profile. All launched memecoins will be paired with its protocol token LAI.
• Uniswap launches intent-based cross-chain bridge powered by Across Protocol.
• Sushi Swap has unveiled its roadmap for Super Swap, promising to focus on its new routing processor technology to enhance liquidity.
• Chainlink and 11 institutions including Euroclear, SWIFT, Franklin Templeton and UBS announced an initiative to use AI and blockchain technology to transform corporate actions into structured data.
• Ethena’s USDe is now accepted as margin collateral for OTC trades by Wintermute.
• Decentraland released Decentraland 2.0 with improvements to performance, creator economy, quests, and a roadmap for better in-game communication, VC/AR, and mobile support.
• Pump.fun has launched a feature to tokenize videos with a newly launched token.
• Arkham Intelligent now supports the Solana blockchain.
• Safe Wallet has launched multi-chain address deployment with no gas fees.

Governance/Project Updates

• Decentralized data scraping protocol GRASS is expected to distribute its airdrop on October 28. GRASS tokens will be used for network fees, staking, incentives, and governance. Revenue generated by the network will be used to buy back GRASS and redistribute to stakeholders.
• Stacks’ Nakamoto mainnet upgrade is expected to launch on October 29.
• Base is expected to launch fault proof on the mainnet on October 30, enabling permissionless challenge invalid withdrawals. According to L2Beat, after the upgrade, Base will be classified as a first-phase rollup.
• Chainlink SmartCon will be held in Hong Kong on October 30-31.
• Elixir announced that it will launch the first phase of the mainnet on October 31.
• Sky (formerly MakerDAO) founder Rune Christensen presented the choice of reverting back to the Maker brand or continuing with Sky as the core brand.
• Microsoft shareholders will vote on December 10 to approve the Bitcoin Investment Review, with the board recommending a vote against the proposal.

Token Unlock

• WELL tokens were unlocked on October 23rd, representing 1.3% of the total token supply.
• RON tokens were unlocked on October 27th, accounting for 9.89% of the total token supply.
• TIA tokens were unlocked on October 30th, representing 82% of the total token supply.
• IMX tokens were unlocked on November 1st, representing 1.98% of the total token supply.
• SUI tokens were unlocked on November 3rd, accounting for 2.96% of the total token supply.
• APT tokens were unlocked on November 12th, accounting for 2.19% of the total token supply.

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