Monthly Crypto Alpha Report – July 2023

Market Roundup

What a difference a narrative makes... and boy did the narrative change in June. The extremely negative 'chokepoint 2.0' sentiment ruled - until investment colossus BlackRock filed an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF. That was on June 15th. The narrative flipped from 'they will kill crypto' to 'institutions will adopt bitcoin'. It ended a six-week-long correction. 

The change of narrative came as a welcome relief after the onslaught from the SEC in the first week of June. While prices stayed indifferent right after the American financial watchdog SEC sued both Binance and Coinbase, altcoins started crashing a few days later, when trading app Robinhood announced it would stop listing alts like SOL, ADA, and MATIC, considered unregistered securities by the SEC. They haven't recovered yet.

On June 8, for example, we could read headlines such as Vox's - 'Now might be a good time to consider quitting crypto'. But guess who had different plans? BlackRock, aka the biggest money manager in the world. BTC pumped, reclaimed the 50-day moving average, and painted the highest daily close since the Luna crash, more than a year ago.

Look, it remains to be seen if the SEC will grant the spot ETF (insane really, after they've recently DID approve a 2x leveraged futures BTC ETF). Most crypto watchers seem to lean towards the spot ETF being granted. Regardless, one thing is pretty certain: a spot Bitcoin ETF will come at some point and will allow institutions a safe entry into Bitcoin. At that point, Bitcoin's ability to be allocated to