Market Watch
Things to Watch This Week (Nov 24 - Nov 28)
U.S. Retail Sales - Nov 25
U.S. retail sales data—delayed due to the recent government shutdown—will be released this week, offering an important gauge of consumer strength heading into the holiday season. The report is expected to heavily influence market sentiment as investors reassess spending momentum ahead of Black Friday.
Random Musing This Week
Weekly Recap
This week highlighted a significant contraction across Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) balances, as shown in the Total NAV by DAT chart. Since mid-October, aggregated BTC and ETH NAV held by DAT companies has fallen sharply, pulling back toward levels last seen in early summer.
A major external driver has been the persistent outflows from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. BTC ETF saw one of its heaviest multi-day redemption waves since inception, with BlackRock’s IBIT recording its largest single-day outflow on record. These redemptions have removed a crucial institutional bid that previously supported market stability and have become a central factor amplifying volatility throughout the recent downturn.
Additional stress has emerged from concerns surrounding several large DAT-style corporate holders. Questions over balance-sheet durability, declining treasury values, and potential index treatment have weakened sentiment. The combination of ETF outflows and shrinking DAT balances has created thinner liquidity conditions and sharper price reactions across the market.
Macro uncertainty is adding further complexity. The Federal Reserve enters its blackout period ahead of the December FOMC meeting. With the policy decision set for December 10, markets must now interpret the last round of Fed communication without the benefit of fresh inflation data—after the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed it will not publish the next CPI report before the meeting. As a result, the Fed will be setting policy based solely on currently available information, making each statement in the pre-blackout window disproportionately market-moving.
Historically, periods marked by steep treasury drawdowns and negative sentiment have often preceded sharp recoveries, especially when policy expectations tilt toward easing. However, caution remains the dominant stance as the market enters the blackout period.
Recap of Top Stories (Nov 17 - Nov 21)
Interesting
Bitcoin plunges below $86,000 as US jobs data dampens rate cut hopes
Commentary: Bitcoin fell to new local lows on Thursday after the latest U.S. jobs report pointed to lingering inflationary pressures. This marks a low in nearly seven months and a 32% decline from bitcoin’s all-time high record of $126,080 set in October.
“BTC slipping below $85.5K comes as stronger-than-expected US jobs data dampens expectations for a December rate cut,” said Vincent Liu, CIO at Kronos Research. “Liquidity remains thin, and short-term profit-taking is amplifying the move. The market is recalibrating risk, reacting to macro data points.”
Spot bitcoin ETFs see near-record outflows of $903 million
Commentary: Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. posted their second-largest daily outflow since their inception. According to data from SoSoValue, the bitcoin funds reported a total daily net outflow of $903.11 million on Thursday, led by outflows from eight ETFs.
Thursday’s total net outflows is the highest amount since Feb. 25, when President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement of new trade tariffs triggered a massive sell-off across equity and crypto markets.
Bitwise spot XRP ETF launches Thursday amid altcoin fund rush
Commentary: Bitwise Asset Management announced the launch of its spot XRP exchange-traded fund on the New York Stock Exchange. The ETF will start trading on Thursday under ticker XRP, with a management fee of 0.34% that is waived for the first month on the first $500 million in assets.
In the U.S., Bitwise’s fund will be the second spot XRP product following Canary Capital’s XRPC. Canary’s fund has accumulated $276.8 million in net inflows since launching last week. Bitwise previously launched the Bitwise Physical XRP ETP (GXRP) in Europe that provides investors with direct, physically-backed exposure to the cryptocurrency.
US Senate banking chair eyes vote on crypto market bill next month
Commentary: U.S. Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott said Tuesday that he aims to have the committee vote on the crypto market structure bill next month. Scott said the legislation would protect consumers while helping cement America’s dominance as the world’s most powerful economy for the next century. The Republican senator unsuccessfully pushed to pass the bill by September this year, for which he blamed the Democrats.
Cloudflare global network outage hits multiple crypto front-ends in widespread disruption
Commentary: Cloudflare suffered a global network outage on Tuesday that has impacted the front-ends of multiple crypto platforms, including exchanges, block explorers, DeFi protocols, and analytics services.
Coinbase and Kraken are among the crypto exchanges impacted by the issue, with blockchain explorer Etherscan, lending platform Aave, and data provider DeFiLlama all experiencing intermittent Cloudflare “500 Internal Server Error” pages. The issue is also impacting major Web2 sites, including Elon Musk’s X.
Hong Kong launches tokenized deposit pilot with real-value transactions
Commentary: Hong Kong has launched the pilot phase of Project Ensemble, testing real-value transactions using tokenized deposits and digital assets, as the city continues its drive to become a crypto hub.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the de facto central bank, said Thursday that the phase transitions the initiative from a sandbox experiment to live, value-bearing settlement — a move the HKMA described as “pivotal” in Hong Kong’s crypto roadmap.
Upcoming Market Events
November 28 - CME Expiry
December 3 - Ethereum Fusaka Mainnet Upgrade
December 10 - FOMC Interest Rate Decision