Gold has hit an all-time high, bringing joy to digital tokens backed by the metal traditionally considered a safe-haven investment.
the largest gold-backed token by market value, hit an all-time high of $4,425, while PAXG (PAXG) and Kinesic Gold (KAU) also rose, bringing the total market value of gold-backed tokens to $4.38 billion.
“The message is clear. Investors continue to hedge macroeconomic uncertainty rather than aggressively leverage risk. This divergence continues to limit enthusiasm for crypto, even as liquidity conditions improve,” Timothy Misir, head of research at BRN, said in an email.
Bitcoin, which some followers call digital gold, hit $89,800, while the dollar index fell and technology stocks lifted Asian stock indexes. Major chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics notably gained, helping to allay fears of an AI bubble. Futures contracts linked to the S&P 500 rose about 0.3%, pointing to a positive U.S. opening on Monday.
While rising prices are encouraging, a sustainable recovery will require a renewed appetite for institutional investment vehicles, which currently appear to have cooled. Last week, globally listed digital asset investment products saw a net outflow for the first time in four weeks, losing $952 million, according to data source CoinShares.
Derived information
- Market stability has not yet galvanized demand for new risk-taking. Futures paint a mixed picture, with BTC, ETH, HYPE and BNB seeing slight increases in 24-hour open interest (OI). Other major cryptocurrencies have seen capital outflows.
- Long BTC positions raised with borrowed money continue to increase on Bitfinex. Historically, this has been a characteristic of sustained bear markets.
- BTC’s 30-day implied volatility remains stable at around 45%, suggesting sluggish activity as the year draws to a close.
- Ether’s 30-day implied volatility fell to 70%, the lowest since October 9.
- On the CME, open interest on BTC futures fell below 120,000 BTC for the first time since early 2024. This is a sign of decreasing institutional participation.
- BCH, SHIB, WLFI, and TON are seeing negative funding rates in perpetual markets, indicating a bias toward short positions. The financing rates of the majors remain slightly positive.
- On Deribit, block flows paint a mixed picture, with BTC buy and sell spreads crossing the band. In the case of ETH, traders looked for calendar spreads.
- Overall, BTC and ETH puts continue to trade at a premium to calls, although the put bias has weakened slightly since Friday.
Symbolic discussion
- Curve DAO rejected a proposal to send 17.45 million CRV tokens, worth approximately $6.3 million, to Swiss Stake AG, a company led by Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov that is handling core development of the decentralized exchange.
- The protocol’s CRV token is up around 4% over the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader crypto market. The CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) increased by 0.35% over the same period.
- The proposal, which aimed to fund protocol development, infrastructure and security work for Swiss Stake’s 25-person team, failed with 54.46% voting against and 45.54% in favor.
- Wallets linked to Yearn Finance and Convex Finance, two major players in decentralized finance, cast nearly 90% of the votes opposed to the measure, according to on-chain data.
- Some DAO members have raised concerns about the transparency of past spending reporting.
- “The DAO deserves a detailed and transparent list of expenses and should not authorize additional funding until this requirement is met and the community has the opportunity to openly discuss whether these expenses are reasonable,” a DAO member wrote.
