Trakx Weekly Update: February 13, 2023

Key Crypto Market Figures

Crypto Tradable Indices (CTIs) Weekly Performance

After the very strong gains witnessed in the prior month, last week saw the crypto market pull-back. All of the our Crypto Tradable Indices (CTIs) showed weekly losses, with the Top 10 CTI off 6% on the week.

Weighing on crypto’s performance, indeed pretty much all asset markets last week (stocks and gold also fell), was the move higher in US terminal rate expectations to a fresh cycle high. The move, which started with the release of January’s blow-out US employment report, continued after several Fed speakers last week relayed a “higher for longer” message to investors. In light of this move, the market will be keeping a close eye on Tuesday’s US CPI data hoping to see confirmation that inflation is continuing to trend lower.

In addition, to the macro backdrop, crypto also had to deal with an idiosyncratic shock. On Thursday, the SEC charged the US exchange Kraken for “the unregistered offer and sale of securities thru its staking-as-a-service program” see. In response Kraken agreed to pay $30m to settle the SEC allegations and announced that it would discontinue offering staking services to US users. Elsewhere, in the UK the government and the Bank of England signalled their intention to push ahead with a digital pound potentially before the end of the decade.

Market Trends

• Kraken to shut US Crypto-Staking Service, pay $30M fine in SEC Settlement: Coindesk
• The Digital Pound: technology working paper: BankofEngland
• Cryptocurrency adverts benched ahead of Super Bowl LVII: TheBlock
• Paxos facing SEC lawsuit over Binance USD: Cointelegraph
• This week in coins: Bitcoin, Ethereum see first week of losses this year: decrypt

Trakx News

• Ryan Shea published his final research note of the series, Interest-ing times episode 3 where he explores two other methods to generate positive cashflow: liquidity mining and staking.

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.