Franklin Templeton, Robinhood x Bitstamp & Kraken in the News
Franklin Templeton is considering the launch of a new crypto fund for institutional investors to give them the opportunity to invest in crypto assets beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. The asset manager is also thinking about the possibility of passing staking rewards on to the fund’s investors. Furthermore, Robinhood announced that it will acquire Bitstamp, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe that has been around for a long time. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025. Robinhood expects the final deal consideration to be approximately $200 million in cash, subject to customary purchase price adjustments. Last but not least, Kraken, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is in pre-IPO funding talks, seeking to raise more than $100 million and looking for a well-known company to join its board of directors and help it successfully conduct an IPO as early as next year.
Market Sentiment Check
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is back in Extreme Greed territory (77) after spending some time in Greed over the last few weeks. Interestingly, the stock market is still in Neutral territory and actually still on the verge of Fear (45). This might be surprising to many, as U.S. equities are at all-time highs - a very interesting development. When looking at the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey we can observe that the number of members feeling bearish for stocks in the next six months has increased significantly over the course of this week, with 32% now being bearish, compared to 26.7% last week. The number of members being bullish stayed the same, at 39% and the number of neutral members decreased to 29% from 34.2%. So many members who were neutral last week switched camps to being bearish.
Funding rates across the major digital assets remain in healthy territory, with Bitcoin trading back above $71'000. This level was accompanied by high funding rates back in March, as we have highlighted many times over the last few weeks. The market is trading at high prices, and funding rates remain low, indicating a healthy situation right now. Even though we are back in Extreme Greed, there does not seem to be a lot of leverage in the market currently. A look at the total liquidations over the last few weeks shows a similar picture. The Exchange BTC Futures Open Interest has reached an all-time high this week, surpassing $37.7 billion on Wednesday. Of the $37.7 billion, traditional finance powerhouse Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) holds the highest bets at $11 billion, followed by crypto exchange Binance at $8 billion. The long-short ratio has been balanced; it is slightly on the long side right now (1.003) after being on the short side yesterday (0.946), indicating a balanced situation over all between bears and bulls currently.
