Big moves
Institutional Investment
Market participants were caught off guard in the wake of the reports that Guggenheim Macro Opps fund has made steps to enter crypto markets. Specifically, Guggenheim Funds Trust filed an amendment with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to allow its $5 billion Macro Opportunities Fund gain exposure to bitcoin by investing up to 10% of the fund’s net asset value in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).
The Macro Opportunities Fund is part of Guggenheim Investments, the global asset management and investment advisory division of Guggenheim Partners, and has more than $233 billion in total assets across fixed income, equity and alternative strategies.
As a result, shorts were covered, with a flurry of Dec call buying funded by puts, which in turn sent Bitcoin back into the mid-$18,000 area by early European trade. While the notion of Santa rally may not be particularly familiar to crypto natives, market participants will be sure hoping that the latest news of yet another traditional player entering the market space will see Bitcoin finally break its highs before the year ends.
In the Markets
ETH on the Rise
Aside from keeping a close eye on Bitcoin’s key technical levels, markets will also pay particular attention to Ethereum this week. The initial phase of Eth2 — the next-generation of Ethereum — is rolling out this week. It represents the first step in Ethereum’s transition into a proof-of-stake network.
Broadly speaking this is also very bullish development for all things DeFi as the eventual transition to PoS, alongside various upgrades will enable greater network scaling, With that, cheaper transaction and more efficient running of the network.
Of note, heading into the final days of the month, Bitcoin is trading up 23% month-to-date (MTD) and 134% year-to-date (YTD), while Ethereum is up 28% MTD and 290% YTD.
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