Crypto Markets Take Center Stage

The much-anticipated debate between ‘Uptober’ and ‘Octover’ came to a head in spectacular fashion. The bulls lay claim to a decisive victory as BTC continues its march to new yearly highs. Whether driven by macro fundamentals or asset-specific narratives, BTC’s meteoric rise in recent weeks and widening participation among altcoins is undeniably significant.

Market breadth is expanding. Onchain trading is picking up. Lending and utilization rates have jumped. Stablecoins market caps are rising. And even NFTs are staging a comeback.

The takeaways from Solana’s Breakpoint Conference confirm as much: market activity is on the up, and bullish sentiment is in the driver’s seat after what can only be described as a soul-destroying bear market.

Pullbacks are commonplace — even during bull markets — but momentum has clearly turned, and the wind now appears firmly at crypto’s back.

And as we were putting the finishing touches on this report, the Binance-DOJ settlement news broke. Back in July, we published Catalysts Stacking Up and predicted a bottom in the relationship between the U.S. government and the crypto industry. We view this settlement as a necessary first step to resetting the relationship with regulators. In terms of markets, this can only be viewed as bullish, as it removes a key source of uncertainty. We will provide additional commentary in the upcoming Markets Year Ahead Report as the situation develops.

@News_Of_Alpha

Macro & Crypto Market Musings

The last few several weeks have been crazy, but those who have followed our research know we’ve been gearing up for a new cycle.

BTC is up ~140% since its bottom a year ago. Prior instances of similar price strength imply BTC is in the early innings of a new bull cycle, with most of its expected gains still ahead.

BTC continues to track its typical post-bottom price action, also implying it still has a long way to go.

Notably, we’re now ~150 days out from Bitcoin’s next halving. BTC has rallied into its last two halvings, particularly in the ~6 weeks leading up to the event.

Returns were lackluster in the 6-8 weeks immediately after the Halving. But in both instances, BTC’s price was significantly higher 12 months out, with an average return of >400% (~260% post-2016 and ~560% post-2020).

And it’s not just BTC that’s breaking out. The broader crypto market is in the midst of a renewed uptrend, with the total market cap (ex-BTC/ETH) pumping as well.

Market breadth has turned higher, too — indicating a larger swath of crypto assets are participating in this rally.

ETH’s underperformance in recent weeks is notable, but as the market pushes higher, it looks primed to play some catch-up (more on this later).

SOL, on the other hand, refuses to quit. It’s taken a well-deserved breather the last several days and appears to be consolidating ahead of another big move.

SOL is now within shouting distance of its prior high relative to ETH…

And it’s one of the biggest beneficiaries of flows into structured products.

SOL’s price momentum was so strong that it pushed SOL’s 14-week RSI above 80 for the first time in over two years. Interestingly, SOL tends to see further gains even after these overbought levels are hit.

The prophecy is still very much in play.

Back in June, many people believed BTC would double before a SOL 4x.

@Kevin_Kelly_II

The race isn’t over, but five months later, and it appears SOL is the clear front-runner.

We’ve seen broader crypto market participation as well, with projects like RUNE making significant moves to the upside.

Since Can Gurel’s post on Delphi’s Alpha Feed back in July, RUNE has gone on to put in a 5x move…

We’ve also seen names like INJ experience equally spectacular price surges. We covered INJ back in May 2023 in one of our Market Notes, highlighting its potential to outperform if and when market conditions improved.

Another narrative we’ve been tracking is AI. We highlighted this sector’s potential in our Market Note: The Surprising Interplay Between AI and Cryptocurrencies. Since then, the crypto x AI crossover has begun heating up once again, with incumbent tokens like RNDR sporting impressive moves of their own.

Newcomers like TAO are coming in extra hot out of the gate. Teng Yan covered TAO earlier this month in the Alpha Feed post, Bittensor – The way of the TAO and absolutely nailed it.

We’re even seeing crypto stocks catching momentum and riding similar tailwinds. One name we’ve been saying looks poised for a big move is COIN.COIN is up ~30% since we published our Coin