Trakx Weekly Update: November 13

Key Crypto Market Figures

CTIs Weekly Performance

For the third straight week crypto assets were firmly in the green with the Trakx Crypto Top 10 CTI up 10%, pushing year-to-date returns to more than 77%. The best performer was the ESG CTI, which rose 24%, a gain almost matched by the 23% rally in the Interoperability CTI. By contrast, the Diversifier CTI had the weakest performance, slipping 0.9% over the past seven days.

Helping to propel the ESG CTI higher was the continued surge in the value of Solana. Last week, the token jumped over 40%, taking its monthly gain to almost 180%. The bullish price action reflects investor confidence that this Ethereum competitor is well-positioned to benefit from a crypto renaissance due to its low (and stable) fees and high scalability – attributes that have already attracted interest from the likes of Visa and Shopify to deploy on this high performance blockchain (as mentioned in the recent Research note, Solana: Light At The End Of The Tunnel).

Meanwhile, the Interoperability CTI benefited from the 50% jump in the price of Rune, the native token of Thorchain. Boosting demand for the token was data confirming that the protocol continues to see strong growth in its market share. According to media reports, trading volumes on the platform last week hit $1.32bn, making it the second-largest DEX after Uniswap and Pancakeswap.

While less spectacular than Solana or Rune, Ethereum too experienced solid gains (+10%) over the past seven days. Amid all the ETF fever that has helped propel Bitcoin to an 18-month high, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap had been lagging. However, the gap narrowed last week after it was revealed that BlackRock had also filed an application to list a spot Ethereum ETF. To-date the SEC has not given the green light to any spot crypto ETFs, but with numerous large tradfi firms – many with considerable experience of getting ETFs approval – having filed applications investors believe the odds of the SEC permitting such crypto products has risen sharply.

Finally, Poloniex – a crypto exchange majority-owned by Justin Sun – had its hot wallet hacked to the tune of $122m according to several blockchain analysis companies. In response to the news, Sun said the exchange maintained a healthy financial position and impacted users would be reimbursed for any associated losses. In addition, Sun offered a 5% bounty to the hacker to return the stolen funds, an offer valid for seven days before Poloniex would hand the matter over to law enforcement officials.

Sources: Trakx, Coingecko, Alphavantage

Market Trends

• BlackRock's Ethereum ETF Plan Is Confirmed in Nasdaq Filing: CoinDesk.
• Bloomberg analysts point to 8-day window beginning Nov. 9 in which several spot Bitcoin ETFs could see approval: CryptoSlate.
• Ethereum Rival Solana Is Back—Experts Say It's No Surprise: Decrypt.
• THORChain becomes third-largest DEX as RUNE surges 50% in a week: Cointelegraph.
• Justin Sun's crypto exchange Poloniex seemingly hit by hack for over $100 million: TheBlock.

Market Trends

• Lionel Rebibo was interviewed by Finance Innovation (in French).

Trakx CTIs Performance

Sources: Coingecko and AlphaVantage

*Return of bitcoin is calculated since 01/05/2020, while CTIs performances were calculated since their respective launch date.
**Includes simulated performance.
***The risk signal is determined according to the historical volatility level, the higher the riskier.