First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Returns to $61K, Outperforms Broader Crypto Market

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Bitcoin rose past $61,000 early Tuesday as U.S.-spot ETFs recorded their second-highest inflow of the month. Bitcoin ETFs recorded over $61 million in net inflows, the highest since $192 million on Aug. 8, data from SoSoValue shows. BlackRock’s IBIT led with $92 million of inflows, while Bitwise’s BITB recorded $25 million of outflows. Japan’s Metaplanet said it completed a BTC purchase worth $3.4 million, bringing its total holdings to 360.368 BTC. At the time of writing, bitcoin is priced just below $60,800, an increase of 4.6% in the last 24 hours, outperforming the broader crypto market, which has risen 4%, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 Index.

Traders speculating on how the U.S. election might affect the digital assets industry have locked up millions in bitcoin options tied to the event. The election expiry options began trading on Deribit a month ago. The notional open interest, or the dollar value, of the number of active options contracts was $345.83 million, according to Amberdata. Call options, which offer an unlimited upside payoff potential at the expense of limited loss, accounted for 67% of the total open interest. The rest came from put options, amounting to a put-call ratio of less than 0.50. In other words, twice as many calls were open as puts, reflecting bullish expectations from the outcome of the elections.

State Street is partnering with digital asset custodian Taurus for its tokenization plans with the intention of extending to crypto custody once the U.S. regulatory environment improves. State Street, which has $44.3 trillion in assets under management, plans to go live with tokenized versions of traditional assets. The bank has been “very vocal” about the need to change SAB 121, which could force banks seeking to hold crypto to maintain an onerous amount of capital to compensate for the risk, Donna Milrod, chief product officer and head of Digital Asset Solutions, said in an interview. “While we're starting with tokenization, that's not where we're ending. As soon as the U.S. regulations help us out, we will be providing digital custody services as well."

Chart of the Day

• The chart shows open interest-weighted funding rates in bitcoin.
• Funding rates flipped negative over the weekend, signaling a bias against holding long bets or bullish positions in the perpetual futures market.
• BTC, however, has crossed above $60,000 in the past 24 hours. The positive price action may see shorts throw in the towel, adding to the bullish momentum.
• Source: Coinglass

- Omkar Godbole

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