Summarising weekly developments: 1T, Macro, TradFi, Crypto and much more...
Happy Friday One Traders!
We hope you’ve had a great week! Not too long to go now until Christmas.
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Let’s have a look at what’s been going on in the world over the last week.
General Macro News
Beat from the street…(Tech/Business/Finance/Economy)
Google has launched its largest and ‘most capable’ AI model, Gemini. Google executives have said that Gemini Pro outperformed OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 but dodged questions about how it stacks up against GPT-4. The company is planning to license Gemini to customers through Google Cloud. It will also power consumer-facing Google AI apps like the Bard chatbot and Search Generative Experience CNBC.
Google has lost an antitrust suit brought by Epic Games over the dominance of its App Store. Epic has argued broadly that Google used its control of the Android operating system to force partner firms to clamp down on competing app stores – the very definition of an abusive vertical monopoly, and certainly a reason Google’s profit margins on the app store are a reported 70% (WSJ).
Meta’s new AI image generator was trained on 1.1 billion Instagram and Facebook photos, per TC (Venture Beat).
Apple reportedly plans major expansion of iPhone production in India (MarketWatch).
Twitter/𝕏 has acquired a money transmitter license across a total of ten U.S. states (TheStreet).
Grok AI (beta) is now rolled out to all 𝕏 Premium+ subscribers in the US. (Fin Watch).
SpaceX will sell insider shares at $97 apiece in a tender offer, a price increase that boosts the value of Elon Musk’s space and satellite company closer to $180 billion (Bloomberg).
Wells Fargo received an official notice from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau having been snared in an industrywide probe into mortgage bankers’ use of loan discounts last year. In their industry review, regulators found “statistically significant disparities” in the rates for different customers (CNBC).
Victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme receive $159 million from a recovery fund in the latest payout (CNBC).
TradFi pulse:
Higher-than-expected inflation in November has dampened hopes that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) will cut interest rates in the near future and give a boost to the US economy.
Consumer prices in the US edged 0.1% higher in November 2023 from the previous month, and excluding volatile items such as food and energy, core inflation increased by 0.3%, according to the latest statistics from the US Bureau of Labor.
Yet annual inflation sat at 3.1% in November 2023, the lowest in five months, down from 3.2% in October and in line with market forecasts (Euro News).
The portion of income needed to afford a typical home in the US hits a record 41.4% in 2023. This is up from 21.1% in 2012 and 28.5% in 2020, according to Redfin. On a post-tax basis, homebuyers are spending nearly 60% of their income on home payments. A homebuyer would need to make at least $110,000 per year to spend 30% or less of their income on home payments (The Kobeissi Letter).
U.S. Treasury Funds saw an outflow of $4.8 billion over the last week, the largest outflow since August 2022 (Fin Watch).
Institutional Investors have withdrawn more than $31 billion from Chinese Stocks and Bonds this year, the highest net outflow since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 (Fin Watch).
Chinese property stocks are now down ~65% from their highs and back to 2008 levels. Over the last year, sales of Chinese property stocks are down almost 25% (Fin Watch).
China's Real Estate Market suffered an 81% drawdown from 2021-2022 and another 64% drawdown in 2023 (Fin Watch):
Crypto News
Digital asset investment products experienced their 11th straight week of inflows at $43m, with a notable increase in short position inflows due to recent price appreciation and perceived downside risks (Coinshares).
Nubank Cripto adds support for USDC, broadening access to the stablecoin in Brazil (The Block).
El Salvador has launched a new liberal visa program that is limited to 1,000 participants per year. Upon successful application, those who transfer $1 million in BTC or USDT can receive a free visa and citizenship. If all slots are filled, it would raise $1 billion for El Salvador (Adoptingelsalvador.gob.sv).
Jack Dorsey’s Block Launches “Bitkey” Self Custody Bitcoin Wallet: Financial payment processor Block, co-founded by Jack Dorsey, has unveiled its self-custody Bitcoin wallet called "Bitkey." (CMC).
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has included the cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex on its warning list of non-authorized companies (CMC).
India’s e-commerce titan, Flipkart is teaming up with Polygon Labs to enhance its FireDrops loyalty program using Web3 technology. The program, known for rewarding users with NFTs, is set to transform online shopping experiences. (CMC).
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren introduces a bill targeting the misuse of Bitcoin and digital assets in illegal activities (BTC Times). While this may seem like another trivial attack on the crypto industry, Alex Thorn has expressed his sincere concern that this bill would effectively ban crypto in the United States (X).
Despite institutionals like BlackRock riding the crypto wave by launching their own Bitcoin ETF, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon continues to spread FUD…Last week, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, urged U.S. officials to close down crypto due to his belief that it’s only true use case is for criminals and drug traffickers, money laundering and tax avoidance. Fact checkers in the crypto community were very quick to respond online calling out JPMorgan for the many fines JPM has been issued over the years and that less than 1% of crypto is proven to be used by criminals (Cointelegraph).
Crypto news site Decrypt merges with decentralized media firm Rug Radio (Axios).
To bolster investor protection and promote transparency, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has issued a notice requiring crypto investors to receive interest on their deposits when utilizing exchanges (Bitcoinist).
FTX says the IRS demand for $24 billion in unpaid taxes is delaying the recovery of user funds (The Block).
Italian banks collaborate with Conio and Coinbase for Bitcoin wallet integration, exploring tokenization and the Euro token project overseen by the Bank of Italy's innovation center (CoinDesk).
KuCoin, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has agreed to block New York users from its platform and pay $22 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the state as part of its push to rein in digital assets companies (Reuters).
Three Arrows’ Su Zhu probed in Singapore court as liquidators step up the hunt for assets (Bloomberg).
Bitcoin Updates
Bitcoin remains the primary focus of investors this week, seeing US$20m inflows, bringing year to date inflows to US$1.7bn. While short-bitcoin saw US$8.6m inflows, presumably as a proportion of investors see the current price rises as unsustainable (Coinshares).
We will bring you a more comprehensive roundup on all things Bitcoin next week. For now, here are some additional highlights:
El Salvador's highly anticipated Bitcoin bonds, also known as "Volcano Bonds," have received regulatory approval and are scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2024 (CMC).
Bitcoin's Lightning Network capacity reached a new all time high yesterday at $229 million dollars (Bitcoin Telegram):
For the first time ever more than 30% of all the bitcoin in circulation hasn't moved in over 5 years (Wicked via X):
While digital asset inflows have continued this week, we’ve seen a 9.72% shift down in sentiment from 72 last week as the market prices for BTC and ETH cooled off slightly. As ever, there are a huge number of factors that can influence this sentiment.
Trading Highlights (at the time of writing - CoinGecko)
Top 3 Gainers (out of the top 100 by market cap only) - as always, this is not financial advice, and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future result:
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